Beyond the Rules (7 page)

OldCat jumped on the bed, as subtle as stripes and plaids together and no more graceful. He settled into place with his front legs curved in before him, neatly hiding the missing lower leg, and stared at her with eyes narrowed beneath the absurd blotch of black partially covering his eye and the ragged remainder of his ear. He should have looked ridiculous, but of course he didn’t. His gaze seemed distinctly accusing.

Kimmer stared back in the same manner. She’d fed him, Rio had cleaned the litter box, there were catnip toys secured in various places the humans weren’t supposed to know about and the front window sill was cleared for his use. “So what’s your problem?”

OldCat made a half-audible squeak of a meow, an amazingly silly sound to come from his broad-headed tomcat self. And Kimmer rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she told him, but bent to kiss the top of his head anyway. OldCat purred, closed his eyes with cat satisfaction and gave her permission to leave.

“There’s a reason I’ve never had a cat before,” she informed him, and went.

She tucked the Miata away at the edge of town, using street parking and pushing her luck near a fire hydrant. Lafayette Park was a brisk but pleasant ten minutes away on foot, past various charming historical buildings—the First Baptist Church, the brick Schuyler County courthouse with
its central white cupola. Someday she’d sneak her way up into that cupola just for the view. Kimmer stopped to frame the park entrance with her camera—black wrought iron gates between massive brick pillars that had no actual fencing to make them functional, the bandstand looming directly beyond—not bothering to snap the picture. The governor and his party would come through here, on a sidewalk barely wide enough for such an entourage. They’d probably spill over the edges; if there were any sort of crowd, it would cause movement. Confusion.

Prime opportunity for anyone who wanted to move in on the man.

She wandered the area for a while, viewing it from all directions, assessing the dangers that could come from each. Just one of several people in the park—a plain young woman eating a yogurt from a park bench, a jogger swinging through the green zone on the way out of town, a man through the trees on the other side of the park feeding rats-on-wings pigeons.

She sat on one of the benches for a while, just absorbing the park. She knew this place, had been here before. But she hadn’t looked at it through her Chimera eyes, and now she did. Looking, then closing her eyes to recreate what she’d seen in her mind’s eye—trees and greenery and benches and the bandstand and a water fountain, all carefully arranged within the neat rectangular confines of the street block. When she finally stood and stretched, she could visualize the entire park in a sweeping inner panorama. Come tomorrow, she’d know at a glance if something felt out of place.

Like now. There, in the corner of her eye. The fellow with the pigeons was still there. He’d either had a significant amount of stale bread to dispense, or he had other reasons for hanging around.

Come to think of it, the pigeons didn’t look very interested in him. And he no longer looked interested in them. A more focused glance revealed his boredom.

Waiting for anyone in particular?

Kimmer settled her backpack in place, but not before slipping her little club into her back pocket, smooth wood finding the worn spot where it often resided, the smooth, hard business end obscured by her pack. She took a leisurely walk around the park, completing her memorization work, and kept an eye on Pigeon Man.

He didn’t leave the birds, but as she walked the park perimeter he rotated his body on his park bench to keep track of her.

Waiting for
me?

Hmm. At first she’d pegged him as another advance scout—someone on the governor’s staff, maybe even a reporter. Or security. Another layer of safety, smart enough to peg her as not-just-another-visitor, not enough in the know to realize she was official. If so that puts us in the same spot. Both blinded by the need-to-know approach.

Well, she’d get a picture. Owen would have the resources to ID the guy if he was working for the side of right, and probably even if not. Facial recognition software was a wonderful thing. Kimmer headed down the side of the big rectangular park and cut across on a diagonal that would bring her close enough to use the camera still in her hand. She watched Pigeon Man’s body language change from surprise to realization to annoyance and then
snick
she had his picture.
Smile, you’re on Chimera Camera.

She’d been prepared for some sort of reaction, but not the instant cover-breaking anger as he shot to his feet, scattering indignant pigeons in all directions.

What the hell? Who the hell—?
But by then Kimmer was running. Big lopey strides, not caring if she, too, had broken her cover as a random park visitor. If this man meant trouble for the governor, he might well just take his trouble elsewhere now that she’d taken his picture. She pulled the backpack around on the run, jammed her camera into it, zipped it tight and ducked her head through the strap so she didn’t have to worry about losing it. When she glanced back she saw Pigeon Man had not emulated her big lopey strides, but—although not a natural sprinter, with awkward form and wasted motion—was making an obvious effort to catch up with her.

