“Be frugal—your cover persona isn’t used to having an expense account.”

“No need to remind me,” Kimmer said, voice dry. “But don’t you suppose someone might just recognize me? Why not use my own name?”

“That would virtually guarantee recognition, which would provide too much of the distraction you’re worried about.” Owen gestured to encompass her from head to toe. “You were only a girl when you left. Now…no more wild hair, no birthmark, clothes that fit…no one’s likely to connect you to Kimmer Reed.”

Did she dare go back? Was Owen right, that her habitual distance wasn’t the strength she’d always considered it? Kimmer knew, suddenly, that she was indeed headed for Mill Springs. Back to western Pennsylvania. Back where memories lurked, waiting to pounce, and where she might well even be recognized.

But they were old memories from a young girl, and she was grown now.

She would pounce back.

DORANNA DURGIN

EXCEPTION TO THE RULE

DORANNA DURGIN

obtained a degree in wildlife illustration and environmental education, then spent a number of years deep in the Appalachian Mountains, riding the trails and writing science fiction and fantasy books. This award-winning author eventually moved to the Northern Arizona Mountains, where she still rides and writes, focusing on classical dressage with her Lipizzan. There’s a mountain looming outside her office window, a pack of dogs running around the house and a laptop sitting on her desk—and that’s just the way she likes it. You can contact her at dmd@doranna.net or P.O. Box 31123, Flagstaff, AZ 86003–1123 (SASE please) or visit www.doranna.net.

For Mona and Chuck Durgin, my cheerleading parents

With thanks to Matrice
And to William Sanders, Robert Brown,
Nancy Durgin, Clint C, Chase Brandon,
Tom-who-read-it-first and Judith-who-read-it-fast.
Mistakes are all mine, mine, mine!

Books by Doranna Durgin

Silhouette Bombshell

Exception to the Rule #11

Silhouette Books

Femme Fatale

“Shaken and Stirred”

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 1

“You’re going to Mill Springs.”

Owen Hunter could have reached across his desk and struck Kimmer without startling her any more deeply. She froze, stuck in a moment of pure inability to comprehend. And then she realized her hands had clenched around the curving wooden arms of the chair, and she made an effort to relax them.

It worked for about three seconds before her knuckles went white again.

She hadn’t expected that ambush. Not from Owen. He’d been on the team that had first picked her up: a runaway, caught in the middle of a Hunter operation and piquing his interest with her instant realization of—and appropriate reaction to—that fact. He knew what she’d been. How hard she’d worked to leave it behind.

This was her world, now—a world where laser surgery had taken care of her nearsighted eyes and facial birthmark, expert shears had tamed her relentlessly curly hair and experience and training had taken instinct and honed it into professional expertise.

I’m not going back.

The first time Kimmer opened her mouth in response to Owen’s pronouncement, nothing came out. The second time she unleashed biting words. “Couldn’t you find anyone else who can pronounce ‘crick’ or ‘worsh’ or ‘Pinsivania’?”

“It’s more than that, and you know it.” Owen interlaced his fingers atop the papers on his desk, understanding her outburst but not yielding before it. His craggy features remained deceptively impassive. “If we had more time, any of our people could handle this case—other than the need to blend into the environment, there’s nothing particularly challenging about it. But we don’t have time, or I wouldn’t have pulled you off the Australia assignment in the middle of the night. And we’re not asking you to return home. Mill Springs isn’t home.”

“It’s not far away.” The shock began to fade, replaced by anger. But it was a cold anger, an expectant anger. People used Kimmer Reed for their own ends—they always had, and always would. She had simply failed to anticipate that this particular man would use her in this particular way. Not when he as much as anyone in her current life knew what and where she’d come from. And not when he shifted his gaze away. Only for an instant…but long enough. “You’re up to something. Spit it out, Owen, or I walk.”

The air tightened down around them. It wasn’t a threat she’d ever made…and it wasn’t empty. He couldn’t have been ready for it—though neither had she been ready for him to withhold something so crucial.

“I’m sorry.” He ran his knuckles under his chin, gave a short shake of his head. “I should have known better. But you won’t like the answer any better than the prevarication.”

Kimmer waited.

Owen sighed. “We’re worried about you, Kimmer. We think this is a good opportunity for you to…face yourself.”

For once Kimmer found herself flummoxed. “I look in the mirror all the time.”

“Exactly,” he said dryly. “And what do you see there? Characters you become for our needs. Faces you assume so not only do the others never see who you really are, but you never really have to look at them, either. You’re not connected to the people in our work—not even to yourself.”

She very nearly sputtered. She managed to merely narrow her eyes. “That’s possibly the most arrogant thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

He shrugged with no apparent offense. “You know people in your way,” he said, “and I know them in mine. The family agrees.” As she stiffened, he gave a slight nod. “Yes, of course we’ve been discussing it. We’re worried, as I said. And when this assignment came through, we all agreed—it’s something you need to do.”

He had to be kidding. Or insane. “What if being back in that area is just so distracting that I screw up the job? What if I lose and the client loses? What if this messes with my ability to play the roles? There’s a reason you call me Chimera.”

This time he held her gaze steadily. “Those are risks.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I’m asking you not to.”

“And what if I refuse anyway?”

He leaned back in his chair. It gave way behind him, tilting on sturdy springs. “It would change things,” he admitted, and the fluorescent lighting came down harshly on his face at this angle, making shadows out of the least opportunity. “We would have to reprioritize your assignments, so we didn’t waste time when we had no time to waste. On a job like this, for instance. We’d have to reevaluate how we’re going to use your skills, if we feel you’re hindered by the distance you’re putting between yourself and those you work with—whether it’s a client or our own people.”

It would change things. And changing things would change her life—a life for which her mother had unknowingly prepared her. Her mother, rocking her to sleep, bruises covering her face and tears smudging her cheeks, exhorting her only daughter to be strong. To be her own champion. To live by rules of survival. And showing Kimmer by example what would happen otherwise.

Kimmer’s father had made sure she’d know, too. And her brothers, cruel boys who took after their father in every way—they’d driven those lessons home. Kimmer had been lucky to escape so young.

Luck, nothing. You ran like hell.

But she wasn’t running now. From Owen…or from herself. She’d make her choices and she’d live with them.

Kimmer regarded Owen for a long, silent moment, which he ended by letting out a sigh and using two fingers to push the paper across the desk to her. “Just look at the particulars.”

She kept her gaze on his face as she picked it up, not letting him off the hook. Mill Springs bed and breakfast, think tank computer wizard currently assigned to a military contract on the run for what she’s discovered, boyfriend concerned and wants her protected—

“As you can see, she’s got primary protection,” Owen said, interrupting at just the right moment after she’d skimmed through her cover identity, the names and details of the client, the subject, and the man named Rio Carlsen.

She tossed the paper back on his desk. “He’s ex-CIA. She’s in good hands. What do you need me for?”

“Don’t be disingenuous,” he said, the first signs of true annoyance showing in his frown. “He’s basically a bodyguard. He can’t afford the necessary time away from her side to know if they’ve been found or if action is imminent. And there’s some question about his physical condition.”

“So you want someone watching their backs until she thinks it’s safe to resurface. Which will be when she patches whatever problem she’s discovered.”

“Exactly. Her boyfriend knew next to nothing about it, but we’ve interviewed her boss, and that’s what we’ve been able to piece together. For all her boss keeps reminding us it’s a guess, he’s sure it has something to do with the laser-guided missiles they’ve been troubleshooting. The real twist is that the facility is under a very quiet internal investigation—they suspect they’ve got an active leak. If so, there are endless international and political factions who will hunt for Carolyne Carlsen—and she definitely won’t come out in the open until she’s solved the problem.”

“And who knows how long that will be. Should I have packed for spring, too?”

A glint of humor replaced his frown, although Kimmer hadn’t intended to amuse him. Not when dread sat so heavily in her stomach. He said, “Her boyfriend seems quite confident of her abilities to wrap things up quickly. So does her boss. Anyone with an interest in this material will feel the same—thus the rush. We need you in place as soon as they get there. That means you’ll need to be on the road this morning.”

“Running from my boyfriend the next county over,” she said darkly, referring to the paper she’d read. “Nice cover.”

“It’s simple. It’ll get sympathy. It’ll give you a reason to be concerned about anyone else new coming into town.”

True. All of it true.

She nodded at the paper. “I want to talk to the fiancé. In person.”

Owen gave a single regretful shake of his head. “No time for that. He’s still up north of Albany. I’ve got a phone conversation—”

“It’s not the same.” But he knew that; it was the cause of his regret. She sighed, and gestured at the computer station to the side of his desk, a sleek, huge LCD screen over a tucked-away keyboard and CPU, peripherals stacked neatly on the shelves. Owen pulled the keyboard tray out and tapped in a few commands; in moments, the conversation played back over the computer speakers.

Scott Boyle. Concerned. Tense. A little peremptory, obviously protective and used to playing the role. He spoke of Carolyne Carlsen’s peril, and of the stakes above and beyond her life. He mentioned a few facts about Ryobe Carlsen. Clearly he didn’t like Ryobe—or Rio, as he quickly shortened the man’s name—but didn’t seem to distrust him.

She couldn’t glean much else. Nothing that wasn’t in the report. “How’d you find out about the B&B? Boyle doesn’t have any idea where she’s headed.”

“The cousin’s cell phone records,” Owen said promptly. “No doubt Carlsen thought he was secure to use his own phone—only Boyle knows the cousin is involved.”

“What else have you got?” For the single piece of paper wasn’t it; that paper held only a summary of the players and situation.

He reached into a side desk drawer and pulled out a black leather accordion folder. Within there was a file on Carolyne; that could wait. It was the cousin she wanted to see—his background details, a sense of his ability—the person she’d be working with, albeit without his knowledge. And if he was ex-CIA, perhaps there was a reason.

She pulled out his file, flipped it open to an 8x10 printer image of Ryobe Carlsen, and blinked in surprise. What an odd expression for a portrait, impatient and a little annoyed and yet still the hint of charm around a smile caught in the forming. She looked up at Owen, who, in a rare moment, appeared somewhat abashed. “It’s a blowup of his driver’s-license photo from a year or so ago. Other images seem…hard to come by.”

Good. That means he’s careful.

She took another look, glancing at the physical description on the page. Six foot three, a brawny build, born of a Danish American family, currently engaged part-time in repairing, cleaning, and storing boats with his brother in Michigan. Danish American…? She looked from the text to the picture. Not with that combination of features. Dark wheat hair, thick and straight and cut tight at his neck and over his ears. The upper section of hair grew long enough so his forelock fell rather fetchingly over one brow, lifted slightly by a cowlick. His brows themselves were dark, dark enough to make Kimmer wonder if the wheaty blond came naturally. She glanced into Carolyne’s folder, finding a young woman of sweetly pretty features on a longish face and the very same hair—perhaps not quite so thick, perhaps with a little bit of wave that was absent from his, but the color was identical. She too had those dark brows.

But she didn’t have her cousin’s tilted eyes, rich brown irises rimmed with black. And she didn’t have the bone structure that reflected those eyes, the angular cheekbones over an equally angular jaw.

“His maternal grandparents met in Japan,” Owen said, perfectly aware of the contradictions in Carlsen’s appearance that had caught her eye. “He was a sailor. She worked in a factory. They came over here and settled in with the Danish side of the family who’d already established themselves on Lake Michigan. It’s all in there, buried beneath his training, his performance, his hobbies.” Pen and brush calligraphy. A handy skill for covert identity creation in the field. And Carlsen had a weakness for crossword puzzles…no doubt he liked to play with ciphers, too. Though he’d have no need for either in Mill Springs, Pennsylvania.

Owen jabbed a finger at the paper. “Written neatly between the lines is a scandal over his retirement—almost certainly he was hurt and has some kind of pension—but no one seems willing to talk about it. Someone messed up, and Carlsen paid the price.”

“Scandal.” She flipped the folder closed and stuffed it back into the accordion envelope. “That sounds promising.”

“His cousin trusts him with her life.”

“And her fiancé doesn’t.”

He shrugged. “True. But I think we can figure he’ll be more than adequate in neutralizing close-range threats. As for you, it’s a simple cover. Forget all that work you did to drop your childhood speech patterns and you’re set. You already know more about the area than anyone else we’ve got, even if Mill Springs isn’t quite Munroville. There’s a car waiting in the visitor’s lot, and it’s got identification, a credit card, and quite a bit of cash waiting for you. Keep your phone charged.” He ignored the face she made, and she didn’t blame him. Not with her track record of cell phones and batteries. “Be frugal—your cover persona isn’t used to having an expense account.”

“No need to remind me,” Kimmer said, voice dry. “But don’t you suppose someone might just recognize me, even the next town over from home? Why not use my own name?”

“That would virtually guarantee recognition, which would provide too much of the distraction you’re worried about.” Owen gave her an amused look, gesturing to encompass her from head to toe. “You were only a girl when you left. Now, no more wild hair, no birthmark, clothes that fit…No one’s likely to connect you to Kimmer Reed even if you walked into downtown Munroville.”

Kimmer snorted. Not likely to happen. But Mill Springs? Did she dare Mill Springs? Was Owen right, that her habitual distance represented a problem and not the strength she’d always considered it? Kimmer bit the corner of her lip hard as she came head-to-head with the decision and knew, suddenly, that she was indeed headed for Mill Springs. Back to western Pennsylvania. Back where memories lurked, waiting to pounce, and where she might well even be recognized.

But they were old memories from a young girl, and she was grown now.

She would pounce back.

Her assigned car, an older Taurus wagon with enough dings and scratches to suit her struggling cover persona, waited in the visitor’s lot as promised, looking sad and battered in the predawn darkness. Kimmer gave it a resentful stare and couldn’t quite yet open the door. She glared out over the facility, not needing sunlight or even breaking dawn to perfectly visualize the grounds.

Full Cry Winery was nestled between two of New York State’s southern-tier Finger Lakes, up against the shore of Seneca Lake. Upon arrival she’d pulled her own car past the old barn—converted to a visitor’s center—to the addition and modern outbuildings where the business offices and actual working areas of the fully functioning winery were located. The double-level cellar started beneath the business offices and ran under the barn; Kimmer liked to walk it in the hottest part of summer and absorb the stringent smells of tannin and crushed grape and wine and damp concrete.

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 festooned 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.

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 perfect, 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.

These particular goonboys were big, well-groomed…a definite city look to them. And while they might have thought they’d struck a casual note with their polo shirts tight over beefy muscle and barely worn jeans, their intensity of purpose came through loud and clear. Carolyne missed it as she came to a stop at the end of the counter, frowning fiercely at her electronic notes and completely unaware that as soon as they arrived, they aimed that intensity of purpose right at her.

They should have paid more attention to Rio. Kimmer did. She hid a small smile at his minimalist tactics, for he merely stuck out his foot and sent the foremost goonboy sprawling across the floor. The cardboard Steelers memorabilia display went down, striking Carolyne; she leaped back, head jerking up and eyes going wide as she suddenly realized the situation developing around her.

“Caro,” Rio said, not raising his voice at all as he stepped in front of the second goonboy, “get in the car. Lock it and go.”

“I’m calling 911,” the store owner blurted, groping around under the counter, his gaze darting from Rio to the second goonboy to Carolyne.

Carolyne looked startled. “I can’t go without you—”

“Do it,” he said, and this time his voice held a steely tone that widened Carolyne’s eyes.

Probably her first glimpse of Rio Carlsen, spyboy. Kimmer had seen the like often enough; she stayed small and quiet—and ready. But Carolyne had already lost her chance. While Rio stood in the path of the second man, his stance almost as casual as he’d been with his cookies at the counter, Kimmer eased around the end of the aisle in time to see the first man getting to his feet, his face ruddy with anger and embarrassment—and also filled with more determination than Kimmer liked to see in a goonboy.

Beside the counter, the second man growled something low and threatening; Rio responded without heat. “I don’t think so.” And then Kimmer left the moment to him, for Carolyne had gone into retreat, skipping backward toward the bathroom she’d just vacated as her assailant lunged at her.

Can of soup. Bad guy. No-brainer.

Kimmer pitched the can with a wicked arm.

As the can of chicken noodle bounced off the man’s head, Carolyne finally turned to flee, running along the wall coolers, taking out a display tree of chips and heading for the door. Good. She was their weak spot, and now she’d bolted out of reach. Kimmer pulled the short, stout toothpick blade from her pocket and flicked aside the stubby leather sheath, covering the short aisle in a quick pounce. A glance showed her that Rio had shifted again, keeping himself between Carolyne and her would-be kidnapper but also effectively blocking the door so she couldn’t escape. Just hold him off a moment—

Her own goonboy rolled on the floor with a surfeit of cursing, blood gushing from his ear. Kimmer just barely heard the store owner in the background, shouting into the phone. “Send someone quick! There’s a big fight in my store—there’s blood!”

There was indeed blood. There might even be more. Kimmer landed knee first on the goonboy; she thought she felt a rib give way beneath her. It got his attention; he might have flung her right back off again if he hadn’t felt the cold flat blade of her knife on his face, pressing down against his cheek with the tip brushing his lower lashes.

He blinked again, letting his lower lashes brush the knife to confirm its presence. For an instant he considered taking his chances; Kimmer pushed the knife down, dimpling the skin but not cutting it. “Let’s be quick about this,” she said, Bonnie Miller’s accent fully in place. “Unless you’d still like to be here when the police arrive.”

“Who the hell are you?” His words came out muffled thanks to her knuckles against his mouth, but she found them understandable enough.

“Someone who wants answers,” she said. And who doesn’t want anyone else to hear me get them. “How’d you find them?”

His eyes, already quite full of seething anger, made room for perplexity.

“All right, then, how’d you find her?”

Understanding dawned. Cooperation didn’t.

She twisted her fingers in his collar, glanced back over at Rio as he staggered back into a display of small foam coolers. He took his opponent with him, and she looked down again, meeting enough of a sneer that she sneered back and drew a careful pinprick of blood from the tender flesh of the goonboy’s lower eyelid. He squirmed, surprised, bucking slightly beneath her. She snapped at him. “Don’t do that, you jerk! Or are you already blind in that eye?” He stilled; she leaned closer, lowering her voice as the store owner drew closer in horrified fascination, the phone drooping from his hand. She covered the short blade of her knife with her thumb, hiding it from prying eyes. “Did you tail me?”

“You?” He’d gone still; no doubt he could feel the little trickle of blood down the side of his face. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“Ex-softball pitcher,” she told him, not taking time for the curse that leaped to mind at the realization that Carolyne had more than one set of goons on her tail. “What’d you think of my curve ball?”

He gave her a few blistering oaths in response, but he’d learned his lesson; he didn’t try to move. When he’d finished she leaned closer, right up to his bleeding ear, and whispered, “The police are coming, asshole. Tell me how you found her, or you know what? I’m going to pop this eye like a grape. I haven’t done an eye in waaay too long….”

“God, you’re crazy!” he blurted.

She nodded wisely, still up close and personal. Chimera, the crazy version.

“Aw, hell. She’s bugged, okay?”

“Where?”

“Like I know? You stupid bitch, I didn’t plant the bug, I’m just following it to make the snatch.”

Kimmer released his knit collar, keeping the knife firmly in place as she reacquired the soup can. In the background, glass broke; the store owner dashed back to his counter with a cry of dismay. “Well, you’re not making the snatch today,” she told him. “But while you’re here…that’s a nasty mole, there, beside your nose. You want I should remove it?”

“You crazy bi—”

Kimmer slammed the soup can against his already battered head, a calculated blow. He grunted with surprise and impact, and his eyes rolled up. He didn’t quite go all the way out, but he wasn’t going to be chatty for a few minutes. In that time, she hoped to be out of here.

She eased back from the man, wiped her hand on his shirt to clean it of the small smear of his blood and reached back for the knife sheath, securing the knife without looking. Rio’s opponent wrenched himself away and bolted for the door, first slamming into it and then yanking it open to escape.

Rio scrambled up from the remains of the foam coolers, staggering a little on his feet, one hand to his back but his expression purely intent on the escaping assailant. He wanted to give chase—that was clear enough—but he didn’t. Especially not as Carolyne threw herself at him, exclaiming over his welfare.

But only for a moment. She might be terrified, and she might have led the sheltered life Kimmer pegged on her, but she pulled herself away, trembling legs and all, and stood apart as she followed her cousin’s gaze.

To Kimmer.

Kimmer stood, hefting the soup can. “That softball’s coming in handy, isn’t it?” Innit, in Bonnie Miller’s voice. She gave it a hard edge, the voice of a woman who’s been in tussles. Her own voice, in fact, when things got too personal. “Didn’t mean to hit him quite that hard, though.”

The store owner leaned over his counter to frown at the man. “He was talking just a moment ago—”

She gave a short, decisive shake of her head. “I was afraid I’d…well, you know…killed him. He roused up for a minute there, but he’s still pretty out of it.”

“You’re all right?” Rio asked. She didn’t blame him for his puzzlement over a total stranger who’d come to Carolyne’s rescue, his sharp-eyed assessment of her. At least he hadn’t seen the knife.

She shrugged, struggling to hide the anger that fueled her through such moments and lingered afterward. He’d certainly not understand that, not from your average woman in such laid-back rural surrounds. “Might get the shakes in a minute or two, but I’ll do. And the cops are coming.” There was no help for it now; she had to bring up her destination, even as she plunked the gas money on the counter. “I don’t need to see them again. I’m gonna be gone. I believe I’ve got enough gas to get right on to Mill Springs.”

“But that’s where—” Carolyn cut off her words, giving Rio an uncertain look. Rio hadn’t taken his eyes from Kimmer; his gaze made a definite impact. Not a blow…but a connection.

“Well, sure—that’s where this road leads,” Kimmer offered, lingering when she should have been moving right on out. Was that a siren? She looked at Rio, wondering if he’d heard it, too. “Bonnie Miller. Maybe I’ll see you there.” She tossed the soup to him.

Rio snatched it out of the air and gave her a slow smile, one that kicked off an instant surge of resentment. Don’t be personable, dammit. Don’t turn real. Stay an object.

But of course he had no clue to her thoughts, and made things even worse. He gave her a short formal bow, a gesture performed with such casual flair she thought it must be ingrained. “Bonnie Miller,” he said, making no move to introduce himself or Carolyne, “see you in Mill Springs.”

“You’re just leaving?” the store owner demanded. Much of his authority had returned with the disappearance of goonboy two and the dazed condition of goonboy one.

Rio tossed a few bills on the counter, picked up his cookies and soda and took Carolyne’s hand, leading her out of the store without haste.

Kimmer lingered long enough to lift an eyebrow at the store owner. “I wouldn’t take anything that fellow says too seriously. He’s concussed, you know?”

“You can’t just go,” the man said, but Rio was gone and Kimmer went through the door with no qualms. They didn’t need the locals to get tied up in this.

Now all she had to do was warn Rio about the bug without blowing her cover.

Yeah, right. As if.

But as she hesitated by the corner of the store, she found Rio and Carolyne in conversation beside a car that definitely didn’t match the description she’d been given. He’d switched somewhere along the way. Smart man. Carolyne’s voice rose, and it held a frantic note. “But they found us! How on earth—you’re sure no one followed us?”

“I’m sure.” Rio offered her a cookie and she gave him an incredulous look. So he opened the driver’s door, tossed the cookies inside and inserted one of the sodas into the holder at the corner of the dash, handing the other to Carolyne. “There’s not much doubt about it, Caro. We’re bugged. It’s not the car—we switched it. We’ve got to get out of here—” for that really was a siren Kimmer heard this time, small-town cop probably hoofing it from the other side of the county “—but as soon as we find a spot to pull over, we’ll search our stuff.”

Ah, good. Sometimes things were easy. Kimmer plopped down behind the wheel of the Taurus and cranked it up before she even got the door closed. That was the end of that.

Except she knew, as she pulled out onto the two-lane road that would take her to Mill Springs, that it was really only the beginning.

Chapter 3

Carolyne sank against the car, her hands covering her face. “I can’t believe it. How could anyone have bugged us? When?”

Rio watched Bonnie Miller’s battered dark green Taurus pull out of the parking lot, his inner eye flashing back to the store. That soup can had come from nowhere. Nice arm. Intense eyes, indigo flashing in the daylight at the storefront…hiding something. Nice….

“You’re smiling! How can you possibly be smiling?”

Rio gave her a startled glance. “Hey,” he said gently. “We’re okay.”

But he swallowed hard at the sudden surge of protective anger that tightened his body. Carolyne—genius, worrier and fugitive—had not made his life choices, the ones that had put him in physical danger, the ones that had taken advantage of his low-key approach to high-stakes situations. She didn’t deserve this fear, or this forced flight from home. She didn’t deserve to tangle with dangerous operatives and kidnap attempts. And besides all that, she was his cousin. She was family, dammit, and Rio wasn’t going to let anyone treat his family this way. He’d watched CIA case officers SUDSBERG die, and BOXXER…and Rio’s local agent Sakhim. Station mates and friends. That was enough.

And she wouldn’t take comfort in seeing his anger. He took a breath, reminded himself that she was fine. Not a scratch. Still on track for safety in hiding.

Because we had help, he realized.

Although not strictly true. He’d had options he hadn’t taken, not once he’d seen the second man go down. Two opportunities to have killed his opponent and one crippling blow that Rio had pulled. He’d chosen not to escalate the situation, not as long as the conveniently flying soup can had reduced his opponents.

Shaking off such thoughts, he opened the nearest door—the back seat—and gestured Carolyne into the car to the background tune of the approaching siren. “We’ll go down the road a way, pull over and find the bug. Once we find it, we’ll have a better idea when we were tagged. But until then…our new friend Bonnie has the right idea.” He made sure her feet were out of the way, then closed the door, ducking into the front seat. “We don’t need to be here when the police arrive.”

Carolyne groaned in disbelief and sank down in the seat, shoving aside the hasty pile of luggage they’d thrown in the back when they’d switched cars just north of Erie. “God. Hiding from the police. I can’t believe it.”

Rio spun the wheel one-handed, an arm across the back of the passenger seat as he looked behind, backing the car at a speed that made Carolyne shut her eyes, squinchy faced. “I’m not sure,” he said, “but this just might be an actual case of being too smart for your own good.”

She kicked the back of his seat. “I can’t believe you even said that!”

He grinned, shifted into drive and pulled out onto the road. By the time they passed a police cruiser coming from the opposite direction, he’d reached a sedate pace; rather than be seen as accelerating—by which the police might just guess he’d only just pulled away from the store—he cruised there until they were well out of sight.

Carolyne poked her head up, giving him a critical gaze in the review mirror. “You’re bleeding.”

“Long way from my heart.”

“You take this all so lightly!”

This time he looked into the mirror to meet her frightened gaze, big blue eyes that looked much better when they weren’t so red rimmed. “I don’t,” he assured her, and his back twinged slightly to remind him of that bad landing in the coolers. His opponent had been damn good…just not good enough. “But we’re okay. And we’re doing fine. Within a mile or so we’ll lose that bug, and they’ve got no way of knowing where we go from here.”

“But we’re headed right for Mill Springs! Of course they’ll guess—” But she cut herself short. “We’re not, are we? Headed the way we were going, I mean.”

“We’re not,” he affirmed. “We’ll turn around once we’re clean. And looky here—this is just the place.” He stepped on the brake hard, easing up just enough to keep from losing rubber, and made an abrupt turn into a single-lane asphalt road labeled Private Drive.

“But—”

He gave a sharp shake of his head. “Trust, Caro. Trust. We’ll only go far enough so we’re not easy to spot from the road. Mr. and Mrs. Private Drive will never know we stopped by.”

All the same, he did pull almost completely off the asphalt once he’d jockeyed the car through a series of J-turns to face the main road. Just in case Mr. or Mrs. Private Drive tried to pass by.

“Out,” he announced, cutting the engine but leaving the keys in the ignition. “For now we’ll assume we’re each clean, but that’s it. Everything else gets searched.” After a moment’s thought he went to the car trunk and pulled the carpet piece covering the spare tire. He put it on the ground beside the now open passenger door—Carolyne sat sideways in the seat, her sneakered feet on the ground. Pink sneakers. Very girly.

He gestured at the carpet. “Let’s start with your purse. Dump it on out.”

She upended the purse an inch from the ground, gently shaking it until the lining hung upside down from the loose crochet. “There,” she said. “I’ll bet you always wanted to do this.”

“Honey, I started my spy training early. Your first purse held a fake lipstick, a taped-up picture of that guy who played Bobby Ewing, an address book in which all the i’s were dotted with little hearts and a Texas Instruments calculator. There was a note from some guy, too, but I’ll pretend I didn’t look.” He glanced up at her dropped mouth and raised brows and added a wary “You’re not going to kick me again, are you? Because there’s not a nice thick car seat between us at the moment.”

She closed her mouth, and then muttered, “I’ll wait till you get back in the car.”

As Rio replaced the contents of the purse—considerably more than had been in that first version—he saw the police cruiser speeding back down the road. Hunting this car, he thought. If he were an officer and had a choice between running after a soup-flinging woman—even a soup-flinging woman with an unusual edge—or the couple who’d started the trouble, he knew whom he’d go for.

Fortunately, he’d asked for the car to be of a bland color, and had ended up with a dirty silver that no doubt bore some fancy car-paint name: platinum dream, arroyo shadow. If the officer behind the wheel was checking the side of the road, he’d missed his glimpse of Rio and Carolyne.

Carolyne hauled out her laptop case and methodically emptied it of peripherals for his examination, none of which seemed suspect. The laptop case, though…

“Here we go,” Rio said. Simple but high tech, a small disk that rested comfortably on the pad of his forefinger once he’d removed it from an inside corner of the laptop case. Not a listening device…just a tracker. “Not well placed. It was dark out…they were in a hurry.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your driveway,” Rio said, and put the tracker on a rock so he could smash it to bitty bits with another, pointier rock. “I took the laptop out early, came right back in for another load. Didn’t lock the car doors until after. Stupid, stupid…” His inner focus on the night before sharpened. “I did hear something out there.”

“Then we switched cars for nothing.” It shook her, the thought that someone had been at her house. When she knelt beside him on the carpet piece to gather up her gear, she’d started shaking again.

“Not for nothing.” He squeezed her ankle reassuringly. “It was a good move. And we’ll keep making good moves.”

She gave a shaky laugh. “What difference can it make, if they’re a step ahead of us? How’d anyone even know it was worth tracking me so fast? I didn’t tell anyone but you! Scott thinks it’s just a business trip.”

“You said your boss suspected a leak.”

She scowled, but it was denial rather than anger. Perhaps a tinge of horror. “I don’t want to believe that. I work with those people.”

“Believe it,” he said, and got to his feet, picking up the trunk carpet as she put her laptop in the car. “Or don’t. It’s not really important. What’s important is that we know there’s already someone looking for you. We won’t see our two friends from the store again—they know we’ve made them. We might not see anyone at all—Mill Springs is a good spot. Small town like that’ll make it easy to spot hired help. And as soon as we get there, I’ll start working on a contingency location. And you—” he paused to look down at her as she climbed in the back seat, apparently prepared to spend the rest of the ride to Mill Springs with her head down “—you put your mind to solving whatever can of worms you discovered, and then this will all be over.”

Carolyne shuddered in exaggerated reaction. “We don’t use that word worm,” she said. “Not where the laptop can hear.”

Hmm. Geek humor. Rio grinned at her as if he’d actually gotten it, and then after a moment he did get it. Worm, computer virus…bad joke.

On the other hand, if she was making bad jokes, perhaps she wasn’t as shaken as she’d seemed by the close encounter.

He hoped not. He very much suspected that her safety—and apparently that of the entire nation—rested on just how fast she could pull herself together and patch up whatever code weakness she’d found.

With Mill Springs fast approaching, Kimmer did just as she’d heard Rio planning: she pulled to the side of the road for a quick search of the car and her belongings, parking in close to the edge of the woods. She hesitated long enough to plug her cell phone into the dash for recharging, guiltily knowing she should have done it much earlier. Stupid things, batteries. Then she started with the car exterior—aside from a few rest stops, her belongings hadn’t been out of sight since she packed them—and didn’t have to look hard. The basic wheel-well tracker bug, easy access and quick to place.

Good God, was there anyone who wasn’t after this woman?

Kimmer contemplated the little bit of technology for a moment, then crushed it under her heel—or tried to. Sneakers, lightweight spy…In the end she resorted to a rock, trying to preserve the bug as much as possible in case Hunter resources could help narrow down a source. Looking at the flattened disk, she couldn’t keep a frisson of apprehension from running down her nape. How long had it been since Carolyne had found the weakness in the laser-guided missiles? Perhaps thirty-six hours? And already someone knew of Kimmer’s involvement and had tailed her, already someone had bugged Carolyne and made a try at her, someone had bugged Kimmer…

Privately, Kimmer thought those who tailed her this morning were likely the same set of undesirables as those who had planted this tracer. Easy enough to have done it as backup before she got in the Taurus, and then tailed her. Once she’d shaken them, they simply hadn’t bothered to pick her up again. They’d wait until she settled in one spot.

But she wouldn’t assume she was right. She’d keep in mind that they might well be dealing with three aggressive groups of Carolyne hunters. And she found herself grateful for the extra buffer Rio provided. He’d backed up that résumé of his with action, and he hadn’t been annoyingly full of himself. She might even consider working with him, except—

Down, girl. It hasn’t been that long.

That kind of thinking was reason enough to keep herself separate. Owen was wrong. Seriously wrong. Separate was best.

In fact…Still eyeing the hapless tracker in her palm, Kimmer’s eyes narrowed in realization. Her observations about Rio hadn’t been anything special. No special insight, no sense of him, of who he was and how he’d react. Any living, breathing woman could have done as much, checking out his appearance and watching his behavior. And yet she’d made her usual assessments of the shop owner, the goonboys, even Carolyne. But Rio…

He’d struck such a response in her that at first she hadn’t realized, but now…It put a fierce scowl on her face as she tucked the crushed bug into her wallet and—out of soothing habit—pulled her digital camera from the depths of the backpack purse. She hadn’t meant to take photos, not here. Not even with the fall colors in full bloom around her, arranged to full advantage on hills and curves that were both steeper and sharper than those by Seneca Lake. But she could use that distraction right now.

It wasn’t that her knack had never failed her before. It had, most certainly. But only with those who were closest to her—those from many years earlier, with whom she’d lived and schooled.

Those who were closest to her.

