Exception to the Rule (3 page)

At the counter, she paid for her two items with a hundred—but held on to the bill as the prematurely aging man behind the counter tried to take it away. “Give me ten minutes,” she said, “and make a big commotion in here, and the change is yours.”

“Big commotion?” he asked, wary suspicion settling in the deep frown lines in his forehead. “How do you mean, ‘big commotion’?”

Kimmer shrugged, unconcerned. She’d had him as soon as he realized the size of the pay-off, an eagerness betrayed by his slight forward lean and his attempt to mask eagerness with reluctance. “Whatever you want to do. Get the attention of the man waiting outside, and your job is done. But if you don’t, I’ll be back for that change.”

This time his hesitation was a short internal assessment of Kimmer herself. Did she mean it? Could she pull it off if she tried? She smiled at him.
Yes, I mean it. Yes, I can do it
. He blinked, not expecting such a veiled threat from a woman he’d already summed up as a pixie in a bad hat. For an instant he hesitated, uncertain if he wanted to get involved, but the hundred dol
lars waiting between them made up his mind. He gave a short nod, and Kimmer released the bill.

“Ten minutes,” she reminded him.

“Or you’ll be back for the change,” he finished for her, his voice dry as dust.

She only smiled again, stuffing her purchases into her leather backpack and heading not for the door, but for the exit sign at the back of the store.

To his credit, he didn’t question her.

At the back of the store, Kimmer wove her way between pallets and a particularly odiferous Dumpster, and then through the raggedy, dried goldenrod at the side of the building. At the corner she pulled off the hat and wedged herself behind a big freezer with giant blue ice cubes painted across the front, her eyes on the lone man occupying the sedan. She had only a few more moments….

There—he looked down at something. A cell phone, one that held his attention as he dialed. Kimmer scooted to her car and behind it, leaving her backpack purse next to the driver’s-side back wheel, checking the sedan’s side-view mirror to see that her new pal was involved in conversation, his eyes on the well-lit fish bowl of a store. Arrogant of him, just sitting here out in plain view. He’d done just as she wanted, assessing her by her feeble attempt to lose him and by her apparent inattention to his continuing if stealthy presence.
It’s nice when you’re predictable
, she thought at him. No doubt he intended to vacate the small, ragged parking lot as soon as he saw her heading out of the store.

Not gonna happen
. With one crouching step she
crossed the wide space between cars, ending up snugged in behind the sedan’s bumper. In an instant she retrieved her stout toothpick blade, jamming the tip into the sidewall with only enough force to penetrate the outer layer of rubber, and not enough to alert the man within the car. She didn’t bother to glance at her watch, knowing she’d used up her ten minutes. Any moment now…

“Hey!” the storekeeper bellowed, muffled through the glass storefront. “What’re you—put that down! You can’t go back there!”

On a scale of one to ten, Kimmer put his acting in the negative numbers—but gave him points at the loud crash from within the store. For a hundred dollars, he’d apparently found something to knock over.

The sedan shifted as the man within took notice—and a second crash piqued his curiosity beyond tolerance. The driver’s door opened; the car rocked as the man exited.

Kimmer took advantage of the moment to drive the knife home, twisting it to shred rubber and release air. As the bells of the store’s front door jingled, she crouch-walked behind the car to the other back tire—he’d probably risk driving on the minispare to follow her, but there was nothing to be done about two flats—and jammed the knife home.

He might not notice right away, but it wouldn’t take long.

At that she stood, retrieved her backpack and slid behind the wheel of the Taurus. With no haste, she backed out into the road and headed onward. Another mile or two and she’d take the turn that would lead her back to Route 17 and onward to merge with 86.

She watched her rearview mirror as the sedan appeared on the road behind her. It took only a moment before dark strips of rubber flew out behind the sedan, followed by a dual line of sparks. The car slowed to a stop. Kimmer smiled into the mirror and gave the emerging driver a little wave he probably wouldn’t even see. She hoped that the object he flung to the ground in disgust wasn’t his cell phone.

On the other hand, all the better for her.