Kimmer did a mental eye roll.
Really not subtle, fella
. But if that’s the way he wanted it, then she needed to take things to a more private arena. No one here needed to be hurt…and Owen would be unhappy indeed if she created another big stinky scene. She rounded the corner from 4th Street to North Franklin, banking with her speed and skipping around a neat lineup of preschoolers clinging to a rope; their startled teacher stopped short and then got her charges moving again in a “nothing happened there, move along” tone of voice. By then Kimmer was half a block away, and she listened for the inevitable encounter between children and Pigeon Man except…

It didn’t come.

She glanced back. No one. No sign of him. She slowed, jogging to a stop, wide tan pant legs whapping against each other with the change of stride and then going silent as she downright stopped.

Nope. Gone. No Pigeon Man anywhere.

Well, then. Wasn’t that exciting. Kimmer gave her backpack—and the camera within it—a pat. No need to hunt down Pigeon Man and risk one of those big stinky scenes.
She had his picture, and even if he hadn’t been identified before the governor rolled into town, every security officer, cop and Hunter agent would have his image at hand. If he was smart, he was already running away. She’d take a nice roundabout route back to her car and head straight for Full Cry Winery.

Behind her, someone took the turn from 4th to North Franklin too fast, tires squealing against asphalt. Kimmer automatically gave the vehicle a look, and then looked back again as she realized its speed and realized even more abruptly that it was veering toward the curb and then in another heartbeat that the driver had no intention of stopping, curb or no curb. He was, of course, headed straight for her.

Run, Kimmer, run
.

And run she did. She angled away for the first alley, a little thing not on the map, and a turn she hoped was too acute and too narrow for Pigeon Man—for heaven forbid it was someone other than Pigeon Man, a second BG on her heels—to make. Hoped, in fact, that he would splat himself all over the sturdy brick corner of the building on the other side of the alley.

Then again, she’d also hoped to find the alley full of good hiding places—trash cans, cellar stairs, a fire escape or two leaning down to offer her a hand up and out of the way.

Cleanest damn alley in the history of mankind
. Nothing but struggling grass over old, old cobbles and the occasional collection of back-door recyclables in a bin too small to hide anything but her feet and ankles.

Behind her, the car muscled around, backed up and by-bloody-damn squeezed right into the alley, the driver fast gaining confidence and speed.

Kimmer ran.

But it didn’t matter that she had a good sprint in her or that
she could maintain a marathon pace for miles. Not when a car was the other runner in this race, the engine noise coming up fast behind her so she didn’t even bother to look, legs pumping and arms pumping and heart pumping, gaze frantically sweeping the tightly featured back walls—red brick with light stone windowsills in neat rows far over Kimmer’s head, shallow doorways that wouldn’t protect her if Pigeon Man chose to risk a little paint and swoop in close to pick her off.

With the car so close she wasn’t sure why she hadn’t yet felt the brush of the bumper, Kimmer took a wild leap and caught the edge of the windowsill, legs cranked up at the knees and out of the way, hoping to hold on just long enough for the car to pass beneath her but immediately slipping—

Her fingers burned against stone, fingernails breaking and she landed hard on the sedan’s roof just as Pigeon Man stomped the brakes.
Damned slippery little hump of a roof
. No handy luggage rack, nothing to keep her in place when he started to move. No room to bail over the side and hunt an open window, and if she fell off the back he’d just turn her into road pizza. Alley pizza.

She’d make her own damned window, then. As Pigeon Man found the accelerator again, Kimmer grabbed the war club from her pocket and slammed it into the back window, watching the glass spiderweb and dent. The car lurched forward and Pigeon Man must have turned to look behind himself, because he ran the corner of the bumper into brick. He backed up in a jerk of movement as Kimmer slipped around on the roof, all her concentration on slamming the window again and again.

Here I come, Pigeon Man—

Turf spun out behind the vehicle as the tires chewed through thin turf to cobblestone and the car shot forward,
dumping Kimmer on the hard surface. She sprang to her feet, ready to run—but Pigeon Man had had enough. Or maybe he’d just seen the flashing yellow lights at the street end of the alley—not a cop, but an interested witness sure enough. His car bobbed away down the uneven ground of the alley, already too far away to get even a partial plate. Surely it wasn’t that her head was spinning.

