Exception to the Rule (7 page)

She couldn’t
tell
.

“Are you all right?” the manager gasped upon arrival, a wiry older man with grandfatherly eyebrows and frantic eyes. Then he looked at the drunk and said, “Is
he
all right?”

“He stumbled,” Kimmer said, releasing the man and giving him a little push. “He’s too drunk to be out here.”

The man, drunk or disturbed or both, was nonetheless not slow to move to safer territory. “She was leaving!” he complained to the manager.

The man ran both hands over his face, and when his eyes reappeared they darted from the drunk to Kimmer and back. Not sure what had happened here. Worried about the ramifications to his store and his job. Uncertain how to proceed.

Kimmer took him off the hook. “I’m fine,” she said. “I just want to get these groceries in my little motel fridge. If you know who he is, maybe you know someone who’ll come get him.”

Relief. She wasn’t going to cause a scene. She had no trouble following the various subtleties of his body language. He said, “Thank you. I’ll take care of it.” And
to the two burly young stockers who’d come out with him in their green aprons, he said, “Take Andrew to the back, where that special order of starfruit needs to be watched. One of you stay with him and help him keep an eye on the fruit. I’ll be right in.”

Andrew cast a furtive glance at Kimmer; for a moment she thought he might insist on staying to make sure she didn’t leave, but the stock boys had apparently been through this routine before. One to an arm, they headed him for the store, and he didn’t resist them for more than a few steps.

When they were nearly to the store, the manager turned back to Kimmer. “I’m sorry,” he said. “He goes off his medicine, then he drinks. He’s really a very gentle person when he’s feeling well. From the looks of him he’s been on his own for days—his family must be frantic.” He sighed. “No one has any idea what it is about the food, but when he has trouble, this is where he comes.”

“No harm done,” Kimmer said, mouthing the necessary words and long past ready to leave. Because if Rio was
here
, then who was watching Carolyne?

“Thank you,” the manager said, nearly sweating relief. “Thank you for being so understanding.”

She might not have been, had she not possessed the training to deal with the man. Had she been your average twenty-something shopping for food in an unfamiliar town. Had she not truly just wanted to walk away from the moment. To stay…
apart
.

Finally, the manager seemed to believe her. He gave her a polite nod, another murmur of thanks, reminded Rio that his groceries were waiting and left for the store at such a quick walk that his head bobbed with purpose.

Then it was just Rio. Unfathomable in the Giant Eagle parking lot, his head slightly tipped as he looked down at her. “You’ve been
stonnered
.”

“Have I?” She tried to find her Bonnie Miller persona. The accent had never left, but the slightly nervous tone of a woman on the run had turned elusive. She had only her edginess and impatience.

“I heard the phrase in town today.” His words came more casually than his regard, which, in spite of his relaxed demeanor, struck her with unsettling intensity. Something hesitated between them, and she didn’t understand it or want it. If Rio noticed, he didn’t acknowledge it with anything other than the slight tilt of his head, a hint of puzzlement. “Stonner is the guy’s last name, I gather. He does this often enough so they’ve coined a watchword for him.”

“Wonderful. I’m honored.” She eyed him, top to bottom, and didn’t pretend to hide it. “Is this where you say ‘We’ve got to stop meeting like this’?”

He didn’t flinch before her gaze—and he didn’t pretend he didn’t notice it. He smiled ever so slightly.

Don’t do that.

“Coincidence is a fascinating thing, isn’t it?” he said. And then, before she could find a response that fit her cover, he said, “You’re angry. You’re not scared or upset or shaking…you’re angry. You were angry at the market, too.”

She didn’t have to ask him which market, though she found his forthright observation disconcerting. Almost as disconcerting as the fact that even though she couldn’t turn on the survival instinct that would allow her to better assess him, he seemed to read her
quite well. She worked hard to stuff her lingering anger away and admitted, “I don’t like it when jerks mess with my day.”

“Missy the cashier seems to think you’ve got reason for that.”

Still disarmingly forthright…but bless him, offering the perfect opportunity to slide back into cover.

Besides, he hadn’t said it with disbelief or with challenge in his voice. He’d said it as if he believed it.
Bless you, Missy, and your talkative mouth, too
.

“I’ve got plenty of reason,” she said, keeping her voice low. It made her sound less certain. “And I’ve got plenty of reason, too, for those self-defense classes I took, and for any chip I might be packing around.”

As it happened, all true.

“I’m sorry,” he said simply. And, turning to go, added, “And thank you again for your help earlier. I understand now why you didn’t question our situation. Then you might have to answer our questions, I suppose.”

