Exception to the Rule (12 page)

But if the goonboys came here, they weren’t likely to ask questions as nicely as Kimmer. After several days of frustrations, several days during which the word of Carolyne’s discovery would have spread, and days during which any number of organizations and countries would raise the stakes by joining the hunt…

No. They weren’t likely to be polite at all.

Rio would warn them. The inner commentary came unbidden, and unwelcome. It didn’t matter what Rio would do under the circumstances. It mattered what was best for Kimmer to do.

But she wondered then, in that instant of thought, if similar situations helped drive him from the CIA—along with the implications of injury severe enough to take him from the field. There was always the possibility of collateral damage in situations where warnings weren’t possible—and more than that, the wedge that the organizational secrecy would drive between himself and his family. Given what she’d seen of him, she thought it likely.

Mr. Angelina scratched the side of his neck, still on the subject of Rio and Carolyne. “Actually, it was all kind of strange. They paid for the full week ahead of time, and Rio said they might even stay over. And then one morning they didn’t show up for breakfast, and when Angie checked, she found a nice little note saying they’d decided to leave early, but that it didn’t have anything to do with the B&B. Said they were sorry to go, but something had come up.”

He shook his head. “They didn’t.”

As she hesitated, hunting for the approach that would allow her to warn them the goonboys might not be as polite as she, her stomach rumbled loudly. She winced in embarrassment as he laughed. “I’m letting the heat out and you look cold,” he said. “Why don’t you come in and have a piece of pie? There’s plenty.”

She’d love to get inside, to have a little more time to find the right warning. But leaping at the invitation…not cool.

He read her hesitation well enough. “You might as well. Your friend paid for it and
he’s
not eating it.”

At that she laughed, and nodded. “It does seem like I missed dinner.” Hastily gobbled granola bar in her little Camp Cardinal hideout. Not enough.

He opened the door wider, and she slipped in. Not without a glance over her shoulder, a
just in case the goonboys are coming up the front walk
check. Nope. She hung her coat beside the door and prepared for pie and lies.

Angelina’s turned out to be an overwhelmingly friendly place. Angelina herself was younger than her husband and was Kimmer’s size, with sparking black eyes to match her hair and a natural flush to her cheeks, not to mention about five months’ worth of baby under her lightly flowered—and floured—maternity top. She looked up in surprise as her husband led Kimmer into the dining room. An entire table full of guests turned to see. Retirees, most of them, and one middle-aged couple whom Kimmer pegged as taking time away from the kids.

Mr. Angelina said, “This is a friend of Rio and Carolyne’s. She thought she’d find them here, and I said not, but that she was welcome to their pie.”

“Bonnie Miller,” Kimmer said, maintaining her slightly embarrassed air even as her stomach clenched, suddenly no longer hungry at the thought of this friendly, unsuspecting group of people so much as meeting the goonboys.

“I’m Angie.” The woman turned to smoothly snag another plate from the buffet behind the end of the table. “This is Brad. You’re welcome to join us—pull up one of those empty chairs. Maybe you can give us some idea why your friends left early. We’re a little concerned.”

“She doesn’t know.” The newly identified Brad took
his seat at the opposite end of the table from Angie. “Are you the Bonnie Miller who has the town talking?”

“Brad!”

Brad waved away his wife’s objections. “You don’t mind, do you, Bonnie? Don’t figure the town would know so much so quickly if you hadn’t given people a head start.”

Kimmer grinned at him. “There’s something to that.”

Angie gave up with a good-natured shrug and passed the pie—complete with melting vanilla ice cream—to the man nearest her, who passed it on down the table. Soon enough it sat in front of Kimmer, and a glass of ice water arrived soon after. Kimmer dug in, made appreciative noises with google-eyed accompaniment and tried to decide how to bring up what she felt needed to be said. Conversation rose and fell around her—pleasant recitations of the day, of what people would be doing this next week when their vacations were over, and much sighing over the pie.

Finally Brad said, “You might as well just say it,” and Kimmer found him looking at her with a perceptive gaze.

You’d have made a good employee for Hunter
, she thought, and shrugged. “The thing is,” she said, deciding to skirt the truth, “Rio’s just done some research for some people, and after he left, some fellows knocked at my door hoping I’d know where he is. I’m using the word ‘fellows’ as a euphemism, by the way.”

