Not far from here sat the Hunter family home, a surprisingly modest structure. And hidden away behind the winery’s business section, buffered by discreet security measures, the Hunter Agency maintained its own entrance to its own offices, one that was, without fanfare, labeled Viniculture Development.
Theoretically, Kimmer worked at Viniculture Development, and knew a smattering of wicked grape phrases to throw around should a tourist catch her on the grounds.
Theoretically, she’d never intended to so much as pass through western Pennsylvania. But Kimmer never did anything halfway, so she turned back to inspect the interior of the Taurus. As expected, the car came with a standard complement of quick disguises—wigs, hats, colorful scarves to catch the eye and obscure the features, even an ugly pink raincoat. Eye catchers.
Kimmer threw her suitcase and duffel into the back seat and quickly assessed the contents of the battered tote in the front passenger seat, shoving the leather accordion folder in with the rest of it. Her new name was Bonnie Miller, and evidently Bonnie Miller preferred nail polish with no subtlety whatsoever. That, too, was in the tote, along with a selection of intense eye shadow and a collection of bright little barrettes. Kimmer ran her hand over her hair, a cap of curls Halle Berry short and fringed at the edges, and supposed she might find enough hair to keep a barrette or two from falling out. “Bonnie Miller,” she murmured, looking at herself in the rearview mirror and then back at the contents of the tote. “You’ve got real style.”
But what Bonnie Miller also had, Kimmer quickly discovered, was a tail. The bronze sedan appeared after she’d turned out of Full Cry Winery’s long, winding driveway and onto the state road that would eventually take her to Route 86 and east, until she hit Erie and cut south. Rio and Carolyne Carlsen would be on that road, too—but she had a complete description of the rental car, and could easily avoid bumping into them.
She’d wondered at the necessity of an undercover backup. She’d wondered just how crucial Carolyne’s discovery could be, and just whether anyone would truly care.
Now she looked at the headlights in her rearview mirror, the ones that still, oh so casually, followed her winding, backtracking course.
Someone cares.
Someone already knows too much.
Chapter 2
Rio Carlsen shifted at the wheel of his rented sedan, his butt already numb with a couple of hours of deep night driving behind him and dawn just hinting at the horizon. His cousin Caro slept in the passenger seat beside him, her mouth slightly open and the faint hint of a snore audible above the hum of tires against cold asphalt. A crossword puzzle book was tumbled askew in her lap, caught in a fold of her winter coat. Soon they’d reach Erie, and he’d swap cars. Not a precaution on which he’d planned, but that had been before he’d arrived at Caro’s house in Watervliet and seen the extent of the fear lurking in his cousin’s every expression, every movement. And before one too many things had gone bump in the night.
The evening before Carolyne had greeted him with a wholehearted hug and a whole lot of words, all tripping over themselves to add up to trouble. And not long after, Rio’s hackles had gone up, a warning sign he’d learned to heed well in his CIA years. Caro wanted to run, and Rio thought it was a good idea.
Though not immediately. To start with, he’d focused on the details of getting her packed. Easy details, simple after some of the covert scenarios he’d run. Shortly after his arrival, he snapped his cell phone closed as Carolyne paced into the room, picking up a book as though she might pack it and putting it down somewhere else three steps later.
“Relax,” he said, but winced at the glare she sent him. It had sounded a little patronizing. “Look, Caro, everything will be fine. We’re all set with the B&B in Mill Springs. Don’t get carked.”
“Nice try, but I know that word and I am worried.” She hesitated in midstep, electronic gadgetry dangling from her hand. A battery charger and cords, he thought. “You called them from here? Was that safe?”
“My cell phone.” He held it up for her inspection, leaning elbows on knees as he perched on the edge of a blocky armchair. “No one knows I’m here, correct? Then they won’t check my cell calls. We’re good.” He waited for her to let out her breath in a big sigh; he knew her that well. Close family, tightly knit from his grandmother on down…they looked after one another. Took on the obligations of debt and need—and in this case, fear. Obligations he’d once embraced for his CIA assets as much as for his family.
The sigh came. “Of course,” she said, tugging back the sleeve of the too-large sweatshirt she wore. “You’re the expert…that’s why I called you.”
“But no one else,” he prompted. “No one else knows you’re leaving, or why.”
She stood poised in the doorway to her office, the charger in hand, and seemed to lose herself a moment. When she shook herself out of it she said firmly, “Scott knows I’m going. He doesn’t know why. That’s hard for him.”
“Trouble in paradise?” He couldn’t help it, even though he knew the Big Brother Effect would only make her scowl.
Yep, she scowled, tugged on the sweatshirt. He didn’t know why she bought the things so damn large. “Watch your interpellation.”