Kimmer put her back to the sun and found a quirky arrangement of a fallen tree with bright scarlet-orange Virginia creeper winding up from the base and deeply shadowed woods behind—very Ansel Adams. She took a few shots, played with the framing, and then checked the camera’s playback display, deleting all but two of them.

It settled her. And by then Kimmer knew that for Carolyne’s sake, she needed to keep her cover in spite of recent developments. For it was those who were closest to her, those who somehow escaped her uncanny assessments, who invariably betrayed her. Her family. The schoolgirls she’d called friend. The teacher who’d urged her to fulfill her potential, and who eventually tried to grope her in an after-school meeting. No one got that close anymore; she used others and others used her, and everyone knew the score.

Rio’s obscurity meant not only that she couldn’t quite bring herself to trust him, but also that she couldn’t trust herself. She’d second-guess her decisions, hesitate when she needed to act; she’d be a liability to Carolyne instead of an asset. She needed to work apart from him.

Didn’t matter. The two-layer protection was what they’d planned all along.

Kimmer switched the camera off, put it on the passenger seat and settled back in behind the wheel. Less than an hour to go, and she’d be in Mill Springs, occupied with setting up her cover and learning the territory, planting the seeds that would have the locals watching for strangers for her, extra eyes and ears to supplement her own. She wouldn’t set eyes on Carolyne or Rio until she set up watch over them later in the evening, and by then…

She’d be ready. Whatever she read or didn’t read from Rio, she’d be ready.

Just outside of town, Kimmer found a Mill Springs Tireland and Gas—little more than a small gas station with an empty one-bay garage at the end, big enough to hold several racks of tires along the walls. The station itself had a single row of pumps, and everything about it made Kimmer want to invite Mr. Clean in for a visit. The building looked worn, the tire racks were forlornly half-full, the paint job looked as if it wanted to crawl away and hide…even the fall weeds edging the building and the lot looked tired.

Kimmer pulled over to the side where she thought she’d be most out of the way, and squelched an impulse to dig out a marker and change the hand-painted sign from Tireland to Tiredland. Instead she found her cell phone, realized it hadn’t been charging after all, and jockeyed the plug around until she convinced herself it wasn’t working. That was worth a curse. Her usual luck with these things. She scowled at the phone and checked for messages anyway. None. Not a bad sign.

She hit the autodial for Hunter and waited, tapping newly adorned nails against the wheel. At least they were still short and rounded, practical. And on the positive side of things, if she found it necessary to take to the woods, their bright red color—callor to Bonnie Miller—would alert deer hunters that she was only a hapless human, and not good for their meat freezers. Maybe she should paint her toenails, too, just for fun—

“Chimera,” Owen greeted her. “You’re in Mill Springs? How’s it look?”

“Short version? Getting too interesting. I haven’t reached the site yet—I’m on the outskirts of town. If a town this small has outskirts…maybe it’s just a hem.”

“You ran into more trouble?” His focus tightened; he’d stopped the habitual multitasking in which he’d been engaged. “Already?”

“‘Already’ in spades. Our friendlies ran up behind me in a roadside store—they’ve switched cars, by the way.” She rattled off the new license-plate number for him. “They’d been tagged with a tracer, and the BGs were right on their heels. We had quite a little dance session right there in the store.”

“Casualties?” he asked sharply.

“None on our side.”

“Cover?”

“Safe enough. Carolyne was too panicked to notice anything out of place—she’s trying, but she’s not cut out for this kind of thing. Carlsen was busy. I managed to have a quick chat with a BG who accidentally took a soup can upside his head. He knew nothing about me—this is a different set from the ones who followed me this morning.”

“Two players, then,” Owen mused. “I’m trying to compile a list of potentials…it’s pretty wide ranging. Contract players to terrorist groups to enemy black ops.”

“Leave room,” Kimmer said dryly. “Because the Taurus was bugged, too. I think it happened before I even got in it, but I do have this thing about avoiding assumptions.”

Owen was silent a moment. Not generally a good sign. Then he cleared his throat. “Do you want backup?”

“I want it ready to go,” Kimmer said. “But I don’t think there’s any way you’re going to cram more than one Hunter agent in this town without attracting notice, even if we all wear this demure shade of fingernail polish I found in the car.”

“Liked it, did you?” Faint amusement filled his words, but quickly faded. She heard the faraway sound of his chair wheeling over the thick carpet protector, from one end of the desk to the other. A few keystrokes followed. “Okay, I’m putting two people on stand-by—Dave and Rayna. That suit you?”

“Might not suit Dave,” Kimmer said, a pointed reminder that Dave Hunter had gone independent of the family.

“That’s my problem.” Owen didn’t even try to pretend it would be an easily reconciled problem, but he meant for her to dismiss it and she did. “Speaking of problems, Scott Boyle’s been in touch. We warned him, of course, that there was already activity and that he might be approached. I’m not sure it took—he’s too used to painting himself in a caretaker role.”

“I wish I’d been able to talk to him,” she muttered, tipping her head back to examine the stained interior of the car just above the visor. Was that ketchup? Her gaze wandered over to the garage, and she found herself under scrutiny by a man in baggy jeans and a dark blue button-front shirt that seemed so ubiquitous at garages everywhere. He had a cap pulled down low on his forehead, with what looked like a Michelin logo on the front. Please don’t turn around and prove me right about how low those pants are riding. Heaven forbid he should bend over.

“I wish you’d been able to talk to Boyle, too,” Owen said. “Things are moving fast, and there’s no telling what tiny bit of insight might help us protect Carolyne Carlsen better. He’s pretty possessive of her, though—he pressed for details. I have the feeling he’d like to ride to the rescue.”

“You told him nothing?”

“I told him nothing. I believe he’ll call early this evening, at which point I’ll tell him nothing again. He asked us to protect her—he’s paying us to protect her. He might not like what that involves, but he’s out of the loop for now.”

“And is that all?” Kimmer asked suddenly. The man at the garage had disappeared, but she knew he’d be back—and probably bolder. “Is that Hunter’s only interest in this?”

Owen returned a guarded question. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on, Owen. This woman is packing a secret that poses a threat to our national security. At what point are you going to tell me that the bottom line is keeping that security intact, regardless of what it means to Carolyne? That stopping the BGs has priority?”

Silence. Then, “Later. Quite a bit later. Never, if things went as I hoped.”

“And are they? Going as you hoped?” Kimmer knew the answer…but she wanted this conversation on the table. Garage Boy reappeared, commencing to saunter in her direction. Kimmer turned away from the window slightly, ignoring him even as he came to stand beside the door, peering through the glare of the sun on the window glass. “Owen?”

“No,” Owen said abruptly. “No, they’re not, and you know it. Now, do we need to have that other conversation?”

“We do,” she said. “Those orders, I want to hear directly.” From behind her came the sound of a knuckle rapping glass. Arrogant jerk. She’d stopped to use the phone…what could be more obvious? But no, he had to make it clear that he owned this particular strip of land, and that he therefore had an interest in anything she might do here. She sighed a gust of annoyance. “We’ll have to do this later. I’ve got company, and its name is Bubba.”

“Just keep it in mind, Chimera,” Owen said. “I mean it.”

“So do I,” she said, flicking a hand at Garage Boy without so much as glancing at him, buying a moment. “Later, Owen.”

She folded the cell phone closed and replaced it in her purse with no haste. The impatience from the other side of the door grew palpable. Finally, one hand still in her purse—and not coincidentally closed around her diminutive war club—she unrolled the window. “I’m sorry,” she said. Sore-ey. “Am I in the way? I was just about to buy some gas, but I didn’t want to block your other customers while I called my ma.” Never mind that there weren’t any other customers.

“Just checking.” He eyed the inside of her car, making no attempt to hide his interest. Just plain nosy, more like it. He tipped his hat up against the afternoon sun, revealing enough forehead that Kimmer could be pretty sure his hair wouldn’t make an appearance until much farther back on his head, and said, “We’re out of premium.”

Kimmer gave a little laugh. “As though I’d put premium in this old thing!” She cranked the engine, and he took the clue to step back so she could safely pull up to the pumps, but now he had a puzzled little look on his face, and she didn’t like it. Not with that kind of scrutiny attached. And it shouldn’t matter—he was of no consequence in her life or her assignment.

But it did matter. And she’d learned to listen to that instinct. As she exited the car and went through the motions of pumping gas, she never put her back to him. She gave him a friendly yet distracted smile, letting him know she was aware of him as he leaned against the glass door of the small garage store and watched.

As she replaced the handle at the pump and pulled a few bills from her back pocket, he finally pushed away from the building to approach her, pulling his own wad of bills out in case she needed change. But he was ready to approach her again anyway; everything about his expression gave him away. “Eight-seventy,” he said. “Just topping off, were you?”

“Gas gauge doesn’t work,” she said truthfully enough, handing him a ten. “I like to keep it full.”

He counted out a couple of dirty bills and some coins. “I feel like I’ve seen you before,” he said, and there was something of an accusation in his voice—as though it might be her fault that he found her familiar and yet couldn’t recognize her. “But you don’t live around here, do you?”

“I might for a while,” she said, hoping to change the subject. “You got any place around here you recommend to stay at?” She kept her voice friendly and her posture casual, pocketing her change—showing no signs of the tension that ratcheted along her back, or the sudden cold spot in her stomach. He knows me. Munroville was the next town over, and somehow, somewhere, this man had seen her in those years before her escape.

And she had no idea who he was.

She took him in again, assessing his age—he’d lived hard, had unpleasant teeth and the skin of a smoker who spent time in the sun, and for all she knew he was the same age as her. Or he could be ten years older, even fifteen. He’d had his nose broken, and under the baggy jeans and button-front shirt he was starting to gather the pounds.

Even if she’d known him, she wouldn’t necessarily recognize him now. Not with life wearing on him. Not when she’d left this area at fifteen—more than ten years earlier—when many of the teens were still just undeveloped boys and would look entirely different when they matured to men. With some desperation Kimmer recalled once sitting in a diner beside two women who’d just been to a twentieth high-school reunion. All their girlfriends had been instantly recognizable, but they’d only been able to identify a handful of the men without looking at the name tags.

Kimmer herself wouldn’t know. She’d walked away from her high school and never looked back. She’d since done enough reading, traveling and studying up for assignments until she counted herself as educated as any woman with a college degree, and more educated than most—at least, when she ever thought about it at all. But she’d never encountered anyone from those early years, never had that experience of matching up faces over time.

“Try the Millstream Motel,” the man said abruptly, though he smiled while he was at it. He’d decided to be charming, apparently. Or to be what he thought was charming. “Though there are some boardinghouses around if you end up staying any time.”

Kimmer heard his words as “end up doing any time.” As in, prison. She had to shake her thoughts loose before she could smile back. “Thanks. I’ll look up that motel.” She slid into the car without offering him the rest of her cover story, the information she intended to plant once she reached Mill Springs. He was, she could see, the type who would take advantage of such a situation, and she didn’t want to encourage him. Didn’t want him hanging around, didn’t want him watching her long enough that he finally remembered who she used to be.

“I must have been wrong,” he said, pushing the door closed without checking to see if her feet were out of the way; she yanked them to safety. “I can’t imagine ever forgetting someone like you.”

Ah. He thought himself gallant. She smiled as though he had been. “That’s sweet. Maybe I’ll see you in town sometime.” I need the sprinting practice. After all, run away was a sound strategy. It had worked for her in the past.

Run away.

Too bad she was now going in the wrong direction.

Kimmer drove into Mill Springs with the decided feeling that two different people occupied her body, one of whom already knew this place. The town’s age, its lost-in-time look of solid red brick buildings and streets lined with establishments set so closely they might as well have been the same building…the age of the trees lining the sidewalks. Huge maples, dressed to kill in startling scarlet-orange hues, soon to inspire much raking and mulching…

At least it wasn’t spring. In spring, the gingko trees made the air smell like the bottom of a sun-warmed pigsty. The thought came unbidden, reminding her of just how many other well-preserved memories lay in wait.

Bonnie Miller drove into Mill Springs, on the run from her temperamental boyfriend. Ready to make a new start.

Kimmer Reed fled from Munroville, on the run from an abusive family and a brother ready to give her away. Underfed, dressed in clothes scavenged from her brothers, bruised from their pinches and slapping and battered in soul by their cruelty. Ready to make a new start.

Bonnie Miller had her Taurus. She carried her life in a small suitcase and duffel, and had left the remainder of her belongings in a small storage locker. She needed work, and she needed a town that would take her in as one of their own.

Kimmer Reed had her thumb, and the uncanny knack of choosing a safe ride. She carried her life in a ratty little bag and clung to a battered Instamatic camera and the memory of a mother who exhorted her to escape. She needed work, and a town that would leave her alone. She needed a life.

Kimmer poked herself. She literally poked herself, jamming a finger into toned stomach muscle. “Stop that,” she said out loud, braking at one of the few lights in the town. Obediently, the thoughts receded. She’d had years of practice at chasing them away, and the first flush of them, triggered by this little town so much like Munroville, retreated quickly.

Too bad they hadn’t brought her an image of a younger Garage Boy while they were at it; she could have used that information.

She drove through to the other edge of town—a journey of only a few moments—and to the Millstream Motel. Garage Boy had actually sized her up just about right—Hunter had chosen the Millstream for Bonnie Miller, too. Of course, it was only one block away from the B&B where Rio had booked himself and Carolyne—that, too, had something to do with the choice.

The Millstream came complete with an old millstone by the office door and a sign that announced Bath And Shower! as part of the amenities. Kimmer hoped she wouldn’t have to pay extra for such luxuries. She hoped, too, that the room interiors wouldn’t reflect the color sense of the exterior, which came as close to Pepto-Bismol-pink as she’d ever seen in a building. Before she even checked in, she left the Taurus in the parking lot and headed out on foot, camera in hand. Carolyne and her cousin hadn’t passed her on the road, and that meant she had a chance—her only chance—to assess the B&B before they arrived. She’d take pictures, identify her best spots to lurk, and find the security vulnerabilities of the establishment.

No doubt Rio would do much the same as soon as he arrived. She needed to be gone by then. They’d see each other again, certainly…but not while Kimmer was casing his hidey-hole. That wouldn’t go over well at all.

On the other hand, it would be a chance to see him in action again. Assess him. Take his measure. Or just plain get an eyeful.

Kimmer, halfway to Angelina’s Bed and Breakfast, stopped short. Closed her eyes. Took a breath. Rio Carlsen is a playing piece, she told herself. An object. A tool.

No amount of personable smiling could change that. No silly bowing. And certainly no glimpses at how much he cared for his cousin, and how he protected her.

Get to work, Chimera. Just…get to work.

Chapter 4

Rio stood in the snack section of Mill Springs’s only grocery store, hands on hips and faint scowl on his face, and decided that calling the place Giant Eagle was something of an exaggeration. He glanced down at the list Carolyne had given him—all of her favorite comfort foods—and confirmed it. Nope, none of these things were here.

Then again, when was the last time he’d seen apple chips in any store? He’d said as much at Angelina’s, where they shared one of the largest rooms in the converted boardinghouse, one with two twin beds and an adjoining bath—even if the bath also served the smaller room on the other side. It came so full of country character that Rio’s head still spun. Or maybe that had just been the overwhelming potpourri, the spicy pumpkin-cinnamon-clove mixture that had made Carolyne smile and Rio sneeze.

He resolved to track it down and, when Carolyne wasn’t looking, dump it down the toilet.

Or would that just blow up the septic system?

He’d been happy for the excuse to stock up on snacks, both for his stomach’s sake and for Carolyne’s psyche. He hadn’t been as happy to leave her alone—but then, this was the best time for him to scope out the town’s amenities and flavor. He’d been in the room long enough to intercept any immediate threats, and for now the only ones who knew he and his “sister” were here were the hyperactive young couple who owned the place. And, of course, Bonnie Miller.

He’d left Carolyne carefully divesting a gorgeous burr oak bureau of a surfeit of Thanksgiving knickknacks and miniature pigs, preparing it for peripherals and battery chargers. It seemed they’d drawn the cute-pig theme room, with the overlay of holiday flavor. In retrospect, Rio found himself grateful for the Thanksgiving aspect. Who knew what pig-themed potpourri would smell like?

Unfortunately, it didn’t look as if he was going to return as a mighty hunter of snack food. Tentatively, he reached for a bag of barbecued chips—at least they had flavor of some sort. Or should he go for baked chips? He decided Carolyne would choose the healthy route and tossed the baked chips in his small shopping cart. After a moment, he added the barbecued chips for himself.

He’d walked here after double-checking the batteries on his cell phone and making sure Carolyne had memorized the number. She’d only given him a strange look and rattled it off, along with his home phone, the phone at the Sails Away Boat Storage, his rarely used e-mail address, his previous never-used e-mail address—

He’d thrown his hands up in surrender and left for a brisk walk down the two blocks before the vast residential area of Mill Springs turned to the commercial street. On the way he stopped at the town barbershop—adjoining but distinctly separate from the beauty shop next door, even if the scent of nail-polish removers and lacquers had drifted over to taint the air. There he checked their policy on walk-ins, resolving to have his hair cut in the next day or two. And he stopped in the tiny closet of a liquor store, found a good merlot for Carolyne, and decided to buy it on the way back. He stopped at the equally tiny Hallmark outlet and picked out a card for her, puzzled over someone’s warning to another customer about being “stonnered” at the grocery store, and then cruised through Spring Air Outdoor Gear to contemplate a pair of hikers.

Rio Carlsen, being seen. Being friendly. Letting a small town realize he was here, and turning himself into someone comfortable to them. In this area of well-settled German and mixed-mutt ancestry, his own obvious heritage caught their attention. Made him someone they would remember, once he added a smile and respectful conversation and yes, of course, a sprinkling of the almost imperceptible bows that his grandmother had drilled into him so early. If he’d wanted he could have come and gone unnoticed, but he didn’t want. Carolyne, they’d never see. His sick sister, come here for the fresh country air and a glimpse at the fall foliage. He wouldn’t have mentioned her at all except that Angelina and her hubby were clearly active in the community and they already knew of her presence.

And meanwhile, the town would come to know him. If anyone arrived on Carolyne’s tail, he wanted to be part of us and not one of them.

Still. No apple chips. No blue corn tortilla chips. He did find a bunch of touristy brochures by a community bulletin board, and snagged them all, and he spotted a stuffed beaver he knew Carolyne would consider adorable, so put it in the cart. As an afterthought he grabbed a box of frosted cherry Pop-Tarts. Carolyne never had to know….

As he pushed the rickety cart up to the cash register, the diminutive young cashier glanced up with a smile. But when she saw him, it quickly faded. His pleasant greeting went unnoted.

In his home life, he would have let it pass. Not important. Maybe he reminded her of a former boyfriend; maybe she hated breakfast pastries. But with Carolyne’s safety at stake, such mysteries couldn’t remain unplumbed. “I’m sorry,” he said, offering real regret. “Did I offend you somehow?”

She looked down at the groceries as she passed them over the code reader, but she was a fine-haired blonde and her scalp showed red with her blush. He didn’t push it directly. Instead, he said, “My sister was looking for these things called apple chips. I don’t suppose you have them here somewhere and I missed them? I see ’em in Michigan all the time.” Not true—he’d never looked—but he wanted to appear forthcoming, and he sure wasn’t going to mention New York State. The point was to spread obfuscation, not clues.

“Apple chips?” She looked up, revealing a complexion fair enough to match her hair and baby blues the same shade as Carolyne’s. “Sure, we have those sometimes. I think we’re out, though. Y’uns here on vacation?”

Rio shrugged. “Kind of. My folks are having their coral anniversary next year, and we wanted to send them someplace special. This is one of the spots we’re checking out.”

“Coral…”

“It’s Danish,” he said. “Their thirty-fifth.”

“We’ve got some nice canoeing,” she said, and added doubtfully, “I don’t suppose your folks are hunters?”

“I’m afraid not. But the canoeing…that’s a thought.” He retrieved the brochures from the cart, grabbed a paper bag and began bagging his order while she finished ringing it up. “Plus I might find something in here.”

“How’d you settle on this area in the first place?” She totaled the order, and he thumbed a couple of twenties out of his wallet.

He gave her a sheepish grin. “It’s just somewhere we’ve never seen.”

This time she smiled back. And as she handed over his change, she said, “Sorry about before. I know someone who’s worried about being found, and you being such a stranger…”

Someone else? Rio’s coincidence meter hit the far end of the scale. “A friend of yours?” he asked, trying to make it as casual as possible.

“No…I guess she’s from this area, though. She sure talks like a yinzer.”

“Yinzer,” he repeated blankly, thinking he knew more about some foreign countries than he did about western Pennsylvania.

“You know.” The cashier grinned at him, and this time she’d decided to flirt—a good sign. “‘Y’uns’ is what we all say…that makes us ‘y’unzers.’ But it’s easier to say ‘yinzer.’ Anyway, her boyfriend’s bad news and she thinks he’ll send some guys after her. So we’re spreading the word a bit. It’s easy to spot a stranger in this town.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Rio said dryly, still wary of the coincidence factor but deciding he could certainly use it to his advantage. If folks were already on the lookout for strangers in this small tawn, then he had a small population of eyes and ears already at work. Hearing the reports might be another matter, but he’d work on it.

Another cart pushed in behind him, and the woman began moving her looming mountain of purchases onto the conveyer. “Have a nice visit,” the cashier said as Rio gathered up his bags, pushing the cart out of the way with his foot. “Thanks for coming to Jynt Igle.”

Ah. Giant Eagle.

And then Rio grabbed for the cart as it nearly hit a teen headed for the register—or rather, as the teen nearly collided with it. Wearing a green Giant Eagle apron and the jacket and flushed cheeks that meant he’d been out in the cool fall air, he interrupted the cashier’s opening patter with the woman customer. “Missy! That Andrew Stonner is out there again, and he’s been drinking—he’s got a woman customer cornered! That stranger! It’s his usual—he won’t let her leave.”

Stonnered. Suddenly the comment he’d overheard earlier made sense.

“Like she doesn’t have enough to worry about. Poor Bonnie!” The cashier grabbed the phone from the other side of the register and hit a quick-dial button. “This is Missy down at Jynt Igle. Best send someone to come get Andrew Stonner, and do it quick—he’s gone wootz on the booze again and he’s got a woman out in the parking—what do you mean, there’s no one available right now? There been a big accident somewhere? Everyone okay?”

Rio took it in with half an ear. Poor Bonnie? Soup-slinging Bonnie? Poor Andrew Stonner was more like it.

But he dumped his groceries back in the cart and ran for the parking lot anyway.

Kimmer had just closed the back hatch to the Taurus wagon on a small stash of quick convenience meals. She’d made a quick circuit of the main street, spread her cover story and found herself anxious to return to the motel room and transfer her photos to her PDA where she could better study them and plan her stakeout strategies. Somewhere along the way she’d hit late afternoon, and darkness came early enough this time of year. So she’d closed the hatch and turned for the driver’s door, unimpeded by other cars in this far corner spot.

That’s when she saw him coming. Weavingly drunk or sick, she wasn’t sure which—but then a breeze wafted her way and the smell of booze made her wrinkle her nose. Every town had one, she supposed. Even one as small as Mill Springs.

She wasted no time ducking into the Taurus, happy enough to pretend she hadn’t seen him at all. But when she twisted in the seat to back out of the parking spot, she startled at the sight of his face pressed up against the back window, framed by his dirty hands. The rest of him wasn’t so clean—dirty hair, the straggly, untrimmed whiskers of someone who couldn’t grow a real beard if he tried, torn green flannel shirt and grease-stained jeans. Hard to tell age beneath it all.

She straightened in the seat, briefly resting her forehead on the wheel. Random male stupidity. Just what she needed. When she turned to look again, he hadn’t moved. With both reluctance and growing impatience, she got out of the car and walked around behind it, leaving plenty of room between them. From here she could assess him better, see how much bigger he was than she, and that he carried relatively good muscle—the muscle of hard labor, when and if he found work. “I’m sorry, you have to move,” she told him. “I’m trying to leave.”

“No, no, no,” he said. “You can’t leave.”

“My groceries will spoil,” she said, wondering if some spot of practical reasoning might reach him. Of course, she also added, “And if you don’t move, I’ll have to run you over. I wonder if you’d get caught on the undercarriage?”

It didn’t matter; nothing of what she said seemed to get through to him at all. More than drunk? Off his meds? “No, no, no,” he repeated. “You can’t leave. All the food stays here.”

“What about him?” Kimmer pointed to a man loading two carts of purchases into his van. “Maybe you should go stop him. I’ve only got a few groceries here, after all.”

That got his attention for a moment; he took a step away from the Taurus, frowning at the hapless victim Kimmer had chosen for him. She took advantage of his indecision by grasping the loose material of his sleeve between thumb and forefinger and drawing him closer to the van. “There,” she said, ready to dash back to the car and escape. “All those lovely groceries…you should save them first.”

It almost worked. Agitated, he shifted from side to side, a creepy motion that seemed ingrained. She wasn’t above leaving him to it—but the instant she eased a step away from him, he whirled and snatched her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh like talons.

Anger, always buried not far from her surface, flashed to the forefront. No one handled her like that. Not anymore. And though she had the choice, knew she could still control the situation without escalating, she also had the ability to stop him.

And she took it.

As quickly as he’d grabbed her, she acquired his thumb, twisting it back. He gave a bewildered cry, buckling to the pressure, going straight down to his knees without resistance. In that instant she pivoted behind him, taking the arm with him and maintaining the angle on his thumb. Big, muscular and clueless…no match for little, quick and precise. “Aren’t self-defense classes nice?” she asked him. “Now, how about we get up and go to the store. Maybe they’ll know what to do with you, and then I can leave.” Groceries and all.

“Not the food!” he wailed, consistent if nothing else.

Kimmer sighed. “I really don’t have time for this. C’mon. Up you go.” She tugged upward on his hand, and he lurched to his feet. As a unit, they turned for the store.

And there was Rio Carlsen.

She didn’t hide her surprise. “Quiet for a big guy, aren’t you?”

“It happens,” he said, which was as noncommittal a response as she’d heard for a while. He didn’t take his gaze from her as a noisy trio of Giant Eagle employees came running up, fronted by a man in a managerial-looking green company coat. A knot formed in Kimmer’s stomach as she realized she had no idea what Rio was thinking; his deeply brown and moderately tilted eyes didn’t give away a thing. She could tell he was concerned, and that she’d startled him in some way. But she couldn’t tell what he was going to do. How he’d react. What it might mean for her—and this assignment—in the long run.

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 running 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?

Chapter 5

Angelina’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 challenged 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 forlorn, 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 instinct 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.

At least she knew Rio was thorough. He’d waited long, long moments before continuing his circuit around the house after he’d heard her. He’d taken all the time he should for that circuit, and then as she watched, used a steady strength to draw himself back up to the second-story balcony.

Then she’d done her own circuits, learning the yard in darkness with the daylight images from her photos guiding her along. As setups went, it was pretty much a disaster. He might stay through this day—she thought he’d show up at the fire station picnic, cementing his easygoing, community-oriented image with the folks of Mill Springs—but probably not through the next.

Then again, maybe Carolyne would apply her genius, solve the guided-missile vulnerability, and they could all just leave.

But Kimmer doubted it.

Chapter 6

After a night of too cold and a morning of curling up in bed with the motel room heat turned up, Kimmer emerged to take a warm shower under a spastic trickle of water from the mineral-clogged shower head, mulling her conversation with Owen. She couldn’t watch Carolyne 24/7, not and still have her wits; she’d chosen the postdawn hours as the best time to rest, leaving Carolyne in the hands of her capable cousin. The afternoon she’d pegged for more area familiarization, including a visit to the fire station picnic, which had been a main topic of eavesdropped conversation at Giant Eagle.

But first a quick stop at the outdoor store, where she snagged a coat the proprietor assured her was warm enough for any number of hours of tree-stand vigil, and then tried to sell her ammo for the hunting rifle she didn’t have. Then he wondered if she was with the other out-of-towner, the tall fellow who’d bought up a bunch of hunting stuff this morning.

“No,” she told him. “I like a solitary patch of woods.” But it set her to wondering what Rio had in mind. It wasn’t bagging a whitetail; she knew that much for sure.

By the time she dressed for the picnic, the day had turned into one of those fall afternoons with leaves bright against a brilliant blue sky, the sun beating down sharp and hard. She settled on a tucked-in soft pima cotton long-sleeved T in a deep maroon and topped it with a worn but personable navy vest, a big textured waffle weave that made it one of her favorites even at home, and that knew her shape so well she barely had to be in it before it fell in flattering lines. Her jeans were ancient, so tired that the material over her thighs and bottom clung softly, highlighting those curvy, tightly muscled areas.

If she ran into Rio Carlsen, she wanted him distracted, but not so he’d notice that she’d done it on purpose.

To her casual look-at-me attire she added standard layers of protection. A miniature war club, six inches long and made from red oak root, an asymmetrical blob of iron nestled into the crook where the root had branched and held tight by thongs. A length of thin mountain rope made a wrist loop on the other end, allowing her to add power to the swing if she wanted. Old, worn and well polished by handling, the little club had taken shape under her own too young hands with her mother’s words of wisdom in mind—the ones about taking care of herself and being ready for anything, anytime.

It weighted her pocket, but no more obviously than a handful of change.

The little toothpick knife went to a back jeans pocket. Her long tang-blade knife, the Colt Guardian, fitted at her ankle. The little weighted Hibben throwing knives she left in her duffel, pulling out her SmartCarry holster and dropping her jeans briefly to snug it into place around her hips like a concealed, fitted fanny pack. It rested low at her pubic bone and once she zipped up, left her wadcutter-loaded S&W revolver—a hammerless 342PD Centennial—invisible even to someone with Rio’s practiced eye.

Well, as long as she didn’t wear low-rise jeans.

The Talon Mini stun gun went into her other pocket. Not as powerful as most, but perfectly effective if you knew where to apply it and for how long.

Kimmer did.

She didn’t expect to use any of them. And if she did need to go for weaponry, she expected to need only one of the many at hand. She merely liked to have a variety of options, so that whatever she pulled best suited the circumstances. Owen occasionally called her “Hunter’s little Klingon,” to which Kimmer would narrow her eyes and add, “With better teeth.”

Armed to those very teeth and with no one the wiser, Kimmer strolled into downtown Mill Springs. The picnic had spread from the firehouse to the adjoining park, and the smells of grilling burgers and franks battled with the astringency of sauerkraut. If she correctly identified that faint whiff of sweetness, someone somewhere had a cotton candy machine.

Initially she occupied herself by taking pictures—typical photos of kids and families and laughter and even a quick flash of tears after a fall. No doubt she’d delete most of them once she looked them over, but taking them suited her, highlighting little moments of time as she lived—or watched—them.

About the time she’d wandered past the displayed fire trucks—two engines and a rescue squad, all shining so brightly Kimmer thought they were probably sending inadvertent signals out into space—and circled around the life-flight chopper, she found two things of significant importance: Carolyne, bundled up in the world’s bulkiest cardigan sweater, and the cotton candy machine.

She picked out a red and a blue cone, paid for them, and walked quite deliberately over to Carolyne. She’d reached the woman and had the blue cotton candy stretched out as an offering before Carolyne ever truly focused on her; it took another obvious moment before recognition hit. “You were at that little store!” She clutched her cerulean sweater more tightly; it did amazing things for her eyes. But those eyes were red rimmed—which Kimmer would have taken for understandable fatigue had she not also seen the giveaway tint of red at the tip of Carolyne’s nose. Quiet crying, right here in front of everyone.

But Kimmer pretended she hadn’t seen and recognized Carolyne’s distress, or that she didn’t understand the anxious body language and the way Carolyne stood literally on the edge of bolting. Rio was a fool, leaving her here alone—though she’d no doubt he was nearby, working the situation to its fullest advantage. Kimmer nodded, gesturing with the candy. “Here, take it,” she said. “I got it for you when I saw your friend had left you alone. Off hitting up on someone, is he?” And at Carolyne’s surprised look, her hand closing around the paper cone but failing to remove it from Kimmer’s hand, Kimmer added, “Is he your boyfriend, then? I thought you two looked like brother and sister.”

“We’re family,” Carolyne agreed numbly. “He’s just not the sort to prowl. He went to get me something to drink. I’m supposed to be standing in the sun and soaking in the fall ambience.” She looked up at the bright sun, over at the equally bright leaves and around at the happy picnickers. “Which I am, I guess. Soaking.”

“It’s why I’m out here, too.” Kimmer switched to a confiding sort of voice. “It’s good for what ails you, you know?”

“I…I heard about your…situation,” Carolyne said awkwardly, picking at the cotton candy with thumb and fingertip and tucking a tiny portion into her mouth.

Not comfortable with such conversation. Not used to gossip and the art of spreading it—or mining it. Not used to lies. This situation must be driving her crazy. Kimmer said, “Everyone has. I made sure of it. If my ex sends any of his pals up here, I want to know about it before they find me.” She gave Carolyne an obviously assessing eye. “Not to be nebby, but you don’t look like you want to be here.”

Carolyne dipped another pinch of cotton candy into her mouth. Just as well she was eating it slowly—the coloring was likely to turn her gums and lips blue if she didn’t. “Nebby?”

“Oh, you know. Nosey. And that’s what you say right before you’re about to be nosey anyway, like that makes it okay. It’s just…you don’t look very happy.”

“I guess I’m not.” This admission earned the cotton candy a rip, after which Carolyne looked at the separated portion as though she weren’t sure what to do with it. “It’s a fiancé thing.”

No kidding. Seemed to be a popular cover story.

“You think he’s going out on you?” Kimmer asked, more because it was the thing to say than because she thought it was so.

But Carolyne shook her head. “No. I mean, I suppose that sounds like typical denial, but really, you’d have to know Scott. I guess I just feel like he knows everything about me—my life’s pretty much an open book up to this point—but that there are things he just doesn’t talk about, especially not his childhood. I know it was tough. What good is a relationship if he feels he can’t trust me?”

“Men aren’t always talkers,” Kimmer observed in wise tones.

“I know.” Carolyne’s face crumpled slightly, her lips pressing together in her effort to maintain her composure, her fair skin flushed.

She’s not meant for this kind of pressure. Kimmer thought it not critically, but as knowledge to tuck away. Such things mattered in the course of life and death, especially when it came to how Kimmer could count on the woman to react.