Talk around the table fell silent. Four couples and the innkeepers, attention on her.

She cleared her throat. “I don’t think it’s any big deal. I mean, they didn’t do anything but get rude. But I just heard about some new guys in town, and they
didn’t sound like deer hunters. I thought maybe you should know. In case they show up asking questions. You should be prepared to call 911.”

“Did you?” asked the vacationing mother, her eyes worried as she played with a tendril of overpermed hair.

Total improvisation. She preferred to set her stories up ahead of time, but it shouldn’t matter. Even if she left them with questions, it wouldn’t matter so much—as long as they were prepared. “It didn’t come to that—but I was behind a locked security screen. And I told them I would. That’s when they got the rudest, but they left.” She allowed herself to look troubled. “I’m not sure what would have happened if that screen had been flimsier.”

Brad and Angie exchanged a look. “I’ll answer the door from now on,” Brad said. “
After
checking the peephole.”

“You know,” said one of the older ladies, exchanging her own wise glance with her husband, “I thought that Carolyne seemed worried.”

“Hard to tell.” The woman next to her, a stout woman with amazing blue eyes, pushed her pie plate away. “Couldn’t get a word out of her.”

The first woman gave a firm nod. “Exactly.”

Kimmer, warning given, tended her pie, eating as quickly as she could without being obvious about it. She’d done what she could here, and she needed to run a few quick motel checks, see if she could track down the goonboys. Then it was back to Camp Cardinal, and a long night ahead. If they’d found the town, eventually they’d find the camp.

Angie gathered up some dishes and headed for the kitchen. “Seems like Warren should know about this. If
the rest of you will excuse me, I’ll just give the station a call and come back with coffee refills.”

Brad grinned at Kimmer’s surprise as he started gathering the rest of the dishes; the guests helped by stacking them and passing them down. Very homey indeed. “It’s a small town, remember? Our chief used to date Angie’s sister.”

Regret clamped down on the pie in her stomach. Complications. Police involvement. Just what she hadn’t wanted.

Never mind. You’ll be out of here within moments
.

Angie returned from the kitchen without the coffee, giving the portable phone in her hand an uneasy look. “Didn’t we just charge this?”

“All afternoon.” Brad had been headed for the kitchen; now he replaced a stack of plates on the table and took the phone, stabbing at the on button and putting the phone to his ear. He frowned. “I’m going to check the office phone.”

Kimmer pushed her half-eaten pie away, gulped water, and wiped her mouth. “Excuse me,” she said, as casually as possible. Time to go make sure that front door had been locked. And the back door, for that matter, and any other doors that this rambling old ex-boardinghouse might offer.

“Surely you don’t think—” Angie started. But she stopped, for it was obvious what Kimmer thought, and what everyone else at the table was thinking as well. Poorly hidden worried expressions, couples reaching for each others’ hands…

Maybe Kimmer wouldn’t have to go motel hunting after all. She’d get this place locked up, and then she’d
go out and find the pathetic goonboys who’d come looking for Carolyne with all the grace of the proverbial bull in a china shop.

She traversed the short hallway, homey little rugs over hardwood, the hat hanger with blocky, carved-wood lettering that read Happy Thanksgiving! and included a painted blob of a pumpkin at the end and tilted corncobs as hangers, and an umbrella stand seeded with personable old fashioned canes. This cozy, welcoming house, as alien to Kimmer as Rio’s way with his family, was not a house prepared or suited for fear.

Brad caught up to her as she reached the end of the stairs also running the length of the hallway, a stout and well-polished banister separating the two. “The phones are dead.”

“I thought as much,” Kimmer said. “I don’t want to be all soap opera on you, but if you’ve got any unlocked doors…”

“I think you’re hitting more of a James Bond note,” Brad said, his mouth tight with concern and generalized disapproval that such a moment could be taking place inside Angelina’s B&B, “but I take your point.”

Kimmer reached for the dead bolt, glad to see it there—no lock would stop a determined goonboy, but it would sure slow him down—and then, at the creak of the porch, came just as suddenly alert, riding adrenaline. Someone on the other side—

“Get back,” she snapped at Brad, ignoring his surprise at her tone. It might just be the paperboy, after all, collecting money….