“Something like that.”
Or maybe I just already knew what I needed to
. She crossed her arms and waited, and he gave her a nod that stopped just short of turning into a bow, heading back for the store with a casually confident stride.

Damn if he hadn’t done it again. Turned himself real.
I’m sorry
. So simple. So…genuine. “Dammit,” Kimmer cursed out loud, her fingers tightening around her upper arms until it hurt. She watched him longer than she should have, and then she spun on her heel and returned to the ragged little car.

After all, she had his cousin to stake out.

Keep your focus
.

It’s not about Rio Carlsen. It’s not about being back in western Pennsylvania. It’s about national security and one woman’s safety.

Kimmer took a deep breath and reoriented herself behind the wheel of the Taurus.

The main drag of Mill Springs ended not far from the Giant Eagle, although Kimmer had seen several main side streets that bore checking. More of a chance to spread her story, a chance to absorb the layout of the town and its likely bolt holes. She had a sloppy handful of brochures from the various stores she’d visited, especially the outdoor outfitter store and the Giant Eagle; before she went to Angelina’s, she’d study both the brochures and her afternoon’s photos. Aside from protecting Carolyne where she was, Kimmer wanted to know the best direction in which to run if the worst should happen.

Not that she’d let it.

She turned the car around and headed back to the motel. The evening’s microwave dinner had probably thawed by now, sitting in the back of the station wagon in the late-afternoon sun, although the outdoor temperatures had been crisp enough to warrant the worn hooded sweatshirt she’d pulled on over her lightweight cotton sweater before heading out from the motel. She’d chosen it for Bonnie Miller before she’d known Bonnie’s makeup preferences, and its quiet faded red color with pink ribbon piping didn’t quite match the nail color. It didn’t matter. Women like Bonnie also made do as best they could. While Kimmer’s cover had Bonnie run
ning from a Pittsburgh beau with money, she’d decided that Bonnie hadn’t brought anything with her that had come from that money. Proud woman, Bonnie was.

Kimmer herself tended to be more practical. When Hunter had scooped her up from the middle of their operation upon spotting her reaction to it—deep night at the Columbus bus stop as she fled Munroville—Kimmer had not hesitated to take advantage of the mentoring they offered. The training, the Henry Higgins-like makeover, the allowance and eventually their salary. The only thing she’d refused was their prying psychotherapist. What she’d been gave her the edge to be who she was…and to do what she did.
Do you hear that, Owen?

Which was exactly why she found herself taken by surprise by the impulse to slow down when she spotted Rio walking back to the B&B, a plastic bag swinging from each hand and some sort of stuffed creature jammed into his back pocket.

It made sense enough. Let him get used to seeing her. Let him get comfortable with the fact that she was here, and that her own cover story gave her reason to keep a close eye on this town and to fit in as quickly as possible.

Stupid
. Her ability to provide Carolyne with cover was already compromised by her inability to read Rio…and the way it distracted her. She didn’t need to be off balance; she needed to be
ready
.

So she drove past, looking at his distinctive form only out of the corner of her eye, already tuned in to the length of his stride and the way his left shoulder dipped slightly lower than the right. In someone else it might have looked arrogant; in Rio Carlsen, it was simply the way he walked, and spoke only of a certain relaxed confidence.

Or maybe he was simply crooked. The problem—the
real
problem—was that she couldn’t tell for sure. It meant she had to rely only on the life guidelines pressed into her by her mother—guidelines that had helped her get through her preteen years after her mother passed away, and then had given her the courage to run when the time was right.

At the motel, Kimmer parked in front of her very own Pepto-Bismol-pink unit and gathered up all her groceries in one trip, closing the hatch with her elbow and driving it home with a firmly placed foot, keys in her teeth. The juggling at the door took a moment, and she grasped desperately at the slipping bags, just making it into the kitchenette.

The refrigerator was tiny, crammed into the back corner of the room beneath a counter; to the side was an even tinier sink, with faucet handles that felt as if they came from a child’s play set. The microwave sat sullen and stained in the corner, and there was a two-burner stove top at the far end of the counter. Temporary housing with all the amenities—even a coin-operated washer and dryer off the registration area.

“Whee,” Kimmer muttered, and wasted no time getting dinner into the microwave. The slightly thawed quality would probably offset the appliance’s low power and everything would work out fine. She threw a few things into the fridge, checked her charging cell phone, popped herself a canned iced tea, and tossed both herself and her brochures across the lumpy bed, where her PDA—already loaded with the camera chip—waited. She tapped her way through the PDA menu to the slideshow feature, and settled in to watch, gulping tea.