Carolyne cleared her throat, looked away. “And honestly, I like that he’s proud of me, that he’s proud of my work. But sometimes I wonder if he’d want to be with me if I was still at entry level. If there’s a status thing going on, y’know? Lately I’ve begun to wonder about whether we’re really good for each other. Except now…”

With the wistful expression on her face, Kimmer didn’t even need to guess. “Now you miss him.”

Carolyne nodded. “Terribly.” And then she stuffed the chunk of candy floss in her mouth and chewed vigorously.

Kimmer wanted to tell Carolyne that of course she missed Scott Boyle. Here she was under a constant, tremendous threat, and her salvation, as far as she knew, depended on her cousin’s ability to protect her and her own ability to resolve the laser-guided-missile weakness while on the run. She didn’t know that Scott had arranged for further protection, and Kimmer couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t tell her any of it. So Kimmer stared out over the tree-sprinkled park. Badminton, horseshoes, playground equipment…this place had it all, and the picnic had filled it to overflowing with families. She spotted some of the store proprietors she’d spoken to, and Missy the cashier—who for all her young age, had a toddler on her hip with hair every bit as fair as Missy’s. She saw Kimmer watching and gave a friendly wave, and the toddler gleefully emulated her.

Near the parking lot, several groups of men had gathered. Kimmer quickly scoped out the dividing line between family man and bachelor. They weren’t, of course, too far from the food tables—the industrial-sized grill still sizzling with burgers and franks, beside tables laden with every variety of egg salad, beans and chips…and then there was the dessert table. Dangerous territory.

It did not, apparently, deter Rio Carlsen. For there he stood, making conversation with the man Kimmer had encountered at the gas station just outside town—and after watching a moment, Kimmer was quite sure she saw the man nod at her.

Great. Evidently still convinced he’d met her before. Maybe it was time for her to admit that she and her ex-boyfriend had come up from the Burg to one of the local canoeing outlets. That was the problem with cover-story lies…they could take on a life of their own.

Another car arrived in the lot, stopping so precipitously as to be unkind to the gravel. A handful of men poured out; Kimmer perceived right away that they’d circumvented the picnic’s no-liquor rule by storing all their booze in their bellies before arrival. Nor did the two existing groups of men offer any warm welcomes; distantly cordial was as close as it got, evident even from across the park.

She thought Rio might have broken away from Garage Boy at that point, but Garage Boy stopped him, a hand to his arm, his question insistent.

When the new arrivals separated from the other men and headed into the park with the aimless expressions that meant they had nothing particular in mind, Kimmer glanced over at Carolyne and said, “I think we should move. Between the trucks, maybe.”

“But Rio told me to—” Carolyne cut herself short, giving a slight shake of her head. Whatever Rio had told her probably revealed too much about her true situation here.

Well, the bubbaboys weren’t completely sloshed, just a little happy. And although they moved with a lot of swagger, Kimmer pegged them at the level of “nothing I can’t handle” with a troubling undertone of “handling them might draw more attention than is good for anyone.”

Rio said something to Garage Boy, gesturing. Garage Boy made a dismissive motion. He knew the bubbaboys, it seemed, and had no concern about them. And the bubbaboys spotted exactly what Kimmer figured they’d find interesting: two new female faces, no men about. She stuck a hand into her pocket, snaking her hand through the thong of the miniature war club. Her other hand, still filled with the paper cone from the half-eaten cotton candy, hovered just above the hidden grip of her .38. Too bad she hadn’t brought the little Kel-Tec mouse gun for this one.

“Hey, there,” one of them said. Might as well have been all of them; they looked to be in accord. Two of them wore jeans and handsome, colorful Western shirts. The other two had apparently been out and about in the woods before their buddies caught up to them, and sported camo pants and green T-shirts under jackets with blaze-orange accents.

“Hey.” Kimmer gave a vague wave of the candy in greeting and gave them her best bored-already tone.

It might have worked, too—if Carolyne hadn’t stiffened like a fawn trying to decide whether to bolt.

“Looks like you could use some introductions.” That was one of the Western shirts, a fellow who looked as if he might even be pleasant under other circumstances. Average in all respects, aside from a truly cute dimple. He pointed at each man in turn and recited, “Jonesy, Bob, Matthew and Shaun.” He, apparently, was Shaun.

“Thank you,” Kimmer said, which was meaningless under the circumstances but she thought it might discourage them without antagonizing them. Had she been on her own…not so much of a worry. But Carolyne didn’t need any more excitement.

She received three smiles and one frown, the other Western shirt. Bob. Wouldn’t you know one of them would still have a brain cell not affected by alcohol. Cheap beer, by the smell of it. Just enough to make a man lose some inhibitions. Put them into a group, let their macho vibes start bouncing against one another…

These guys had a habit of it, judging by the crowd’s reaction to them. Kimmer hardly needed her knack to know they’d go over the line.

Bob said, “Be friendly. Tell us your names, so we know who we’re showing a good time.”

Carolyne cast Kimmer a trapped look. Kimmer fought an instant surge of reaction; she couldn’t stand that look, that remembered feeling of no way out. A glance toward Rio showed him hesitating, unwilling to make things worse if a few moments could take care of the situation. The men were oblivious, or merely the look on Rio’s face and the deliberate cant of his shoulders would have sent them scurrying away. Kimmer stepped a little closer to Carolyne and offered the men a sweet smile. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but you know, we were just having a personal conversation, and neither of us really feels like manly companionship right now, if you know what I mean?” She turned back to Carolyne, who suddenly looked just as wary of Kimmer as she did of their unwanted company. “Gawd,” she said, picking up in the middle of their imaginary conversation, “you’d think the cramps would be enough. But nooo, I’m going through tampons like tissues. They call that a super?”

“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.

Chapter 7

Darkness 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, flipping 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 perimeter. 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. “Iitekimasu,” 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.

She backed down the path, keeping an eye on Rio until the underbrush obscured him and she could turn to make her speedy way back to the mess hall and then to the main drive. She’d head back to town, acquire just enough gear to keep from freezing and starving, and return here to set up her own little camp in one of the abandoned platform tents. Still watching the watcher…

Whom she’d done a decent job of observing back there at the nurse’s station after all, quickly getting a sense of what he was about. Maybe it meant her knack hadn’t failed at all.

Except anyone could have done it, could have perceived what she’d seen, could have noted Rio’s affection for his cousin, could have seen the signs that he did this not for money at all.

No, it didn’t mean her knack was back on the job with Rio. It just means you’re not blind.

Kimmer drove out of Mill Springs and down closer to Pittsburgh until she found an outfitter where she’d go unrecognized—not to mention a store large enough to supply her every whim. She grabbed up trail food and then stopped at the local Giant Eagle to add a big bag of cherry Twizzlers and her mocha Frappuccino. By early afternoon she’d returned to the scout camp; she used the rest of the daylight hiking her supplies into the tent grouping farthest from the nurse’s station, satisfying herself that no one showed any interest in the camp during that time as she set up in one of the musty platform tents. She’d maintain her presence at the motel and keep in touch with the folks in town with whom she’d established contact, but for now the bulk of her time would be spent here. Rio might not know it, but Carolyne still had two layers of protection.

To her relief, she discovered none of his little trip lines near her tent; she was easily able to establish a path through the woods to reach the Taurus, now parked half a mile down the road on a rutted track long abandoned to anyone but hunters. At first the absence of trip lines had surprised her…and then impressed her. As enticing as it was to trap this place so thoroughly that no one could intrude at any point without running into trouble, unless Rio heard the bushwhacking encounter, he’d have done nothing but warn an intruder to be on the lookout for other traps…such as the ones that were indeed close enough for someone at the nurse’s station to hear reliably.

Before nightfall, Kimmer took her little brochure map and inspected the paths near the nurse’s station, marking the trip line locations and alert for Rio’s presence.

She almost missed him.

As alert as she was, as sizable as he was, she almost missed him.

Like Kimmer, he’d dressed in browns and dark khakis, a fatigue sweater over cargo chino pants. If it weren’t for the wear on those clothes, he might as well have stepped out of an outdoor catalog—tall without bulk, lean without weediness. He moved with easy purpose, stopping in all the right places to hesitate behind cover created by the winding path, his tread landing no more heavily than Kimmer’s.

Good. He’d had more than the usual complement of outdoor-survival and paramilitary training. She found herself caught in an unusual conundrum…hoping he was every bit as good as he looked, and yet not quite good enough to find her, crouched behind the broad, scaly trunk of a hickory with the wilting leaves of a bushy little slippery elm between her exposed head and his line of sight.

As he came closer she studied his expression, hoping to fill in those details her intuition refused to supply. Was he as relaxed as he seemed, or did he hold hidden tension, indications of uneasiness that might mean when push came to shove, he’d fail?

He hadn’t failed at the roadside convenience store. In fact, he’d contained the situation without going overboard; Kimmer had done more damage than he. He hadn’t failed at the picnic. He’d kept his cool and again avoided escalation. He could do more than take care of himself and Carolyne; he could think on his feet. Act, not react.

And now his face showed his concern. The frequent glances over his shoulder weren’t to check his tail; they were aimed straight through the trees at the nurse’s station. To where his cousin worked. His tightly strung genius of a cousin, racing the clock for her own safety—and for the security of the country. Let it go, Kimmer thought at him. Out here in the woods, he didn’t need the distraction such worries presented.

But he didn’t know anyone watched him. This was no front, no subtle ploy to keep up appearances. Kimmer had seen enough of keeping up appearances to spot them on sight, even with her intuition gone napping. No, the slight narrowing of those dark, angled eyes when he looked back, the mild furrow in his brow…those were for real. He cared about his cousin. He worried about her, and for more than just her safety. For her peace of mind.

Intellectually, Kimmer saw it clearly enough. Emotionally, it didn’t track with her own experience; it made something crimp in her throat to see the contrast.

So she quit looking. Instead she watched his easy stride as he passed her tree, only six feet away while she did a quick mental accounting of any possible scents she might be carrying. No perfume, no scented deodorant, no floral shampoo…And then she watched him walk away, her gaze drawn to his shoulders, down his straight back and lingering on—

Well. Even a woman who knew better than to touch could still amuse herself by admiring.

After a short nap and soup heated on the diminutive Coleman stove, Kimmer dressed for the colder night air, tugging on a neck warmer and then a fleece balaclava folded up as a hat, donning her new parka and getting ready to poke her nose out into the night. Using an aluminum fire shield, she’d heated her soup right there on the wood-plank floor of the platform tent, raising the temperature of the four-cot structure considerably. Bereft of its tent, the platform would look like nothing so much as a freestanding porch. Three steps up, a simple two-by-four railing all around, wood framing to hold the canvas. Standard Scout camp fare. From the outside of Kimmer’s tent, no one would ever be able to tell it was any more occupied than the others grouped around this tiny clearing.

Of course, if Rio checked every single tent, Kimmer would be out of luck. But he had no reason for it; anyone coming in after Carolyne was racing time, and would not go out of the way to set up house here.

She gave her pockets a last check, making sure everything had been transferred from earlier in the day: the little club, the Talon Mini, a handful of sharp things. The .38 rested in its SmartCarry holster, nestled snugly, low between her hipbones. The target-shooting wadcutter load wouldn’t penetrate far, but it’d make an instant wreck of whatever flesh it traversed on the way. A real attention-getter—and all the distraction she’d need to handle things. Or to run away…whichever best suited the moment.

She didn’t think she’d be doing any running tonight. Tonight she flicked on her red-beamed flashlight, slipped out between the tent flaps, and fastened the ties back as they’d been. Tonight she headed for the nurse’s station, and a long vigil there. Watching on Carolyne’s behalf, of course, but also watching Carolyne herself as much as possible, getting a sense of how things stood with her work and whether this further retreat had calmed her nerves any. It was also her first chance to get up close to the little nurse’s station, checking the doors and windows and layout details. She might even run into Rio’s rental car, which she suspected was well hidden but nearby.

Bypassing several of the trip lines, Kimmer found the station by its light alone. Those thin curtains weren’t meant for blackout conditions or living quarters. At the front door a slight overhang covered the square concrete platform that acted as a step to the door, interrupting the black gap of a crawl space beneath the raised building.

On approach Kimmer readily saw both Carolyne and Rio inside, occupying the front area of the building. She pulled the balaclava over her face and crept in close, each step a slow eternity of quiet just as she’d learned over a decade ago. Slinking out of the house and out to the barn, out to the pond, out to the woods—out to anywhere that wasn’t full of shouting and the sounds of fists on flesh.

She took a breath, squelching memories. Those skills served her well enough now, didn’t they?

Well enough to bring her up to the nurse’s station, to peer inside and find Carolyne on the other side of the small room at an ancient metal desk, her back to the window and her laptop open. She tapped her pen against a yellow pad, staring off into space. As Kimmer watched, the laptop screen saver kicked in; Carolyne flicked the touch pad with a finger to bring up the program window again, indecipherable text against a white background.

Not exactly what Kimmer would call progress.

The rest of the room was pretty much as she expected—the entrance door opposite Carolyne’s desk, two bare cots lined against a wall, a file cabinet and the less expected luxury of a recliner in the front corner, complete with reading lamp. The painted wood floor had an old oval braided rug in the center, theme of brown, and the insufficient curtains were a matching taupe. The walls held a few empty hangers near the desk—the right spot for nursing certificates—and one hugely enlarged photo of the camp that had been taken either from a terribly low-flying plane or else the raised service bucket for a power-line repair truck.

Rio wandered sock-foot through the room, staring into what Kimmer at first took to be a magazine. “Hey,” he said, his voice coming clearly enough through a window that hadn’t been built to keep winter weather out. “What’s a nine-letter word for ‘to dry out’?”

Carolyne didn’t even look up. “Desiccate.”

“Arigatou,” Rio said, and looked at his cousin with a scowl. “Gee, now I feel kinda stupid I couldn’t come up with it, after all that hard thought you just put into the matter.”

“Shut up,” Carolyne said, though not with any heat in her voice. “You knew that. You just came out here to make the poor stymied geek feel better. You know what, I knew it when you let me win at tag when we were kids, too.”

Rio feigned hurt. “That never happened.”

“Uh-huh.”

He tossed the crossword puzzle book on the recliner and walked up behind her, peering over her shoulder. “Hey, you’ve got scribbles. That’s got to be good, right?”

Kimmer couldn’t hear the response, but she didn’t think it was wholehearted agreement.

Rio didn’t either, to judge by the set of his shoulders or the fingers he rubbed over one eye in a tired gesture. But Carolyne didn’t see any of that, Kimmer was quick to note. All Carolyne would have perceived was a slight pause before Rio’s hands landed on her shoulders, massaging the muscles at the base of her neck. “You need a break,” he said. “You can’t just stare at this laptop all day long.”

“I haven’t been,” Carolyne said, and now she sounded miserable, although she let her head tip back to accept the shoulder rub. Probably had her eyes closed, shutting out the world. An odd, sharp pang gripped Kimmer, and after a surprised moment, she recognized it as jealousy.

Screw jealousy. Kimmer had her own ways of shutting out the world, and she didn’t need another person to do it.

She’d missed whatever Carolyne had said next. Something about going to the picnic the day before, Kimmer thought.

“That hardly turned out to be relaxing,” Rio said. “I didn’t know the town would have its version of our home-town Greeley Gang.”

Carolyne snorted. “I hear those boys are all domesticated now,” she said. “Kids and dogs and white picket fences. And here we are, still footloose and fancy free.”

“I picked the wrong career for anything else.” Rio’s voice held a mixture of resignation and matter-of-fact acceptance. “As for you…you need the right guy, that’s all. Someone in your league.”

“You don’t think that someone is Scott, do you,” Carolyne said, and it came out more edgy than a simple question.

Rio put his hands in the air, a total surrender. “Whoa—you’re the one who used the term ‘footloose.’ Look, let’s just go for a walk tomorrow morning, okay? I’ll clear the area first, and you can check out the fall color and give your brain a break from coding and whatever thoughts of Scott are interfering with that coding. We’ll have some hot chocolate, you can whip my butt over some crosswords, and then you’ll be able to think better.”

She straightened, twisting to look up at him in surprise. Relieved surprise, Kimmer would have said. “You think I’m blocked on this work because of Scott?”

He crossed his arms, looking down at her. “You tell me.”

Carolyne didn’t. But Kimmer could read her easily, and she knew Carolyne’s mind was alight with revelation—and with new purpose. She hadn’t realized her preoccupation, and now she thought she could set it aside by working it through. “You know, I used to like how assertive he is. I used to depend on it. He made things so much easier.”

“All these years, and still the shy one,” Rio teased her.

“I don’t get the feeling that’ll ever be different. Not in social situations.” She hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t know if I’ve changed or if he’s just holding on a little too tight. No one likes to be taken for granted. It’s just…I miss him. It’s confusing. If I could just talk to him—”

“That’s not safe,” Rio said. “You know that.” He sighed, and bounced the bottom of his fist gently off the top of Carolyne’s head. “Your heart’s too big, Caro. You feel things too deeply.”

She snatched at his fist and then, when he eluded her, poked him sharply in the belly with one finger, unheeding of his pathetic oof noise. “It takes one to know one.”

Rio made an inarticulate noise, followed instantly by, “I’m going out to check our little corner of the world.”

Carolyne twisted to watch as Rio went out of Kimmer’s line of sight, headed for the door and, she supposed, his shoes and jacket. “Go ahead,” she said. “Run away. It’s because I’m right and you know it.”

Inarticulate noise number two.

Kimmer had seen what she’d come for. A feel for the station’s layout, some sense of how Carolyne fared with her life-and-death project. She’d seen more than she’d come for. As she backed away from the window, she tried to separate the relevant bits out so she could flush the rest from her thoughts.

But as she reached the tree line in her retreat—only moments before he emerged from the front door—the distracting thoughts refused to be flushed. Nothing in Kimmer’s experience had led her to believe family relationships could be what she’d seen these past few days between Carolyne and Rio. She might not be able to get a direct bead on Rio, but plain old observation had shown her much. Carolyne trusted him. She wasn’t afraid of him. She trusted that he meant what he said, and that he’d do as he claimed.

Part of it was Kimmer’s own fault, of course. She lived in a world where double-dealing, betrayal and using people as playing pieces were as common as not; she even took on some of those roles herself. Neither life nor work had exposed her to relationships of trust and truth, partnership and reliability. And now it was right here under her nose. She could almost wish she’d met Rio Carlsen long ago, before she’d become so jaded as to need her rules in the first place. Her mother’s rules.

Then again, she’d reached that jaded point before her teens. And after that, no one—not even Rio Carlsen—could have changed the course of her life and who she’d become.

Kimmer faded back into the woods, and went out to take up a safer vigil at the entrance to the camp.

Chapter 8

The morning dawned gray and drizzly, with tiny patters of rain occasionally gusting against the tent canvas and the sporadic splatter of giant drops from the leaves above. Kimmer headed to town early; her jeans were soaked to midthigh by the time she made it to the station wagon, and she crawled in to start the engine and crank the heat up high.

At the hotel she stood under the apathetic shower until the water started to feel cool, and bundled up her laundry for the motel’s coin-operated machines. She took her chances with it and left the machine filling with water, heading for town in a brisk walk she hoped would finish warming her up. Bonnie Miller took her to the Shear Delight beauty salon, where she had no intention of letting anyone get near her hair, but put her nails up for sacrifice.

“Sit your p’toot right down here, honey,” said Dora the manicurist with such enthusiasm Kimmer figured the woman had been facing an empty schedule—or she thought she had a chance at some juicy gossip. “Good Lord, what have you done to these nails? Jerri, you should look at these hands!”

Kimmer managed an embarrassed shrug, as if she truly cared. She normally paid them enough attention to keep them smooth and buffed, and had false nails applied as suited her assignment. Now their coat of Bonnie-red nail polish was chipped, and the fingernails themselves had taken a beating in the past twenty-four hours of lugging, hiking and lurking. “Things have been a little rough lately,” she said. “I wanted to get some acrylics—a little pick-me-up, you know?—but I think I’d better stay conservative until things settle down. Nothing worse than a set of French sport nails half grown out.”

Dora nodded agreement. “You just want ’em cleaned up, then? Some new color?”

Kimmer spread her fingers out for inspection and gave them a wistful look. “Maybe a little stenciling? Nothing too fancy—I don’t want to feel bad if I wreck one tomorrow. But a couple of stars or some squigglies…”

“Excellent,” Dora pronounced, examining Kimmer’s fingers another moment before sitting down and commencing work.

“How about the hair?” asked Jerri, raising the chair for her current customer. “You look about ready for a trim.”

“I’m letting it grow out,” Kimmer told her, lying without hesitation. No one touched this hair except for the stylist she’d found in Ithaca—well worth both the cost and the long drive to have her wildly unruly hair reliably tamed. Carina Hunter had put her on to the woman, just as one or another of the Hunters had guided her transformation since they’d discovered her, a skinny runaway with frightening hair and ragged hand-me-down boys’ clothes. And Mama’s rules, of course.

Dora didn’t wait long before heading for the gossip portion of the manicure. “How’re you liking our little town?” she asked. “Most people find it too far from Pixburg, but I guess that’s one of the reasons you picked it.”

Direct opening salvo. Kimmer approved. She noted the questioning look Jerri gave her, and realized that Jerri was the boss here, waiting to squelch the conversation if she thought Kimmer found it uncomfortable. So she shrugged and said, “Yeah, it is.”

Jerri took it as permission to dive in. “Did you hear about those two fellas up from the city, then?”

Kimmer didn’t bother to hide her interest, not when it suited her cover so perfectly. “I wasn’t in town yesterday. What two fellas?”

“Just the kind you don’t want to meet, if you catch my drift.” Jerri flipped a screen of hair over her comb, pulled it out straight and divested it of several inches with a quick pass of her shears. Her customer, although silent, watched Kimmer in the mirror she faced. “Big guys in suits. Well, okay, they weren’t in suits, but they looked like they should have been. They had on brand-spankin’-new flannel shirts and jeans that haven’t even seen a single load of wash. Thought that would make them fit in, I guess.”

“You saw them?” Kimmer fought to keep her hand relaxed in Dora’s expert grip. The scents of nail-polish remover and hair product seemed overwhelming, intensified by the damp weather.

Jerri had to admit not. “Missy told me about them. But she described them just like that. And said they’d been asking about a visitor to town, a woman. They seem to think you’re blond, though.”

Kimmer tapped her temple. “You never know.”

“Really?” Dora’s eyes widened. “I’d never have guessed that was a dye job.”

Nature’s dye job. But Kimmer just looked pleased as she nodded.

Jerri added, “I hear they were asking around pretty thoroughly. I even saw them talking to the Murty brothers.” She looked at Kimmer and added slyly, “You know, two of those boys at the picnic who came out from behind the firehouse with their tails between their legs? People seem to think they saw you back there, too.”

Kimmer gave a scornful snort. “They were drunk.” It didn’t truly explain anything, but it gave the appearance of a response and might sidetrack the conversation.

The woman in Jerri’s chair, her hair now combed over her face like Cousin It, muttered, “They’re always drunk.”

“Nearly always,” Dora agreed. “At least, anytime they all get together like that.”

Kimmer held one hand to the light, admiring the manicure portion of the treatment. “These men. Anyone know where they’re staying?”

“I’m not sure they did stay.” Dora worked on the second hand, gently cleaning off the old polish, creaming and pushing back the cuticles, shaping the nails. “I never heard anything, anyway. And you can see I’m pretty much in the right spot to hear it all.”

As was Missy. Kimmer squelched the impulse to go rushing out to question the young woman, an effort of willpower made easier by the fact that Missy apparently worked a later shift.

“Maybe the B&B,” Jerri said suddenly. “They were asking how to get there, and Missy told them. She knew you weren’t staying there, of course—so why not?”

Right. Why not? But Kimmer just shrugged, staying in her Bonnie persona while her thoughts raced on ahead with the job at hand. If they’d caused any trouble the night before, someone would have heard of it. They might have cased the place and moved on…or they could decide to come back with a more direct approach.

A talk with Angelina might be a good thing.

After dark at the B&B. Kimmer parked down the block, torn by the impulse to get back in the car and speed back to Camp Cardinal. She’d been away most of the day, with only a quick late-afternoon foray to confirm that no one had encroached on the camp or disturbed the lines she’d drawn across the dirt entrance road. Rio and Carolyne, trapped indoors by the morning drizzle, were out for an afternoon walk when Kimmer, her newly blazoned nails hidden by gloves, spotted them—a good way down the trail and plenty of time for Kimmer to secure herself behind a tree. Trapped into lurking again.

Except that wasn’t quite true—or if it was, there was more to it. She found herself with a willingness to listen, an interest in hearing more of the byplay between the two…of learning what it revealed about Rio. Somehow such things had become more than just part of an assignment. They’d become a glimpse into another world, another way to be.

Carolyne’s laugh caught Kimmer’s attention first—a welcome sound. Maybe the other woman was finally starting to catch her balance. She got close enough to hear the conversation and planted herself behind a nice white oak tree, hoping for some tidbit of good news.

A casual pronouncement that Carolyne had solved the problem with the guided missile would sound good to Kimmer.

Of course, she heard no such thing. Just some playful banter, and then Rio’s warning for Carolyne to step over a trip line.

“Another?” Carolyne asked. “Where’d you learn to do stuff like this, Rio?”

He cleared his throat. “I took some courses.”

“Yeah, but not at the local community college, I’ll bet.” A silence, and then Carolyne said, “You never talk about what happened. The family doesn’t even know how badly you were hurt or why you left. I mean, did you just get tired of taking chances?”

A much longer silence.

When Rio did answer, he sounded a little tired. “You know I can’t talk about that.”

“I’m not asking for details. I don’t even care where you were when it happened. I’m just trying to understand what changed for you. You liked what you were doing, didn’t you? Felt it was important? Well, so do I.” Carolyne must have tossed a pebble as she spoke; her voice changed with her body movement, and then a tiny missile sped past Kimmer. Good arm. “And I still do think it’s important, but I’m not sure I ever signed up for this. It got me to thinking whether I should be making the same decision you did. And whether it was this sort of thing that made you change your life so completely.”

“Aside from the no-choice problem and rehab time?” Rio asked, his voice as dryly ironic as Kimmer had heard it. Yes indeed, she was getting good at spying on the people she was supposed to protect. Too bad she hadn’t been as successful with finding the people she was protecting them from.

Rio eventually spoke again, but only after tossing another wicked stone. “Someone we counted on got his priorities mixed up,” he said, his words hard and a little jerky. “He got tangled with a double agent, wouldn’t heed the warnings because this particular asset was really a sweet one.”

“Double agent…as in, pretending to work for your case officer, but really feeding him pablum while picking his brains.”

Rio snorted. “Just that. When the double realized the rest of us were getting close to him, he went deep. But he took as many of us with him as he could…and I was in the middle of an exfiltration.” He threw a pebble. Hard. “We lost people. Too many people. And I don’t want my life to be in someone else’s hands anymore. I’ll take my own chances. But there aren’t many job offerings for paladins these days, so…”

“So you work with Ari and ply your brush on custom-painted boat names and pack them away for the winter.”

Another pause. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what I do. Except when I’m rescuing my genius cousin from people who want a piece of her smarts.”

“Ha,” said Carolyne. “And ha again.” A stone pinged directly off Kimmer’s tree; only strength of will kept her from jumping. At that they started walking again, as if waiting to hit the tree was what had kept them here.

“There’s another line coming up,” Rio murmured.

Her voice was fading with distance. “How many of those things did you put out, Rambo?”

“As many as I thought we needed,” he said, quite seriously.

Kimmer waited until she could no longer even glimpse them through the trees, and then she waited five minutes beyond that. This game, she knew, could not last much longer. Rio’s CIA experience as listed in his file had been typically vague, but for all his laid-back exterior, she trusted her instincts on this one thing: sooner or later, he’d catch her lurking. Between that knowledge and her recent discovery of goonboys in town, she had a sudden impulse to be waiting at the nurse’s station when he and Carolyne returned.

But on top of the impulse came a flood of reluctance…of knowing that she couldn’t read him, and that she’d simply have to trust him. Trust in his skills, trust in his truths. And trust that the weird tug she felt upon sighting him wouldn’t interfere with her own work.

Nope. Time to return to town, and see if she couldn’t track down the goonboy interlopers. Angelina’s was the best place to start—they needed a warning—not to mention the most likely place for the goonboys themselves to show up.

If they weren’t already there.

The mouth-watering smell of apple pie hung by the front door of Angelina’s. As Kimmer waited for someone to respond to her no-nonsense use of the old-fashioned door knocker, she turned to examine the yard from this new perspective…daylight, and no skulking. The long driveway that kept the B&B isolated from what one might generously call traffic also meant no one was likely to notice trouble on the premises. The several acres around the house that offered up a peaceful garden and lush lawn also made plenty of room for shenanigans. Not to mention it had prevented her from performing surveillance from the potentially cozy interior of her car—but now she had parked in the B&B’s crowded little lot, a full house in the height of Pennsylvania fall color. The spot she’d taken, she figured, was the one Rio and Carolyne should have used.

The porch floorboards shook slightly as someone approached the door on the other side. Kimmer turned her attention back around and, as the door opened, found herself facing a man who must be Mr. Angelina. Short, hair cut tight to accommodate his thinning hair with dignity, a reedy man going slightly chubby, he greeted her with a faintly puzzled smile. Behind that smile waited a pleasant refusal to consider solicitations, and Kimmer suppressed a wry little smile at the knowledge of just how wrongly he’d pegged her.

The full impact of the dinner aroma rolled out the door to engulf her; she had to stop herself from simply stopping to inhale and appreciate. “Hi,” she said. “I’m here looking for a couple of friends who I thought would be staying with you, but I didn’t see their car.” Of course not. But one had to start somewhere. “Rio and Carolyne.”

His expression shifted to puzzled; she wasn’t what he’d expected and he couldn’t immediately reclassify her. “They were here.” He pointed upward in an unconscious gesture, indicating the room Kimmer had so recently searched. “They left early.”

Kimmer frowned. “They did? When I heard from them, they said they loved it here. Welcoming, that’s what Rio said. I never would have expected them to leave early. I’d hoped to surprise them.” If she was lucky, the mere conversation would prompt him to mention if the goonboys had been by. She doubted it, or she’d have heard it as his initial response—the old “you’re the second visit we’ve had for them today” kind of thing.

And if the goonboys hadn’t been here yet, Kimmer began to think a warning would be in order. But how to do it…

Probably shouldn’t. It would compromise all sorts of things…her cover, for starters. It would create complications—especially if someone from the B&B tried to involve the police.

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—

She jammed the .38 against the outside of his thigh as his Colt came to bear and pulled the trigger.

His flesh acted as a silencer of sorts, taking the brunt of powder burns and expanding gases and the wadcutter itself; it didn’t go far but it chewed up skin and muscle on the way. Dammit, now things were messy. Now the locals would get involved.

Sleek grunted, his eyes opening wide in surprise and then gasping as the pain hit, but he tried to claw the Colt around anyway. Kimmer shifted her revolver slightly upward and shot him again, and then she jammed the gun into his stomach and snarled, “Your choice, goonboy.”

By then he’d paled; she was so close she could feel the tremble start—shock and pain and the leg giving way. “Take it,” he said, knowing better than to move, even so much as to hand the gun over.

She did. She glanced at Bulky, found him lifting his head with that brutal gleam of intent, and pointed the Colt Python at his face without moving her .38 from Sleek’s stomach. “Tell him,” she instructed Sleek, “that this is over.”

Sleek gave a little gasp of a laugh. “What makes you think I can tell him anything?”

She shrugged. “Then I’ll just have to—”

“Ker-ist!” A heartfelt curse, it came with an edge of desperation. “Ozmanski, give it up!”

She saw the moment Bulky let go of his fantasy of crushing her, and said to Sleek, “You should have been gentlemen and listened in the first place. Carolyne’s not here. They don’t know where she’s gone. The room’s been cleaned.”

“Look,” Sleek said, even as he lost his fight with gravity and slipped an inch down the banister, headed for the floor. “We don’t have to take this any further. We’ll go. I don’t even know who you are—”

“Your mistake.” Kimmer found Brad standing in the middle of the hallway. The entire population of the dining room was crowded around the hall entry, eyes wide, faces pale and set with fear even as they realized the moment was over. “Brad, do you have some rope? Or say, how about some barbed wire?”

“Rope,” he said faintly, and then straightened and cleared his throat. “I’ll get some rope.”

Sleek was on the floor by the time he returned, patted down for weapons and rendered as harmless as he was going to get. His blood puddled on the floor, and Kimmer had acquired a dishtowel to jam into his ragged wounds and a bath towel to soak up the blood. The B&B customers still huddled at the end of the hallway, but Angie had developed a stubborn jut to her chin and had not entirely retreated from bringing in the towels, even though she obviously didn’t know what she should do next.

Kimmer put the Colt in Brad’s shaking hands and quite deliberately positioned them so the barrel pointed directly at Sleek. “He knows better than to move,” she told him. “He’ll only bleed faster.”

Then she tucked the .38 away and made short work of Bulky. As she jerked the last knot tight, not sparing Bulky’s injured wrist, she straightened and glanced at Sleek. “How’d you find this place?”

“Get real.” Tied, Bulky still had a mean sneer.

“I’m real enough.”

“No kidding!” Brad blurted. “You told us you were Carolyne’s friend.”

Kimmer gave him a little smile. “I am. I’m just a kick-ass friend.”

From the end of the hall came unmistakable if shaky murmurs of agreement.

Kimmer turned back to Sleek; his head had rolled back against the wainscoting that ran along the base of the stairs. “Look, the sooner you talk to me, the sooner I can run to a neighbor’s and call 911 so you can stop bleeding to death. I stayed away from your femoral artery, but I think I could just about put my fist into each of those holes, so…” She tapped an impatient foot, arms crossed. Then on second thought she took the Colt back from Brad just so he could let go of it. “Besides, I figure it this way—you two have lost. You have no chance at Carolyne. None. The more you tell me, the better I’ll be able to stop everyone else who comes after her. Otherwise, you take the chance that one of your competitors could succeed.”

Brad stepped forward, clearly more comfortable without the pistol in his hand—bold enough, in fact, to let some of his anger come through. “And just what the hell was Carolyne working on, anyway? She seemed so quiet.”

“Computer things,” Kimmer answered absently, watching Sleek. Sleek, in turn, eyed Brad. Kimmer got the hint. “Brad, would you mind grabbing my purse for me? It’s hanging off the back of the chair where I was sitting.”

