Exception to the Rule (9 page)

“Right,” Carolyne said weakly. “What were they thinking?”

Jonesy, who had a weak chin and a weak scruff of fuzz pretending to hide it, took Kimmer’s arm in a way
that was meant to look solicitous, but his fingers wrapped too tightly around her arm. And Carolyne’s eyes widened at the sight, even as someone chose that very moment to demonstrate the various sirens employed by the fire trucks.

Carolyne gasped and whirled away, triggered into aimless flight and headed randomly for the fire station. Kimmer didn’t spare the small group a second glance, jerking free to run after Carolyne and fairly certain Rio would be on their heels. To her surprised annoyance, the men also took up the chase; she heard them behind her as Carolyne rounded the abandoned back corner of the fire station.

Fine. At least they’d be out of sight.

The sirens cut out. As Kimmer rounded the red brick corner she cried, “Wait! It’s okay!” just so Carolyne would realize Kimmer was there; with any luck it would at least make her hesitate. But Kimmer put a few feet between herself and the corner and then stopped short, hand filled with the small, effective club and body balanced to
move
.

Jonesy rounded the corner at the head of the pack and she met him with a weighted fist. It sunk deeply into his stomach and he instantly bent double, his pals barging up from behind and trying not to run him over. By then Kimmer had her fingers wrapped around his ear, fingernails digging into the sensitive skin.

The remaining trio sorted themselves out and the second camo-dressed man made a move at Kimmer, but she twisted Jonesy’s ear and he stopped his gagging long enough to give a little shriek. It stopped the others short, uncertain and frustrated. Behind them, Rio came
into view—but he, too, stopped short, smart enough to assess the situation before charging right on in.

Kimmer displayed the little war club and asked the men, “How long do you think it would take me to knock out all his teeth?” She gave Jonesy a second glance. “Those
are
your teeth, right?”

Jonesy squeaked slightly in response, but seemed to be regaining his breath.

Kimmer sighed, all for show. “Let’s get a few things straight. One is, this woman doesn’t want to talk to you. Two is, until you shave that slimy, tufty excuse for a beard and can exhale without killing small pets and weeds, no woman wants to talk to you. Three is, it’s fine with me if no one knows we had this chat, so unless you want to spread the word that my petite and lovely self handled you without breaking a sweat or—” she paused, put a finger along her jawline—“running up a pulse rate, you might just take this chance to go quietly away now.”

They didn’t want to. With their buddy squeaking at her feet and Kimmer unruffled, they still didn’t want to. Definitely one drink too many among them. But Bob saw Rio moving even closer, and nudged the others. And Kimmer—releasing Jonesy’s ear and stepping back out of reach as he heaved himself to his feet, red faced and still trading gasps and gags—slipped a thumb into her waistband and peeled the material down just far enough so the black Bantam grip of her gun peeked out. “Go sleep it off,” she suggested. “Or go finish getting drunk. Pick one. Just do it somewhere else.”

Bob grabbed Jonesy’s arm. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. Inspiration struck. “I’ve got two six-packs left at home, and a whole bunch of new paint-gun ammo—”

Smart man. Once the others had an excuse to leave as though they had better things to do, the tension dissipated. They muttered a few uncomplimentary rudenesses and moved out as a pack. Only Bob cast a single, furtive glance over his shoulder, and then they were gone.

Rio put an arm around Carolyne, drawing her in. It was a strong arm and a solid embrace and it looked enfolding and comforting and—

Kimmer blinked and gave herself a mental shake. Not a gentle one. She found Rio looking at her, and she said the first thing that came into her head. “Thank you.”

He raised one of those dark blond brows at her, definitely darker than the hair on his head, dark enough to look natural over such deeply brown eyes. “I can’t tell if you’re genuine or you’re mocking me.”