There. The long drive through Angelina’s isolated front yard. The yard itself came complete with enclosed garden, benches, a little too-cute fountain and stairs to a wraparound porch, on both first and second floors. Kimmer saw not the charm of it, but the many different access points an interloper had to choose from. All those windows. A limited third floor with a roof full of so many dormers and features that traversing it—and hiding on it—would be simple enough. She shook her head, wrinkling her nose. She would bet Rio hadn’t seen the place before he placed his call here. Maybe Carolyne knew of it, but its vulnerabilities as a fortress wouldn’t have occurred to her.

The microwave beeped; she ignored it. She didn’t feel like burning her tongue this evening—let the meal cool. She scrutinized the back of the house, squinted thoughtfully at the corner obscured by afternoon shadows and a laden rose trellis, and resolved to turn this evening’s work into a little on-site recce. She wanted to be personally familiar with every foot of that yard. Every dip in the ground, every decorative rock and painted concrete goose. It’d do Carolyne no good if Kimmer tripped over a gnome at just the wrong moment.

The smell of Hungry Man All-Day Breakfast filled every corner of the room; Kimmer stretched mightily to put her tea on the little round table that teetered between the ragged chair and the bolted-down television, and backed off the bed to leave the PDA thinking to itself. Another picture flashed up and she stopped, caught by the same arrangement of color, light, and shape that had filled her lens early that afternoon. “Yeah,” she told it. “You’re a keeper.”

Pictures, she could trust. The camera showed what was there…and what wasn’t. Raw images showed her only the truth.

She wondered, would it help if she’d gotten a picture of Rio Carlsen?

A
ngelina’s. One great big walking invitation for incursion.

Be fair, Rio told himself, crouching at the end of the porch with all senses alert to the rustle of movement he’d heard. No one—not when they’d built the place, not when they’d remodeled it for the bed and breakfast—had ever considered using the place as a safehouse. Nor would he have, if they hadn’t been so short on time and if Carolyne hadn’t seemed to know just where she wanted to go. The small town had suited him; so had the general location, far from anywhere Carolyne had left footprints in the past. He’d known as soon as he’d seen the place that he’d have to think seriously about a bolt-hole.

The area brochures offered rustic hunting cabins—just what Carolyne needed, guns echoing all around
them—canoeing outlets, seasonal horseback riding excursions and a list of B&Bs similar to this one.

And the Girl Scout camp. Camp Cardinal.

They’d need some gear. But the brochure boasted a nurse’s station—a permanent little structure that also housed the nurse for the summer. With luck, the place received power all year round. And if not, he figured the farm store might have a generator.

His thigh cramped; he shifted position slightly, lowering that knee to the cold ground. He’d never been at his best in covert night ops, not with his height and general size. Crouching here, crouching there…hard to fit into the available shadows. Which wasn’t to say he couldn’t do it, but not his favorite thing, for sure.

Dampness from the ground seeped through the knee of his jeans. Cold. They might just have frost before morning.

He hadn’t heard the noise again.

Still, he waited. He knew the consequences of rushing, of making assumptions. Now he knew them more than ever. Not coincidentally, his back twinged.
Get over it
, he told himself. He wasn’t out here doing this for an overseas station where another case officer played bad odds and incidentally blew Rio’s asset exfiltration wide open. A man who now paid his own price, if not the price Rio would have chosen for him—the CIA had little tolerance for those who followed their own star at the expense of the Agency. No, this job hit closer to home.

Although when twenty minutes passed with nothing more than muted noises from within the house, the single bark of a neighborhood dog and one seasonally chal
lenged moth fluttering around the corner to reach the front porch light, Rio had to admit whatever he’d heard, human or animal or simply imagination, had eluded him. With an internal creak he could only hope hadn’t been audible, he continued his tour around the house and property, checking latches and locks and ground cover, hunting for any sign of weakness or disturbance.

Nothing. Or else someone was very good.

Yeah, or else you’re letting the situation run away with your imagination because this time we’re talking about Carolyne
. The truth was, if someone had been this close, if someone
was
this good, he or she wouldn’t stop with a little lurking. The intruder would be inside the B&B and he’d hear Caro’s air horn shrieking in alarm, and all the other B&B guests shrieking in protest.

So…I’m nuts
.

Okay, yeah. Maybe that was it.