As she reached her turn and headed back in the direction she should have been going all along, Kimmer settled into the car’s worn but comfortable seat, digging the bottled drink out of her backpack. Ah, caffeine. It would serve her in good stead; with the time she’d lost, she’d go without much in the way of driving breaks to reach Mill Springs before her quarry. Although somewhere along the way, she’d have to touch base with Owen…and let him know someone was already on to Hunter’s involvement.

She twisted the cap from the Frappuccino without taking her hand from the wheel and raised it in salute to the man she’d left behind. “To you,” she said. “Thanks for tipping your hand so soon.”

But she wondered if he’d be the only one.

Kimmer stretched hugely, her secured cell phone ear bud in place as she stood beside the little station wagon and waited for Owen Hunter to answer the phone. He didn’t always answer on the first ring, but he always answered.

“Chimera,” he finally greeted her, using her handle in a way that made it seem more personal, not less, than
her real name. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until you reached Mill Springs.”

“I was followed out of Hunter,” she said. “Would have called even sooner, but I wanted to get some miles under my belt after the delay.”

“Have any trouble?”

Kimmer made a dismissive noise.
Pfft
. “An amusing diversion. But you might want to warn Carlsen’s fiancé. Someone found out about this assignment right about the same time you did—he could be tapped. They might even go after him for more information now that I’ve dumped their clever tail.”

The faint clicking of his keyboard told her that even as they spoke, someone in his surprisingly vast resource pool was being alerted to do just that. After a slight delay, he asked, “You lost a lot of time?”

“I’m only just past Erie—nice big anonymous rest stop here. For all I know, Carolyne Carlsen left north Albany in the middle of the night with her cousin the bodyguard, and they’re right on my tail. Do you know how hard it is to coax speed from this old thing?”

She heard the frown in his voice. “I had the engine checked—”

“You should have looked at the alignment instead. This car took a knock at some point—push it over sixty and it rattles hard enough to chip your teeth.” Kimmer rummaged in the tote bag of provided goodies and dug out the nail polish, giving the bottle a few good hard shakes. Time to start transforming herself into Bonnie Miller. “Another two hours and I might make it to Mill Springs.” She applied quick-drying nail polish with quick, economical strokes. Red, red, red. “It’s not per
fect, but I don’t foresee any problems—at least, not as long as the gas gauge on this thing is working.”

Owen cleared his throat, a faint but definite sound. “Perhaps you’d better fill up along the way.”

Mill Springs, 50 Miles.

The hand-painted sign greeted her from the side of the road, part of an advertisement for Hillside Gas & Food. Beneath it perched a more precarious seasonal sign declaring Hunters Welcome.

Meanwhile, no signs of further interest in the Taurus, no random acts of stupid motorists in her path, no signs of construction on roads turned classically wretched at the state line…another hour and she’d be there. Not bad, considering the state of the car—and that she’d turned off the interstate to travel quieter roads as soon as the opportunity arose. She’d also taken advantage of another short break to apply a metallic-blue eye shadow and pull her almost nonexistent bangs aside with a tiny plastic barrette, and to play with her long-buried accent.
I’m Baw-nie Miller
….

The hilly Pennsylvania woods unrolled before her, full of waxing fall color; the number of dead deer by the road reminded her that it was indeed the whitetail’s most active season. Just another of the memories she’d put behind her that now flooded back full force, erasing the intervening years as if she hadn’t crawled out of this place on pure grit and desperation. Foolish to have brought the camera…she needed no pictures of this area.

But she snarled back at those memories. This trip wasn’t about the past, no matter what Owen might think. It was about the present, and a woman in danger. It was
about the way Kimmer had changed her life so
she
was the one who could deal with such situations—instead of running from them.

It was about the way she needed to put gas in this game little car.

As promised, the entrance for Hillside Gas & Food appeared just beyond the next curve, although the sign over the gas pumps had taken some wear and now read Hillside Gas & Foo. The pumps themselves were old enough that they didn’t take credit cards; gas purchase was purely via honor system. Kimmer filled the nearly empty tank and pulled the car away from the pumps and off to the side. She checked to see that her little red barrette hadn’t slipped, took a deep breath that somehow felt necessary, and headed for the store.