Kimmer stuck the club back in her pocket, straightened her backpack, and gathered her dignity to stride out of the alley in her most matter-of-fact fashion. She’d gathered a little crowd, drawn by the unusual parking choice made by the tow truck; the driver himself met her as she emerged.

“Are you all right? I saw the car turn, but there’s no traffic allowed back there anymore. Holy shit, you people filming a movie or what? ’Cause I called the cops. That looked serious!”

“Yes,” Kimmer said, putting on an absent expression. She had to get out of here before the cops arrived.

He pushed back his billed cap and said, “But where—”

Cameras. Of course, cameras. “Just a run-through,” Kimmer said brightly. “Thanks for your concern. Gotta go!”

“Good makeup,” someone in the crowd muttered from behind him. “Looks just like blood.” And a male voice with an
I’m important
tone said, “Movie, bullshit. Don’t let her just walk away!”

The tow truck driver had a you-gotta-be-kidding sound in his voice. “After what I just saw?
You
stop her.”

Kimmer smiled to herself and kept on walking.

K
immer grabbed a take-out lunch at the edge-of-town mom-and-pop diner, where the Watkins Glen racetrack inspired the decor inside and out. She barely looked at the take-out window attendant, paying more attention to her camera as she waited for her food. To judge by the battered exterior of her backpack, it had taken some hits. The camera lens cover had a slight crack, but the display on the back still functioned. She found a mighty nice image of Pigeon Man captured for posterity.

Who the hell was he? Advance for the governor? Trouble in waiting, scoping out the site?

Kimmer suddenly realized that the young woman at the window held out a soda and food, impatient in a way that meant she’d been waiting—and then, as Kimmer finally reached to take her order, those impatient eyes widened slightly. Huh.
Whatever
. Distracted, Kimmer took her food
and pulled out onto the road, unwrapping her burger to eat with one hand as she drove. She headed back north along the lake, not bothering to savor the taste but knowing better than to head for Full Cry Winery without fuel on board. Owen expected her, though he wouldn’t greet her news with any glad cries. More likely a nice long discussion about discretion on the job even as he sent the photo out for identification.

And to think Kimmer had hoped for a quiet afternoon at home. A little time for the flowers, a little time to nudge information out of Rio…the kind of information she could simply perceive in anyone else. But no matter how she’d learned to read the nuances of her lover’s expressions, it still wasn’t the same as using her knack. And lately she wondered if he wasn’t doing it on purpose—hiding himself. Hiding his concern for his
sobo
—because he felt she wouldn’t understand.

But this afternoon wasn’t likely to offer any opportunities. Nor tomorrow. Perhaps the next day….

Kimmer swung into the employee parking lot at Full Cry Winery, putting the car in Park, yanking the keys from the ignition and stepping out of the Miata in nearly the same motion. She took a moment to brush lunch crumbs away and slung the backpack over her shoulder, stepping out in strides long for her height.

She rounded the corner of the main building and ran smack into a winery tour. She knew the guide as she knew most of the employees here, all part of her vague cover as a viniculturist. Her status as a Hunter agent hadn’t even been revealed to the local law until the incident with the propane tank.
Yet another reason for Owen’s annoyance.

“Kimmer!” said the guide, looking startled but swiftly shifting into tourism mode. “Um…this is one of our vinicul
ture research experts, Kimmer Reed. Tough day wrestling with the vines, Kimmer?”

Kimmer took a look at the tourists—a group of seven, with various expressions of startlement and one man with a leer he was trying to hide—and said blandly, “That graft with the Venus Flytrap just isn’t working out.” She gave them a smile and neatly sidestepped the group just in time to forestall the guide from asking for a few quick words about her work. “Enjoy the tour!”

And they would, for it would end in the convincing ambiance of the tasting room, a refurbished area of the original barn that gleamed with tradition and good care. Whereas Kimmer was headed for the hidden technological wonders of the agency offices. The thumb print ID pad had to think about admitting her; she spat on her thumb and scrubbed it off on her pants, and that did the trick. She pushed her way through the other entrance tricks and then fairly jogged down the carpeted hall to Owen’s office. No need to go through his admin assistant in the adjoining office; Owen figured that anyone who made it this far was welcome to knock directly on his office door.

So Kimmer knocked, knowing better than to barge in when the door was securely closed, and in a low voice she said, “Kimmer.”