Because he remained uneasy about this whole thing. Uneasy that they’d been bugged, that they’d been identified anywhere within the state. For all his reassurances to Carolyne, that they’d been targeted so quickly and so efficiently meant that someone in her think tank did indeed have loose lips. And already they had Bonnie Miller’s little drama drawing attention to the town. He’d use that situation for camouflage if he had to, but at the same time…it wasn’t a complication he’d counted on.

Rio stood on the porch railing and pulled himself up to the second-floor balcony, pacing silently across the floor planks until he reached the two windows that belonged to his and Carolyne’s room, where he again hesitated, leaning on a balcony rail too short for him to cast a final inspection over the yard.

Whatever Missy the cashier thought, Bonnie Miller was a woman with hard confidence—and a grudge to boot. Simmering away, and possibly ready to scald what she next touched. He could believe she’d run from this boyfriend with money—but not that she didn’t have an ulterior motive, and that she was using this town to reach it. She might be a curvy petite, and she might sport that feather-edged, curl-taming cap of a haircut with girlish barrettes, but she was also a woman who drew lines in the sand. He’d bet on it.

In any event, he’d seen those moves she’d pulled on befuddled Andrew Stonner. Smooth, very smooth. More than one or two self-defense classes behind that one. Watching her had struck an odd chord within Rio, a puzzling feeling of regret. Rio was used to being the one who took care of things in his family, from scaring off neighborhood bullies in elementary school to derailing the plot by the high school jocks to turn his brother’s shop-project presentation to a scene out of
Carrie
. Rio was the one Caro had called. Not that he begrudged it for a moment—family came first. And it’s not like his brother Ari hadn’t stepped up during those dark months after Rio returned home from overseas, healing and trying to understand where his life would go from there. They were all there for each other.

But that didn’t squelch the curious feeling he’d felt when saw Bonnie Miller handling an irrational man who outweighed her and stood a head and a half higher. Andrew Stonner’s brain might not be healthy, but his bone and muscle looked just fine. It just hadn’t done him any good. Bonnie wasn’t a woman who needed Rio’s
physical protection. She was the kind of woman who would choose to be with a man only for who he was, and not what he could do.

He didn’t know as he’d met anyone just like her before. But…

Go away
, he told Bonnie Miller.
I don’t want you here
. Not even if he
could
use the little stranger-warning system she’d put into place around the town.

As for Angelina’s yard…nothing. Truly nothing. Rio turned to the window and gave it a gentle tap, crouching so that when Carolyne tugged the curtain aside, she could more easily see his face in the light from the room. She met him with the same expression of general anxiety she’d carried all day, though she relaxed somewhat as she unlocked the window. He folded himself to duck through it, then shoved it firmly back in place, flipping the latch.
“Tada Ima,”
he said.

“I never would have believed you could do that,” she said, moving back to the small secretary desk that came with the room, intended more for decoration than for use—and certainly not used as Carolyne used it, with her laptop set on a towel to avoid scratching the rich old cherry wood and peripherals jammed into every available corner. Piled neatly by the side of the desk were the knickknacks and cutesies that had formerly occupied those corners.

“Do what?” He pulled off his shoes and set them aside, never quite comfortable wearing them in personal living space. “And how’s the work coming?”

“Squeeze big old you through that window,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed she’d chosen and then anointed with snack crumbs. She looked small and for
lorn, which struck Rio as absurd; she was, in her way, as Nordicly sturdy as he. “I don’t know about the fix, Rio, really I don’t. I just keep running in circles.” She lifted the thick-backed pad of paper that held her preliminary notes—the concept work, she called it—and displayed a series of randomly placed scribbles.

They’d been crossed out, one after another, with increasingly emphatic slashes.

Rio found his stash of Pop-Tarts. “You know, your brain’s been running on adrenaline since you found whatever scary problem chased you out here. We should go to that picnic tomorrow.”

“What picnic?”

He freed a pastry from its two-tart packaging and pointed at the confusion of printed material at the end of his bed. “The Mill Springs Fire Department is having an open house and picnic tomorrow. Big fire truck demo, and the county life-flight chopper is going to make an appearance. Hey, you never know…picnic food…maybe they’ll have apple chips.”

She snorted gently. “As if. But seriously, I know you’re trying to establish yourself as a good guy here, but is going to this picnic thing such a good idea?”

““This picnic thing.” And to think, they pay you the big bucks.” He pulled his feet up to sit cross-legged on the bed, a comfortable mealtime habit, and found the glass of ice water he’d left on the long table between the beds.
“Itadakimasu.” Thank you for the feast
.

“Now you’re just being silly,” Carolyne said, looking cross.