She gave him a wry grin. “I mean it. Things could have gotten nasty if you’d come rushing in to save the day instead of waiting to see how it all played out.” She felt her Bonnie Miller persona solidify as she spoke to him, and welcomed it with relief. Not the frightened woman Hunter had laid out for her, but a savvy woman, and a woman who could take care of herself. Who knew when to run—but wasn’t running scared. Because once she’d met Rio in the Hillside Gas & Foo—once she’d kicked goonboy butt without so much as a tremble—Hunter’s profile no longer fit the circumstances.

It hadn’t been her at all; it hadn’t been an inability to deal with Rio, even if her knack continued to fail where he was concerned. Just changing circumstances calling for a changing cover. That’s what she was. Chimera.

Or so she told herself.

Rio tucked a strand of Carolyne’s hair behind her ear
and gave her a brotherly kiss on the forehead. “Do I know how to show you a good time or what?”

“Yeah, great,” Carolyne muttered, but with enough of a sardonic edge that Kimmer relaxed a little. Carolyne might not be cut out for this sort of thing, but she was giving it a heroic try.

Rio must have thought so, as well; he smiled slightly over her head, probably not even aware he did it.

And then he turned his attention back to Kimmer. A direct gaze, something a tad more personal than she expected. And inescapable at that. For an instant, it held her, catching at her breath. Carolyne gave him a startled look, and then she, too, turned to Kimmer.

Kimmer smoothed her waistband back into place, returned the club to her pocket, and ran a hand lightly over her hair to see if that damn barrette was still in place. Bonnie Miller wouldn’t care about such scrutiny, she told herself. Neither did she.

Rio loosened his hold on Carolyne, shifting his weight along with his attention. “You sure know how to find trouble.”

That was bound to come up. Too much coincidence to ignore. “Me?” she said, facing it head-on. “I haven’t had any trouble at all. I just keep running into her.” She nodded at Carolyne. “Twice to the rescue. What’s that all about?”

“And both times you were ready for it.”

She gave the smallest of smiles. “Yes. I was, wasn’t I?”

“I saw the gun.”

“Because I wanted
them
to see it.” She couldn’t decipher his expression, dammit. Wariness or hidden admiration? Or somehow…compassion? How could he
even begin to understand? “Don’t worry, I have a carry permit. Lots of people do.”

“I’m thinking that boyfriend of yours picked the wrong woman.”

“He did,” she agreed. “It walks, it talks, it takes care of itself.”

He stood hipshot, one hand still on Carolyne’s shoulder, the other propped loosely at his jeans pocket. Casual. But there was still nothing casual about his expression, and nothing casual about his words. “Then why run at all?”

Kimmer gave a little laugh. “Haven’t you learned that one yet?” she asked. “Sometimes it’s just better that way. Sometimes just because you can handle the trouble doesn’t mean you should. It’s what’s best for the long term. Because no one takes care of you but you. In the end, you’d better do a pretty good job, or you’ll let yourself down.”

There was, apparently, quite a bit of Kimmer Reed in Bonnie Miller. Who knew?

“You’re ready.” He said it as much to himself as to her, murmured words while his gaze never wavered. She found herself uneasy under it, wanting to squirm away in one direction or another. It saw too much. He gestured at the town. “Is this part of it? Planting yourself here, letting everyone know you’re afraid of what your boyfriend might do?”

Actually, that’s a nefarious plan to keep your cousin safe
. But Kimmer nodded. “Yes. Small town, people who care.” She looked in the direction of the recently departed troublemakers. “Well, mostly. Look at the way they take care of Andrew Stonner.”

“You took care of him, too. In no uncertain terms, as I recall.”

Kimmer shrugged. “I did. He got excited—he got his hands on me. Something things need to be stopped in no uncertain terms.”

He didn’t argue it. He just watched her, and she couldn’t tell if he’d discarded her entire story, or if he disapproved of her, or even if he wanted to put his arm around her as he had with Carolyne—and she stiffened at the wistfulness that came with that thought. Finally, he surprised her with, “I’m sorry things have been like that for you.”