If he realized she was getting rid of him, he didn’t show it. He sent a glare at each of the goonboys and stalked down the hall. Kimmer didn’t blame him for the anger; this intrusion on his peaceful, homey business would cause ripples for far longer than it would take to scrub the blood from the hardwood floor and replace the long, braided oval floor runner. She crouched by Sleek. “I want to know how you found this place. And you might as well start talking. Aside from dragging you outside to keep from messing up this hallway, I’m not going anywhere until I have what I want—and until I go make that call for help, you’re just going to keep bleeding.”

“Someone here must have a cell phone,” Sleek said, gasping a little. “And none of them will have your attitude. Who the hell are you, lady?”

Kimmer gave him a tight little smile. “I’m Carolyne’s insurance, and if you want to know the truth, this is a lightweight job as far as I’m concerned. You’re in over your head—but wait, you must already realize that.” She prodded his leg, evoking a hiss of pain. At the end of the hallway, she heard someone hit the floor in a clunk of a faint. Cries of dismay followed, and then everyone talking at once, instructions to one another regarding water, cold cloths, put her feet up…

Good. They’d quit thinking about the sensible thing to do, which was for one of them to run off and call for help without waiting for Kimmer to do it. She said, “Do they look like the cell-phone type? Any of them? Besides, they’re busy. And Brad will be back any moment, if he can get past them.”

Bulky said, “Just keep your mouth shut!”

Kimmer could have hugged him. Well, maybe not quite, but close enough. For Sleek reacted predictably enough, snarling a curse at his companion. “I’m not dying for this!” He looked over at Kimmer, still crouching close, projecting a relaxed and in-charge attitude with every awareness of the Colt still in her grip, her wrist propped on her knee. He said, “A contact in Albany planted a bug on the target right before she left. Two of us tried to get her on the road—”

“The gas-and-foo store, right?”

He nodded, a bare brush of movement. “You know about that…we just took it from there. We’ve been checking all the small towns around here. Someone saw Carlsen at some big picnic here in town, and thought she was staying here.”

“Did they happen to mention she has a bodyguard in the way of her big ex-spy cousin?” Kimmer asked. “Did you really think you’d get past him with all that doorway bluster?”

Sleek shot her a sour look. “Him we were ready for.”

Okay, then. That’s all she could expect to get from him; at this point she didn’t care whom he was working for, only that he and Bulky were not in fact new players in this game, but merely an extension of the goonboys she’d dealt with earlier. That still left only one unknown set of nasties—those who had followed her and bugged the Taurus.

Not much of a comfort, given the truth of her earlier words to Sleek—others were sure to follow. And it didn’t matter that she wasn’t comfortable with the idea of working with Rio, that she didn’t have the crutch of her intuitive assessment to help her deal with him, or that she was all too aware that her old memories of this area had tangled with his charismatic and alluringly kind nature to make her every response to him suspect. She had to head for the camp, break cover and convince Rio to escort Carolyne back to Hunter. A Hunter safehouse was the only thing she’d trust at this point.

She found herself staring at Sleek, and found him staring back with a suspicious frown. He didn’t think she’d follow through with her intent to help, she realized. As Brad arrived behind her, she set the gun carefully out of Sleek’s reach and grabbed his belt buckle, stripping the belt from the loops with a quick tug. “Everyone okay?”

Brad put her backpack purse on the floor beside her. “I wouldn’t say that. But no one’s hurt.”

“Good.” Kimmer gathered up the bloody towel, slipped the belt under Sleek’s thigh and jammed the towel in place, then cinched the belt tightly around the worst of the two close wounds. He cried out and Brad abruptly sat down to put his head on his knees, muttering, “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

By then she was done. “That should slow things a little.”

Faint gratitude washed over Sleek’s face. Bulky snorted something crude in the background. Kimmer ignored him. She sat back on her heels, grabbed her purse and pulled out the camera, powering it up to take a quick series of images, several angles of both Sleek and Bulky. She had no doubt that the techs at Hunter would be perfectly capable of lip-reading Bulky’s reaction.

Brad watched with a sick fascination, but she made no attempt to explain herself to him; at this point, let him speculate. He—and everyone here—already knew too much. She stood, lifting her coat from the coat rack that stood off to the side of the door. “I’m going to find somewhere to call 911.” Brad only nodded vaguely, and she said sharply, “Listen. You could get other people here asking questions. You should call 911 immediately if that happens—keep someone ready to do that. Get a cell phone, too. And if push comes to shove, just tell them everything you know. Carolyne and Rio will be long gone—you can’t hurt them with anything you say.”

Or so she hoped.

Chapter 9

Kimmer called 911 on her cell phone as she headed down the walk to the dark parking area, confident in the secure nature of the Hunter-enhanced phone. As the sirens from the station on the other end of town rang their alarm, she pulled out onto the aptly named Maple Street and headed for her motel at a sedate pace. No one was likely to miss her in the hustle, and though she’d have to deal with the local law eventually, by the time they came for her she planned to be packed and gone.

But first things first.

At the motel, Kimmer ran into her first snag…cleaning day. The maid had knocked her backup phone battery askew in the charger, and there was no telling when she’d get another chance to juice it up. Communication was apparently not meant to be taken for granted, as usual. She settled the battery into the charger to grab what minutes she could from it, and swiftly went through the familiar process of downloading the camera to the PDA and hooking the PDA up to the phone to send Hunter the goonboy photos. In the moments it took them to upload, she scooped her toiletries from the bathroom, gave her face a quick scrub and jammed her newly laundered clothes into the suitcase. Like Carolyne, she was paid up for the week; like Rio, she deliberately kept her departure quiet. Within moments she’d thrown her gear in the Taurus and headed out of town.

Not until she reached the seedy little gas station by the side of the road did she pull over. The place looked dark enough—only a feeble light by the gas pumps, only a dim light inside the garage office itself—and this time she took advantage of the wide shoulder just beyond the station rather than the actual station lot. She cracked the window in spite of the cold evening air—keeping track of the sounds around her—cut all her lights and pulled out her cell phone.

“I expected to hear from you before now,” Owen said by way of greeting.

“Busy,” Kimmer told him. “Get the photos?”

“Mmm.” His thoughtful response made her think he was looking at them as they spoke. “I note the presence of blood. Not to mention bad attitude.”

“Bulky. Yeah. Not Mr. Manners. You think you can ID them?”

“Eventually.” Owen’s fingers drummed against his desktop. “I’m not sure it’s crucial. We’ve already got indications that the area is compromised—there are at least two organizations, both freelance power players, gearing up to descend on the area. That’s on top of the two we know about.”

“I figured we’d hit that point when I ran into these two tonight. If Rio hadn’t taken Carolyne elsewhere, things would have been a lot messier than those photos indicate.” Secure phone or not, Kimmer had limits to what she’d say.

“They look quite messy enough,” Owen said. “I think it’s safe to say you’ve left your mark on Mill Springs.”

Turnabout seems like fair play. Although of course it had been her own hometown of Munroville that had irreparably marked Kimmer, so perhaps not so fair after all. She gave it a dark thought or two as she watched a battered old Fury pull up to the feeble light at the gas pumps. Eventually, a dark shape ambled out to take the man’s money. Not the owner, for which she was just as glad. It was unfortunate that his little wide spot in the road was the only convenient place to pull over for miles.

“Kimmer?”

“I’m here,” she said quickly. “Hunter might want to do some follow-up at the B&B. And I think we need to reassess. Things are escalating beyond what Rio and I can handle, especially when he doesn’t know I’m even here. I want to do two things—”

“Make open contact with Rio,” Owen guessed. “And get them out of there.”

“Get them the hell out of here,” Kimmer responded in no uncertain terms. “Do you have an available safehouse?”

“If you can convince them, absolutely.” His chair would never do anything so mundane as creak, but she heard him swivel to his sleek keyboard and monitor setup and knew he was checking locations. “France seems a little out of the way, but we’ve got one south of Buffalo. About four hours from there.”

“Put my name on it,” she said. “And don’t be surprised if I drop out of sight—I’m going to have to turn the phone off. I’ve had a battery incident.”

“Ah.” He had the tone that meant he was keeping a straight face. “I see.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Kimmer protested, knowing it was useless. “I’ll check for messages every chance I get. But I have the feeling things could move fast from here.” Or else stall out completely. If Rio bought her story and her plan for the safehouse, she thought he’d having them moving within the hour. If not…

In his place, would she trust Carolyne’s safety to a woman whose coincidental presence turned out to be quite deliberate and who’d lied to them at every encounter, in the end turning out to be as much of a player as anyone else in this little drama?

Not.

Owen seemed to be following the same train of thought. “Good luck,” he said. “If you break them loose, head for Buffalo, get some distance and give me a call. I’ll have directions ready for you.”

“Will do,” Kimmer said, faltering internally as she realized she’d set herself up to face just the situation she’d been trying to avoid. Rio. Working together with someone she couldn’t read. With her judgment knocked askew by the past.

“Kimmer? Are you all right?”

She might have even answered, if she hadn’t glanced up. She was almost glad for the distraction, and the immediate loosening of her tight throat. “Aw, dammit—” For her old friend had been lurking inside the station after all, and here he came.

Owen grew still at his desk, totally focused on her. “Kimmer? Is that a serious ‘dammit’ or an annoyance ‘dammit’?”

“It’s what we get for sending me down to this area,” Kimmer growled. “I’ll be in touch.” She flipped the cell closed and looked up to see Garage Boy. He leaned against the car, straight armed, in a way that might have been casual but wasn’t. Kimmer preempted his opening line. “Hi,” she said. “I don’t need gas this time. I just don’t like to use the cell while I’m driving and this was the only place to pull over.”

“Yeah, I guess this place is convenient like that.” His voice carried the same aggression as his posture, and Kimmer scrambled to sort out the change.

He’d been talking to Rio at the picnic.

But what could Rio have possibly said—?

It didn’t matter. She was on her way out. She’d grab up Rio and Carolyne on the way out and—

Headlights approached, slowed. Mildly distracted, Garage Boy gave the car a wave; the headlights blinked and the car moved back up to speed. It was hard to see in the darkness, but Kimmer felt a frisson of unease and flipped her headlight on in time to wash across the rear of the vehicle.

Typical rental car. Classy dark sedan, not usual for these roads.

Whoop, whoop! Sound the suspicion alarm! Without thinking, Kimmer jumped out of the Taurus, trying to sight at least a partial plate—and then whirled around to look at Garage Boy. “Who were they?”

He frowned, annoyance and lack of understanding combined. “What does it matter?”

“They’re in a rental, but they knew you.”

A shrug this time. “Like I said, what does it matter to you?”

“Let’s just say it does.” Kimmer stood with the open door between them, tired of playing games.

“Let’s just talk about this instead.” He looked just as belligerent as Kimmer felt. “Let’s talk about something that happened a dozen or so years ago.”

“Let’s not.” Kimmer didn’t know what he was getting at and she didn’t care. He’d remembered her—that was clear enough—but he wasn’t part of her life now, whoever he was. He was from the past, no matter how hard it tried to claim her. She sat down in the car, slammed the door closed and reached for the—

Keys. The missing keys.

Garage Boy raised his hand to shoulder height and dangled those keys in a taunting way.

“Are you crazy?” She grabbed for her phone. “How long do you think it’s going to take me to call 911?”

“The important thing is how long it’ll take someone to get out here. I happen to know there’s a big rig flipped on the road out to Pixburg. They might send someone, but they aren’t getting here anytime soon.”

Not to mention she’d left behind a big fat mess at Angelina’s. Or that she didn’t really want to involve herself with the local law enforcement, not now. Kimmer briefly rested her head on the steering wheel, barely refraining from beating her forehead against it, however gently. “Okay,” she said, “go ahead. Make your move.” Whatever it is, just make it. Just give me an excuse….

“You don’t remember me.” It wasn’t a question.

Kimmer eyed him, unable to stop herself from searching her memory one last time. Nothing but the faintly familiar character of his eyes and mouth.

“I’ve changed, I’ll give you that. But then again, so have you. All fixed up like that—pretty haircut, nicer clothes…gotta shape on you now. And your face…had no idea they could take care of a birthmark like that. Me, I suppose I had more hair. And last I saw you I hadn’t quite hit my growing streak.” He frowned. “Or broke my nose yet, either, I suppose.”

“Teeth?” Kimmer said faintly. Please. Make a move. Give me a reason….

“Yeah, I lost one.” He stared at her, and his expression had turned cold in the darkness. “You still don’t get it, do you? Leo Stark. I’m Leo Stark.”

Good God. Kimmer had entered hell and hadn’t even known it. Leo Stark had been six inches shorter, with wild yellow hair and an unbroken, blade-thin nose that went with the rest of his undeveloped body. A few years older than Kimmer, he hung around with her brothers. He took part in the many nasty pranks on her when she was younger, and those truly frightening moments as she got older and fended off constant threats and groping. Disbelieving, she said out loud, “They promised me to you.”

“Damn right they did. Except you left, and they just laughed at me. Said I couldn’t even keep a puny thing like you in line. Damn rotten timing on your part, Kimmer Reed.”

“Damn fine timing,” she snapped at him. “Did you think it was coincidence?”

Never mind the reason. Never mind the excuse. He had her car keys; she wanted to leave. And most of all, she wanted to leave this man behind her. Again.

Kimmer got out of the car.

Leo grinned meanly, which showed his teeth and was not an improvement even in this scant light.

She stood behind the open car door, rolling the window down. He didn’t seem to notice; he focused his attention on her face. She knew the expression there; it spoke loudly of his need to dominate her. She’d humiliated him with her escape, and over the years it had rankled within him. No doubt he’d never expected to see her again, although she was just as sure he’d fantasized about what he’d do if he did. And now here was his chance….

Or so he thought.

He said, “You prettied up damn nice, Kimmer. Before, I figured I’d be doing you a favor. But now, even your face…” He took a deep breath, regaining some control over a voice that had, in a barely perceptible way, actually softened. “No wonder I couldn’t figure out where I’d seen you. That tourist helped, though. Asked me enough questions that I got to thinking about you again.”

“Rio?” Kimmer said faintly. Rio was the one who’d gotten her into this trouble? Rio who she’d let herself believe was different?

He sensed he’d hurt her, even though he had no idea why, and drove the point home. “Yeah, Rio. He had a real interest in you, Kimmer Reed. He didn’t know you were the sort to run off from your family, I guess. Wanted to know what I’d heard about you, if people around here knew of you. I didn’t know anything except what I saw of you coming into town, of course…but like I said. It got me to thinking.”

Had Rio asked about her out of idle curiosity? Been suspicious of their coincidental arrival in the same town? Just plain been intrigued by what he’d heard of her cover story? Had he even simply been interested in her?

It doesn’t matter.

And it didn’t. It just turned Rio into one more person who’d messed with her life for his own reasons, leaving her to deal with the consequences.

She hadn’t expected it to hurt. She’d had this lesson rammed home from childhood, had carried it along with her mother’s words through the years. It shouldn’t hurt. It should be just what she expected. She’d just been foolish enough to absorb what she’d seen of Rio with Carolyne—how he cared for her, how he tried to make this frightening experience easier on her. Watching him, she’d forgotten those early lessons. Not for long, but…

Long enough.

That’s not fair. He hadn’t meant to cause her trouble. Rio hadn’t known that his questions would result in this confrontation.

Fair. She gave a succinct snort of a curse. Never mind fair. He’d have asked his questions regardless, if it suited his purposes. Experience settled around Kimmer like thick armor, smothering the hurt. Bringing her back to herself. Giving her back her distance. Steeling her for the future, when she found Rio and started working with him, trust or no trust.

She found Leo staring at her, curious. Spiteful and satisfied to think he’d been the one to give her that little emotional stagger.

Well, his mistake. And he really never should have crowded the car door so close, not when Kimmer had her hands in her coat pockets. She gave him a tight little smile, and that, too, should have warned him. “Sorry, Leo,” she said. “Maybe we’ll do this again someday, when I’m not busy saving the world.”

As he frowned over the words, she quite casually pulled the Talon Mini from her pocket and jammed it through the open car window and into his stomach, triggering it. He gave a harsh, involuntary shout, stiffened, and then crumpled.

Kimmer walked around the car door and toed his arm out from the path of her front tire. Leo watched her through dazed eyes, unable to move. Ten minutes from now, perhaps, he’d stagger to his feet and make it back to the garage. By then she’d be long gone. She patted his cheek. “Could have been worse,” she said. “Just ask the guys at Angelina’s.”

And she slipped back into the car and drove off after the sedan.

Kimmer stared at the black sedan, snugged up against the edge of the road at the entrance to Camp Cardinal. How the hell had they found—?

True, she’d been concerned about the car when it drove by Leo’s gas station—there weren’t so many rental cars in Mill Springs that she could afford to take even a single one at face value, not with goonboys closing in from all sides. But once she’d hit the dark road again, she’d realized how slight were the chances that people unfamiliar with the area—supposing they somehow knew to look for the camp in the first place—could come close to finding it in the dark.

And yet here they were. Not only that, they’d been smart enough to park out here where the engine noise wouldn’t alert Rio. Damn, damn, damn. She restarted the Taurus and eased down the road to park it out of sight.

There she quickly disembarked, stripping off her jacket—with the pace she was about to undertake, she’d be thoroughly warm enough before this night was over—and transferring her weapons to the vest pockets and her jeans. She grabbed her Ruger, strapping on the military holster with its thigh strap. She wanted a pistol with real stopping power along, something with range; there was no need for stealth this time around.

Besides, she’d found that the opposition generally spent too much time focusing on the very visible pistol, and never thought to wonder what else she might have secured around her body.

Armed, she made for the interloper car, mulling the notion of slashing the tires. But as she pulled her glove off to feel engine heat still radiating through the hood, she quickly spotted the blinking alarm light inside the car. No telling how sensitive the alarm itself was…

Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to discourage this set of goonboys from leaving once she chased them out.

A screen on the dash caught her attention; she turned the Nightstorm scope on it and discovered the GPS guidance system that had allowed them to find this place against all expectation. “You guys go first class,” she murmured. She should have expected it. The stakes were high enough to attract the heavy hitters.

In truth, she supposed the only chance Carolyne had ever had was if she’d slipped away before anyone—anyone at all—had been alerted to her reasons. As it was, someone, it seemed, had talked—and even knowing the vague classification of Carolyne’s work would have been enough to start the hunt.

She left the car unmolested and used the night scope to find her recently forged path. The overcast conditions would work in her favor—and in Rio’s favor, if it came to that—making her experience with the area a potentially crucial factor. But for now it slowed progress when every passing moment weighed her down with urgency and tension.

She moved swiftly along the path to the platform tent, and from there to the rough loop through the camp, opting for the fast progress of the actual path but alert to the trip lines and to goonboy noise, keeping the night scope always at hand. There was no telling when they’d gotten here, and they’d probably waste some time checking out the office and mess hall.

In fact, the first thing she heard was Rio noise—which meant she barely heard anything at all. Nor would she have, if he hadn’t been adjusting one of his trip lines, triggering a brief whisper of branches. She scoped the path ahead and found him crouching there, engrossed in his work. Good. She could alert him to the goonboys, blow her cover and work with him to secure the area.

Supposing she could do all that without revealing their presence to anyone else who might be lurking around.

She opted to move in close—too close—and knock lightly on the trunk of a smooth beech.

Who knew he could move so fast?

In an instant he reached her, shoving her up against the tree trunk, his forearm jammed just above her breasts, already capturing one arm at her wrist—the one with the night scope. She reacted without thought, hooking his ankle with hers and ramming the heel of her free hand up at his chin to send him sprawling. He dragged her down with him, twisting like a giant cat so that suddenly she was beneath him, grunting as his full and considerable weight came down on her in an impact that forced a whuff of air from her lungs—the loudest noise either of them had made in this encounter.

Continued struggle could only mean continued noise. Kimmer did the only thing she could to stop things cold, fighting every instinct in her body to go limp. Totally limp—not just surrender, but “maybe you killed me” limp. It would give him time to realize that she’d made as much effort to stay undiscovered as him—that she, too, was hiding from the bad guys. It would give him the time to realize the size and shape of the body he ground into the dirt and into one particularly inconvenient rock. And if she was really lucky, the thought that he’d knocked her senseless—or worse—would inspire him to back off, to check her out.

No such thing as luck.

No, he waited. His breathing quickly quieted; as still as he was, he held enough tension in his body so he could move in any direction at any time. Wary. Capable. Assessing the moment.

Well, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant, even with the bulk of outdoor clothing between them and the stun gun digging into her hip. But as she waited, the situation became less comfortable. Not because she felt helpless; she didn’t. This submission was tactic, not defeat.

No, simply because it had been so long since she’d been this close to a man. It shouldn’t matter. You’re on the job. And she damn sure couldn’t remember being this close to a man and just…being. Trade-off sex didn’t generally allow for quiet moments or relaxed contact. When had she ever had the time to notice the way a well-muscled thigh felt against hers? Or that the weight of a man, rather than being smothering, could in some way feel reassuring in its size and strength, and the way the shape and form and curve and angle fit together?

Get up, she thought at him. Get up so I don’t have to think about this while I’m waiting for you to decide I’m not a threat. Get up so I can have my distance back.

No such thing as luck…

A hint of noise, a glimmer of hand-held metal. Instant fear for Carolyne. Instant reaction.

And now here he was, stretched out on top of this slim, unresisting—possibly unconscious—intruder, listening for all he was worth, waiting for some sign there might be others. Even through her vest and his, there was enough curve to discern the sex of his intruder. The breasts, for instance. Dead giveaway.

Dammit, how had she gotten here? Who was she? And what the hell had she stuck in the pocket of her long vest, which now jabbed him in a tender spot he preferred to have handled more delicately?

He heard nothing. He shifted his weight to his elbows ever so slightly, still trapping the woman, but allowing her a little more room to breathe. At least she was breathing. Not dead…that meant she could answer questions. Eventually.

“Psst.” The voice came so close to his ear that he nearly felt the brush of her lips. Rio, alert for such murmurs at a distance, startled at the sound of her up-close-and-personal voice. “Psst,” she repeated, knowing she’d gotten his attention. “We’re on the same side.”

What the hell? Anger surged through him as he tried to absorb her words. Whoever she was, she’d interrupted his work. She’d caused a commotion. She’d jeopardized the situation and she’d jeopardized Caro—and he’d had his fill of other people stepping in to wreak consequences that they didn’t have to bear.

Although his old overseas station mate had lost more than the almost certain promotion—the sight of which had wrecked his judgment. He’d lost his place in the field.

Nothing next to losing your life.

Rio took a deep breath. Different situation. And still he heard nothing, so perhaps his position hadn’t been compromised after all. There might not even be anyone else out there. He just assumed there was because it was the only way to operate.

“Hello-oo,” she said, wiggling slightly beneath him.

That did it. That edgy quality of her voice, even when she barely voiced her words at all. Her size, her agile nature, her instant, aggressive response to being pinned against the tree. Eyes so deeply blue they looked black until the light hit them, big and striking and often startling with their hardness, curls softened by the shortest of fringed cuts, body vibrant with life and assurance. He suddenly knew he hadn’t knocked this woman out at all; she’d cannily gone limp simply to stop the fight. “Dammit,” he muttered. “Bonnie Miller.”

“More or less,” she agreed, so close to his ear that he was struck by the absurdity of the intimacy—and then by another wave of anger. He closed his hands around her upper arms, tightening down in a way he knew would be mildly painful. Meant to be. “You’re no coincidence.”

“I’m not.” She sounded breathless; he fought the impulse to ease more of his weight from her. “And as pleasant as this little interlude is, we need to talk. We’re not alone. I hope you didn’t break my night scope. We’re going to need it.”

He tensed but didn’t move; it wasn’t worth the risk of discovery. Her night scope. The things were damn expensive, even the first-generation versions. Not something your average individual sprung for. Not something a woman in a battered old station wagon could afford.

“Ow?” she said, drawing his attention to the strength of his grip. He forced himself to relax, but he didn’t let go.

“Explain,” he said. “The fewer words, the better.” She had about thirty seconds before he tied her to a tree and returned to Carolyne at best speed—just in case she was right and the camp was no longer secure.

“Kimmer Reed,” she said. “I work with the Hunter Agency. Scott Boyle called us the night before you left Carolyne’s house. Told us you were with her. We pulled your phone records, found the call to the B&B. I’ve been watching your tail, and your tail is blown. Took down two hired guns at the B&B earlier this evening, found a car at the camp entrance not long ago—engine was still warm. Your cousin has drawn some serious attention.”

That bought her another precious thirty seconds. “You left me in the dark? You knew my background and you still—” He heard his own voice rising and cut himself off.

Beneath him, she gave a shrug. Winter clothing couldn’t hide that, either. “I don’t play well with others.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have taken the assignment!” Somehow he channeled his temper into a quiet tone—and when she stiffened slightly beneath him, he knew she’d heard it.

“I never wanted it,” she snapped back at him, also a remarkable accomplishment in a conversation full of subvocalizations. “I don’t want to be here. I hate this place, I hate what it—”

She, too, stopped short. A moment later, her voice strained, she said, “They’re here. Do you want help or not?”

Rio closed his eyes, listening to the area around them, thinking as fast as he could, trying to absorb this development. Scott had called for help—a high-powered agency, to judge by the woman beneath him. Maybe he’d have to reevaluate his opinion of Scott.

Later. For now…

He found it wasn’t so hard to think of her not as Bonnie Miller but as Kimmer Reed. He found it wasn’t hard to think of her not as a capable woman in hiding, but as a capable woman on assignment. The only lingering question was…

“If you turn out to be after Carolyne, I’ll take you down myself.”

She gave a little laugh, jostling him. “You’ve already taken me down, or hadn’t you noticed? Anyway, if I was after your cousin, I could have easily nabbed her at the Hillside Gas & Foo.”

His jaw tightened as he considered it. “Maybe. Maybe you thought you’d have a better chance later, when you weren’t fighting competition. Just don’t make the mistake of believing you’ve suckered me into total trust.”

“Trust is earned,” Kimmer said, that edge back in her voice.

Trust is earned…sometimes. He could have sworn that’s what she’d said, even if she left out the final word.

He abruptly released her arms and rolled aside. No point in getting up just yet. The path was narrow, the woods pitch-dark. Unless someone literally stumbled over them, they were well hidden. “You’re armed?”

“Adequately.” This time her voice held dark humor, though he couldn’t decipher exactly why. She asked, “You?”

“I don’t have a carry permit.” Something else he’d left behind. He hadn’t exactly been planning to dive right back into special-ops situations.

“I have a Ruger,” she said. “And I have the .38 you saw. It’s only carrying wadcutters. You’re welcome to either.”

He gave a short shake of his head, even knowing she couldn’t see it. “You keep the Ruger. And I have a feeling I’ll need to do more damage than wadcutters can deal out. I’ve got a knife, I’ve got my hands. They’ll do. We don’t need bullets flying around near Caro.”

“Is it a genuine Rambo knife?” Kimmer asked, shifting in the darkness; he thought she got to her hands and knees, and in a moment she made a satisfied noise. Found the scope, probably.

He found himself smiling, utterly grim. “Not quite. Size isn’t everything, or hadn’t you heard?” He’d take his seven-inch Ka-bar knife over the larger movie toy any time he got the chance, especially for close quarters.

“I had, in fact.” Her western Pennsylvania accent, so convincing, had all but disappeared. “Can I interest you in a stun gun?”

He said dryly, “I’ll make do.”

“Then let’s get your cousin and get the hell out of here. I’ve got a safehouse waiting and a car parked down the road. Yours must be here somewhere.”

“Down the road,” Rio agreed, cautiously rising to his feet. “Let’s start by getting to Carolyne. Have you seen any sign of the bad guys? More hired guns, I presume.”

“Ah, the bad guys,” she said, joining him and ending up at the height that suddenly seemed familiar after only moments of close contact, chest level. She’d looked up and the light had hit her eyes, showing him that blue…. She paused there only a moment, and then started toward the nurse’s station. “Good. We don’t have to get all tangled up with ‘hostiles’ and ‘suspects’ and such. But no, aside from the car, I haven’t seen a thing. We’ve had some grace time. They don’t know the layout of this place or which buildings to check. And they don’t know about your trip lines.”

“But you do,” he noted.

“I do,” she said—and then she put out a hand to stop his progress, shifting in a way that made him think she was checking the scope. “Movement,” she said shortly, quietly. “Not with any true purpose. I’d say they don’t know how close they are.”

“I’d like to know how they found this place at all.” He touched her arm and she understood instantly, handing him the scope and keeping it aimed away from the nurse’s station, out toward the woods.

Rio maintained the angle as he brought to scope to his eye, and caught a bare glimpse of movement in the monocular blue-green field of view. We’ve been found. His gloved hand clenched around the scope, the cold night closing in around him even as danger closed in around Carolyne. For all Kimmer was an unknown, at the moment he was just as glad to have her at his side. She was a dynamo with plenty of bite, and Caro was lucky to have those teeth looking out for her.

“We’ve got to reach her before they do,” he said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. Panic had no place in this situation, no place at all. But the last time he’d been in a sticky situation, he’d lost good friends. This time it was Carolyne in that building, Carolyne at stake. He inhaled sharply, too loudly, hunting the laid-back calm that had served him so well overseas. Laid-back…until the moment was right.

Then he headed on down the path, keeping track of Kimmer through her steady breathing, and squelching the cynical voice that insisted Kimmer was at Rio’s side merely to reach Carolyne’s side.

Trust. Had to be earned. She’d had that right.

Another hundred yards, across the clearing, and they’d be there. They’d grab Caro and run. A minute away at this pace, less if they traded a little noise for speed.

Just beside the nurse’s station, a branch thwacked back into place with the whoosh of whipping leaves and slender wood. The astonished cry of surprise pinpointed the encroaching man with perfect accuracy. They’re already here. Here and closing in, but not quite there yet—

But when a companion called back to the noise maker, low and commanding, his voice came from right beside the door.

Already here.

Chapter 10

The nurse’s station curtains hid no more than before. Even from here Kimmer could see as Carolyne reacted to the noise outside the building, rising to her feet to give a worried glance out the window. Rio quietly groaned. No doubt he’d told her if she heard something she should turn out the lights, hole up and give him a chance to crash the scene before the goonboys actually got their hands on her. Instead she’d given them a juicy look at the room layout and identified her position exactly.

Only a moment later, the door—never meant to be a security barrier—crashed open, creating a rectangle of light around the men who entered. Carolyne’s scream of fear carried clearly across the small clearing. Rio stiffened, ready to move.

Words weren’t fast enough, strong enough. Kimmer grabbed Rio’s vest between his shoulder blades, yanking him back far enough to throw him off balance. He turned on her, not quite swinging but definitely going for a grab. Ducking under his guard, she came in close, gathering up his vest in both hands to give him a little shake. “You can’t do that!”

He glared, his angular features going hard in the scant light.

She swallowed a sudden awareness of his size, and of just how much willful power she held in her grip. They hung in a precarious balance of wills, and when she spoke it was with as much quiet conviction as she could muster. “We can’t move in until we’re prepared to take them down. And I mean prepared—right now we don’t even know their numbers.”

“I know enough,” he said, and she felt the growl of it through her hands. In the roadside store he’d seemed almost amiable as he fended off the goonboy; at the picnic he’d been downright easygoing. Now Kimmer saw none of that—not the laid-back nature and not the thoughtfulness that came with it. Now he was nothing more than trouble with a go switch.

“If you go in, I’ll have to fall back,” she said, not backing off in the least. “They’ll beat this brush. They’ll trigger all your trip lines, and then if anything happens to you it’ll be all that much harder for me to do anything about it.”

He took hold of her vest, a mirror of her own grip, and he jerked his head toward the nurse’s station. “That’s my cousin,” he said, and Kimmer’s vest tightened under her arms as her feet got light on the ground. Holy Moly, he was taking her right off the ground, and she wasn’t even sure he knew it. “My family. It might not mean anything to you, but it sure as hell means something to me. Caro came to me for help, and I’m not going to let this happen to her.”

Kimmer let her voice grow cruel, as if she weren’t currently defying gravity. “Get it together, spy boy. If you want to help her, get it together now.” And then, as her weight quite suddenly returned to her feet and he removed his hands as if suddenly realizing how close he’d come to flinging her away or possibly even at a goonboy, she added matter-of-factly, “Besides, they aren’t going to hurt her. Not yet. Not unless we scare them into it.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“Well,” Kimmer said, slowly releasing her hold on him and smoothing the crumpled material flat. She rested her palms on his chest partly because she wanted him to remember she was right there and would damn well grab him again, and partly so she could sense every shift of his body, and would know just when to damn well grab him again. “As it happens, I can. I have this knack with body language. Or did you think Hunter plucked me off the street on the strength of my charming personality?” He gave a short, hard laugh; she ignored it, aside from automatically gauging its volume and carrying power. “I can just about tell you what the goonboys are thinking, and right now they’re just so relieved to have found her that they haven’t even gone to the next step of trying to get information from her.”

“You can read people that well. From this distance. In this light.”

“The distance actually helps. I get the big picture that way. Except with yo—”

Except with you. She hadn’t meant to say that. He didn’t need to know it.

But he heard it. He offered the slightest of hesitations, the slightest narrowing of his eyes. And then he seemed to store it away somewhere, out of touch for now. She was glad enough of it; they had plenty else to think about. She had plenty else to think about. For while Rio obsessed about saving his cousin, Kimmer couldn’t avoid awareness of her grim secondary assignment: don’t let these men walk away with Carolyne’s secrets. She gave the besieged building an uneasy glance. From here the situation inside had become less discernible; two men blocked the window, and the third, barely visible behind them, seemed to have pushed Carolyne down in the desk chair.

She had to stop this. One way or another, she had to stop it. And she’d have to work with Rio to do it—or if stopping the goonboys meant exposing Carolyne, she’d have to work against him.

He seemed to be the one with the knack when it came to the byplay between them. He narrowed those dark eyes so much they became only angled shadows, and he said, “Tell me you’re not hanging back so if things look bad, you can stop this from going further. Whatever it takes.”

Kimmer kept herself very quiet, clamping down on her resentment against Owen. No sudden moves, not with Rio’s voice so hard and the distance between them so close. And she didn’t answer directly, knowing that he would quite accurately take her evasion to be as meaningful as words. “We need to check the area,” she said. “We need to know if they’re all inside, and how freely we can move around out here. And then I need to get in place by that window—”

“You?”