Damn. Turnabout was fair play—and he’d have to look that one up. Still, he got the message. With effort, he closed his mouth on his opinions and questions. It didn’t matter that Carolyne had the brains, the pleasant features and sweet disposition that made him feel so protective even as he resented the failure of the male population as a whole to appreciate her. It didn’t matter that she was easily hurt, and that he never wanted to see that happen. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t ever quite approved of Scott’s failure to worship Carolyne properly, because really, what man could live up to his standards?
What mattered was that yesterday his cousin had called him from a pay phone, terrified because she’d heard rumors of a leak at work the same day she’d discovered a vulnerability in the new crop of laser-guided missiles. And she intended to fix it, but until then anyone who knew the weak point could exploit it. As soon as word got out that she could provide that information, she’d be a walking target. There would be international players desperate to exploit the problem before it was fixed, and there would be players trying to delay—or stop—her from fixing it at all.
Her teeth had been chattering.
So Rio had walked away from the Butterfly sailboat he’d been readying for early storage off Lake Michigan, and dusted off his retired secret-agent-man hat. He’d caught the first flight to Albany, grabbed a rental and driven up near Troy to find Watervliet and Carolyne’s charming, dormer-ridden home, surrounded by an astonishing display of fall color on the rolling hills around it.
Tomorrow they’d be on their way to a picturesque B&B in Mill Springs, Pennsylvania, where Caro intended to hide, working feverishly to patch the weapon’s weakness—after which said weakness would be a moot point.
Rio simply had to get her through the night. Or the packing. He wasn’t quite sure which was worse.
He leaned back in the chair, legs stretched out, and scratched the heel of one sport-sock-encased foot with the toe from the other. No shoes in the house, not with his grandmother’s influence still strong. “You know,” he said—and quite reasonably, he thought—” there’ll be shopping in Mill Springs. You can pick up anything you might forget.”
“Not anything,” she said tightly, having disappeared into her home office again. This time she came out with her laptop and unceremoniously dumped it in his lap.
He made an exaggerated grunt at the impact and hefted the thing. “I thought these things were supposed to be lightweight,” he said. “You know, portable?” But he’d heard her wax eloquent over the machine before, and knew it was loaded, the latest in RAM, CD/DVD r/rw drive, screen size and interfaces.
She said, “You’re such a Luddite. That machine has everything I need for this work and then some.” She tossed a black cordura case at him, one f
estooned with pockets he predicted would soon be bulging with peripherals of this and that sort. “Here, be useful, pack that up.”
“I am useful,” he said, dignity wounded.
A scuffing sound outside the door caught his instant attention. Swiftly putting laptop and case aside, he rose to his silent sock feet. Carolyne stood stiffly right in the middle of floor, so he put his hands on her arms and gently moved her aside, nudging her toward the office.
“Do you have a gun?” she whispered, the words barely squeaking out.
“I don’t carry anymore,” he reminded her, his voice as low as hers but more deliberately so. “Now find yourself a hidey-hole.” Dammit. He hadn’t expected trouble this soon.
Rio flipped off the floor lamp beside the chair he’d been in, and found the light switch to the hall. He padded through the dark house into the kitchen, easing up next to the half-glass door as he snagged a nice roll of quarters from the kitchen counter to weight his fist.
But no one came through the door. After a long moment during which Rio heard nothing but a screech owl off in the distant woods, he flipped the dead bolt lock and let the door drift open half an inch.
Nothing. Rio waited, breathing shallowly to concentrate on the sounds of the night, alerting to the faintest of noises near the end of the driveway. It bore checking…
But inside, Carolyne screamed, pure fear and panic. Rio bolted indoors to find the lights of the back hall blazing and Scott Boyle standing there looking annoyed and befuddled and sheepish all at the same time. Rio pushed past Scott to reach Caro where she curled up to fit in the bottom of the linen closet, shaking. “I’m okay.”
Not convincing.
“You’ve had a fright. Take a moment.” And then Rio raised an eyebrow at Scott, a silent demand for an explanation as he set aside the quarters.
“I’ve got a key.” Scott put his hands on his hips, shoving back a cheap suit jacket, and looked at Rio in clear guy-speak that meant And you? “Carolyne told me she had an emergency business trip. I just came by to say goodbye and wish her a good trip. I damn sure wasn’t expecting to find all the lights out and Carolyne hiding in the linen closet.” Scott looked at Carolyne, who quickly looked away.
Rio broke the awkwardness of the moment by helping his cousin to her feet. “It’s my fault,” he said, ushering Carolyne back into the living room, where she chose a corner of her boxy, stylish, color-on-color-patterned couch and sank into it, hugging her arms. “I’m on the road, needed a place to stay. I didn’t realize it would be so inconvenient for her.”
“Ex-spy,” Carolyne mumbled. “Hear a noise, find a closet.”