And then she waited. Impatient, shifting from foot to foot, indulging herself in a way she wouldn’t, were anyone there to watch. Finally Owen said, “All right,” and Kimmer entered the office with enough haste to betray herself.

But she stopped short at Owen’s expression—an expression she’d already seen several times this afternoon. He said, as dryly as possible, “And here I was just reassuring Chief Harrison that none of my people had anything to do with the bizarre little disturbance in town not so long ago.”

Kimmer dropped the backpack on the chair in which she wasn’t quite ready to sit, and finally looked down on herself. Smudged, dirty, bloody around her fingers. She ran a hand over her face, but felt no bruises.

“No,” Owen said. “Look down. Look
under
.”

Under—? Finally Kimmer realized the one spot to which she didn’t have easy visual access and pulled the snug shirt down and away from herself. Sure enough, there was a nice big rip, one that had followed the curve of her breast. That explained the tourist’s leer. She gave a little snort and said, “At least I wore a bra today.”

“You’ll go out of here with something else on,” Owen said. “I don’t want anyone connecting you with the incident in town.”

She decided not to tell him about the tour. “You’re assuming I did have something to do with it.”

“Yes,” Owen said, no apologies there. “I am.”

“It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t start it.”

“That,” said Owen, “is what I expect to hear from my three-year-old.” Kimmer winced and he waved it off. “Just tell me what happened.”

She pulled the camera out and handed it to him. Owen connected it to his computer as she quickly summed up the encounter. “I don’t get it,” she concluded. “I can imagine someone coming out to heckle the governor tomorrow, but Pigeon Man is a lot more than a simple heckler. He risked a lot to get my camera.”

“It sounds very much like he was trying to keep you from reporting back to anyone while he was at it.”

“Well, he failed on both counts. And you owe me a camera.”

“
Another
camera,” Owen murmured, saving the image to
his hard drive and immediately starting the identification process by kicking it out to one of his tech folks. “I’ll have to fess up that you were involved in the ruckus downtown…but given what started it I think I can make a case it was for the best. Good work in spotting him. But try to avoid playing matador with cars, will you?”

“The thing that bothers me,” Kimmer told him, ignoring the matador comment, “is that whole ‘more than a simple heckler’ thing. Whoever’s behind Pigeon Man might not be put off by our little encounter. And whoever it is might have someone else to send out tomorrow.”

Owen nodded. “I’m going to pull a few more people into the situation. And I’d like you to get there first thing in the morning. For now, grab a scrub shirt, go home and get yourself a good night’s sleep.”

Home.

Home to a house with someone else in it, and looking forward to it. Kimmer hadn’t ever expected that day to come.

Showered and powdered and lotioned with Lush’s Red Rooster citric and cinnamon, Kimmer pulled on an oversized T-shirt and curled up on the bed with a cotton throw over her shoulders, her attention focused on the photo album propped on her pillow.

Rio hadn’t brought a great deal with him when he’d come. Some of his things were in storage in his brother’s boat garage, but mostly he just seemed to travel light. Socks, jeans, a variety of shirts that fit neatly into her walk-in closet, one suit that tailored well enough over his tall, strong frame to make any woman drool. A heating pad, though she’d had one. A bunch of ice packs. He’d left his weights because she had those, too, along with a membership in the small Watkins
Glen health club. A batch of crossword puzzle books that quickly spread throughout the house, along with his thoughtfully gnawed pencil stubs.

And this album. A photo album not created by any man’s hand. His mother, Kimmer assumed. It was one of those memory books with sparkly-pen captions written in a neat hand, fancy hand-scissored borders and loving touches of boyish stickers in the right places. Footballs. Frogs. Unlaced sneakers. Less of that as the pictures ranged from boyhood to the gangly young man who would ultimately fill out to be Rio, but no less care with the captions and the photo placements.

It wasn’t just Rio. In fact, it was rarely just Rio. The pictures were crowded with family members, and though Kimmer frequently recognized a young Carolyne, the others she could just guess. His brother, probably, with the same general cast of features but a more barrel-chested build. His sister, who looked a lot like Carolyne but had more refined features in her oval face. Others, aunts and uncles and cousins and who knows who, she just skimmed over, making no real effort to identify them. And then of course there was Rio’s
sobo
, an elderly lady who didn’t seem to change much over time. Her skin grew more translucent and her eyes slowly disappeared behind aging epicanthic folds, but they were set at an angle that reminded her of Rio’s eyes, and in her serene smiles Kimmer imagined she saw a hint of what lay behind Rio’s engaging grin.