“Which of us do you think is harder to spot?” Kimmer asked pointedly. She nodded at the window in question. “Which of us might fit under that crawl space if the need comes up? Besides, if I get caught, it just relieves you of having to deal with me, doesn’t it?”

He stared at her a moment. “I have the feeling,” he muttered, still staring, making her wish she could see those shadowed eyes, “that you’re either going to be the worst thing that could have happened to us…or the best.”

Floundering, unable to see anything but the directness of his gaze and the building tension in his body, Kimmer said bluntly, “I guess you know which I’d choose.”

He gave a short shake of his head. “No. I’m not sure I do.”

And while Kimmer knew which she wanted, she didn’t know which she’d actually turn out to be.

Kimmer had been right, and Rio knew it. Scouting the area came before the rescue attempt.

Rio eased around the clearing, but didn’t get far before he had to stop, fade into the woods and lean himself against a handy tree. Partly for the camouflage of it, but partly…just because it was sturdy and solid, and Rio himself still reeled from recent events. Caro, in the hands of the very people she’d so feared. Bonnie Miller, not who she’d seemed at all—

No. Take that back. She was just as she’d seemed. Edgy, more than capable of taking care of herself, and still with that hint of lingering uncertainty underlying all her hard words. Not much of it, and damn hard to see at that, but behind anger such as hers always lay more than a little dose of hurt. Early hurt, hard hurt.

He wasn’t sure which part of her had intrigued him—that which he knew with relief would never be one more person calling on him for help and leaning on his strength, or that which peeked out from beneath if you knew just where to look.

But he didn’t trust her with Caro’s safety, not for a moment—and not at all because he thought Kimmer Reed incapable of handling the situation, whatever arose.

Just because he wasn’t sure which situation she would choose to create.

He’d have to go in, and he needed to do it soon. Too long and the bad guys would get impatient; they’d start pressuring Caro, although if they had even a whit of sense they’d see right away they’d get nowhere that way. Not that Caro would resist. He knew well enough how close to hysteria she’d been these past few days. No, if they pushed her, she’d simply lose it.

And then they might simply give up on her. Kill her, cut their losses and set someone else to uncover whatever exact crucial bit she’d discovered without worrying about the possibility that she’d cook up a solution for it in the meantime. Someone from her think tank, perhaps, maybe that someone who’d already talked.

Did Kimmer know the stakes? She knew they were high—that was obvious enough. She had orders to stop things regardless of the consequences to Carolyne, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

Then again, he had his own secrets. Kimmer no doubt had a less than complete dossier on him, one that wouldn’t reveal the extent of his paramilitary training—the time he’d spent at the CIA’s Harvey Point and grabbing extra experience with Army Rangers and even a little stint with SAS, inserted to absorb a Brit’s-eye view along with their excellent training. She wouldn’t know about the self-serving foolishness of the ambitious case officer who had disregarded intel, refusing to believe that his prestigious high-level asset was tainted—right up until the evening the man blew his double-agent cover, disappearing into the protective arms of his own government to release all the information he’d gathered by counterrunning his case officer. Information about Rio’s local CIA station—information that compromised the exfiltration Rio was running that very night, with the help of several other case officers. His friends. His family away from family.

All dead now.

So Kimmer wouldn’t know of his stubborn, entrenched refusal to treat people as disposable playing pieces. His team had been his family. Caro was family. Kimmer had no idea how far Rio would go to make sure Caro didn’t turn into a playing piece—not for the bad guys, not for the good guys. Not for anyone.

Feeling steadier, he pushed away from the tree and continued his circuit around the clearing. Kimmer had been right; she was hard to see. He didn’t know where she’d learned night recon, but she’d apparently absorbed the lesson well. He hadn’t heard any sign of her, and had given up thinking he might; he turned his attention to the potential bad guys on the scene. They’d clustered around Caro as though their position was unassailable, or as though they thought no one would even try.

Wrong.

Through the woods he went, slow and careful, his feet skimming the ground just enough to avoid contact, his every next step taking weight slowly enough to assess what lay beneath that foot and adjust his tread if necessary.

No one.

Wrong and stupid.

Or so he hoped.

He met Kimmer back where they’d started; she waited for him there. No doubt she hadn’t wasted time leaning on any trees, trying to get her head together. She struck him as someone who knew just what she wanted and just how to get it. Now she knelt to contemplate the nurse’s station with an intent gaze he didn’t much like. He crouched beside her. “Meet anyone?”

“No,” she said, her voice more relaxed than it had been. “No sign of outside guards. They probably didn’t want to chance running into any more of your Boy Scout snares.”

“Trust me, I’d have preferred a nice Skorpion laser perimeter system.” He gave his back a subtle stretch, arching into his spine without changing his basic position and then slowly releasing. “But I had no idea how much trouble Caro was in when she called me.”

She gave him a sideways glance, eyebrow raised. It looked like a question, but he wasn’t sure about just what. Finally she said, “And you came running anyway.”

The implication took him back—that he should have known what he was getting into. Realized he was going to be used. “Damn right I did. You don’t screw around when it’s family.” He settled his knees in the dew-damp ground cover, glad the leaves hadn’t done more than think about falling from their glorious early-November display. “You know, don’t you? The stakes here.”

She lifted one shoulder. “Laser-guided missiles. It seems their guidance system can be hacked…and only Carolyne knows how.”

Only Caro. At least they were working on the same information. “We can’t leave her in there.”

“No. We can’t. But we can’t go in, either.”

“The hell you say,” he snapped, before he could think to stop himself.

She eased back into the trees, a hand on his arm her only request; he gave her that much, following her in until they were behind cover. “Look,” she said patiently. “They’re not settled yet and they haven’t taken any single part of their situation for granted. They know about you—they’re on the lookout for you. Now’s the worst time you could pick to have a try at her.”

He snorted. “And you figured this out—what, because you have a knack?”

“Not so much.” Her voice came from the darkness. “Common sense and experience come in handy sometimes, too. Yours would be telling you the same if you let it.”

His temper flared, startling him; he wasn’t used to fighting it—had even come to take his coolness under fire for granted. But common sense had nothing against the twist of his fear for Carolyne.

She didn’t wait for a response. “If they’re not country boys, they won’t be used to the noises one hears from the happy little animals at night. We can give them plenty of things that go bump and rustle in the night—they might just grow a little tired of checking on Bambi. Complacent, even. I’m set up not far from here so we can take shifts. At the least we can keep some of their attention off Carolyne until we see an opportunity to get her out of there.”

For how long? How long to make Caro wait, wondering where he was? Torn between worry that he’d been injured and hurt that he’d leave her alone with those men? He found that he’d clenched his jaw so tightly he couldn’t speak, and that it took a moment to work through the twisted place in his chest anyway. After that moment, he managed to say, “You don’t have a clue, do you?”

She didn’t pretend she didn’t understand. She couldn’t fail to, given the emotion in his voice. She had her own dark tone back when she said, “Family? No. Not a clue.”

Great. Just great.

Kimmer sat on the unfinished wooden steps of the platform tent, her coat over her shoulders and her arms wrapped around her torso in a self-hug that was partly for warmth and partly a reflection of anxiety.

Anxiety, hell. She was terrified.

She couldn’t read Rio, and no matter how coolly she could manage to fake her confidence, it was still only a fake. Which meant that right now, Rio Carlsen was out roaming the camp, trying to make what discreet distractions he could when what he actually wanted was to rush into that nurse’s station with guns blazing—except, of course, that he didn’t have any guns, and the goonboys had plenty. He’d told her he’d stick to the plan for now, but she had no idea if he would. She had no idea how far she could depend on him, or whether his intense loyalty to Carolyne would inspire him to some foolishness that could only mean trouble for all of them. Trouble for Kimmer.

But she didn’t trust herself any more than she did her unwilling partner. Should never have come back here. She should have known the memories would shake her self-confidence. Doubly foolish, once she had realized she couldn’t read Rio, to put herself in this position of working with him. The situation only made her question every thought she had, taking her straight back to those days when she’d never known if her decisions were the right ones, if they could keep her safe.

And in this case, she wasn’t the only one counting on those decisions. What if Rio had been right to want to charge in? What if taking the chance of catching the goonboys alert and waiting was smaller than the chance that Kimmer, thrown off stride by the way her background had crept in to mess with her mind, thrown off stride by her inability to read Rio, was totally wrong in her conclusions about the goonboys’ collective frame of mind? What if—?

Tangled up in the past and present, Kimmer could lose Carolyne her life. Or leave her country floundering in a national security disaster. Or…

Both.

She tightened her grip around her ribs, almost painfully so. She should be in the tent, trying to sleep. Or at least genuinely resting. That was the whole point to this new teamwork.

Teamwork.

Rio’s temper had only simmered as Kimmer led him away from Carolyne to this tent. And as he’d taken in her setup by the dim light of a red-filmed flashlight, he’d finally turned on her. “You were on our tails the whole time,” he’d said. “Do you have any idea how much stronger we’d have been as a team? If I’d even known who you were? Those jerks never would have gotten near Caro tonight!”

“Get over it,” Kimmer had told him, recognizing in her own cool, sharp tones her attempt to put distance between them. “I’m not part of your team. I’ve never been part of anyone’s team, especially someone I can’t—”

There, she’d almost said it again. And he’d heard it, too, looking over at her from the stove unit he’d been inspecting, his wheat-blond hair reflecting dull red in the dim flashlight, the day’s stubble dark on his jaw. “It’s not about you,” he said, watching her. “It’s about Caro, and what’s best for her.” He raised an abrupt hand as if to forestall comment, although Kimmer hadn’t so much as opened her mouth. “Or if you insist, it’s about national security. But it’s not about you.”

“Know your strengths,” Kimmer had said. “I know mine. And I know Carolyne was far better off when I could work alone. If circumstances hadn’t changed, you’d still have no idea I was anything other than bitter Bonnie Miller with her big red nails.”

He only raised an eyebrow at her, and went back to shuffling through her instant trail meal packs. “I do know my strengths,” he said quietly. “And I can see yours.”

Kimmer stifled a desperate laugh that had little to do with his words and everything to do with the situation. She’d watched him for days now; she’d seen how he was with Carolyne, how genuine and caring. She’d seen him hold back at the picnic, wisely restraining himself to keep the situation from turning from a bad moment into a disaster. She’d never seen him do anything self-servingly cruel or manipulative. He may have triggered Leo’s memories of her with his questions, but he’d had no idea he was compromising her cover identity; her resentment came from too many layers of similar experience, not from any sense of what was fair. She’d seen nothing to indicate he couldn’t be trusted, that in fact he wasn’t the most trustworthy and genuine man she’d ever met. He was certainly the first man who’d ever tickled up an ache within her, a wanting to share. To get closer. To touch.

That part of her felt for his frustration, and she wasn’t used to that, either. Empathy for a man…

He’d given her a look, then, eyebrow raised in quiet inner comment, and he’d dropped the conversation for the moment. “Hmm,” he said, more to himself than to Kimmer. “With ingredients like this, they call it foo?”

She laughed again, not quite so stifled this time. “It’s good,” she said. “Better than MREs.”

“I was with the Agency, not the Army.”

“I’ll bet you’ve had MREs.”

His pained expression told her she was right. And they’d exchanged a few more words and established a shift time line, and off he’d gone, ready to commit quiet mayhem while she—theoretically—rested. Resting meant getting her cold butt off this splintery wooden step and parking it on the bunk instead. Resting meant closing her eyes and not finding herself drawn to one repetitive, inescapable conclusion, drawn from every single encounter she and Rio had ever had.

Kimmer might be the one with the knack, but Rio Carlsen—casually, so personally and without even trying—consistently read her better than anyone she’d ever known. Certainly better than she could even begin to read him, or—given the odd emotional blockage that emerged when she tried—ever expected to.

She didn’t know whether the irony of it was delightful or simply terrifying.

Chapter 11

Kimmer woke, fully and suddenly. She waited, listening, curled up against the cold while the faint light of dawn announced itself against her eyelids. Something had woken her….

“I’m over here.”

Rio Carlsen’s voice. Deep, a little hoarse with fatigue, more self-possessed than during any of their exchanges from the evening before. Something crinkled; Kimmer opened her eyes to find him taking a generous bite of one of her granola bars. She blinked, not quite able to accept that she now shared her hideout with someone who not only took up his own physical space, but also somehow seemed to fill out the nooks and corners of the whole tent. It didn’t make sense that he could touch her from here, especially not now that he seemed to have found his balance and was back in his easygoing place.

Didn’t make sense and wasn’t even fair. I don’t need this.

He swallowed, chasing granola with a generous swig of bottled water. When he lowered his head, wiped off his chin and found her still looking at him, he said, “You were right. I don’t fit under the crawl space.”

She closed her eyes. Trust him to have tried. She eased down in the sleeping bag and pulled it over her head. There had to be another plan. Another way to do this.

“Do you have your gun in there?” He sounded nothing more than curious. Possibly amused.

She didn’t emerge. “Yes.”

“And that little knife I saw at the picnic?”

“Yes.”

“How about the—”

“Yes,” she interrupted. “Yes, yes and yes. Your point?”

“No point.” Definitely amusement. The jerk. But just as quickly he got down to business. “I think it’s time for you and your various and sundry flesh-damaging accoutrements to get up. Looks to me like we’ve got a window of opportunity.”

This time, she pushed her head back out of her cocoon, taking a deep breath of the crisp air. “Details? And last night?”

“Quiet last night. No one else came. They kept Carolyne at the desk, but I didn’t see them do anything more than prod her.” His expression tightened to worried unhappiness; he didn’t look at Kimmer. She was just as glad. “Halfway through the night they quit coming out to check on my happy little-rustling-animal noises, but I don’t think they got any sleep. A few moments ago they let Caro go into the back room. One of them is with her, probably on the floor; I left a sleeping bag there. Another hit the recliner just before I left. The third was in the kitchen—and now he’s probably the only one still awake.”

Kimmer gave him an unabashed assessment, from ruffled hair to day-old stubble to the circles under his beautiful eyes to the worry and fatigue drawing his dark brows together and accenting the startling angles of his face. He was tired—too tired to make a move right now. His reflexes would be off, his desperation-tainted judgment unsound. And then she looked back at his eyes—implacable, rich brown in the morning light in spite of the yellow cast from the tent canvas. She wouldn’t be able to stop him. Not this time. “I’ve got a stay-awake if you want it. It’s dosed for me, though.”

He grinned and looked her over just as thoroughly, his gaze sweeping the small bundle she’d made of the sleeping bag. “Don’t waste it—but I found a camo stick I intend to borrow.”

She wiggled free of the blessed warmth, grabbing a fresh pair of socks and her hiking boots, jamming them on her feet with an alacrity that made Rio grin again. “Not a polar bear, I see.”

“Brrr,” she said, and yanked her vest out of the sleeping bag where she’d kept it warm for this very moment. In short order she’d slid her fingers through her cropped curls and grabbed a chilly premoistened towelette from her scant overnighter kit, scrubbing her face hard enough to take off the faint freckles. Disposing of it, she moved right on to her own granola bar, yogurt and a handful of baby carrots, downing them with a nutritional booster shake more commonly marketed to the elderly or chronically ill. When she discovered Rio looking at her with bemusement—no doubt wondering where she packed it all away, as did everyone—she said, “You should eat more. It’s here, and if your stomach growls while we’re sneaking around close to the building, we’ll both be more than sorry.”

She was right and he knew it. He reached for her sack of groceries, thoughtfully refrigerated by Mother Nature. Kimmer stood, rearranged her sleep-twisted clothing and grabbed up her overnighter. Clean clothes would be great, but she’d settle for sprucing up as best she could in the privacy of the latrine. “Be here when I get back.”

He didn’t hesitate, popping a carrot in his mouth and talking around it. “Get back fast.”

She did. Already he was impatient, stretching even as he finished eating. He bent to retie his black high-top sneaker as she slid her sleeping bag under the head of the bunk and grabbed the camo stick. “Let’s get this straight. We’re going in to scout the place. I’ll get in close if possible, and check out the interior through the front window.”

“Or through the front door, if you like,” Rio said dryly. “It doesn’t close squarely after their grand entrance yesterday evening.”

Kimmer gave a few thorough stretches, a deliberate athlete’s routine in spite of his impatience. She pulled one arm over her head and eyed him, gauging his mood as best she could. Their proximity—combined with her inability to read his every move, to anticipate his actions both foolish and wise—brought out a surge of the previous night’s uncertainties. She took a deep, deliberate breath, trying to hide emotion as she said, “I’m counting on you to do as we’ve discussed. Don’t screw with me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t—?”

She didn’t give him any time to ruin his wise decision. “Don’t go cowboy. Don’t leave me hanging out in the open because you’ve got no intention of working this together. Don’t ruin Carolyne’s chances because you’re willing to lead me on.”

He grew too serious, too suddenly. And too close—when had he gotten so close? Had he always been there, standing under the apex of the tent where he didn’t have to stoop, or had his expression just closed the distance between them? He gave a slight shake of his head. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Right. And I’m supposed to believe that…why? Oh, right, because so many other people in my life have paved the way. It was those people whom she couldn’t read—the ones she’d been close to, even if the ties had been of fear and desperation rather than love—who had betrayed her the most consistently. Used her the most consistently. As though the only thing that kept anyone else from doing the same was her ability to see it coming—or their knowledge that she would, if they tried.

Rio knew she couldn’t read him as she could the goonboys. She’d let it slip, and now he knew. He knew he could get away with it.

But Rio, a big man gone gentle with what looked almost like understanding, repeated himself. “If I see the perfect opportunity to grab Caro out of there, I’m going to take it. You should know that. But only if it’s perfect…not if it’s just wishful thinking. And not if it leaves you exposed.”

Define “perfect.” Her expression shifted to skeptical. Or rather, more skeptical.

He shook his head again. “I won’t play you. I’ve had enough of that. If it’s not right, I won’t go for it. And I don’t expect it to be right.”

“What happened?” Kimmer heard herself say, suddenly more curious than she even wanted to admit. Those gaps in his record were SOP for an ex-CIA agent; the CIA liked to stamp Classified on everything it could, whether it truly mattered or not.

He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. He didn’t try to hide the sadness or even the regret that he couldn’t tell her—not that she’d expected him to. She hadn’t even expected herself to ask. He said, “Another time. When it goes both ways.”

It startled her. What made him think there would even be another time?

Wishful thinking.

Kimmer took a breath, a deep one. Wishful thinking? She didn’t even know herself anymore. She should call Hunter, tell them to get someone else in place. She should at the least report the new circumstances. Hell, she should have done it the night before, during that time she had spent wrapped up in herself on the steps to this tent. More evidence of just how big a mistake it had been to send her here. She’d been arrogant to think she could handle it, regardless of the pressure Owen Hunter had applied. He’d been wrong, too.

She raised her hand, stopping Rio even as he headed for the split between the front tent flaps—having rightly decided that the conversation was over and that they’d waited long enough. He hovered with tangible impatience as she pulled the phone from her backpack and flipped it open. The background display lit long enough to blink “low battery” at her, and then died. She stared at it for a bemused moment and then gave a short little laugh.

Of course. All those times she’d frustrated and worried Owen when she faked this very situation just so she could avoid an impending lecture or entangling restrictions, and here it was coming back to sneer at her. Of course.

Rio needed no explanation as she dropped the phone on her cot; he headed outside the tent and together they moved quietly through Camp Cardinal, working so smoothly together that they were halfway to the nurse’s station before Kimmer realized the extent of it—how they took each other’s cues, how Rio respected her small signals to stop and wait, how she respected his intent to move again and honored his unspoken declaration that it was safe to do so.

After that it was harder; she’d become too aware, and started second-guessing both herself and him. It’s because you have time to think, she told herself. In a crunch, she’d be fine. She told herself that, too.

Repeatedly.

He’d upset her. Rio knew he’d upset her, but he didn’t know why. He didn’t know why he cared so much, either. Kimmer was a walking bundle of contradictions—a strong individual who appealed to him with that self-sufficient strength and even with her sharp tongue, all declarations of her independence. She wasn’t someone who’d stay with a man out of need…but by choice.

If she so chose at all. Because every now and then, beneath that strength he glimpsed an astonishing vulnerability—one Rio hadn’t figured out yet. One he shouldn’t even care about, not with Caro waiting for rescue, or at least for some sign that he hadn’t abandoned her.

But whatever had thrown Kimmer off balance seemed to retreat as they reached the nurse’s station, crouching in the same spot they’d taken up the night before, with the building at their two o’clock and the small clearing looming like a football field of exposure before them. Rio eased down to his knees to watch the window, intent on spotting inside activity—not an easy task, with the sun rising behind them to glance off the window.

On the other hand, someone looking out that window would see nothing but glare, and if Kimmer happened to be at the edge of it, they might well miss her. He glanced at Kimmer’s narrowed gaze within the streaks of camo-stick greasepaint, and suspected that she realized the same.

Moments of silent waiting showed them nothing but a serene little building in a colorful country dawn, and Kimmer turned, touching Rio’s arm. “Let’s do a circuit,” she murmured. “If it’s clear, I’ll move in to the window.”

He gave a short nod and felt obliged to add, “Caro’s in that back bedroom. If I think I can get her out—”

She slanted him a warning look, her eyes too dark in this tree-shadowed morning light to show the depth of the blue.

He cut off her impending warning with a sharp, impatient gesture. “It serves none of us if I do something stupid.”

She eyed him a moment longer, then looked away with an unsatisfied tightness at the corner of lips that were shaped to curve in a quiet smile but hardly ever did. “I’ll be ready.”

That, he suspected, was as good as it got. He eased back into the woods, then circled away to the left while she went right. Inevitably, a chipmunk scolded one of them with a series of bright, chirping barks; Rio hesitated, waiting to see if anyone inside would notice or care.

Apparently not.

He moved onward, skirting just inside the edge of the woods until he reached twelve o’clock from their original position of six, with the building in the center. Pensively, he stared at the dark, blank spot of a window at the back of the building, and off to the side at the smaller frosted window of the bathroom. It’s just another operation, he told himself, but it was a lie. He’d done urban ops and remote ops and he’d been in rugged, dangerous terrain…but he’d never been trying to extract his cousin. The same girl he’d grown up with, who’d always beat him at mind games and puzzles, the one he’d watched grow first gawky and then into what he considered, with admitted bias, a quiet beauty. He’d taken on the first boy who’d cruelly and deliberately broke her young, earnest heart, and then he’d learned to back off so she could handle things her own way. That they’d been living in different parts of the world for six—was it seven?—years had made no dent at all in their connection.

So take a breath, shake it off and don’t do anything stupid. He eyed the bedroom window, wondering how easily it would open; all he’d checked from the inside when he’d had the chance was how securely it locked. Deliberate movement caught his attention; he found Kimmer waiting fifty feet away. He shook his head to indicate he hadn’t seen anyone, and she nodded; he pointed at her—you?—and she shook her head in turn. If there was anyone out here, he’d hidden himself well.

She nodded in the direction from which she’d come, ready to approach the front of the building. Rio indicated the back window, intending to do the same; she scowled. She was right enough at that; he couldn’t see into the dark room well enough to know if someone stood out of sight, perfectly able to spot his approach. He used a finger to indicate his planned path—back to nine o’clock, up to the corner of the building and along the back to the window.

She shook her head, an emphatic gesture, and mouthed, “Wait!”

Wait for what? For Carolyne’s first screams of pain and terror?

But then he realized she hadn’t said no; she’d said to wait. She wanted to check out the situation through that front window first. As unwelcome as he found the delay, he couldn’t fault it. He gave the slightest of nods and let his finger retrace the path in the air—this time stopping at the nine-o’clock imaginary edge of the woods. He’d wait there.

She nodded. But her expression remained wary, and he knew she had his words in mind: if he saw the perfect opportunity, he’d go for it.

And he nodded back, but this time he meant “Don’t forget it.”

It was as much as she could have hoped for, Kimmer supposed. He’d agreed to wait. And while she understood the allure of the window, with this side of the building in shadow he’d be perfectly visible and far too exposed on approach. If a goonboy stood behind that window instead of Carolyne…

It was her job to find out.

She crept up to the front corner of the building, trading caution for speed as she hit the sparse grass of the clearing, and then coming up to the fake cedar shingles just beside the window. Listening.

Silence was good. But it didn’t mean there wasn’t a goonboy standing right there, looking out as Kimmer prepared to look in. So she hesitated there, taking her time—but not too much of it. She didn’t want the sun to rise far from its current direct and blinding angle.

And then, finally, she looked. Always ready to duck down—or even to duck down and roll beneath the building—she peered into the window, one eye only.

She saw no one.

They couldn’t have left, surely. Not in that brief time in which Rio had returned to her tent, not right after the goonboys had let Carolyne take a break while they settled down to rest. In slow motion, Kimmer exposed herself enough to examine the interior with both eyes. Binocular vision, a handy thing indeed. Shadows and shapes resolved, showing her more clearly the empty desk chair, the long bulk of a man sleeping across the doorway of the little bedroom, the line of a feminine body on the bed—Caro, on her side, and moving restlessly even as Kimmer watched. A second sweep showed Kimmer the recliner to her right and in the corner, close enough to the window wall that she could barely see it at all—but a pair of clunky men’s combat boots dented the extended footrest.

Goonboy three made his appearance, still zipping his pants as he appeared from the vicinity of the bathroom. Classy. He went into the kitchen and reappeared in the process of putting on his coat.

Dammit. Stay inside!

Kimmer had her hidey-hole planned; she’d use it. But she hesitated until the last possible moment, just long enough to see Carolyne to sit up and ease off the bed, glancing back at her captors as she headed for the window, head bowed in thought.

The window.

If Rio saw her there…

He wouldn’t wait. He’d go to her. At the least he’d expose himself so she would know she wasn’t alone. And he had no idea that he wouldn’t be alone, not for long—

But Kimmer’s time was up. Even as she hesitated between ducking down and sprinting for the corner to warn off Rio, the goonboy jerked at the damaged door, fighting to open it.

Rio, don’t!

But he would. Kimmer might not be able to read him, but she was definitely getting to know him.

She couldn’t remember feeling more helpless as she dropped to the ground, rolling under the house and into the crawl space. An old spiderweb full of bug husks caught over the side of her face; her ankle fetched up against she knew not what. A rock, a long dead woodchuck…

Please, no timber rattlers. Or at the least, let them be well into hibernation, slow and cold and possibly not even noticing one petite undercover operative scrambling around.

Dress shoes clomped down the steps right before her nose; at least one of these men hadn’t come prepared for this woodsy duty. Kimmer squinted out of the darkness to follow their progress, noting the fairly long stride as the goonboy walked along the front edge of the building and turned the corner. Great. He was going to make a circuit, and Rio—if he hadn’t already been spotted—had only one more corner of safety.

And there, arriving at the back of the house and heading silently for the bedroom window, was a pair of familiar black high-top sneakers. Damn! Kimmer scrabbled through the musty accumulation of detritus in the shallow crawl space, the damp dirt pressing up from below and the building joists scraping her back from above, and finally her gloved fingers closed around a rock. She made a crabbish sideways throw and came up short; before the thing had even rolled to a stop just this side of the crawlspace, she’d found another and flung it, too, her gaze flipping between the city goonboy shoes and Rio’s personable sneakers as the distance between them closed. With the goonboy nearly to the corner and not making nearly as much noise as she wished he was, her third rock caught Rio at the ankle. He jumped back, whirled—

He was too late. The goonboy shoes stopped short just around the corner and then braced; Rio shifted to sprint away as the goonboy shouted and his gun discharged, breaking the silence with terrifying violence.

Kimmer winced, squeezing her eyes closed against the inevitable, suddenly unable to breathe against a stunning sense of loss. She waited for the sound of Rio’s body hitting the ground.

Instead she heard Carolyne’s scream from inside the house above her, the sound of the living-room recliner coming to an abrupt upright position, the thump of combat boots hitting the floor and racing out the front door.

“I’ve got her!” Only one man remaining inside, his triumphant declaration halting Kimmer’s impulse to squeeze out from under the house and dash inside to snatch up Carolyne. And then, still from inside but directed out to Rio, “Drop that knife or I’ll shoot her.”

“No,” Rio said, sounding agonized. Emotionally agonized, but not pained. Kimmer’s eyes flew open; she found herself able to breathe again, realizing he hadn’t been badly hurt, maybe not even hit at all. She barely heard him say “You need her.”

An outside voice chimed in, complete with faint South African accent. Mr. City Shoes. “We can shoot her without killing her, yes? More to the point, we can shoot you without killing her. Though I understand you’re the sadly heroic sort, so let us settle on the fact that we can also simply shoot you both.”

There’d be no playing games with this man. Kimmer would take him out of the picture at the first opportunity.

Combat boots arrived at the back of the house, tread heavy. City Shoes said, “You have handcuffs, yes?”

“Got ’em,” said Combat Boots. Regional help to judge by those two words—gawt ’em.

City Shoes moved closer to Rio. Just from the set of his feet she could see that he was ready to make a break, just waiting for the moment—but the slight shift of his weight told her he’d glanced back at the window, hesitating—and the goonboy inside, making his point, did something that caused Carolyne to give a faint, short shriek.

Rio’s knife landed on the ground, a heavy thunk of sound that carried an amazing finality.

Kimmer rested her forehead on her wrist, the musty ground brushing her nose, and listened to the clicking of handcuffs ratcheting tight.

It was up to her now.

If only you’d waited…if only you’d let me finish scoping out the situation…

And yet she couldn’t blame him. Not with the opportunity so clear. Not with the way he felt about his cousin. And he’d warned her he’d do it—he’d even held himself back until Carolyne went to the window.

Suddenly Kimmer found herself thinking that she should have been faster, that she should have been able to warn him. If she’d hit him with that first rock, if she’d been fast enough to scoot around the corner of the house when City Shoes first reached for his coat…

But she hadn’t been, and Rio had been caught out in the open, and now Kimmer had to deal with things as they were.

She was good at that.

She looked up again, her head bumping wood. There went the shoes—all three pairs. The knife was gone from the ground, and they marched Rio around the side of the house to the front, where City Shoes gave a peremptory command to the man still inside the house. Soon enough steps clomped against the wood above Kimmer as the final goonboy joined his friends.

All three of them in one spot.

As quickly and quietly as she could, Kimmer squiggled around in the tight spot, crawling on her elbows until she was right beneath the stairs, carefully avoiding the slant of sunshine reaching nearly a foot under the crawl space. For the first time she could see them all. Combat Boots—otherwise dressed in outdoorsy khakis and a forest-green chamois shirt—held the gun on Rio, whose tightly cuffed hands rode high and awkward behind his back. The third goonboy conferred closely with City Shoes, a scar-faced individual with a perpetual involuntary sneer. She contorted herself to reach for the Ruger at her thigh, a sure enough shot at this distance—all three of them, one-two-three—and she could release Rio, gather Carolyne up and head straight for the Hunter safehouse.

She’d barely gotten her hand wrapped around the Ruger grip, her thumb hunting the release strap, when Rio snatched at desperate opportunity. She sucked in a breath of surprise, marveling at his bad timing. Not yet able to draw her gun, too twisted in this tight little house-cave to move quickly whether it was to shoot down the goonboys or to come bursting out into the open and join the fray, Kimmer once again found herself watching, barely able to believe it as Rio twisted around, kicking the legs out from beneath Combat Boots. He pivoted into a high kick with his hands still cuffed behind him, an amazing display of balance and control that sent City Shoes staggering back. Rio went down, then, and an instant later Kimmer saw he hadn’t fallen—he’d merely been somersaulting through the cuffs.

But the third goonboy wasn’t as unarmed as he’d seemed; he yanked a huge stun gun from his shirttail-covered back pocket and darted forward just as Rio rolled back to his feet, clearly headed for escape, a move of which Kimmer heartily approved. “Go,” she muttered at him. “Go, go, go.”

As a prayer of sorts, it failed utterly. Combat Boots hit Rio from one side; Goonboy Three hit him from another, arm cocking to jab the stun gun into play. Rio cried out, a harsh, involuntary noise wrenched loose by thousands of volts of electricity, and then the goonboys stepped back as if choreographed, leaving Rio to thump heavily to the ground. Only ten feet away, he sprawled awkwardly, looking straight at Kimmer but without the wherewithal to see her; his eyes held a dazed, lost expression as his body trembled and jerked uncontrollably.

Kimmer knew for herself the agony of that energy jolt. To judge by that Stun Monster, it’d be another fifteen minutes before Rio’s muscles recovered from the massive energy dump and his nervous system from the disruption. And in the meantime there he was, almost within reach, those rich brown eyes unfocused, reflecting his struggle to reorient himself. Kimmer squelched a distracting wince of empathy—and had a stronger, more surprising surge of protective anger. She controlled it.

But only until Combat Boots hauled off and gave Rio a solid kick in the ribs, revenge for those moments he’d been overpowered by a prisoner in cuffs. Then Kimmer let the anger flow. Then she pinned the goonboy with her mental laser sights and marked him for no mercy, and she didn’t bother to think about why the moment hit her so deeply.

Combat Boots drew back for another kick, but City Shoes stepped up. “Restrain yourself. We are not here to play.” And then, as a big hand dipped down to recover the gun lying in the sparse grass, City Shoes spoke even more sharply. “One gunshot was enough. There is no hunting here. Someone might check if you continue to make such noise. Besides, we have a use for him. This is the cousin, yes? We’ve already seen the girl is in a fragile state of mind. She needs convincing, but I don’t believe she can withstand physical encouragement.”

Combat Boots gave instant protest. “She’ll babble like a baby!”

“That,” said City Shoes with precise contempt, “is exactly the point. The information she must convey is complex and lengthy. Babble will not do at all.”

The third goonboy prodded Rio with his foot. “Let’s get him inside, then.” He looked at the damaged front door and for a heart-quickening moment, Kimmer thought he looked straight through the steps at her. But Carolyne must have been standing there—horrified, no doubt—for he said, “Your cousin is in for a rough time unless you start talking to us.”

And Carolyne, her voice broken and ragged, whispered, “I can’t.”

No, she damn well couldn’t. Rio would know that. And he’d know, too, that Kimmer would have to take steps to contain the situation if Carolyne broke before Kimmer could somehow arrange to save the day.

Kimmer fought a sudden surge of resentment—at Hunter for putting her in this position. At Rio, for making her care. And at herself, for being unable to simply do this job and walk away.

Chapter 12

Two of the men grabbed Rio by the back of his vest and dragged him inside, careless of the way he banged against the stairs. The door scraped against painted wood flooring as they attempted to close it; Kimmer imagined that the several-inch gap still remained.