“Don’t be,” she said sharply, unaccountably stabbed by those words. Too close to home.

Way too close
.

He had no way of knowing the truth of her life today. That when she ended up in the thick of things, it was by choice. That she could read people—their body language, their expressions, their hesitations and twitches and sighs—so well that she knew when trouble loomed. That she chose to stay, because every time she handled such situations, she proved to herself—again—that she could. He wouldn’t understand that, she thought, looking at the protective way he dealt with Carolyne. Probably wouldn’t approve, either.

But Kimmer ceded herself to no one.

“You
like
her,” Carolyne said, a bemused tone in her voice, her complexion finally regaining some color as Rio escorted her into Angelina’s.

“I’m grateful, that’s for sure. Although I hope you know I wouldn’t have hesitated if you’d been there
alone. I just thought it might make things worse if I came charging in to save the day.”

“So did she,” Carolyne mused, plopping down on her bed and absently reaching for the bag of not-apple-chips she’d left there.

Rio felt a grumble of hunger himself; he’d meant to feed them at the picnic, where the smell of charred hot dogs had just about cleared his sinuses and everyone had been talking about the city chicken—which was somehow actually pork. They’d have to stop at the town’s lone fast-food franchise on the way out of town.

“And don’t think I didn’t notice that,” Carolyne added, leaning forward to catch a chip as it crumbled at her mouth. “That little evasive moment just now.”

“You’re going to go all girly on me, aren’t you?” Resigned, Rio flopped down on his own bed and debated whether to hide his head under the pillow. On the other hand, this was as much spark as he’d seen in Caro’s eyes since he’d arrived in New York.

“Tell me I’m wrong.” She tossed the chip crumbs in her mouth and wiped her hands against each other. “Tell me you don’t think Bonnie is
fiiine
. She’s a tough chick and you like it.”

“She intrigues me,” he corrected her, trying not to think of Bonnie Miller’s remarkable cool under pressure, or the way those jeans had fit her, or her smart-ass sense of humor.
Those
are
your teeth, aren’t they?

“You’re smiling,” Carolyne informed him.

“I’m allowed to smile,” he informed her back. “I’m also allowed to ogle, drool discreetly, and even slyly adjust my jeans. But this isn’t the time for anything but the smiling.” He hesitated, giving it a second thought as
Caro smirked at his reference to adjusting jeans. “Well, maybe a little ogling. But that’s it. Right now, you’re the reason I’m here, and that’s the way it’s got to stay. So pack your things and let’s go.”

She froze, staring blankly. “What do you mean—you said we were safe here!”

“We’re fine,” he said, not caring how near or far he was to the truth, not when they were on their way elsewhere. “But it was a mistake for me to bring you to the picnic. You’ve had too much happen in the past couple of days, and I should have known you’d be too tense to enjoy it. It just highlights something I really already knew—we need someplace more isolated. As it happens, because I’m the man, I’ve found it.”

Carolyne looked helplessly around the rented room. “But what about—?”

“We’re paid up. I’ll leave a note of thanks.”

“Rio—”

“Caro,” he said, gently cutting her off, “we’re going. You need peace and quiet and security so you can do your rocket-scientist thing and get this bull’s-eye off your back.” He deliberately didn’t include running water, flushing toilets or central heating in his list of benefits. He’d know for sure about those once they got there.

Though he could at least be certain they wouldn’t run into Bonnie Miller.

D
arkness covered Mill Springs with a thick obscurity brought on by heavy cloud cover and no moon. Kimmer, snug and smug in her roomy new mountain parka over the fleece vest she’d brought along, had little concern of being spotted as she prowled the late-night grounds of Angelina’s. The parka suited her completely—short enough so it didn’t interfere with her movement or her access to the .38, long slashes of diagonal access pockets at the front, Gore-Tex breath-ability and protection. Add a little Thinsulate and what more could a good Hunter operative ask for?