“Don’t tell
Obaachan
you think so,” Rio said mildly, partaking of his mighty snack. Their grandmother had
tried to instill in her grandchildren certain Japanese courtesies—and with her indomitable will, even now those lessons lingered. After a moment he looked back at Carolyne. “Caro, if someone comes here
looking
for you—if they already know that much—they’re going to find you regardless.”

“I’m surprised you don’t want to squirrel me away in some hidey-hole and never let me out again,” she admitted. “Mr. Overprotective.”

“I do,” he admitted back. “You have no idea. It’s just this isn’t
that
hidey-hole. It can’t be. So it doesn’t add any significant risk for you to poke your head out.”

She hesitated, far from convinced. “Maybe not.”

Rio didn’t argue the point. She was as stubborn as he when backed into a corner—maybe more so—and there was plenty of time before the next afternoon. He switched over to his waiting train of thought. “As for the right hidey-hole, I’m working on it. I’m going to gather up some outdoor gear tomorrow, and at some point I need to leave to scope out the lovely Camp Cardinal.”

She looked up with alarm. “Did you see something out there just now?”

“No.” Truthful enough, even if not quite complete. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d heard something…
someone
.

She’d never seen his working face, the one that could lie without so much as a twitch. She watched him a moment, and she nodded acceptance. She looked at him with those open blue eyes and nodded again after he added, “Relax, Caro. Get your work done. Leave the spy stuff up to me. There’s nothing going on.”

Never mind that fierce twinge of guilt over the in
stinct that their peace was temporary, sandwiched between the attempt at Hillside Gas & Foo and whatever happened next.

Because that instinct didn’t have any doubt. Something
would
happen next. It was just a matter of what and when, and whether his deliberate decision to go public in hopes of garnering local resources would help…or hinder.

Kimmer started the day early, with a yawn and a stretch and glimpses at a local map as she connected with Owen for a brief, hardly reassuring phone call. Scott Boyle did indeed want to join Carolyne in a show of masculine support, but Owen had held him off.

“What’s the surprise?” Kimmer told him. “He’s got control issues. First he hires us without telling her and now he wants to be part of it all. I wouldn’t be surprised if he never took the threat seriously at all, but got us involved strictly so he could be the hero to Carolyne. Can’t do that if we keep him on the sidelines.”

“Your cynical nature is peeking through,” Owen told her. “You know, we could still try for a phone call between you two—I can get someone to him with secure equipment.”

Kimmer shrugged, stepping into the bathroom to sweep the shower curtain aside and scope out the tub and shower controls.
Ew. Crusty
. “It’s body language I do best, anyway. Except for our friend Rio Carlsen. Between that and being in this area, I really wish I were in Australia.”

He hesitated at that, long enough for her to set out her soap and shampoo. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Which me?” she asked darkly. “You knew what you were doing when you sent me here. Did you really think the area wouldn’t throw me off, even a little? I’ve run into Carlsen twice, and it’s a problem. I can’t scope him out, but he sure seems to see through me.”

Another hesitation. “Is it Carlsen, or is it the location?”

“I’m supposed to know? You put me here, Owen. I said it would be a mistake.”
Too bad he didn’t ask first
. She could have told him not to rely on her, before he put her in a position where he—and Carolyne Carlsen, and even her cousin Rio—did rely on her.

Owen knew her too well. “You’ve had time to resent what I’ve asked of you. Fine. Do it. But take it out on me, not on the woman you’re there to protect.”

Her resentment rocketed as he trapped her with reason. She yanked her flannel shirt off one-handed, holding the cell phone with the other, the ear bud tugging against the inside of her ear as she moved the line. She turned the bath water on, cranking the hot all the way up so it would warm up faster, and not caring that Owen would certainly hear. Not bothering to disguise the anger in her voice, she nonetheless evaded a direct reply. “I don’t think they’ll stay here.”

“Why not?” Owen said, an instant reply with no undertone; he’d let them move forward without backing her into a corner, then. Smart man.

“It’s not so clean here anymore, not with the way things went on the road. And the place they’re staying…there’s no way to make it secure. I don’t think he’ll keep her there. I wouldn’t. Not for more than another day or two.”

“You’ll keep a close eye on them,” Owen asked, though it wasn’t truly a question.

“I already am.” The evening before, she’d sat silent in the garden, screened by an arbor of thick clematis, while Rio’s gaze swept the yard again and again. Tucked into darkness, she’d merely waited him out. She could afford to; she had no other agenda than protecting Carolyne, and as long as she sat in this garden, she was in fact doing just that.