She made herself wait before she dragged herself out from under the building, listening to the sounds from within the house—Carolyne quietly crying, the thumps and bumps of whatever they were doing with Rio, the sound of the toilet flushing, startlingly loud with the plumbing just overhead. Then she crept along the base of the structure and back to her post at the corner of the window—as long as she stayed at the very edge, it was the safest place until the glass came under shadow.

By the time she’d reached it, she’d also formulated a plan—no more futzing around, no more playing it safe. She’d take the goonboys out through the window with the Ruger—now in her hand—and she’d storm right in to drag Carolyne out. With luck Rio would be more or less on his own power by then.

And then she got her first look inside. So much for bold, decisive Kimmer Reed.

For the third goonboy, looking bored and capable, stood so close to Carolyne that Kimmer had no intention of risking a shot—and he looked as if he was there to stay, crowded back against the desk on the far side of the room. Not an impossible shot—but she’d have to expose herself to take it, and by the time she’d nailed him, the others would have created their own havoc. Or if she stayed hidden to deal with the two who were closer and easier, by the time Kimmer reached Carolyne’s human shadow, he’d have had plenty of opportunity to use her as a shield if he was so inclined. Kimmer gave him a frowning inspection, taking in his assertive but relaxed stance, fleshy but strong build, and his perpetually scornful expression under dark hair slicked back to make his harsh features even stronger. He’d kept his cool when Rio had exploded under their noses; he’d been the one to step in with the stun gun.

She decided to call him Slick. She’d take no chances with him.

City Shoes bothered her, too. Given his hard, chilly demeanor, she now suspected his single gunshot had missed Rio on purpose, that he’d reacted so quickly he’d already decided to use Carolyne’s cousin against her by the time he pulled the trigger. His horrific scar lent him a sinister air, but even without it he’d have been imposing enough, a lean-to-emaciated figure in a dark, sleek turtleneck and perfectly fitted slacks.

She’d take no chances with City Shoes, either.

Combat Boots, on the other hand, wasn’t in their league. Local help, clearly enamored of any opportunity to use his brawn, but not quick enough in reaction or experienced enough. If Rio had been up against three of Combat Boots, he and Kimmer and Carolyne would be headed for the safehouse near Buffalo right now.

Instead he lay where he’d been dropped on the dark braided rug, a big body in a small floor space. Combat Boots listened to City Shoes’ quiet but unquestionable directive, looked at Rio, shrugged and bent to pull off Rio’s vest. With the door jammed open and a heating system meant only to handle the cool nights of early spring and late summer, they all wore layers; Carolyne appeared to be bulked up by not one but two sweatshirts.

City Shoes had a purpose, then. It had nothing to do with removing outdoor clothing in a warm room.

Combat Boots rolled Rio over to free the vest. It seemed to Kimmer that Rio’s eyes had grown clearer, his twitching now a reflection of his deliberate efforts to move. She wished she had some way to tell him she was still here—not even hidden under the building where she could only chuck rocks at ankles, but here.

I will, she promised herself. And as soon as she could, she would.

The vest underwent multiple inspections, but relinquished only a tiny pen and a folded page from a crossword puzzle book. Then off came Rio’s gloves and his sneakers and his old fatigue sweater—all searched—and then, finally, Kimmer began to understand. The search was a convenience, an incidental. The point was to leave Rio feeling vulnerable and defenseless. The point was to horrify Carolyne.

In that, the ploy was already working. Carolyne winced as they yanked the sweater over Rio’s head; she made an aborted attempt to reach out for him as Boots roughly untangled Rio’s arms from the heavyweight silk thermal beneath. Rio didn’t resist, but this time Kimmer was certain he’d softened the impact as Boots carelessly dropped his head to the floor.

I’m here, she thought at him. Although maybe it was just as well he didn’t know, not when it meant watching him be stripped—for there went his khakis, leaving him only a pair of dark blue, butt-hugging briefs. Boots withdrew a small Swiss army knife from the front pocket of the jeans, but found them otherwise bereft of the pocket things men usually carried. No change to jingle, no bulky wad of a wallet, no scribbled phone numbers on scraps of paper. He tossed aside the pants and the knife—too insignificant for his concern, it seemed, although Kimmer knew a dozen ways to make him regret that assumption—and then looked at City Shoes in question.

“Enough for now.” The man—quite evidently their leader—gave a little nod at Carolyne. “Just enough to let her know it can get worse.”

Carolyne seemed to shrink within her layers of jersey, and Shoes gave a satisfied nod. Quite unexpectedly, he left the whole situation on hold to pull out a cell phone—Kimmer eyed it with greed—and stroll into the kitchen for a short murmur of conversation, the tail end of which included what could only be reassurance. When he returned, it was to address Rio. “You can get up now. In fact, I insist.”

Rio didn’t pretend to be unaware, but he wasn’t pretending the rubbery nature of his limbs, either—he rose to his feet like a newborn colt finding its legs. His face held nothing but concentration; he showed no dismay at his near nudity, no frustration at his capture. When he finally straightened, wobbly and uncertain, Kimmer suddenly realized there was more before her than a nearly naked ally from an op that had come crashing down around them; this was Rio. Her perceptions flipped back and forth, like an Escher print that appeared to be one thing when viewed just so and yet seemed an entirely different thing when viewed otherwise. Disadvantaged ally, facing his situation with dignity. Flip. Rio Carlsen revealed, from broad and muscled shoulders to clearly defined chest and flat, sleek abs, from the discreet smattering of darkly wheaten hair to long, strong legs—no matter the sporadic trembling that took them now and again.

Flip. Disadvantaged ally. Impersonal. A job waiting to be done.

Flip. Rio. Too personal. In trouble. And suddenly real to her, oh so real.

Kimmer found herself shaking, but unlike Rio, she had no excuse.

Within the nurse’s station, City Shoes made a peremptory gesture at Rio. “Turn around.”

Kimmer watched with eyes narrowing, unable, for the instant, to read the intent behind this bit of strangeness. Until she saw Shoes glance at Carolyne, and then nod at Rio. It’s for her. All of this is for her. And Shoes confirmed it. “Take a look,” he said as Rio—unflustered as much as he was unsteady—turned as directed.

“Take a good look,” Slick added, his fingers clamping on to Carolyne just above her elbow. A bruising grip, that—but Carolyne had attention only for Rio, her eyes reddened, her cheeks flushed and her expression full of pleading apology. Rio caught her eye just long enough to give the slightest shake of his head. Slick saw the exchange and gave Carolyne’s arm a little shake. “Remember,” he said. “In a few moments you’ll wish you’d stopped this now.”

“And you can.” With another absent gesture, Shoes stopped the Rio on Display Show. No coincidence that he still faced Carolyne, that she would have to watch his expression with what came next. Kimmer had the sight of his back, finding no sign of tension anywhere save in the tight muscles of his buttocks and the backs of his thighs. “All you have to do is tell us about the weakness you found in the missile laser guidance system. You might as well save your cousin—and save yourself.”

Carolyne, trembling and voiceless, shook her head.

Shoes shrugged. “It’s a shame, really. You must know that the information will get out sooner or later. You’re not going to change things by refusing to work with us.”

This time Carolyne dug deep within herself; Kimmer saw the effort it took. And though her voice was low, it came strong enough. “It might get out, but not through me. And the longer it takes, the more chance there is that someone will fix the problem.”

Boots cleared his throat, gesturing at Rio from behind as he pulled from his pocket a stout leather sap—flat lead shot, no spring. Old-fashioned but effective, especially when it came to a lengthy session; carefully wielded, it would result in instantly dramatic bruises. Kimmer’s hand crept to her little war club, and she decided right then and there that Boots needed an introduction to it. Now. Go in now.

Except Slick still had Carolyne. And Kimmer still couldn’t take him out first without alerting the others, giving them a chance to return fire or to target Carolyne. Or Rio. Rio in his underwear, biding his time. I’m here, she thought at him; surely he knew it?

Shoes gave Boots a nod of approval. “Start there. With his back.”

At that, Rio stiffened. He knew what Shoes meant; he dreaded it. And though he relaxed an instant later, it was too late—they’d all seen his reaction. Even Kimmer understood as she quietly rubbed the window clean enough to get her first good look at the fist-sized knot of a scar just to the side of Rio’s spine, just above the small of his back. Instantly she remembered his small moments of stiffness, his quiet habit of stretching his back. The scar was old enough that it had started to tighten and shrink, young enough to hold areas of red-and-pink anger, significant enough that it had probably left him without a kidney.

She thought she was looking at the reason he’d left the CIA—but she wasn’t so sure she’d ever have the chance to ask him.

With inadvertent mercy, Boots gave no warning; he simply slapped the weapon against Rio’s back, and Rio made a noise between a grunt and a cry and his legs folded. In an instant he was back to his hands and knees, but Kimmer couldn’t see his face and she didn’t think it had been as easy as he made it look. Carolyne—who could indeed see his face—stood with her hands crammed against her mouth and tears streaming down her face. “I can’t!” she cried. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!”

Kimmer glared through the corner of the window, her tiny porthole to the scene within, and swiped impatiently at the tear on her own face. What did that mean? Can’t say anything? Or can’t stand watching this? If Rio can, you can, Kimmer thought fiercely at her.

Rio lifted his head; Kimmer heard nothing but he must have said something, and something displeasing at that. Boots leaped forward with the sap, a less controlled blow that would have broken ribs had the sap been spring-loaded. Rio rolled with it, his face paled to grayness and grim with pain as he came back up to his knees, this time facing City Shoes.

Kimmer had an instant of wonder, seeing that face. City Shoes seemed just the type to go for the most dramatic moment, the biggest impact. What would have more impact than the destruction of those high, angled cheekbones? A straight, strong nose turned to mush? A hard jawline that no longer held teeth?

But City Shoes regarded the scene with patience, and suddenly Kimmer understood. Once they’d warmed Carolyne up, convinced her of their sincerity and cruelty, they’d give her a chance to talk—and then they’d escalate the threats. Broken bones, broken face. The same ploy allowed Rio the scant coverage of his briefs. They remained only to be something that could be taken away.

And to judge by the look on his face, Rio knew it.

Rio thought about trying to stand. Hot pain raced along his ribs; a more familiar and somehow more affecting agony settled at his back. There the muscles had never quite recovered; there lay a history of inadvertent but foolish betrayal that had now come back to betray him yet again. That barely healed patch of flesh and muscle might take another blow, but beyond that, the muscle would give out, leaving him unable to do anything but curl up in search of respite.

“You’ll break,” said the boss, the man with his own scars and the cold, cold voice. “And when you break, so will she.”

Rio had no doubt of either thing. Everyone broke eventually, and when he went—when he started pleading for them to stop—Caro would go. He’d just have to make sure things didn’t reach that point. Was Kimmer even still here? Even though it wasn’t fair, even though she hadn’t done anything to indicate she’d run, he knew better than to make assumptions.

Except for one. He might hurt now, but he was gonna hurt worse. Soon.

He saw the sap coming this time—skin-damaging basket-weave leather over lead shot—and tried to duck, but the bubba in khakis adjusted the swing, shifting the sap for an edgewise blow that hit Rio’s biceps crosswise and instantly numbed it; it buckled beneath him.

Time. Now. Instantly, he shifted his weight back, ignoring the ribs and screaming muscle, taking control in the one way he had left. He leaped out of his defensive posture, driving into the bubba and shoving him back across the room like a football sled. They both crashed into the recliner, and Rio snatched the sap and laid it up across the bubba’s head. He lacked accuracy and strength, but it was enough to daze the man, and it might keep him that way long enough to do Rio some good. When the time came. Because for now, he wasn’t going anywhere. For now he knew just what would happen next, and he knew he’d pay for this later but that for now…

He’d bought some time.

He glanced up; for a startling instant he looked directly through the window and into Kimmer’s enormous eyes. She’s here. She’s still here. The relief almost wrenched a groan from him. But then she ducked and spun away, and then Rio felt the prongs of the stun gun, again wielded by the boss’s sidekick, and had only enough time to wince as they dug into the inflamed skin on his back and discharged into white fire along every nerve and muscle.

Clever Rio. He’d pushed them into putting him out, giving Carolyne a break, giving Kimmer more time…but until Slick left Carolyne on her own, Kimmer had nothing to do with that time.

At the moment she crouched just around the corner, waiting to see if anyone had spotted her when Rio had taken the action so close to the window, trying to settle the sick, heavy feeling in her stomach at what she’d seen.

You’ve seen worse.

True enough. But never anyone she knew. It made her wish someone would come after her. She’d offer him a silent demise, and then if she picked the right moment, she’d have a decent chance of extracting Carolyne—now, before this went any further.

But no one came. They’d been watching Rio, not the window.

Perhaps it was time to attract some attention. Divide and conquer.

But Carolyne screamed, an arrow of sound that startled Kimmer to her feet, ready for action. And then Carolyne screamed again, and again—it sounded like fighting and protest as much as fear, and Kimmer returned to the window with a combination of haste and caution to find Carolyne struggling to escape Slick, lost in hysterical anger and fighting so hard that most of the time her feet didn’t even touch the ground. She lunged at Boots like a wild woman, kicking out at every opportunity and not seeming to notice how short her blows fell or how easily Slick restrained her.

Because in the middle of the floor, still groggy and helpless from a second encounter with the stun gun, Rio could do nothing but offer up the clumsiest of protection as Boots beat him, his blows brutal and his face savage. Rio already bore the marks, skin abraded from the basket-weave leather, split and bleeding over ribs, over haunches, over his poor wounded back, over the arms that gave his head the only cover he could offer—

City Shoes interfered only so much as to remove the leather sap, a wise move for a man who wanted to keep his whipping boy alive. Boots resorted to fists and feet, and Kimmer snapped out of her horrified daze, reaching for the Ruger—and again stopping herself. She didn’t have the height; she didn’t have the angle. She’d do nothing but break glass and damage furniture, if she didn’t manage to hit Rio or Carolyne outright.

Coward! She couldn’t want anything more than she wanted to break into that building and put Boots in serious pain—to watch that snarl on his face turn to fear, to move in close and let him see her satisfaction in doing it. But she was afraid—not for herself, but for Rio and Carolyne. That she wouldn’t be fast enough, that she’d regret her rash interference for the rest of her life.

She squeezed her eyes closed and fought for some sort of control. Inner balance. And found it in that which she’d already decided. Time to attract some attention.

Kimmer whirled and sprinted for the path, the rough oval around the central part of the camp. She knew the trip lines and aimed for them, evading whipping branches, sprinting onward to leave a cacophony of alarm in her wake. She triggered all the alarms between the nurse’s station and the camp entrance, and then she poured on the speed to return to the woods behind the station, crouching there with the exertion steaming up her vest and muted flannel shirt and just in time to see Boots running heavily down the path toward the noise she’d made.

But only Boots.

Dammit.

She didn’t care so much if he returned quickly and found her—it would only be an excuse to deal with him, and she’d already alerted the others that someone was out here. She moved quickly around the back side of the building to creep up on the open door, crouching half beside and half on the steps themselves to peer through the opening in the door—larger than usual with Boots’ careless exit.

Not much had changed inside. Carolyne sagged, crying, in Slick’s ever tenacious grip. City Shoes crouched in the middle of the floor to shove Rio from a curled fetal position to his back; Rio moved loosely, limbs flopping, and sprawled into his new, more exposed position with the deepest of groans.

Kimmer’s hands clenched into fists; she looked at Slick and once more contemplated her odds as Carolyne renewed her struggles to reach for Rio. Surprisingly, City Shoes gave a little nod, and Slick released Carolyne to rush to Rio’s side, where she ran her hands over his shoulders in a frantic attempt to find something to fix and ended up snatching his shirt from the small pile of clothes on the floor and throwing it over him.

Dart in, fling Carolyne out of the way, two quick shots and the goonboys are out of it—

Except she had no experience with going in after people she cared about; no one ever got that close. She did a job; she found it satisfying, a way to prove time and time again that she could outwit and outscuffle the best of them. A way to save her once abused self, over and over and over.

This was entirely different. This made her tremble; it made her doubt herself. And the doubt alone meant no one could count on her, least of all Kimmer herself.

For the first time since she’d first left this rural Pennsylvania area as a survival-driven young teen buffered by her mother’s guidelines, Kimmer simply didn’t know what to do. This situation wasn’t covered in maternal words of wisdom, in crooning words deeply memorized in rare, precious moments of huddling together in privacy. This situation was outside her rules altogether.

Belatedly, Kimmer got a sense of the conversation, saw the signs of impending decisiveness and change.

“He’ll break,” Slick was saying. “Everyone does. Give him a few moments to get his wits back, keep our local friend under control and then start in again.”

“Of course he’ll break.” City Shoes glanced at Carolyne and Rio, at Carolyne’s attempt to rouse her cousin, her urgent whispers. “Sooner or later he’ll beg her to spill what she knows. But he’s obviously had resistance training, so I do believe it’ll be much later…late enough that we no longer want to be here.”

Slick looked impatient. “This place is perfect—and every time we move, we expose ourselves.”

“We’re already exposed here—isn’t that obvious?” Shoes waved a hand in the general direction of the noise Kimmer had just created. “We know Hunter has someone lurking, even if Hawkins did lose her trail in New York. I suspect we’ve just been found.”

“Damn bungler,” Slick muttered. “He never even got a good look at her.”

Kimmer smiled to herself. Hat and plastic, shapeless raincoat. Way to go, ugly things.

“Still,” Slick added, “that ruckus could just be kids playing around.”

“And they might just go home and tell Mommy and Daddy that someone’s here, yes? Meanwhile we’ve got no idea when Carlsen will start his begging—and I know someone else who’s not likely to be nearly as resistant—or unpredictable.”

Carolyne’s head shot up at that; she regarded them with fearful trepidation. City Shoes gave her an affirming little nod. “Your lover’s not quite so cut out for this kind of thing, is he? And I bet he’ll come running if we give him a little call, tell him we found you. In fact, I think he’ll run right into our hands.”

“Don’t.” Carolyne shook her head, a helpless gesture. “Haven’t you done enough?”

“In point of fact, we have not,” City Shoes said calmly. “Or you would have told us what you know, yes?”

“I can’t do that,” she whispered, her voice so strained Kimmer barely heard her. “No matter what. Do you think I would have let you lay so much as one finger on Rio if I had a choice?”

“Choices sometimes become apparent as events transpire.” City Shoes looked pleased with his little declaration as he took out his cell phone. “Close up her laptop, get her ready to go. And you, Miss Carlsen—you’d better visit the young ladies’ room, yes? Once we hit the road, we won’t be stopping until we meet up with your Scott.”

Carolyne mustered a glare. “What if I told you that Scott and I are no longer together? And even if we were—”

“I am very sorry to say I would disbelieve you, and that even were it true, you would certainly still respond to his cries of pain. Unlike your frustrating cousin, I expect him to beg quickly and loudly. Now do as I say.”

Carolyne held on to her glare, but she slowly stood up away from Rio. After which she’d go in the back, where she’d be separated from Slick and Shoes and safe from any action—

Kimmer tensed, finally drawing the Ruger as she shifted her weight, readying to thrust forward and up and through the door.

“Mr. Boyle?” Shoes said into his phone. “I believe we have a matter of mutual interest to discuss.”

Careless noise from the woods caught her attention, and she gave the most emphatic of inward curses—Boots hadn’t spent much time checking for the source of the ruckus. No doubt he didn’t want to miss any of the action at the nurse’s station, or any chance to whale away on Rio. Kimmer did a rollback from the stairs, a quick duck around the side of the building before he came into sight. And then, when she saw he wasn’t nearly so careless as to skip inspecting the clearing, the woods around the clearing and the building itself, she ran around back and into the woods, putting distance between them. Only after he’d disappeared around front and stayed gone for some moments did she again approach the clearing.

Just in time to see Carolyne being dragged toward the entrance road, offering enough resistance to annoy them but not enough to do any good. Slick and City Shoes and Carolyne…

Bad feeling bad feeling bad feeling—

Kimmer ran to the building’s door, found it open, found Boots standing with his back to the door, a safe distance from Rio, gun out and aimed but pointing not at Rio’s head or heart, but his knee.

“Sick bastard, are you?” Rio asked, his voice gritty. He sat up on his own now, looking stiff and awkward, one knee raised and the other in a half lotus before him. He wore his shirt, still unbuttoned but hiding much of the damage done to him.

“I know opportunity when I see it,” Boots replied. “Stupid of you to make me look bad in front of those two.”

“It was stupid, all right,” Rio agreed, though he wasn’t referring to himself.

Oh, God, don’t wind him up! Kimmer looked at Boots’s back, looked at Carolyne disappearing through the trees, looked at Rio on the floor—he had to have seen her, he had to have—looked back at Carolyne, almost gone now, looked at Boots and the slight tension in his gun hand, the shift of his aim to something more precise, Rio’s blood about to spill—

Decision.

Chapter 13

Surprise flickered in Rio’s expression, enough to warn Boots as Kimmer palmed her little war club and launched herself up the steps—but not enough so he had the chance to wrench around and face her. As he turned she slammed into his shoulder and brought the weighted club down on his arm. The gun clattered to the floor—no gunfire to alert the others, very nice—but Boots was quick enough to snatch her wrist with his other hand, engulfing the bones in his hammy grip and twisting.

She didn’t even try to resist. She went with the brute force of it, but she kicked him behind the knee on her way down, then rolled around her own arm to come up in front of him, levering her arm against the weak point of his thumb and popping free to snake a hand into her vest pocket. He tried to grab for his gun; she kicked it aside. He lunged for Kimmer instead, scooping her up over his head like a pro wrestler, raising her up even higher so he could dash her down against the floor, his hold awkward with the injured arm but enough to do the job. He seemed to think she wiggled in fear, and so had no warning when she yanked her Mini Talon free of her pocket and jammed it into his thick, deliciously exposed neck, giving him a long three-second shot of juice.

He gurgled a harsh cry, arching back as Kimmer brushed the ceiling. He collapsed beneath her, falling on top of Rio to make her the top layer of a three-person pile.

She didn’t hesitate there. As soon as the world stopped heaving beneath her, Kimmer scrambled to solid ground, grabbed Boots’s gun from where it had rebounded off the wall and headed for the door—where she almost missed Rio’s gravelly, breathless call. “Wait!”

It was enough to make her hesitate, if barely. “I don’t have time—”

He pushed Boots aside, freeing himself. “That’s the point. You don’t. To catch up with them, maybe. Not to stop them. But I know where they’re going.”

She did more than hesitate then, but didn’t move away from the door. “Maybe I’m faster than you think.”

“Maybe. Listen.” He took a breath, trying to marshal his thoughts, his gaze on her not entirely focused. “They’re going to the rest stop just south of Erie. They’re waiting for Scott there—he thinks he’s coming to the rescue with ransom. Idiot. It’ll take them three hours…it’ll take him five. You see? We have time to get there. Both of us.”

She raised an eyebrow in highest skepticism, but relaxed slightly. “The naked, beaten person being one of the ‘we’?”

“I can—” He tried to get up, failed and subsided with a noise between a curse and a groan. Bruises darkened his chest behind the unbuttoned shirt and blood spotted the back of it, also trickling down the side of his face from a scalp wound; he’d managed to scoot back against the filing cabinet, mostly freeing himself from Boots. “I will.”

“Big on bouncing back, are you?” With a last, reluctant look at the direction in which Carolyne had gone, Kimmer set Boots’s gun aside and secured her own. She withdrew a handful of large cable ties from her inside vest pocket and bent to capture Boots’s hands and feet. Because it pleased her, she also tied his shoelaces together most thoroughly, with many inventive knot combinations. Then she hauled him over to the edge of the room, out of the way, and put her hands on her hips to regard Rio. Stunned, beaten, stunned again and then ending up at the bottom of the pileup, he looked every bit of it. Except for his eyes. Warm, rich dark chocolate eyes, still not focusing, but as determined as she’d ever seen him. A belated flush of relief ran through her body. He’s okay. Well, not right at the moment. But he will be.

And he’s right. They had time to take a breath. For Kimmer to make sure that in this tangle of unexpected feelings and muddled emotions, she was doing the right thing.

“I can do it,” he said, and then closed his eyes to admit, “Maybe with a little help.”

She tipped her head up, acknowledgment without commitment. “We’ll see.” And then, unable to hide a slight blush of embarrassment, she said, “Do you have a cell phone? Or does the line to this building work?”

He gave a slight shake of his head without opening his eyes, his head leaning back against the file cabinet. “Landline is turned off. My cell is in the bedroom, if they didn’t take it. You don’t—?”

“Not at the moment,” Kimmer said, and bit her lip in consternation. “It’s a battery thing. It’s always a battery thing.” She stepped into the bedroom, doing a quick search; she found Rio’s modest shoulder duffel and hunted through it, pulling out a fresh set of clothes while she was at it. But no phone. “Where?” she called out to him. No response; she left the duffel and brought the clothes out into the living room, where he’d lost his battle to focus and had drifted off into his thoughts somewhere.

“Way to bounce back,” she told him, and couldn’t help but glance at her watch. We have time. Scott’s arrival gives us time.

“All part of the process,” he murmured. He shivered in the cold draft from the open door, and Kimmer felt something in her give in—the part that was trying not to get drawn into his pain, that had tried to stand aloof and matter-of-fact in order to get them past these moments of dependence and intrusive intimacy. Barely looking at the door, she took a step aside to kick it closed, and at the same time tossed the clothes, still folded, to land neatly beside the recliner.

“Come on,” she said, moving in beside him, trying to find a place that might be safe to touch—and more to the point, to tug and haul and lift. “On your feet, and then in that chair. This floor’s too cold, and it’s a long way from soft.”

“I’d noticed that.” He opened his eyes, caught her hand. “I’m not kidding. I’ll pull it together. I can help you stop them. You’re damn sure not leaving me behind.”

She looked down at him, belatedly realizing that the strong words hid a question—to which, after a moment, she gave a nod. “All right,” she said. “Then let’s start pulling you together. I didn’t find a phone, so until we find something roadside, we can’t count on any help from Hunter.”

“Unless Scott calls them,” Rio said, slowly rearranging his legs so he could push himself off the ground, his hand warm on Kimmer’s wrist as he used her arm—first to pull himself up, and then to lean on, making the few steps to the recliner. “If he called them in the first place to hire you, maybe he’ll have the wits to call again after hearing from the mercenaries who have Caro. And what is the Hunter Agency, anyway?”

“Small,” Kimmer said, kneeling before him to check the extent of the damage to his legs—first visual, then a quick hands-on, searching for lumps and bumps and abrasions. She kept her touch light and professional, but careful enough. Sympathetic, and with enough firmness to comfort. She added, “Also private. And effective. And waiting with a safehouse not far from Buffalo, if we can just get her there.”

He hissed and flinched as she found a bad knot above his knee, one already hard in the center and gone white with the extent of the swelling. “That’s a sap mark,” she said, and her fingers trembled a little, passing over it but this time not actually touching it. “I’ve got to run back to the cabin. I’ve got a first-aid kit—”

Rio laughed, and instantly winced. “Ow.” He took a more careful breath. “We’re in the nurse’s station, you know. There’s bound to be something here.”

“No doubt.” She sat back on her heels and regarded him. He did indeed look brighter than even a few moments ago, stronger and more able to concentrate, his expression taking a curious turn that she damn well wished she could read. “But I’ve got drugs the friendly nurse would never leave around here. Nice painkillers, for one. Some strong anti-inflammatories, which could save you a lot of grief if you take them now instead of even a couple hours from now.”

“Spoken like a woman who knows.”

“Yes.” She picked up the jeans, shook them out, and lifted a foot to aim it down the proper pant leg. The same with the second foot, and she pulled the jeans up to his knees, met his somewhat bemused gaze and then jerked her thumb toward the ceiling. “Stand up.”

He gave a little smile. “As bedside manners go, yours is…unique.”

“I never did learn how to croon soothing nonsense. Up.” But she stood first, and she offered him both hands, providing most of the lift. Then she swiftly bent and pulled the worn jeans up, easing them over the worst of the marks on his thighs and deftly fastening the top button. “Given the things that can go wrong with men and zippers, I’ll leave that part to you,” she said, as if she did this all the time. As if she’d ever physically ministered to anyone beyond the moment she pulled them out of the line of fire instead of handing them off to someone else. And as if it didn’t make tiny goose bumps run from the back of her neck all the way down her arms.

“Unique is good,” he said, fumbling a little with the zipper; one hand was swollen and purpling, evidently from its work as a shield.

Unique is good. Huh. It stopped her, halting her brusque movements long enough to absorb the way he looked at her, that he truly saw her—as though she mattered as Kimmer, not just as another operative here and now. As though the moment between them mattered, and was more than just another moment along the way. He held her with a black-rimmed brown gaze close enough to show little flecks of darkest brown, filled with a wry self-awareness and surprising vulnerability. Angled features drawn with pain held a confusing subtlety of messages, unspoken words that Kimmer normally heard unbidden and now couldn’t translate at all—except to know that he’d somehow stepped away from what had happened around them to turn inward, so only this sunlit spot in a cold little room in the fall-bright woods mattered at all.

She blinked, pretending she didn’t notice. She’d given Rio more space than she ever offered anybody, allowed him to affect her—allowed herself to notice. Nothing in her life had prepared her to go beyond that, not even when something inside insisted that he deserved it. Just for putting himself on the line, he deserved it.

She retreated to action. She pulled off the dirty, blood-spotted shirt he wore and took a quick look at his torso and arms…and his poor, poor back. “This looks terrible.” She strove for that matter-of-fact tone, and ended up with something slightly huskier. Her hand hovered over the reinflamed scar, and he stiffened against the pain of impending touch. She looked up at him and shook her head. “I won’t. I just wish—”

I could make it better. Yeah, that fit into her set of survival rules just fine.

“Yeah,” he said dryly. “I wish, too. But otherwise I don’t think we’re looking at anything but ugly spots. Maybe a cracked rib.”

“Likely a cracked rib,” she amended, and threw the discarded shirt on top of Boots. She produced the clean one, a buttery hunter-green chamois that would be gentle against his abrasions. First one arm, then the other, and as she came around front to work on the fake bone buttons, his hands landed at her waist, pulling her in a step closer.

“What—?” she said, though she knew what, and she didn’t stop it when she could have. And there it was, just a soft touch on her lips, and then another, a little more firmly, a little more deliberate, nibbling against hers just long enough to get past her surprise and make way for response. When he pulled away, Kimmer followed—even though she still couldn’t quite believe it had happened at all. He rested his forehead against hers for a moment, leaving her space for her inner confusion, and then he kissed her eyebrow and straightened.

Kimmer discovered her fingers still at his shirt button, now shaking visibly. She jerked them back. “What—?” she demanded again, unable to find any more words but making herself clear enough.

“Because I wanted to,” Rio said, giving her a little half smile that might have been sheepish if it hadn’t been so honest. “Because I think I’ve wanted to ever since I realized the strange dichotomy of Bonnie Miller, even after she turned into Kimmer Reed. Besides, I was weak. We have this moment…we might not have another.”

“Dichotomy,” she said flatly. “Such words of woo you pitch, Mr. Carlsen.”

“Carolyne says I do too many crossword puzzles,” he responded, quite seriously.

“I think maybe you do.” But it was an automatic response, meant to cover the instant flush of fear at her own surge of response to him—and at the way she yearned to feel it again. The vulnerability it brought her with this man she couldn’t read and all the rules such feelings broke. Her fingers were brusque as they again took up the chore of buttoning his shirt. Done, she pointed at the chair and retrieved his socks and sneakers, dressing him in a way that felt far too intimate, taking a determined breath, excruciatingly aware of the impact he made on her senses. All of them. The faint rustle of material as she moved his jeans up to wiggle his sneakers on, and the flex of his calves as he settled his feet into place. The catch of his breath, caused by his own attempts to loosen his swollen hand into functionality. The lingering taste of him on her lips, which she really hadn’t meant to lick just now. All her life she’d kept herself removed from people and their physical needs. She’d never been a caretaker; she’d taken lovers more as opponents than companions, and rarely at that.

No, this situation—this man—didn’t fit into her rules at all.

Urgency sang through Rio’s body. Urgency and fear and pain, all mixed in with adrenaline of another sort altogether as he watched Kimmer disappear into the woods, headed for her tent.

Her surprise at that kiss had been real, but so had her response. For all he’d startled both of them with his timing, for all the moment had been wrong, it had also been just as right. Right enough to pierce through the throb of his ribs, the burning lumps and bumps of his flesh and the trip-hammer beat of pain in his back. Dichotomy, he’d said, and wondered if she didn’t see it herself. Edgy, capable Kimmer Reed had something else altogether going on beneath the surface. Something he’d rattled.

Something he intended to rattle again.

But first he needed to get himself over to the wastebasket by the rickety old work desk. The mercs had taken Caro’s laptop and foolishly left her pad of thinking paper on the desk, missing the fact that all her conceptual work was done by hand. Also foolishly, they hadn’t mined the wastebasket for her failures.

Because they weren’t all failures.

Carolyne’s tears as she rushed to his side might have been real enough, but under the cover of that hysteria she’d whispered fierce words of warning, making sure he understood even through the haze of pain and confusion. “Right after you left last night,” she’d said. “Before they got here. I’ve got the beginning pieces. Anyone can go from my notes—”

Something had distracted him them. A jagged rip of pain or maybe just a wave of stupidness. But Caro, she’d been insistent through her fear, ducking down close to his ear as though bowed by sobs, hugging him painfully with her intensity. “Listen, Rio! You’ve got to make sure those notes reach the right people as soon as possible. Anyone can fix it now, and they’ve got to do it fast. I don’t know how long—I’m not good at this—” Her voice had broken for real then, and he didn’t blame her for her fear. Soon she’d face this same scene with Scott. Soon enough the mercs would get tired of playing games and would turn their methods on Caro herself, no matter their reluctance to scramble her concentration.

Rio thought Caro had probably exaggerated just a tad—not “anyone” could leap forward to a solution from her notes, but Rio knew people who could. So he’d just nodded, eyes closed, wits scattered, too damn aware that he might not walk out of this building at all.

But now he had his chance, and Carolyne was counting on him. Counting on him to get this information to those who could use it to secure the missiles—while Rio had no intention of sacrificing her to deliver these notes to the CIA, or of losing her because this battered body wasn’t quite working right.

And so for the first time since he’d been hurt, Rio found himself in the position of counting on someone else…and of believing in her. Kimmer.