A little more quiet
. But even if the material did have a certain swish against itself, the dark green color disappeared nicely into the night. And her own jacket, a lined, silent blue fleece, hadn’t been up to the unpredicted cold snap.

Not to mention that buying it had put her on to Rio’s own recent purchases. Talkative people, these shopfolk were. And she was beginning to suspect her jacket wasn’t the only thing that could disappear into the night.
Rio…Carolyne…gone?
Through the evening she’d tracked the activity of the house, lights on and off, and though the public part of the house had grown dark while the second-and third-story rooms bloomed with smears of light, Carolyne’s room remained unoccupied.

Kimmer waited for the other bedroom lights to fade, reaching into her pocket for the little nine-ounce monocular night scope that showed her, once again, the empty spot in the small parking area curving along the side of the house. At first she’d thought Rio had simply parked the rental elsewhere, having learned a lesson about leaving it vulnerable to easy access.

But now…

They’re gone.

As much as the annoyance of it chafed her, it’d do her no good to rush in to confirm the situation if she spooked some innocently vacationing couple in the process. Especially not if they called the police. Hunter credentials would help get her out of trouble, but they’d blow her cover into irredeemable bits.

So she waited for the last light to go out, and then she headed for the porch, balancing on the railing and reaching for a handhold on the upper level. In the end she gave a little hop, gloved fingers grasping, before she could get enough of a grip to pull herself up.

Rio, as she recalled, had had no trouble at all. Not with reaching a good grip, not with pulling himself up…a pleasure to watch.

She landed lightly on the other side of the railing and silently followed the balcony to the window she’d tagged as Carolyne’s—the one that had remained dark all evening. A few moments of patient work gained her access, and she slipped through the window much more easily than Rio had.

There she stood, silent, scanning the room quickly in darkness and then with the little night scope and finally, convinced she was alone and that her entrance had alarmed no one, with a small Maglite. Everything seemed to be in its place, the room impossibly neat. With the flashlight she finally identified the myriad of objects placed on every available surface—little ceramic turkeys, a few decorative miniature squashes and cobs of Indian corn, and…okay, yeah…pigs.
Whatever
. She found a bulky stack of papers beside the small wastebasket at the bureau; a quick look revealed them to be much the same as littered her room, those brochures gleaned from the stores of Mill Springs. An innocuous thing to find in a tourist’s room.

The flashlight in her teeth, she flipped through the papers, hunting for wayward notes and scribblings. Nothing. No surprise. She fanned it all out on the floor, kneeling on one knee while the other supported her hand and flashlight. Most of the papers had that unused look to them, but several had clearly been handled.

“Ah-ha,” she murmured, looking at the brochure for the seasonally closed scout camp. “Do great minds think alike after all?” She switched off the Maglite and gave a contemplative glance out into the night, taking in the darkness of it, considering the time of night. She wanted to chase after them
now
, right this minute—
dammit,
Rio Carlsen, did you have to make this job any harder?
—but she wasn’t sure she’d find the camp in the dark, and she was even less certain that she’d locate Rio and Carolyne within the camp. The brochure showed images of platform tent groupings in heavily wooded enclaves, narrow paths snaking between craft and swimming and mess hall buildings and a neatly obscured front entrance.

Time to return to her sad little motel room and grab a few hours of hard sleep before dawn. After that…Camp Cardinal.

For now, she could only hope she was right. Otherwise, there’d be no finding her wayward charges.

“You’re safe,” Rio said into the darkness. The camp mattress wasn’t quite big enough to hold him, but then neither was the sleeping bag. He tugged his jacket over his upper chest and shoulders, filling the gap. “Go to sleep.”

“Safe,” Carolyne said, sounding unconvinced from her spot on the little building’s only camp cot. Not that he blamed her, considering how her small-town retreat had turned out.