Or not.

Before she reached it, the door opened. Not with a
bang, but with quiet assurance. Two men stood under the porch light. One looked bulky in his aviator jacket, his hands fisted into his pockets in a way Kimmer didn’t much care for; the other was a sleeker version in a tailored leather coat that fell to midthigh. The sleeker one said, “Hello. I thought we heard voices.”

“Then you should have knocked,” Kimmer pointed out, one hand filling the hallway beside her so Brad couldn’t come up any closer; she didn’t have to glance his way to know she had him off balance and baffled, but at the moment she didn’t care. He was still too close, and she couldn’t do anything about it without escalating the tension that came from Bulky.

“Perhaps,” said Sleek. “However, here we are.” To punctuate his words, he stepped inside, leaving room for Bulky to join him.

Dammit
. Kimmer took a step back, treading on Brad’s toes. She shot a fierce glance over her shoulder, one that startled him—but it earned her a little room.

Bulky broke the silence—a silence so profound that Kimmer knew everyone in the dining room listened in, holding their breath, not sure of the right thing to do and so doing nothing. Just as well. Bulky, a man of little hair and much neck, had the floor as he said, “We’re looking for Carolyne Carlsen.”

So much for Kimmer’s story about Rio doing the research. Brad wasn’t slow to catch on, and he said to her, “You told us that Rio—”

“I was protecting her,” Kimmer said shortly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Brad told the goonboys in a voice that Kimmer found brave even if, dammit, he had crept up on her again, “because they’re not here anymore.”

And so much for convincing the goonboys to go away. Not after they’d had confirmation that Carolyne had indeed stayed here.

“Well, that’s a shame.” Sleek ran a hand over his hair, unintentionally flattening it. At least both of his hands were in sight. “We’d like to see their room, then.” He made the request with casual assurance…more like a command.

Kimmer shook her head. Not one step farther, not for these goonboys. “It’s been cleaned,” she said. “They’ve been gone for days. You’ve hit a dead end here.” But she didn’t think they’d go away quietly, not yet. She sized up the hall, gave herself an advantage of quickness, handicapped herself with Brad and witnesses and decorative hallway clutter, and decided cute things were going to get broken.

But Sleek honed in on Brad. Middle-aged Brad, loving husband, father-to-be, sincere businessman. Not a man prepared for what lay ahead…but a man beginning to understand just what that might be. A glance showed Kimmer his sudden uncertainty, and she could have groaned. Such faltering would be a beacon to the goonboys…and was.

Sleek took her by surprise a second time, taking a swift step forward to snatch up Brad’s shirt and sending Kimmer stumbling backward. Sleek said, “I think you should show me the room.”

Time to forget the witnesses, the cover, the restraints. However these men had stumbled across Mill Springs, they’d blazed a trail others could follow.
Deal with the moment. Get back to camp, blow cover and get Carolyne out of here
.

Besides, if something went down here, Kimmer didn’t just want to deter the goonboys. She wanted to make an impression.

Sleek had Brad up against the railing, but Bulky still had his hands in his pockets, eyeing his partner with a brutal gleam in his eye and no apparent concern about Kimmer.
You’re first
. Kimmer took a step back, snatched a weighted cane from the umbrella stand and swung it like a low baseball bat, aiming for the bleachers. He’d started to turn her way but too late; she connected at kidney level, and he gave a harsh squawk of pain and fell to his knees, flinging his hands from his pockets to catch himself and bringing a clunky Glock pistol with them. Rolling in blind agony, he made no move to protect himself as she slammed the cane down on his wrist, breaking bone.

By then Sleek had dropped Brad and turned to her, his own hand dipping inside his coat. Kimmer kicked Bulky’s handgun down the hall, dropped the cane, and leaped at Sleek, her hand quick at her waistband and coming up with her .38. No power to the wadcutters but they’d sure as hell get his attention. She threw herself in close, surprising him into a backward stumble against the stair banister just as his own revolver—a short-barreled Colt Python .45, a no-second-chances weapon—cleared his shoulder rig.
Slow draw, that rig
, she thought at him.
Too bad for you
—