Bells announced her arrival. She found an older man behind the counter, thinning white hair in a halfhearted comb-over, cheeks red from the same rosaceae that had roughened his nose. He nodded when she told him “Fifteen dollars,” and went to wander briefly through the store, trying to decide between caffeine in Frappuccino or caffeine in Mountain Dew, smiling slightly at the man’s instant curiosity and his following gaze. A little bored, a little nosy…harmless combination. Just enough of a proprietary nature to let her know he owned the place.

The glass-front shelves held plenty of dairy and plenty of beer, but nothing so esoteric as her favorite cold coffee; she grabbed the soda instead. A few desultory cans of soup caught her eye; she snagged one, hefting it thoughtfully. Lunch? Peanut butter crackers would be easier to eat on the road….

Reluctantly, she decide to return the soup to the
shelf—but the door bells jangled and when she glanced up at the new customers, surprise rooted her to the spot.

Two of them. Tall and blond and sturdy. Kimmer snapped off an inward curse, and not a nice one. The very people she was trying to avoid on this road. And as Ryobe Carlsen held the door for his cousin Carolyne, he said with straight-man humor, “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for some good foo.”

The man at the counter gave a hearty but insincere laugh. “Gotta get that sign fixed one of these days.”

Kimmer eased back slightly. She would just stay here and examine the soup can until they left, head bent, body language small and inconspicuous—while still taking advantage of this first opportunity to scope them out in person. Knowing better than to think too hard about it, but just taking the impressions and trusting them.

Carolyne Carlsen was a tall woman, figure hidden beneath a worn sweatshirt with a patchwork design on the front, pretty features marred by smudgy circles under her eyes and a wrinkle of worry on her brow. Tense, for certain. Tired, and not the kind of woman who easily withstood this kind of stress. She headed straight for the back corner of the store that held the bathrooms, lugging a shapeless crochet purse. Still…
not as worried as you should be
, Kimmer silently told the woman’s retreating back. Not given the tail Kimmer had shaken that morning.

Whatever the trip had held for them, it didn’t seem to have affected Carolyne’s cousin. He moved with relaxed strides—not the fluid power of some strong men, but with a matter-of-fact presence. Only in retrospect did she see the strength and confidence there.

She bet he fooled a lot of people.

He grabbed some Oreo cookies and a couple of colas, paid for his purchases and the gas he’d just pumped, and leaned against the counter to wait for Carolyne, somehow failing to knock over any of the gimmicky cardboard displays of fishing lures, Steelers memorabilia, and spiced jerky sticks. His driver’s-license photo hadn’t done him any more justice than such pictures ever did. They hadn’t truly conveyed the astonishing lines of his face, a perfect combination of strong Danish bones and lean Japanese angles.

Kimmer deliberately loosened her suddenly tight grip around the soup can. If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was to admire a man as object, not as individual. Even this man, radiating his presence so loudly that Kimmer felt the heat from here.

And the longer Carolyne took, the more obvious it became that Kimmer just stood there. She abruptly crouched down, pretending to examine an item on the lowest shelf. Pork and beans, extra flavor nuggets! As near as she could tell the flavor nuggets were lumps of lard. Yum.

Rio tore open the Oreos and popped one into his mouth; after a moment he inclined the bag toward the store owner, who caught on with delayed surprise and shook his head.

Kimmer heard another car pull into the small gravel parking area; she thought nothing of it. Not until she saw the doubt on the store owner’s face, and the small step he took back from the counter. Not until Rio Carlsen glanced out the door, straightened, and put the cookies on that counter to murmur, “Watch those a moment, will you?”

Damn. Did I miss a secondary tail?
No one could have found them through Scott Boyle, who knew less than Kimmer about Carolyne’s destination. And it was hard to believe anyone with Rio’s background could miss a tail all the way between here and Albany….

Could just be a local tough with bad timing.

Kimmer stood just as Carolyne came out of the ladies’ room, all her attention on the PDA upon which she swiftly worked her stylus and none at all on the enlarging population of the store. Two men strode through the door, all but taking up all the air in the room. Not local toughs, oh no. BGs—Bad Guys. Goonboys. All the same to Kimmer, interchangeable and less than affectionate nicknames.