“Safe,” he repeated firmly. He’d easily broken into the nurse’s station, finding a tiny kitchen, bathroom and sitting room behind the biggest room of all, the nurse’s station itself. Two child-sized cots, a desk, an empty filing cabinet and a stand-alone cupboard with leftover first-aid supplies, the items that would keep over time and winter. “No one knows we’re here.”

“Mill Springs knows we were
there
,” Carolyne pointed out.

“Now that we’re not there any longer, we can hardly attract the attention of anyone who might be interested,” Rio responded without hesitation, making a floorboard creak as he shifted within the sleeping bag.

She sighed, which meant she wasn’t going to argue his point. And then she sighed again, which meant…

He wasn’t sure. Not until she said, “I wish I could talk to Scott. I didn’t think I’d miss him like this.”

“It looked to me like you could use some time apart.” Rio winced as the words left his mouth; tact was hard to find at the end of a day like this one. Or maybe some of Bonnie Miller’s refreshing bluntness had worn off on him.

Okay, her bluntness was just a little beyond refreshing.
Startling
might be a better word. But it still made him shake his head and smile. In his family, where everyone took care of everyone else, he was still the one who took care of sticky situations.

Bonnie Miller probably never called anyone else to help in her life. As petite as she was, she moved with the assurance of an athlete. Of someone who knew her own body and her own space, and how to use it.

She sure knew how to use that little club she’d carried. And that revolver, hidden so well he hadn’t even detected she was carrying. For all those jeans hugged her tight little butt, she’d chosen them well, giving herself enough room at the groin to pull off the concealed carry.

Don’t think about Bonnie Miller’s groin
.

Whoops, too late.

Well, at least it was dark.

But while he’d been mulling things that made it too plain he’d been out of his last relationship for way too
long, Caro was still thinking about Scott. For she sighed again, and said in a small voice, “You’re right, we did need some time apart. And maybe it’s a good thing we got it…you know, that being away makes me see that I do miss him.”

Rio wasn’t so certain. As frightened as she’d been these past days, she might merely miss the reassurance of an idealized relationship. She might just miss being home. But he said nothing, because of that long-learned lesson that no one was good enough for Carolyne, just as no one would ever be good enough for the daughter he hoped to have someday. “Go to sleep,” he told her, bringing them back around to the beginning of the conversation. “Start working fresh tomorrow, get that mysterious problem solved and then you’ll be talking to Scott again before you know it.”

She rustled in the dark, sorting out her own sleeping bag, and then she said, “Good night, Rio.” But she didn’t sound convinced.

The dirt road entrance to Camp Cardinal would have been nigh invisible in the barely dawn light had not its small, stout wooden sign—complete with a cheerful cardinal wearing a bandana—been posted by the roadside, nearly engulfed by late-season roadside chicory still wearing the intense blue colors of morning. Upon spotting the sign, Kimmer pulled to the side of the road. The tough chicory stems whapped the side of the Taurus as she brought it to a stop, and then grabbed at her legs as she walked to the dirt road. By rights, it should show no use, but the tire tracks were easy enough to see. A single set—and recent, disturbing the hard dirt, flip
ping up pieces of the sparse gravel in the roadbed. All subtle signs, but clear enough to draw Kimmer onward.

She left the car where it was. If she was right about Rio’s bolt-hole, she’d have to hike out, return to town, and grab up more supplies. But until she knew just where he was within the camp, she had no intention of alarming him with the engine noise of the little wagon.

Half a mile along the tree-crowded road, she warmed up enough to pull off her jacket, leaving her with the dark vest over an olive-green thermal shirt, jeans and lightweight hiking boots. Today she’d come lightly armed, with only the little knife and the .38; she didn’t expect to use either.

Three-quarters of a mile in, she got her first glimpse of a platform tent, canvas flaps laced tightly closed against the season. She’d come back and search the tent groupings if she had to, but not until she’d checked the enclosed buildings—those that would have electricity and other possible amenities. If nothing else, Carolyne needed electricity to work—Rio would have checked that out before bringing her here. Computer batteries never lasted anywhere near as long as it seemed they should.