She returned to the front of the album, running her fingers along the edge of one of the first pictures, then giving in to impulse and lightly tracing her fingertips over the protected surface. A proud young woman and her child, sitting in a rocking chair and draped in baby blankets. Kimmer conjured
up an image of the same picture, had it been taken in her household.
A tired woman and her child, sitting in a rocking chair, the baby blanket ragged. The woman, her bruises showing at the edges of her short sleeves, murmured, “I never wanted to bring a girl into this world.”
The same words she’d said to Kimmer as she grew older, more bruised and even more weary, trusting Kimmer to understand that she’d always known a girl would have to fight to survive in this family of hers and never considering what it would be like to hear those words as a very young girl.

And later, here was a picture of the boys still in single-digit years, already showing their strength and their long legs. Rio and his brother proudly held their older sister aloft; she lay on her side with her head propped on her hand and utter confidence on her features while they grinned great big toothy grins, arms up overhead and hands carefully placed to keep her balanced.

Kimmer could see herself in that same position.
Four brothers, scrawny and triumphant, doing their best to keep their younger sister balanced overhead while she squirmed and fought. When they put her down it would be into a slop of mud or the cold river during winter or over the edge of the hayloft with very little on the floor below to break her fall
.

Oh, and this one was good…a family portrait. Predictably stilted pose, but their smiles were real enough, and something about the look in Rio’s eyes made Kimmer think he’d just pulled some sort of silliness on the photographer. He looked so young, even in his midteens; his beautiful bright wheat hair fell over his brow just as it did today, but the angles of his face were still forming—the basic structure present, but the lines not yet clean, not hardened into the masculine beauty she had first seen in a roadside gas station in rural Pennsyl
vania, back when she thought she could avoid meeting him altogether.

Family portrait. At that age, no mother, just a blank spot. And there she’d be, edging away from her brothers while her father bestowed upon her a mighty frown.
The only question in Kimmer’s mind was whether the picture would be snapped before or after her father reached for her.

She put her head down on the pillow, fingers still tracing the edges of the pictures no longer within her line of sight, and tried to use what she’d seen in those pictures to imagine what it was like to be Rio and to be worried about his grandmother.

Nope.

Still couldn’t do it. Not for lack of trying. She could see it, as though viewing those emotions from a distance. She could almost reach out and pull those feelings toward her. But ultimately, she just closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Rio hadn’t expected to find her here. He’d seen her car, knew she was home, but still hadn’t actually expected that to be the case.

He’d been out driving. Thinking.
Don’t come
, they’d said.
We need to keep things as simple as possible while we sort things out
. The medication, the home nurse visits, the relearning of Sobo’s limitations and abilities.

But he wanted to go. He wanted to go, now.

Being good sucks.

But being observant was useful, so when he’d come inside to none of the usual puttering noises Kimmer made while at home, he’d gone quiet and gone looking.

Unlike Rio, Kimmer scarcely ever simply sank into a chair for reading or even helping with one of his crosswords. She’d
offer suggestions, but she’d do it while she was working with the weights or cooking something decadent or refinishing furniture or…

Perpetual motion machine. That was Kimmer on her own turf.

But now she was still. Sleeping. Her mouth relaxed and lips just barely parted—and so much more appealing in its natural color than in the bright lipstick she’d used in her undercover persona when they’d met. She must have showered; the scent of cinnamon lingered in the room, and her dark curls, even this short, had the untamed look that meant she’d hadn’t brushed them out when they were wet. He took another step toward the bed, but still out of reach, for he’d come to appreciate more and more how ill-conceived it was to startle this woman. Sleeping or just distracted, she came back fighting first, asked questions later—and she kept herself in training and condition to do just that. Her very sweet little ass peeked out from an oversized T-shirt and the cotton throw in a bare-cheeked way that made him look twice.

Hoo boy
.

And her legs—not long and runway-model lean, but at Kimmer’s height, legs didn’t often come in
long
. They did come perfectly proportioned, muscled even in repose—and were those bruises?

Rio shifted, moving closer to the side of the bed instead of the end of it, taking advantage of the early evening light from the window. Yes. Bruises. Deep ones. He couldn’t make out the nature of them; couldn’t think of anything she might have been doing today that would have involved such scuffling. Ouch.