Scott gave Caro a troubled look—and Rio understood why. Caro was shy and quiet and hadn’t dated seriously before meeting Scott. He’d filled the holes in her life—and he was used to being the one who watched over her. Scott himself seemed to need the stability of the relationship; Caro’s gentleness reached past his rough street-kid experience, giving him the unconditional acceptance he’d never had—not to mention that his relationship with Caro gave him a certain status. But then again, that last bit of internal commentary came from the biased proud-cousin viewpoint.
And now wasn’t the time to let it show. Rio lifted his shoulder in a slightly sheepish shrug. “Occupational hazard,” he admitted. “I’ll give you a moment to sort it out.”
Rio found his shoes and slipped out; they didn’t seem to notice. Scott said something that sounded conciliatory, and there were a few moments of conspicuous silence that, up a little closer, would probably sound like kissing noises.
Rio escaped to prowl the yard and driveway until the cold bit through his sweater, making him clumsy. The small of his back tightened, threatening pain…threatening memories of a night he was still trying to put behind himself. The night that had left him with a CIA disability pension and a part-time job at his brother’s dock—and left him free to come cover his cousin’s back.
He clenched down on the memories as relentlessly as his back reacted to this cold, sweeping one last glance across the woods opposite the entrance to Carolyne’s driveway, peripherally alert to Scott’s departure. He didn’t like the noises he’d heard. And while he and Caro had planned to leave first thing in the morning, Rio thought about Caro’s leak at work and made the sudden decision to leave just as soon as she was packed.
He headed back for the house. As he reached the porch he dropped stealth mode, and Caro’s voice rang out. “Come on in, you big spy goof—he’s gone. Good thing you got out of the biz, if you’re going to be that noisy.”
“Hey!” Rio came through the storm door, closed the house door behind him, offering a quick “Tada Ima”—“I am returned to the dwelling”—as he slipped his shoes off and went right back to the conversation he’d interrupted with his habitual announcement of arrival. “Social sneaking and professional sneaking are two entirely different things.” He leaned against the kitchen counter as Caro appeared in the living room with a stack of clothes, openly watching her. Noting especially the frown around her eyes, the one that hadn’t been there before Scott arrived and had nothing to do with her anxiety over her discovery at work. “You look upset.”
“I guess I am.” She dropped the clothes on the couch. “I don’t like putting him off.”
The best response was sometimes no response at all. She didn’t need to think about this, not now. “You have anything else ready to take out to the car?” Because he, too, had been unsettled by Scott’s visit—now Scott knew Rio had been here, and that news could mean something to the wrong ears. If anyone hunted Caro, they’d come to Scott first. He had no way of knowing how damaging his offhand comments might be. Rio wanted to get her packed and ready to go as quickly as possible.
Soon enough they’d hit the road, heading south and west across the state to put them just outside Erie, with Rio’s butt and back both needing a break they weren’t likely to get.
Rio shifted in the driver’s seat again, hunting a better spot. A glance at Caro showed her still asleep; Rio gave her a wry little smile, hoping she stayed that way, for she’d need all the sleep she could get if she was going to solve the laser-guidance-code weakness before the rest of the world caught up with them.
Kimmer turned the Taurus northward toward Lakemont, ruing every moment lost but not about to lead her tail in the correct direction. With dawn yet to break and no one else on the road, she wouldn’t easily lose her unwanted parasite, though he’d probably expect her to try.
So she did.
She found a familiar little set of back roads and unofficial access roads, and she flipped off her headlights to navigate the darkness, taking them in a few lopsided circles until she hit the main road again and put her foot to the gas, not bothering with the headlights with dawn now on the horizon.
She didn’t think they’d be so easy to lose; a glance in the rearview mirror showed them right in place, hanging back far enough to be casual. They can afford to be. Where was she going to go? On an impulse she turned the headlights on after all…let them think she didn’t recognize them. Ubiquitous little Ford sedan in the most popular color of the year, seen only in darkness…
With no sign of concern, she drove onward. They obliged by falling back even farther, occasionally going invisible—a bronze car without headlights in the dim light of a cloudy morning. Thank you. Now I can pretend I don’t see you at all. In fact, between the hills and curves, they were truly out of sight when Kimmer reached the gas-and-snacks convenience store for which she’d been waiting. She pulled right up at the front of the store, humming lightly to herself, and took the time to transfer her stoutest little toothpick knife from her small contoured backpack purse to her back pocket and to jam a floppy, obscuring knit hat on her head.
Then, as if the goons of the day hadn’t pulled up beside her in the interim, she got out of the car, slipped into the pink raincoat and sauntered into the cookie-cutter convenience store. An aisle for chips and snacks, an aisle for candy, an aisle for items
pretending to be actual food, and freezers lining the walls. Kimmer picked out a wide-necked bottle of Starbucks mocha Frappuccino and resisted everything else but a bag of pretzels.
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 dollars 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.
Exception to the Rule Page 2