The main road took her right by the office, a small shingled structure that hardly looked big enough to function as an office at all. Kimmer approached it with care but not concern; other buildings had more potential to serve as both work space and living space. She found no sign of intrusion, not so much as a raccoon print. The protected bulletin board along one wall held a permanent map of the camp layout, and she paused long enough to compare it to the much smaller version she’d memorized from the brochure.

There. The mess hall. The nurse’s station. Possibly the craft building. She’d check them first.

Not far along the root-riddled back path between the empty mess hall and the nurse’s station, Kimmer spotted a fine, reflected shimmer of light near the ground. She snorted.
He must be kidding
. Following the monofilament line took her to a rock, and up to a tree branch held back by the line and a precarious support system of rocks and other branches. Anyone triggering the little trap would take a huge brushy whack to the face, but it wasn’t going to stop anyone. It probably wouldn’t even slow them down, unless they were unlucky enough to take a stick near the eye. Anyone in the league to come after Carolyne would do no more than shout in surprise and thrash their way through.

Ah. Making just enough noise so Rio would know an intruder was on the way. Kimmer found herself smiling in appreciation. What had happened, she wondered, to drive him away from the Agency? Veiled references to vague events were all Hunter had supplied. Rio certainly hadn’t left it all behind him, not coming at Carolyne’s beck and call, traveling across several states to join in this little play. She wondered what he’d get out of it all. Money? Carolyne could afford to pay.

She continued with caution, expecting more trip lines…and finding them. She had no doubt he’d trapped all the paths leading toward Carolyne’s bolt-hole, and even some of the more obvious gaps in the woods. No doubt he’d add to his little collection of literal bushwhacking setups as time allowed.

She bet he missed the CIA’s fancy toys. With those he could have had an honest-to-goodness secure perime
ter. She tried to imagine herself without Hunter’s Nightstorm scope—a lightweight nine ounces, third-generation imaging, small enough to slip into a pocket…and nearly two thousand dollars’ worth of technology. Or the tracker and eavesdropper bugs she had at her disposal, or even the little PDA on which she studied her surveillance photos. She used it for plenty of her own photos, as well, but Hunter had provided it for her assignments. Nice to have that kind of backing, that much support…extra nice to have it coming from people who were bluntly upfront at all times with what they wanted from her.

Perhaps some of that came from their knowledge of her abilities; she’d spot it if they ever tried to play her false. But she never worried about Hunter…with the agency, it was never personal—not before this mission. And it was the personal one had to watch for…the people who used relationships as tools and weapons.
No one will watch out for you but you
. Not eloquent, those words of her mother’s, but profoundly true. She wondered how Carolyne had never learned that lesson.

The path widened, beaten down by many feet over the summers, little girls dashing to and fro where they probably weren’t allowed to run at all but did it anyway at every opportunity. There, in a small clearing…the nurse’s station. There, under the small front stoop, standing sock-footed and relaxed, Rio Carlsen. He had his head angled back, his expression full of concentration. Listening. Then he reached back just inside the doorway and retrieved a pair of loosely laced hikers; he jammed them on his feet while leaning on the door frame and commenced to tighten the laces.
“Iite
kimasu
,” he said. “But I won’t be long. This is why I’m here, Caro—to keep track of things that are out and about. You know, the macho lone-wolf soldier, holding the high gr—” His eyebrows went up at her interruption. “I am too macho. In a good way, I mean, not in a strutting, unbuttoned shirt with chest hair sticking out way.”

But Carolyn wasn’t through with him, and he stuck his head back into the house, shod feet firmly planted on the weather-worn welcome mat outdoors. Their voices filtered out with tones of playful wit, and Kimmer realized two things—one, that this was her chance to leave. Rio was coming out to check his perimeter and his bushwhacking trip lines. The other was her sudden conviction that he’d used the word
macho
with great purpose, expressly to get a rise out of Carolyne. To give her the chance for banter and normality.