Kimmer’s run to the tent put a flush of exertion on her cheeks; she unzipped the vest and let the air cool her as she snatched up what few items she thought they’d need and shoved the remaining whole of it under the cot—someone from Hunter would clean up after them, probably within the day; they’d even find Rio’s rental from wherever he’d stashed it and make sure it was returned.

On second thought she grabbed her sleeping bag, jamming it under her arm in a big awkward bundle. She intended to stuff painkillers and anti-inflammatories down Rio, but if they had several hours of driving before them, he’d no doubt stiffen up anyway. The sleeping bag, unzipped to blanket size, might keep him more comfortable.

God, he’d kissed her.

What was she supposed to do now? She’d watched him for days, building up an interest she’d tried to hide even from herself, seeing moment after moment where he surprised her with his empathy for his cousin. She’d tried to squelch the surprising notion that maybe, just maybe, this was a man to whom she could trust herself.

And then he’d kissed her, unlocking that Pandora’s box of wishful thinking and foolishness. Trampling right over her rules.

Get over it. Close the lid, lock the box and go back to being the best damn close-quarters, scrappy-minded operative that Hunter ever had.

Or not…

Kimmer found herself halfway back to the nurse’s station, and stopped short. If she didn’t keep her wits about her, she was going to lose. She’d watch someone die, or she’d be forced to stop the goonboys no matter the cost. She didn’t have room for error. She had to pull herself together—whether it meant pretending that kiss hadn’t happened or determining to throw herself at Rio at the very first opportunity. She had to find her balance—wherever it might put her.

Such thoughts accompanied her the rest of the way back to the nurse’s station, where she found Rio on his feet, swaying slightly and not apparently the least bit aware of it, frowning at a badly crumpled piece of lined yellow paper. As she dumped the gear on the floor he looked up, gesturing with the paper. “This is it,” he said both relieved and somehow proud. “Caro got a start on the fix, and she hid it from our unfriendlies.”

Kimmer started. “She did what? When?” She took the paper, made nothing out of the scribbled code and arrows and diagrams. “How did she tell you? She never had the—” But her mind’s eye filled with hysterical Carolyne, on her knees beside Rio—covering him with his discarded shirt, murmuring to him. Carefully, Kimmer folded the paper. “She’s lucky you remembered.”

“She counted on me,” he said, as if that explained it all. He didn’t seem to notice she didn’t return the paper, but she figured he’d realized it just fine. He’d just let it pass.

After all, he could have hidden it from her. She never would have known.

Kimmer pulled the first-aid bag o’goodies from the pile and withdrew several small plastic bottles. “Sit,” she said. “I’ll get some water, you can take these, and then I’ll go get the car—I can bring it up just past the office, I think.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

“Optimistic,” she told him.

His response came sharply. “If I can’t get that far, I’ve got no business coming with you at all.”

She looked at him just long enough so he’d know she thought there might be something to that, and then she shook out the pills. “These are dosed for me,” she reminded him when he looked askance at her. “Nothing fancy, just run-of-the-mill stuff. If you want to be any good to me—or Carolyne—you’d better take them.”

That got his attention. He held out his hand and she dumped the pills into it, stashing the bottles in her vest. When she came back to hand him the water, she said, “Those notes…”

He gulped back the pills, raising an eyebrow as he looked at her from over the glass. He hadn’t, she noticed, responded to her strongly worded suggestion that he sit. She shook her head, a helpless gesture in the wake of forces quickly spiraling out of her control. “I’ve got to get them to Hunter.”

Gently—so gently she knew it was just self-control—he said, “I believe you were hired by Scott to keep Carolyne safe. And she’s not, is she? Very safe, that is.”

Far from it.

“No one will be safe until that system is fixed.” She took advantage of the moment to return to the kitchen, nab a towel and wet it down before she returned to the conversation.

He wanted to shout at her; she could see the tension of it. But he swallowed and worked his jaw a few times and kept his voice to a strained but moderate tone. “And how would you propose to get the code to Hunter?”

“Fax.” Except on Sunday, heading for afternoon—late afternoon by the time they made any distance—the nearest open copy-fax center was probably in Pittsburgh.

Away from Carolyne.

They both knew it.

Dammit, he should have hidden them from me.

She’d meant to wash some of the dried, rusty blood from his face with the towel, but now she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it—to get that close and personal while they struggled with his cousin’s fate. “No one is safe until that missile delivery system is patched. No one in the States, no one outside the States. Anyone who knows how to exploit that weakness can aim one of those missiles anywhere they damn well please.”

“Then no one’s in trouble until one of those missiles is actually fired,” Rio said evenly.

The words were on the tip of her tongue—who knew when that would happen, with the current political situation? Peacekeeping activities here, live-fire target practice there, genuine warfare scattered throughout? But she didn’t say it. She saw it on his face, recognized it just in time, and let the silent voice in his head do the talking.

Rio took the towel and scrubbed his face with it—much less gently than Kimmer had intended. “No one even knows what the weakness is—no one but Caro. We need to get her back. Or do you really think sending that material over an insecure fax is the wisest option?”

“I don’t know.” Kimmer put her back to him, no longer able to sort it all out. She’d lost her balance, and she didn’t know if she resisted rushing after Carolyne simply because it was the emotional, vulnerable thing to do, or because it was truly the best way to protect this country—and every other—from U.S. missiles. “What if we go for Carolyne and it’s too late? What if she spills everything in the car, and we go down in our attempt to extract her? Then they’ve got what they need and no one has these notes to stop them!” She turned back enough to give him a desperate look, sizing him up—if only she could go one direction and he the other…

But he’d never make it. Even if she hadn’t just pumped disorienting pain meds into his system, he’d never make it. She still didn’t know how he managed to do so much as stay on his feet. He’d draped the towel behind his neck, not looking much improved; now the bruises merely showed more starkly against the grayish tones of his skin. She turned away from him again, too tangled in herself to make any decision at all, and again ruing her very involvement. Australian beaches, that’s where she should be. Owen Hunter didn’t often make mistakes, but when he did…

This was a big one. Too big.

And now that she had these notes, every passing second made it a bigger one. Every moment she didn’t run for that car, every mile the goonboys put between them.

Rio came up behind her, and though he didn’t take her upper arms in his hands for tight emphasis, he might as well have. His very presence struck her just as hard as a blow, and his voice—so close above behind her head that it seemed to come from within—scraped her raw with its nakedness. “Tell me you’re not going to just set her aside.” No games from Rio. No playing her. This was the core of him, reaching out to her, as agonized on the outside as those feelings she made herself keep inside. “Tell me you wouldn’t do that.”

And if she did, what would it make her?

No better than my brothers. Than my father. Using me like something not even human.

“No,” she whispered. “I can’t do that.”

She felt him sigh with profound relief, even felt him brush against her as balance failed him. He caught himself. “Thank you.”

She cleared her throat and spoke quickly, as though she could somehow cover up the exchange. Her weakness. “I’ll call Hunter as soon as we hit a public phone. I don’t know if they can reach us in time—maybe with the chopper—and let them know we’ve got Caro’s notes. Then if something happens they’ll know to look for—”

“Kimmer.” His voice was quiet. She wanted to pretend she hadn’t heard him. But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t feel his hands on her shoulders, fingers gentle on the curve of her collarbone and his injured hand barely resting there at all. “Kimmer,” he said into her ear. His cheek rested against her head; his fingers came up briefly to touch the fringe of hair at her neck.

She turned; she tried to muster up the remote veneer that had served her so well all these years. Somehow, she kept her voice unaffected—lightly sardonic—as she looked up at him. “You’re going to do it again, aren’t you?”

He smiled in a way that just about made her stop breathing. “I hope so.”

“In spite of me,” she said, and this time her voice broke. Just a little. A moment ago I was willing to abandon his cousin….

“Actually, because of you.” But he didn’t move, aside from letting his hands settle on her shoulders again, and the slight caress of his thumb against her shoulder where it emerged from the vest. “I don’t know what made you, Kimmer Reed, but I can see past you into your heart. For all your hardness, you’re desperately trying to do the right thing. For me…for Caro.”

Had anyone ever done that before? Really seen her?

The Hunters, Kimmer thought. Owen Hunter, who had caught her when she was fresh on the streets. But until recently he’d given her space to hide from herself.

Not Rio. He stood quietly, waiting for her to make the decision. All battered from futile efforts to protect his cousin, warm brown eyes slightly glazed—knowing they had but moments, but finding this opportunity anyway and then offering it to her.

Kimmer closed her eyes and thought of her past—the people in it, the life that had shaped her, the rules that had saved her. But they’re my rules. I get to make them. And the past might have shaped her—but it was her place to shape the future.

She opened her eyes to look straight at Rio, and held his gaze as she stood on her toes, raising herself just high enough so if she tilted her head, and he obliged by coming down to meet her—

Their lips met gently—not a passionate rush, but a sweet introduction. Kimmer watched him, saw the smile in his eyes. Then he closed them, leaving her only with the sweep of his dark lashes. His good hand crept up to cup the back of her neck, sending an unexpected tingle down her spine; it flashed over her shoulders to encompass her breasts. Kimmer, too, closed her eyes, giving more of herself but still sweetly, just a flicker of her tongue against his lips, the slightest of nips—and when he returned it, the sudden rush of demand for more. More than just lips—bodies suddenly pressed together, all the hard strength she’d seen and not yet felt. For an instant her hands hovered helplessly, not sure where to land so they might not hurt him. She chose hips, where his pants hung at sculptured bone, and she gave him a little tug.

His breath hitched; his lips momentarily stilled on hers. But just when she thought she’d hurt him, his hands dropped to the small of her back, proprietary and demanding. He returned to the kiss, the sweetness turning into demand—and just as Kimmer realized this vest was too warm, way too warm, he gave a strangled sort of noise and pulled away, only far enough to rest his cheek against her hair again. “Okay,” he said. “That’s—I can’t—I haven’t—” He took a breath; she felt the depth of it where their bodies touched, brief intersections at hip and chest and his head against hers. He tried again. “I’m more addled than I thought.”

“Addled?” she said, and moved away to give him her best sardonic brow and finding he’d gotten some color back into his face during these past few moments. “Is your next line by any chance something about this being a mistake?”

He pulled her back and kissed her forehead, nuzzling her hair. “Only,” he said, and his lips moved against her skin, “because I don’t have any self-control whatsoever. You sure you didn’t give me too many—”

She snorted gently, but this time didn’t try to move away. “They haven’t hit your system yet.”

“The stun gun, then,” Rio said. “It’s fuddled me.”

“You think?” But Kimmer’s words came more lightly. She even thought that the slight tremble she felt in him might not be from pain or weakness at all.

“Just give a guy a break,” he said rather desperately.

“Well, then, it must be the stun gun.” She stepped back, kissed him lightly on the mouth—those same, gently receiving lips—and said, “That doesn’t leave me any excuse, though.”

“You don’t need one.” He gave her a wry look, stepped back, tottered a little and then regained his balance and adjusted his jeans slightly. “You’re the tough one, remember? No one’s going to question you.”

Kimmer gave a short laugh. “Right.” No one but me…But it didn’t matter. They’d had their moment, and there was no going back. When Rio offered his uninjured hand, she took it, and when he gave it the slightest of squeezes, she squeezed back before dropping the contact, stepping aside and stooping to collect the gear she’d grabbed from the tent. “Can you get the sleeping bag?”

“It’ll just be my superhero cape.” He eased himself closer to the ground to get it, and Kimmer quickly grabbed it up and handed it to him. “Thanks,” he said. “Long way down for some reason.”

She gave him cheerful smile. “The bigger they are—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He arranged it over his shoulders just like a cape and said, “Go. I’ll totter along. Just—”

She turned back to find he’d grown serious. “What?”

“Just…” Rio shook his head, failing with his hunt for words. “We’ve got some hard hours ahead of us. Don’t forget what just happened. It wasn’t the damn stun gun, it was you. No matter what—”

“Don’t say that,” Kimmer snapped at him. Even when she realized how sharp she’d been, she still shook her head. “Just don’t.” Not when Carolyne’s fate still looked so precarious. She wanted no part of herself to hold foolish hopes that he’d still reach for her if Carolyne ended up injured. That he’d still kiss her if Carolyne ended up dead. If she was going to get through this—all the new feelings, this sudden possibility to bypass the rules of her life—she needed the hard confidence she’d ridden so heavily since she’d first escaped her childhood to remake her life.

Even if she had to fake it.

Chapter 14

Glorious idiot. An entire weapons system hanging in the balance, Carolyne’s life at risk, his own self barely functional, and he’d somehow managed to find the time to—

Knees, knees!

Rio caught himself at the doorway, took a deep breath to chase away his gray vision, and regathered his thoughts. Idiot, yes…but not a single moment begrudged. Not when they had one or two to spare, no matter the atmosphere of urgency. Needing to do something immediately and being able to do it immediately…two different things. Rio’s days as a case officer should have prepared him for such reality.

As if anything could, with family involved.

Rio dropped the sleeping bag on the recliner and did a limping circuit of the nurse’s station—jamming his toothbrush in his back pocket, sweeping Carolyne’s things up into her suitcase and leaving it on the bed for later, and donning his vest. Nothing in this battered body would work quite right for days, but he hoped to fake his way through any impending action. As long as his back held out. His back, where permanently damaged muscle needed constant work to stay strong, and under which he no longer had either a kidney or a spleen—would take longer, and would probably need another round of muscle relaxants before it quit threatening to spasm.

Then again, Rio had plenty of practice in standing just so.

He studiously ignored the trussed bubba who’d been his own personal instrument of torture. Rio was quite sure the man had recovered from the stun zap, even though he wisely pretended he hadn’t. He, too, would be part of the cleanup phase of this little adventure.

By adding some hustle, Rio made it out to the office just as Kimmer finished cranking the well-used little station wagon around in a tight series of turns. She bounded out to meet him, tight curves highlighted by belted jeans and the tucked flannel shirt; she’d left her vest in the car. Her Ruger rode on her thigh in a military holster, and he was willing to bet she had half a dozen weapons secured in her clothing. Somewhere. Lara Croft in miniature.

“You look better,” she said, giving him a quick assessment as she opened the passenger door for him.

“I think your drugs have kicked in.” He hadn’t realized it until that moment, but the pain had receded, leaving mostly the heat of the damaged flesh. “I could wish for a hot tub….”

She flashed him a wry smile. “Who wouldn’t?”

He refrained from suggesting they share one at the first opportunity. He’d knocked her off balance back at the nurse’s station, and for everyone’s sake, she needed to be right at the top of her game. It sobered him then to realize how much he was depending on her, and how much trust he’d put in her in spite of hard lessons learned. But he had a feeling…and he trusted that, too.

She hesitated, arm extended to close the car door. “I wanted to let you know,” she said, and a faint flush rose to cover the smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose, “I’m sorry I didn’t interrupt the BGs sooner. Before you egged Boots into putting such a beating on you. But Slick was always right by Carolyne, and I didn’t have the angle to take a shot—”

Of course not. “You’re too short to get an angle through that window,” he realized out loud.

She nodded. “By the time he moved off from her, you and Boots had gotten into it. And then I should have…I should have—” She shook her head, a helpless expression on her face. “I’m not used to caring. I just didn’t—”

“Boots,” he said, hearing it again. A silly grin hit his face. “Do you always name them?”

“Of course.” She gave him a blink, taken aback. “It’s half the fun, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. All my assets came with their own code names, which were…well, boring.”

“Try it,” she advised. “You like words. You should be able to come up with some good ones.”

Absurdly, it pleased him that she thought so. She grinned, a glimpse of the inner Kimmer gleaming out, and then she closed the door.

They took the dirt road at a snail’s pace, sparing Rio—and the old car—the bumps and washboarding. Kimmer rummaged around behind her seat, snaking her arm back to produce an apple. “If you’re up to chewing,” she said. “Doesn’t look to me like they messed with your face too much.”

“I’m pretty good with a fetal curl.” Rio took the apple, but as he lifted it to his mouth for a big healthy bite, he got a glimpse of movement through the trees—a pickup truck, a big double-cab Ford.

Kimmer muttered something short and vicious under her breath, removing her foot from the accelerator so the Taurus coasted to a stop.

Rio set the apple aside.

Neither said anything.

The truck came to a stop only a yard or so away, angling to block the road from edge to edge. Kimmer scowled at it as Rio observed, “Don’t come much bigger than that.”

“Not your average goonboy vehicle,” she said. “I have a feeling this is an old friend who didn’t learn his lesson the first time around.”

All four truck doors opened; four men descended from the truck.

“He brought his pals,” Rio observed. The midday hour suddenly seemed late, edging toward the early dark with exaggerated speed. We already used our moments.

“The bubbaboys.” Kimmer rolled her eyes. Leo had suggested the camp to the BGs, and now he’d come here to find her. “This should only take a few minutes.”

She said it as though she expected to handle the situation by herself, but as she exited the car, Rio mustered up the dregs of his energy and slid out the passenger side, standing with slow care. Walking around the back of the wagon loosened him up again, and he stood slightly behind Kimmer as one of the men stepped forward. They looked familiar, and Rio suddenly recognized them as three of the troublemakers from the picnic, while the ringleader, Leo, was the same man who’d been interested in Kimmer.

A whole little reunion. Jonesy, Bob, Matt and Leo. Only Shaun was missing—possibly wise enough to stay out of it.

Kimmer faced them with a relaxed, balanced posture that should have tipped them off—Be smart. Run away—“I thought we had this conversation, Leo.”

“I don’t remember finishing it.” Leo wore a garage cap pulled down over his forehead, and jabbed his hands defiantly into the pockets of his fleece-lined denim coat.

“I don’t suppose you would. But I’ve got the stun gun with me, if you care to have another try.” She looked at the other men. “I’ve also still got the .38, and you can see my friendly Ruger is right at hand. There are a couple of other options—maybe you want to reassess the effectiveness of my little war club? I made it myself, you know.” But she didn’t move one way or the other; she gave them a moment to let their hands creep toward this pocket and that, telltale signs of their own weapons.

“Yeah, you’re all decked out. Loaded for bear. Too bad we’re not bears.” Leo glanced back at his buddies as they laughed in appreciation of his wit, pleased with himself.

Kimmer gestured impatience. “Thing is, I’m in a hurry. So if you’ve got something to say, say it and move the truck. Otherwise, how about you just move the truck?”

“You were in a hurry to leave here the first time, too.” Leo’s nostril’s flared slightly and his lips compressed; the humor was gone.

Leave here? When? Hadn’t the accent been an act? Rio snatched a look at Kimmer, but she was stone cold. All the warmth he’d felt not so long ago, gone into hiding.

His reaction hadn’t gone unnoticed. Leo snorted a short, harsh laugh. “Has she been whipping on you, too?”

Rio stiffened. It hadn’t been more than a sideswipe at Rio himself—no, it was a crack at Kimmer. Suddenly Rio had no patience for the moment—not with Carolyne waiting, not with the phone call for backup yet to make. He drew himself up, took a step forward, forgot about his bruises and his back and the sporadically wobbly nature of his knees.

Kimmer sent a cool glance his way, indigo eyes deep and impenetrable. And Leo, his voice filled with extraordinary spite, said, “I’ll bet she never mentioned she grew up the next town over, good-for-nothing little high-school dropout, her daddy a drunk and her mother a wishy-washy little thing who died just to get away. I bet she never mentioned she was promised to me.”

Rio wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Kimmer grew even colder. Even more remote. He held his breath, fighting the impulse to end this ugly confrontation in the beautiful fall woods with golden light all around them, leaves settling to the ground, squirrels rustling around to hide and bury walnuts and acorns.

But Kimmer didn’t need his help. She even relaxed slightly, though Leo was a fool if he took it for a good sign. “Yeah, yeah. I grew up here in a cruel, squalid little family and then I left. It wasn’t my promise. Get over it.”

Leo couldn’t. “And does your friend here know what you were like back then, Kimmer Reed? How you looked? How eager your family was to trade you off?”

Silence fell over them; the bubbaboys, as Kimmer had so aptly named them, shifted uneasily, impatiently. Leo might have forgotten about Kimmer’s whirlwind fighting style, but they evidently had not; they wanted revenge, not chatter. And while Rio clenched the fist that would still clench, he knew…

This was Kimmer’s moment. Hers to face and hers to handle.

Astonishingly, after that long silence, she laughed. “That’s pretty sad, Leo.” She glanced at Rio. “I wore bad boys’ hand-me-downs and ugly things that didn’t fit. I was pathetic. I had scary hair—really scary hair. I had a birthmark on my face.” She shrugged, and she met his eyes with a gaze that lingered just long enough to send a message he hadn’t expected. It’s all right. It’s truly all right. “With all of that, you’d think he’d be glad I left.”

Rio couldn’t help but grin. Not a big one, but one that included her. And she took it, and suddenly he didn’t feel like they were two people standing there, but a team.

Leo frowned; he’d lost his emotional advantage and didn’t understand it. “All of that, and you still thought you were too good for us. It’s time you learned you weren’t. You aren’t.”

“I didn’t deserve you,” she corrected him. “Any of you. But you taught me a lot of things, and I find those lessons very useful these days.”

Rio’s grin faded; he winced inside to think of what lessons a young girl could possibly learn from her family to prepare her for her role in high-stakes undercover operations. She should have been learning about support and sticking together and unconditional love.

Kimmer glanced back at him, and this time it was something of a warning. She’d seen a change in these men that he hadn’t. He scrutinized them, found only the same impatience he’d noted before—and then realized it. Leo had faltered slightly; he watched Kimmer with a slight frown instead of impending domination. And the bubbaboys had seen it, too. They were about to demote Leo and take over the action. Time to throw a few punches, to regain face and walk away on top. Foolishness. And a total waste of precious time.

But it was still Kimmer’s show. She stood hipshot, one hand resting where her belt cinched around the tight curve of her hip. Only the dip of motion away from the .38, though Rio didn’t think she’d go for it. These were fools, not criminals. Kimmer cocked her head slightly at Leo. “For instance, it was hiding from you and brother Buddy that started me off on my night-ops skills. And all those close encounters—you never got more than a hand on me, did you? No one touches me now. Not unless I say so. Those sorry goonboys at Angelina’s learned that one well enough, didn’t they?”

Leo startled; so did Bob just behind him. The others were so busy mentally assuming command and initiative that they didn’t pay attention to Kimmer’s actual words, and Rio softly moved forward another step. Leo gave Kimmer a careful, assessing look. “That shooting at the B&B—that was you? What the hell are you into?”

“Who the hell cares?” snapped Jonesy, and shoved past Leo to grab Kimmer by one arm, his expression full of premature triumph. “Now, what was so hard about this?” He turned to Kimmer with something of a leer and said, “Now you’ll learn a little respe—”

Kimmer shifted, a twist of quick, precise movement. Jonesy hit the ground with a hollow thump, driving the air from his lungs. When Kimmer straightened she had her foot at his throat and his arm yanked high at a bad angle, the wrist and elbow torqued to the breaking point. Rio didn’t wait for his buddies to react—he flung Leo up against the truck, planting his foot in a high kick to nail Bob right below his breastbone. Bob doubled over to gag up his lunch while Rio staggered back against the Taurus and wrapped his hand around the door handle for a crutch, his back flickering in and out of spasm.

Matt backed off, hands raised in instant surrender. “Dammit, Leo, I knew we should have just drawn on them to start!”

Rio nodded at Kimmer, who maintained her grip on Jonesy’s arm and yet had the .38 aimed steadily at Matt’s oblivious head. “You’re lucky you didn’t, I’d say.”

Matt paled and backed up a step.

Kimmer smiled her tight little dangerous smile. “You know, I’m in a hurry. I’m trying to save the world here, and you’re messing with me.” She turned her attention back to Leo, who’d regained his balance but still stood back against the truck. “A dozen years ago doesn’t matter now. Now matters. And I’m not part of your now. Unless—” she gave him a considering look “—unless you want to help.”

Leo’s inadequate jaw went slack, but only until he found a few startled words. “What the hell—?”

Kimmer grinned. She had him right where she wanted him. She had herself right where she wanted to be—free from her worst fears, free from the ever present worry that her past would come back to slap her in the face. And so it had, but she wasn’t that person anymore. That past had no hold on who she was now. She’d faced it, and here she still was. And there was Rio beside her, backing her, showing her new ways to be. So she grinned at Leo and said, “Yeah, you. I need some backup here—I don’t think my people will get here in time. I need someone I can count on. It’s a terrorist thing, more or less. We’ve got our differences, but I remember you as being a patriot, Leo.”

More like someone who saluted the flag just so everyone could see him do it, but nonetheless, it might work. And did, for Leo didn’t even think before his response popped out. “Damn right!”

“I’m after some people who took someone important.” She glanced at Rio, found him trying to pretend he wasn’t leaning on the Taurus. She didn’t even want to think about what that lightning-quick maneuver at her side had cost him. His worry for Carolyne had settled into his eyes, drawing expressive eyebrows closer together. “Something crucial to our country. I know where they’re going, and I’m headed to stop them. I need backup…from someone who can handle it.”

Rio made a noise in his throat, a surprised protest. At what, she wasn’t certain. She kept her attention on the men, satisfied to see she’d caught Leo’s attention. The bubbaboys were less certain, even as she slowly released the man in her grip, stepped back and lowered her gun. “Not backup so much as someone to carry an important message if these guys get past me. We’re talking about a couple of hours, and you get to come back and tell your buddies all about it.”

Jonesy had staggered to his feet, rubbing his arm; it didn’t seem to work quite right. “Leo, she’s crazy. You’re crazy if you’re listening to her!”

Kimmer smiled. Thank you, Jonesy. If anything would push Leo over the hump of decision, that would do it. And then he’d quit thinking about his revenge, and start looking at this new opportunity to make himself feel big, and she and Rio could leave, dammit.

Right on cue, Leo pushed himself away from the truck to stand straighter. “And you might just be walking home, because for all the puny things Kimmer Reed ever was, a liar wasn’t none of them.” His expression grew more sour. “She always told me to go right to hell.”

Bob still had a pained hunch to his walk as he moved up beside Leo. “So you want us to stake out a spot and make sure these guys don’t get past?”

“Stake out, yes. And I’ve got a license-plate number for you. But what I need is for you to call a number I can give you, and let them know if the car goes by.” She looked back to Leo, locking gazes with his washed-out blue eyes. “But that’s it. These men are ruthless. They’re international mercenaries. If you step in, you’ll threaten them and they’ll kill the woman who has the information we need.” She pointed to her head. “In here. So if she dies, we fail. That means I need to go in alone.” Total bull, as she’d love to have a dozen Hunter associates in on Carolyne’s rescue. But this particular conversation was about saving face for Leo. She gave him a shrug. “It’s one way to put one over on me, Leo. I can’t leave you behind in the past if I owe you my life—and Carolyne’s.”

He grinned at her. It wasn’t pleasant. “No, you damn well can’t.”

Bob squinted suspiciously. “If you’re setting us up—”

“As if,” Kimmer said, and gestured at Rio. “Or do you really think I did this? Or that it’s a coincidence I hit town about the same time as Rio and his cousin? She’s the one in trouble. The country’s security depends on getting her back.” Laying it on thick, she was. But then, these guys probably watched Walker, Texas Ranger and were used to it.

Rio made the slightest of noises—a catch of breath, a suppressed grunt of pain—and Kimmer let her impatience show. “Look—help us, or don’t. But at the least, move that truck so we can get on with it!”

“Be nice.” Leo scowled back at her. “Do you want our help or not?”

Pride. Swallow. Hard. “Yes,” she said. “I really do.”

Bob and Leo exchanged glances. Leo said, “We’re in. These other two can come along or walk home—up to them.” He gave the two in question a smirk. “You’ll be damn sorry when the whole town hears you walked away.”

Jonesy gave a little grunt. “We’re coming. Anyway, we can pick up a six-pack if things get boring.”

Kimmer sighed with relief. She didn’t know if they’d follow through or not, but as long as they moved the truck out of the way, she wasn’t going to worry about it. Because when it came right down to it, she didn’t intend to fail. She didn’t intend to need their backup. “Got a pen? Paper?”

While Leo rummaged in his glove box; the others took the opportunity to climb back into the truck. Kimmer moved closer to Rio, offering him a wordless expression of concern; he shook his head slightly and she closed her mouth on further questions as Leo backed out of the truck with a pen and a crumpled, unopened envelope labeled Final Bill, holding them out to her in triumph.

“This,” she said, scribbling, “is the plate number. It’s a dark green Grand Am. And this is the number to call if it goes past you. I need you to stake out the exit of that rest stop just south of Erie. If they leave it, call.”

Leo said promptly, “I’ll call right now,” and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, looking as if he thought he’d pulled one over on her. “Just to check your story.”

“A phone!” Kimmer said in delight. “Call, call, call!”

Not the reaction he’d expected. He punched the number in and Kimmer waited impatiently for Owen to pick up the phone. Leo swaggered a little in voice and body when he said, “I’m calling about Kimmer Reed. I want to know if she’s working undercover—if it’s a terrorist type thing.”

Owen would certainly say no such thing. Kimmer raised her voice. “Go, Owen! It’s Disneyland!” And dammit, now they’d have to assign a new code word.

Moments later, Leo’s eyes widened with surprise. Kimmer took it to mean Owen was laying it on thick. She held her hand out, impatient and couldn’t help but bounce up and down a couple of times, raising an eyebrow at Rio when he smiled. Slowly, Leo handed the phone over, eyeing her somewhat warily.

“Owen?” Kimmer demanded.

Owen said, “I gather our hopes for your cover were optimistic, and this is an old friend of yours?”

Not stupid, her Owen.

“Essentially. Look, how fast can you get backup just south of Erie?”

“Not a secure line,” he reminded her.

“Not a secure situation,” she shot back.

He sighed; it was his only acknowledgment of just how difficult this assignment had become. No need to tell him that, either—she wouldn’t be calling under these conditions given any other choice. “Summarize.”

“Goonboys have Carolyne. We plan to intercept just south of Erie. The rest station. Rio’s…compromised. I need backup—these particular goonboys are big-time.” She cleared her throat. “I also need a little cleanup. And I’ve got some hard copy—it’s something you’ll want if things go bad.”

Owen hesitated; she heard the faint clack of his keyboard. He muttered something under his breath, a startling breach of his impassive facade. “Four and a half hours. I can get you three bodies, but it’ll be four and half hours.”

“Neither chopper is available?” Kimmer asked in disbelief. “We could be three bodies by then.” Leo started, straightening, and she looked over at him to mouth “No” with the firmest scowl possible. He’d gotten into the idea of being the patriotic hero, all right. Maybe a little too much.

“One’s out, one’s out of commission—just happened. If the situation’s that bad, Chimera, don’t forget your primary objective.”

He’d called her by her code name for a reason. The “suck it up and do what’s right even if it’s hard” reason. Kimmer spun on her heel, stalking over to the edge of the woods to turn her back on them all. Leo didn’t even try to stop her. “Listen, Owen, you’re the one who sent me down here. You’re the one who wanted me to get all touchy-feely, to ‘come out of hiding.’ Well, it worked. And this isn’t someone I can just write off. Not like that.”

“Good,” Owen said brusquely, surprising her. “Then don’t let it happen.”

“You should have sent the Terminator,” Kimmer snapped.

“I know you hear me,” Owen said, his voice softening. “Now go make this warning unnecessary. I’ve already put out the call for your backup.”

Who couldn’t possibly get there in time. “Tell them to speed,” Kimmer said shortly, and snapped Leo’s phone shut with more force than was good for it. She stood there a moment, head bowed, thinking furiously. Rio will die before he lets this happen.

Therefore, she couldn’t let it happen.

It meant raising the stakes. She couldn’t go into this conservatively; she’d have to risk all of them to save any of them, because there were no second chances.

She took a deep breath, composed her face into the mask she’d worn so automatically until these past few days—until this day—and pivoted to walk smartly back to the truck and return Leo’s phone. “They’re on the way,” she told the men. “And I’ve changed my mind about what I need you to do.”

“I heard what you said to him, all right. Looks like you’ll need us for more than just watching the road.”

She shook her head. “Not the way you think.” And then, after some hesitation, she said, “If the car goes by, tell them to check the Taurus when they get there.” Because if the car went by, it would mean she hadn’t made it—that none of them had made it. It would be the goonboy survivors, running from their failure.

“You’re going to hide something for them,” Leo said, giving her a squint of thought.

She didn’t bother to deny it; she gave the slightest of nods, her thoughts distracted and fractured every which way. Even covering this contingency was an admission that she might fail. The thought of it sent her into deep denial—she wouldn’t because she couldn’t because for the first time it meant more than her pride or her safety or abstract notions such as right losing to wrong. It meant failing Rio…and that would mean losing him. It would mean losing the small spark of humanity that he’d reawakened.

Of course, she probably wouldn’t be around to know it, but it would certainly turn those last few moments into the worst kind of hell. Not the way I want to go. On the other hand, to find that spark of herself and then lose it again? The thought twisted something inside her and it felt like barbed wire.

She had to look away from Leo, take a deep breath…then another. Still couldn’t speak, not quite yet.

And even so, she’d cover her butt. She’d hide Carolyne’s notes, jam them down into the door along the window. That message would be enough—in truth, her comment to Owen that she had information for him would have been enough eventually. But she didn’t want time wasted in the searching, and she couldn’t tell him about the Taurus over the open line. She managed to loosen her throat enough to look back at Leo and muster up some semblance of authority as she confirmed, “You’ll do it?”

Leo still had that narrow-eyed look, and for a moment she thought he’d offer up trouble just because the opportunity seemed available. But in the end he only said, “Yeah. I’ll do it.”

She tried to hide her sigh of relief and couldn’t; the surprise it put on his face was worth it. It had, she realized, gotten through to him on a personal level unlike anything else she’d done. He blinked and said, “We’ll be there,” then crossed around the front of the truck and climbed in to immediately start the engine.

Kimmer turned back to the Taurus and found Rio there, no longer pretending to stand upright, but managing a fairly convincing casual lean against the car. She guessed, “Your back is a mess.”

He gave a short laugh, then winced. “It was a mess before today, but yeah, that sums it up.”

Kimmer winced, too—just watching him harnessed by the pain hurt something inside her, far beyond what she expected to feel. “Get inside,” she said. “We’re on our way.”

Rio straightened away from the car and held out his hand; somehow she found her own slipping into it as though by longstanding habit. As she absorbed the surprise of it, the warmth of it, he gave a little squeeze and released her to do as suggested, moving around the car without the matter-of-fact strength she’d come to associate with him. In three hours they’d be at the rest stop—he’d either be loosened up by the drugs by then, or they’d prove totally inadequate and he’d be lucky to move.

And still, she looked down at her hand and flexed it, feeling a little smile steal across her face.

Chapter 15

The station wagon muttered across the last of the washboarding and turned onto the asphalt road, immediately picking up speed. The truck appeared behind them a moment later. Rio relaxed into the seat, releasing tension he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Finally. On the way. Heading after Caro, who had no idea if he was even still alive.

She must be out of her mind with terror. She was a sit-by-the-fireplace soul, and if the soft clacking of her keyboard and the wooden snick of Scrabble letter tiles against the game board didn’t give quite the same ambience as the smell of baking cookies and other homey touches, it suited her fine. The high-end think tank suited her, because the management buffered its geniuses from the demanding intensity of its clients, offering more of a home-away-from-home than a workplace environment. He’d seen Caro’s office once—full of plants and comfortable furniture and even a small television that she sometimes kept on in the background. And she had had Scott in her life these past several years, playing the shark for her when she needed someone with teeth.

None of it had prepared her for this.

Rio shivered slightly, caught by surprise as the frisson rippled through bruises and set off sparks of pain throughout his body.

Kimmer didn’t take her eyes off the winding road, curves she took at a speed high enough to shift them around within the car. “The heater on this thing…it works, but not as well as it probably used to.”

Rio reached for the sleeping bag puddled at his feet. Nylon hissed against itself as he settled it in place, immediately warmer. “Everything’s arranged with your Hunter Agency?”

“More or less. Our backup’s delayed.” She said the words evenly, as though they made no difference at all. The tense line of her jaw said otherwise.

Rio tried to keep his response just as even. “Delayed by how much?”

This time she glanced at him. Cheeks flushed, eyes lit to deepest, luminous blue as the car curved westward into sunlight, lips free of the sardonic quirk often lurking in the corners. “Probably too much,” she said. “Either way, it’ll be dark by the time anything goes down. We’ll do it. I’ve still got the night scope, and we’ve got the element of surprise. They don’t know about me and they think you’re dead. We just have to handle things before—”

Before Carolyne talks. It was what she’d been about to say, but she wisely clamped down on it. Rio tried to pretend he hadn’t heard it anyway. He knew well enough she was under orders to keep the big fat secret a big fat secret. He even knew that in the bigger picture, Carolyne had to be expendable. But personally, he couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t. Instead, he watched her, saw beyond her confidence to the anxiety beneath. And didn’t, in this short but intense time they’d spent together, remember seeing that anxiety at all. “You’re worried.”

She stiffened, but didn’t say anything. She negotiated a tight curve, glancing in the rearview mirror. Rio checked his side view; the truck was no longer in sight. No big surprise—there was no way the double cab could take the curves at this speed. When he looked back at Kimmer she was biting her lip; she clearly had no intention of answering him. She probably wished she’d given him three of the pain pills so he’d be asleep. He’d never seen that in her, either—that reticence to respond, and the lack of instant comeback. No doubt she was the one used to perceiving things of others, and not being on the receiving end of such perception.

On the other hand, while he wasn’t exactly a slouch at reading people—no one who got through CIA training at The Farm was—he found himself surprised at how much he could see in her.

He found he liked it.

He waited another moment and said, “Tell me about your knack of reading body language.”

Here came the usual instant response, making him smile inside. She said, “You know what there is to know. I picked it up young—I think you can guess it was my way of staying safe. And I had my mother’s help, before she died. Her…rules of survival. They work. Or they have, until now.” Her hands tightened on the wheel. “I don’t know why the hell I can’t read you. Dammit, I need to be able to know what you’re thinking. I’m used to working that way.”

Whoa. He’d meant to push her a little, not truly upset her. “Kimmer,” he said gently, a tone that drew her eyes away from the road for an instant, “I think you know me better than you believe. It might not be what you’re used to, but I’m thinking it has its own rewards.”

A renewed flush crept up over those faint, sweet freckles. After a moment she admitted, “That could be. But frankly, the timing sucks.”

Rio laughed, short and somewhat pained. “Ow,” he complained, and shifted to ease his back, pulling the slippery sleeping bag back into place. “You know, we all struggle with trust. Not all of us have had a secret superpower to get along all this time.”

She relaxed a little—not surprising; his words had taken the focus away from her. The road ended at a T-intersection ahead of them, and she brought the Taurus to a hard stop, the brakes shuddering. A sign pointed them toward Erie, and she turned them in that direction. “And you?” she said. “What happened to you? Why did you leave the agency? It’s a trust thing, I’ll bet.”

That, and more than that. He closed his eyes as the past caught up with him, visceral flashes of astonishment as Greg Taylor—SUDSBERG—took the first bullet, gore splattering the dusty aluminum hangar of a private airport to make dark splotches against the only thing reflecting moonlight; everything else on that field seemed only to suck it in, leaving darkness. Greg, cursing into his throat mike, going down. Hard tarmac, coming up to slam against Rio, the stink of oil from the empty barrels that served as his scant cover, the burn of a bullet he hadn’t felt hit, the sudden flood of warmth from his own blood. The way the world around him faded to nothing but that agony within and the warmth of his blood against the growing chill of his body.

Only PEPPLER had been back far enough to escape unscathed; he’d covered as he could. Hanging back from the action as was necessary and usual to confirm success or failure, he set a fire in the nearest building and called the authorities. In the distraction, he grabbed Rio, hauled him out. Everyone else left in a body bag, and as far as the world knew, they’d been killed in a devastating car accident. But Rio knew the truth.

Kimmer’s words ran through his mind. It’s a trust thing, I’ll bet. “I told you you knew me well enough.” He gave her a wry grin she probably didn’t see, her attention on the road as she entered the merge lane for I-79. “And you know I can’t talk about it.”

“Give me a break.” She flashed him a briefly scornful frown. “I don’t need classified details. What happened to you?”

Rio laughed again. It still hurt, but somehow the surge of affection he felt covered it with a kind of warmth. “You put everything up front, Kimmer. Just like that. You don’t play people. You could have played those boys just then, and sucked them right into the action for your own uses. Cannon fodder.”

“Red shirts.” Kimmer nodded. “No, I don’t do that. Not everyone likes that about me. Not everyone likes to get straight to the matter of things.”

“Some people,” said Rio, “do.” He took a moment for thought, trying to scrape his way through the details and the emotion and the intruding memories. “Let’s just say I had an exfiltration gone bad. Another officer’s asset turned out to be a compromised double, and before he blew town he also blew a handful of operations in progress.”

Kimmer studied the rearview mirror—looking for the truck probably. “But that happens. I mean, you expect that sort of thing, don’t you?”

“Not when your chief of station gets wind that asset might be a double and warns his case officer—and the case officer decides he knows better. Mine was a high-percentage op, and until the moment the bullets started flying, it was going smoothly. I lost my asset—he was a good man. A friend. And the officers who were running countersurveillance for me, they—” It welled up so suddenly as to take him by surprise, all the fury and grief of the moment, still lurking as strongly as ever. He fought it—and when he realized Kimmer was heading for the road shoulder, shook his head in an emphatic gesture. She hesitated, then stepped on the accelerator again. He cleared his throat and said, “Well, I’m still alive.”

PEPPLER had paid, of course. Sent back to Langley and stuck at a desk until—and if—he could earn himself another chance at fieldwork. Torture for an experienced case officer…if not quite torture enough.

Kimmer startled him; her hand crept over to take his, tentative but strong. Small within his as he closed his fingers, squeezing back as though she weren’t quite sure how it was done, and then withdrawing to the steering wheel. She didn’t look at him as she said, “I haven’t spotted the truck.”

“Neither have I.” He checked the side-view mirror again as he spoke. “Do you think they’ll follow through?”

She shrugged. “No telling. Leo seemed pretty determined—and he’s got the most motivation to put me in his debt, if he’s been stewing all these years about—”

“Did they really promise you to him?”

She grinned, and oddly enough, looked truly amused. “Absurd, isn’t it? Yes, they did. I was everything he said, too. And he…well, it’s not like he had prospects, and he didn’t look any better then than he does now. Anyway, those boys could get distracted by jacklighting deer along some feeder road for all I know. But they just might come through, and if nothing else, it got us out of there without spilling any blood.” She finally looked at him again, a quick, assessing glance with compassion mixed in. “Doesn’t matter. I intend to pass along Carolyne’s notes myself—along with Carolyne.”

But he noticed she kept glancing at the rearview mirror anyway.

Kimmer kept herself eight miles per hour over the speed limit—riding the line between pushing time and grabbing the attention of the state cops. The car finally warmed up, and Rio dozed for a while. When he woke she pushed the forgotten apple his way and asked him to grab an energy bar from her backpack. In the process he found her camera, and while she peeled printed Mylar foil away from the fake food, he flicked on the display and cycled through her cache of photos. The scenic stuff, close-up studies of color and shadow and nature turned into the abstract, a few pictures from Mill Springs. She’d captured the worn face of an old man sitting in the park, his eyes blank and staring; she’d caught Missy on a smoke break, unaware she was being watched, expression distracted and dreamy. Then the images turned more practical. There was the B&B, down to the last bit of garden statuary—with special attention paid to exits and entries and clever little hiding places.

“Did your homework,” he commented, and she didn’t do anything but shrug. She knew what came next—the pictures of the goonboys she’d taken out at the B&B. That got a low whistle. “Poor Angelina. I can’t imagine she and Brad took this well.”

“They did their best,” Kimmer allowed. She nodded at the camera, still stuck on the goonboy she’d shot. “These two were part of the team who approached you at Hillside Gas & Foo.”

He looked up from the image, grinned. “That sign caught your attention, too, did it?”

She grinned back. “I was going to buy me some foo in a can, but I found other uses for it.”

“They had the car bugged,” Rio said, and gave a scowl that seemed directed inwardly. “It had to have been while we were packing. I had no idea this thing she’d found was so big…I left the car unlocked while we loaded it.”

“We all got caught by surprise at how fast the BGs moved,” Kimmer said, awkward in her attempt to relieve his guilt. “Anyway, they never made it to Carolyne. Our current crop is either part of the team who tailed me and bugged this car before I even got into it, or we’ve got another set of players on our hands.”

“They were on to you before you even left?”

She nodded. “I didn’t much like it, either. Someone knew Hunter would be working this right from the start. Even so, how they found the camp, I don’t know. They didn’t follow me. They went straight to it.”

“When we catch up with them,” Rio said grimly, “we’ll have to ask them. Firmly.”

“Firmly,” she agreed.

And then he fell asleep again, and Kimmer reached over to remove her camera from his lap, twitching the sleeping bag up over his leg and waist, her hand lingering over his to take blatant advantage of this chance to touch him unencumbered by her own uncertainty in how to have that kind of exchange between two people. Affection. Comfort. Attraction. Need. She’d never succumbed to them before. She touched his arm and smiled to herself.

They drove straight through into dusk, losing time to a construction-narrowed road and then losing a little more to a truck that had dumped its load of lumber in the middle of the highway. Still, when she pulled oh so casually into that final rest area before Erie, they were well within the safety zone of timing. Scott shouldn’t be here yet, and Hunter associates would arrive soon enough. Kimmer gave a huge stretch, considering the red brick buildings, the poorly lit picnic area, the huge stretch of trucker parking, the pet exercise area. All were surrounded by those gorgeous Pennsylvania hardwoods.

At the far edge of the lot, a dark sedan sat by itself, snow dusted and forlorn. Another car had parked somewhere in between, and not far from Kimmer, a family piled out of their van, clutching inadequate travel clothing against the wintry air.

Carolyne might be in the sedan, or she might not. Kimmer didn’t want to spook anyone by simply strolling out to see. She’d check the rest rooms, and then walk around the buildings. She didn’t expect to find anything there, but it was the first step.

As soon as she cut the engine and the inadequate heater, cold crept into the car. A few sulky flakes of snow made their way down to land on the hood, melting instantly. Kimmer unlatched her seat belt and reached into the back for her heavy new jacket, peeling out of the vest and quickly transferring anything she wanted to have on hand. Rio hadn’t woken; she hesitated, studying him. Assessing him.

Just plain looking at him.

Here was a man she’d never thought to meet, a man who held his family loyalties over all. A man who wasn’t so caught up in his wants and needs that he’d do anything to anyone in order to fulfill them, but if anything, went too far in the other direction.

A man with the warmest brown eyes she’d ever seen, and they smiled when they looked at her.

Looking at him—at the quiescent strength, the masculine beauty of lines and angles—she suddenly perceived that she regarded more than just a man. She had, sitting right there beside her, potentials—potentials the likes of which she’d never even conceived for herself. That she’d never even imagined existed, not for her. Not for Kimmer Reed.

But she had no idea if she had the courage to leave her rules behind for him. Or to break the biggest one by not putting herself first.

“Hey,” Kimmer said gently, and Rio opened his eyes to regard her with bleary confusion. “We’re at the rest stop. The goonboys are here. Their car’s at the end of the lot. I want to check out the buildings—I thought you might take the men’s side.”

He rubbed a hand across his face, blinked at her and took in their surroundings for the first time. “Wow.”

“Is that ‘Wow, we made it’ or ‘Wow, I’m such a mess’?”

He made a face at her to show his complete lack of amusement at the latter and pulled the sleeping bag up to stuff it over his shoulder and into the back seat. “I’m good.”

She snorted. “As if. Bet your hand’s broken, what-taya think?”

“I think I owe that fellow a few lumps.” Rio regarded the hand in question; there was no longer any question that it could flex, grasp or serve as anything but a swollen encumbrance. “Probably. But the other one still works. What say we just don’t tell the bad guys, and I’ll fake it?” He glanced out the window at the lone car, his jaw suddenly flexing with emotion. “God, if they’ve hurt her—”

“She’s not going to be the same, Rio,” Kimmer said bluntly. “You don’t go through something like this and come out the other side just the same as you were. But it doesn’t mean she won’t end up stronger.”

He took a deep breath. “Right.”

Kimmer slipped out of the car, shrugged herself into the jacket and double-checked that she’d pocketed everything she’d intended. Then she went around to open the door for Rio. From this side she could see his sleep-mussed hair, the untied sneaker, the unzipped jacket. Quite matter-of-factly, she knelt to tie the sneaker, then held out a hand to pull him out of the car. With a disgruntled noise, he took it, unfolding slowly from the seat. “Use your little jaunt around the building and through the men’s side to walk it off,” she suggested, reaching for the jacket zipper.

“Damn,” he said. “I had a notion I might like to have your hands on my zipper, but that’s not the zipper I was thinking of.”

Heat rushed to Kimmer’s cheeks. Another first…flirting. She fumbled the zipper, recovered and took it up to the middle of his chest. Before she could think too much about it, she reached up to smooth his hair down. “Stickie-uppies,” she told his inquiring glance. “Don’t want you scaring anyone.”

“Good thinking,” he agreed, quite solemnly. “But you should stop touching me now. I need to be able to think, and it’s hard enough already.” He winced. “I mean—”

“Shut up,” she told him, but she smirked. “I’ll meet you back here in a few moments.” And she shooed him off toward the men’s side of the building, watching his first stiff steps loosen up to something less halting and finally into movement with a little more authority. Then she headed for the ladies’ room, where she took advantage of the facilities—end-of-day nasty, they were—checked the supply closet door, pushed each stall door open one by one, and garnered a look from a mother who pulled her daughter away from Kimmer’s no-nonsense inspection. She hadn’t expected to find anything—no sign of Carolyne, no sign of anyone tampering with anything or lurking in wait—but she wasn’t taking chances. Nor did she take chances when she inspected the exterior, checking an unmarked door not only by trying the locked handle, but looking for any signs of recent passage. No mud, no recently disturbed gravel, no scuffs. She headed for the small visitors’ center between the two rest-room entrances and found it unmanned and full of maps she didn’t need. A moment later Rio joined her.

“No bathroom bogeymen,” he announced. “Got a plan?”

She pressed her lips together, a crooked expression. “Nothing other than the obvious.”

“Sneak and leap?” He raised a sardonic brow and the sight of it brought instant improvement to Kimmer’s mood—he’d sharpened up in the past few moments.

“Lurk and de-jerk,” she said, and enjoyed his grin. “That’s basically it. We’ve got another hour before anyone from Hunter gets here; Scott shouldn’t arrive until after the fireworks are over. I think we should scope out the situation—” she patted the pocket that held her night scope “—and if we’ve got a good opportunity, we should damn well go for it.”

Rio sobered. “No doubt about it. They’re not going to just sit and wait all that time. They’re going to work her. They’ve probably told her I’m dead.”

“They probably think you are,” Kimmer said dryly. She pulled a thin knit balaclava from her pocket and put it on her head without drawing it down. “I thought we’d try to avoid the greasepaint…might draw attention.”

“Too bad it’s not Halloween,” Rio muttered. “I don’t have one—but I’ve got a scarf and a hat in the car. I think.”

The family from the van came streaming into the small space, and two small children immediately set up a clamor for vending-machine goodies while the mother—the same who had avoided Kimmer in the rest room—gave them both a suspicious look.

“Drat!” Kimmer muttered, leaning in close to Rio. “Our nefarious plan to redraw all the maps is thwarted!”

“That’s okay,” he said, heading for the door. “Knowing you, you won’t give up so easily.”

Well, he certainly had that much figured out.

At the car they found his scarf and hat, both navy. She reached up to accomplish the two-handed job of tying the scarf as the snow thickened around them, and then she reached into her deep coat pocket and brought out the Ruger. “Here,” she said, and pushed it into his uninjured hand, the right.

He gave her a wry little look. “I’m left-handed, just like Caro.”

“We’ll be in close quarters,” she said, pulling her .38 from the SmartCarry pouch and jamming it into the coat pocket—not her normal choice, but this winter jacket fell far below her waist, making an easy draw into an awkward hunt beneath the coat skirt. “They won’t know you’re left-handed. Anyway, don’t tell me you never practiced with your off hand.”

Silence, as she finished arranging her coat and pulled out the night scope. And then reluctance. “I don’t want Caro’s life to depend on it.”

“Carolyne’s life depends on a lot of things.” Kimmer’s voice grew sharp. “You, me, Hunter, the phase of the moon, whether Mercury’s in retrograde—”

The family trooped out of the visitors’ center, the children having achieved their goal and carrying snacks in their mittened hands while the parents gave Kimmer and Rio an extended wary gaze.

But Kimmer wasn’t into games anymore. She ignored the parents and headed off across the cold parking lot. The fine dusting of snow whirled above the pavement in eddies of mild wind, parting before her footfalls like the Red Sea.

If there was anyone in the car, they’d see her coming; they’d see Rio at her shoulder. But there was no cover here, no alternative. Trying to hide would only make them stand out; right now they were two travelers stretching their legs.

Besides, the windows were clear and clean—no fog of occupancy. And a quick, discreet glance with her scope showed her no one within the vehicle. She handed the scope to Rio without comment, just as glad to hear the van grinding into motion behind them, engine gearing up for the highway entrance ramp.

In silent accord, they crouched behind the car when they reached it—chancy in some respects, since it tagged them as up to something, but Kimmer suspected the goonboys had gone to the woods, not particularly caring if Carolyne was dressed for it. “See if you can spot anything out there,” she murmured to Rio, and did a quick duckwalk to check the license plate.

Goonboys, all right.

She returned to Rio, gave him a short nod. He put the scope in her gloved hand and said, “There’s something. Too many trees between here and there to get a good look.”

She followed his gaze into the dark woods, raised the scope and found them. Hints of movement in a field of green-on-green objects, trees obstructing any significant view. “Infrared would be nice just at this moment.” She lowered the scope, looked at him. “They must be hiding from Mr. and Mrs. Traveler, but I don’t know why they’d leave the car before Scott—” She cut herself short. As one, they glanced at the remaining car in the lot. Kimmer left cover only long enough to get a glimpse of the car’s license plate, and quickly ducked into place beside Rio again. “Dammit,” she breathed, “it’s a New York plate. How the hell—?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Rio’s voice came out as grimly as Kimmer felt. “He’s here, and we don’t have time to wait for your Hunter team.”

Kimmer stood, holding out a hand. He didn’t hesitate to take it, leaning on her in order to rise. “Let’s not make assumptions—we’re not far from the state line. That car could belong to anyone.” Not likely, since there hadn’t been anyone else in the rest area buildings. “We’ll approach, scope it out and, if necessary, retreat. Got it?”

This time he did hesitate. Kimmer turned on him, keeping her voice low but no less intense for it. “I mean it. We’re not used to working together. If we have to take a step back in order to make sure we’re on the same page, we’ll do it. Or I’ll leave you right here in the dark and take care of this myself.”

He muttered a curse; she thought it both uncomplimentary and somewhat admiring, and ignored it. With no cover available, she simply headed for the edge of the parking lot and into the woods, giving thanks for the spitting snow as their feet came down on the season’s first layer of damp fall leaves—no crunching. She guided them with slow care, coming around in a big arc to approach the clandestine little gathering from what she hoped would be an unexpected and carelessly watched direction. By then they’d seen flashlights, all turned away from the parking lot, and could hear the rise and fall of contentious conversation.

It took forever to maneuver into place, burdened by an overawareness of each huff of breath, the tiny rustle of each slender bush and sapling as Kimmer caught the branches in their path, painstakingly held them aside and passed them off to Rio. She worried about what they’d find, she worried about Rio’s condition, she worried about the consequences of the next few moments…and dammit, she wasn’t used to worrying at all. How could Owen have thought losing that buffer to her emotions was a good thing?

Finally, she eased in behind a tree, choosing a nice, smooth beech—something they could get close to without interfering roots or crunchy layers of bark. Rio moved in behind her, snugging up against her to take advantage of the cover while getting much the same view. He seemed to take such close physical teamwork for granted.

She’d never allowed it before. To be truthful, no one had even tried. And now she found it hard to concentrate.

But she didn’t nudge him back. She took a breath and centered herself, and examined the situation before them.

Almost instantly, it made no sense. Twenty feet away, Slick and City Shoes fussed at Carolyne and Scott—but the goonboys had allowed Scott to stay a short distance away, making no overt attempts to control him. Their body language remained intent and implacable, and it was all focused on Carolyne. Carolyne, beside herself with fatigue and fear and worry, her face sporting a bruise that showed starkly against the white of her face as a flashlight hit her directly in the eyes.

Behind Kimmer, Rio tensed at his cousin’s distress; Kimmer quite deliberately stepped back on his foot, slowly enough so as not to startle him. He squeezed her upper arm in acknowledgment, but the tension didn’t drain away. It hovered, ready to explode into whatever action his battered body would withstand.

And meanwhile Kimmer had eyes only for Scott—for his strange confidence, his lack of fear in spite of the cuffs and the goonboy guns. Was he really so naive as to think he had a handle on this situation? That he could control it in any way? She doubted he would be as stoic as Rio had been, and she doubted Carolyne would withstand the sound of his pleading.

She took another long look at him, the only person in this little tableau whom she hadn’t previously encountered—and the man who’d sent her off on this adventure. He wore a city coat, a long gray tweed that came to midcalf. Expensive; Kimmer might even have said new. He’d gone hatless, his long, dark hair slicked back in what she thought of as an East Coast tough-guy image. He and Carolyne stood about the same height, but he cut a trim figure; within that coat he could be wiry strong, or he could be just plain soft and slender.

Either way, his confidence still made no sense. Everything in Kimmer screamed to back off, to reassess.

Even as she watched, Slick demanded, “Where’s your PDA? All you’ve got to do is scribble down a few notes, a few lines of code, and you’re done. Your boyfriend is done. Safe. Refuse, and you’re going to have the chance to watch someone else die.”

City Shoes said mildly, “The cousin died after we left. This will be her first.” He looked to Carolyne. “And, of course, if watching Mr. Boyle doesn’t convince you, we’ll find someone else. I understand you have a elderly grandmother, a sweet little old Japanese lady. She probably won’t withstand much handling, though, so you’d have to make up your mind pretty quick if you wanted to save her.”

Carolyne squinted into the flashlight, raising a shivering hand to shadow her eyes; the other hand came along with it. They’d cuffed her. A glance confirmed they’d cuffed Scott, as well, but he held his hands before him in a relaxed way.

And Kimmer knew—knew—she should be able to make sense of this at a glance. But she couldn’t. Owen, what were you thinking? Carolyne’s tremulous voice, thinned so much it was nearly inaudible, dared to answer the question. “I don’t have it. No one told me to bring it. You just grabbed—”

Slick swore, but City Shoes held up a calm hand. “She can use mine.” He dipped a hand into his coat, his gun on Scott never wavering, and pulled it out to offer Carolyne a thin case. She blindly shook her head and this time his impatience showed. “Give it up, sweetheart. You’re not made for this. That think tank of yours should keep you in a padded room with New Age music piping gently your ear.”

“Th-that’s not it.” Carolyne blinked as Slick lowered his flashlight to the bottom half of her face, allowing her to see the PDA. She still made no attempt to take it; her voice gained some asperity. “I’m left-handed. Your PDA won’t have the faintest idea what to do with my handwriting.”

City Shoes didn’t withdraw the device; he gestured imperiously with it. “You’ll work it out.”

Carolyne only shook her head. Kimmer had seen enough. She turned around to face Rio, but when he went to move back so she’d have room, she grabbed his vest and held him close, standing on her tiptoes to put her mouth near his ear. “Something’s not right here.”

“So says the knack?” Rio murmured back.

She nodded. “I can’t get a handle on it. I—” She gave up on that train of thought. No point in wasting time. She should but she couldn’t, and they’d have to work with it. She’d get a handle on things when she quit over-thinking the situation. “What’s Scott look like under that coat? Is he athletic? He thinks he’s got things under control…could he possibly?”

Rio’s beard stubble rasped the balaclava as he shook his head. “He might think he does. He’s a player. Caro depends on him because he usually manages to work things out. Self-made, looks after her—the kinds of things she doesn’t want to deal with when she’s off and running on a project.”

Kimmer, too, shook her head. She was missing something and she knew it, but they didn’t have time to watch and wait. She offered him the scope. “Can you hold that in your bad hand?” Because the other would have the gun. “Keep an eye on me. I’m going to go around forty-five degrees, and I’m going to pick the time. When I move, you move. I think we should keep this as simple as possible—get the drop on them, disarm them, game over. If Scott’s half as capable as he seems to think he is, he’ll grab Carolyne.”

This time, the stubble moved against thin material in a nod. He gingerly took the scope in his swollen hand—and then his good hand clamped down on hers, no doubt about the strength of it. “Don’t,” he said, distinctly and directly into her ear, “do anything I wouldn’t do. This is Caro.”

She didn’t reply. She pulled her hand free with gentle insistence, and she moved off into the darkness. Once in place, she crouched behind a rattly witch hazel bush and stuck her hand in her pocket, filling it with the .38. Wadcutters. Useless for any distance, and hardly lethal even with direct contact.

Then again, direct contact was what Kimmer did best.

Her other hand closed around a weapon that caused a flood of ironic satisfaction…the sap she’d taken off Boots. The goonboys would get a taste of their own if they gave her any trouble.

Carolyne had taken the PDA, fiddling awkwardly with the stylus as she glanced to Scott. And Scott said, “Baby, I don’t really know what’s going on here, but whatever they want, just give it to them.”

Carolyne regarded him with a puzzled frown. “But—”

“But nothing,” Scott interrupted. “This isn’t your kind of game, babe. It sure as hell isn’t mine. I don’t know what you ran into that’s got everyone on your tail, but I don’t remember you signing anything more than a confidentiality agreement. No one ever said anything about combat pay!”

“But…” Carolyne whispered, shaken by this unexpected attack on her determination.

“Just tell them. It’s not like your think tank hasn’t got it figured out already, right? And they’re probably already halfway to a solution.”

Probably not.

“Just get it over with, and let me get you home.”

Not a bad strategy, from Scott’s point of view. Not for a man who didn’t truly know what was at stake, and who found himself lured into Pennsylvania for high-stakes games with his life. Come and get her…certainly not quite the same as come and be torture bait. Even if he didn’t quite seem to believe that last part.

And Carolyne, her resolve crumbling, lifted the PDA…and then abruptly tossed it away. “No,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Scott. I’m sorry.”

Slick snatched her by the arm and gave her a quick, hard shake. His flashlight flickered wildly through the trees, swooping from the solid trunks to the thinning crowns. City Shoes gave a futile shout of command, pulling at Slick, adding a smack across Slick’s head with the back of his hand. When that didn’t work, he jammed the barrel of his gun into Slick’s face, distorting his cheek and getting his immediate attention. Slick froze and Carolyne tore free.

Now.

Kimmer shouted, “Don’t move!” She stepped out of the trees, avoiding direct light, and she let her gun precede her. Rio moved in at the same moment, the more formidable Ruger clearly visible in his extended Weaver stance. Slick and City Shoes knew just what to do; they froze, gaping at Rio, even as Carolyne gasped in shock.

Kimmer said, “Get to the parking lot, Carolyne. Get out in the open. There’s a phone booth there. Use it.”

But Carolyne, torn between Rio and Scott and escape, hovered between all three for only an instant before throwing herself at Scott. He lifted his cuffed hands over her head to enclose her in his arms, and he looked over her head to smile.

And Kimmer realized that the goonboys were smiling back. They relaxed, and straightened themselves out, and no longer seemed quite so concerned by the pistols aimed in their direction. Carolyne gave a squeak of surprise as Scott’s arms tightened around her.

Kimmer filled the air with a single resounding curse.

City Shoes nodded at her, and then eyed Rio. “Not quite as dead as we thought.”

“Not quite.” Rio shifted uneasily, trying to understand the dynamics of the situation—and why the two men who had their weapons at their sides suddenly looked as though they were the ones in control.

Kimmer knew. She looked at Scott, the bitterness of betrayal tightening her throat. “You were in it from the start. You only wanted Hunter in on the situation to flush her out for you. That’s how I was bugged—and why I was followed.”

Carolyne made a startled noise, a small cry of denial. “Scott, no! You wouldn’t—”

But as she tried to move away from him, to duck out from beneath his arms, he only held her more securely. “Damn right I would,” he said. “You think I haven’t noticed you’ve gotten distant? What did I have to lose? They said you were working on something big and offered me a lot of money to help them get their hands on it—said you wouldn’t get hurt if I did. If your damn cousin hadn’t been there that night—”

Carolyne froze, stunned. “You came to get me the night we left—not to say goodbye. And then you bugged us!”

“Not me. I didn’t have anything to do with that.” Scott shook his head. “You’re quite the popular girl, Carolyne.”

Kimmer glared at him across the clearing. Bastard.

“Best you drop your weapons, yes?” City Shoes suggested, his amusement at Scott’s revelations growing to impatience.

“Ow!” Scott yelped as Carolyne’s foot connected with his shin; he gave her a shake.

“You’d better believe ow!” Carolyne said fiercely. “What have you done, Scott? Do you even have any idea?”

And Kimmer stood quietly, the revolver still in her hand, her thoughts flying. Failure, that’s what this was. Except she and Rio weren’t taken yet—weren’t restrained, weren’t shot, weren’t shoved down to the ground where they could hardly make a quick escape. And the bubbaboys…they hadn’t arrived. Maybe they would, and maybe they wouldn’t—but not yet. And that meant Kimmer had to rely on herself to get the notes to Hunter.

It meant this was the moment she decided between Carolyne or the security of their weapons system. Stay…or run to deliver Carolyne’s notes. Or escalate, and stop this scene literally dead in its tracks, leaving Hunter to search out the hard copy.

Scott looked only the slightest bit abashed at Carolyne’s fury. “It’s not like I had any choice,” he said. “They came to me, said they’d get you with or without me. I found them pretty damn convincing. And I learned early about looking after number one—you know that. And like I said—” he glanced meaningfully at Slick and City Shoes “—they told me if I helped, I could keep you from getting hurt. I guess I forgot to ask about Rio. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to be there—if he hadn’t been at your place, this stupid interlude would have been over before it even started.”

“You dumb wanna-be goon!” Kimmer could barely keep the snarl from her voice, and only tamped it down when Slick raised his semiautomatic at Carolyne in a reminder. “How could you possibly believe that? As soon as these goonboys have what they want, you’ll both be dead.”

“I don’t think so,” Scott said. “They’ve already given me a substantial amount of money.” He looked at City Shoes. “And you can take off the damn cuffs now.”

Slick didn’t allow himself to become distracted with the byplay—he gestured at Kimmer and at Rio, and when they didn’t respond, he tightened his finger on the trigger, aiming at Carolyne’s leg.

Stay, or run…

Slowly, Kimmer put the gun down. Rio dropped his outright, nudging it toward Slick with his foot.

Carolyne didn’t notice. Fully caught up in the horror of betrayal, she pushed against Scott’s chest, getting as far from him as she could within the circle of his arms. “I called you,” she said, horror in her voice.

Rio said, “You did what?”

“I called him!” She twisted, still shoving herself away from Scott, fastening a pleading look on Rio. “Yesterday I used your phone. I figured it was safe. But I led them straight to us because of who I called!” This time she hit Scott, a blow with no strength behind it simply because she had no leverage.

“You did at that,” City Shoes said. “And we’re deeply grateful. Our associate was foolish enough to lose Miss Reed’s trail before he even left the Finger Lakes area. Didn’t even get a good description of her. Your phone call was quite convenient for us. And for your fiancé, who’s been waiting in Erie.”

“Fine,” Scott said impatiently, ducking another blow. “Good. I’m glad I could help. Now take these things off!”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” City Shoes exchanged a glance with Slick, who’d gathered up the discarded pistols. “We still have use for you, yes? She may think she’s mad at you, but she won’t stop caring all so quickly as that. We still need her to talk.”

Kimmer understood immediately. Dumb wanna-be goon. But to his credit, so did Scott. “Oh, no,” he said. “Not me. No, you don’t. That wasn’t part of our deal.”

“Things evolve.” City Shoes shrugged. “These two we kill before they can cause any more trouble, and you we use as we need.”

Scott’s gaze skipped around the ill-lit area, lingering in the direction of the parking lot. But he didn’t quite try for it, and the crafty look that settled on his face offered the reason—he still thought he could talk his way out of it. Talk Carolyne into spilling her secrets, talk the goonboys into changing their plan…he’d wait until Kimmer and Rio were no longer a threat, and then he’d try again.

Slick dropped Kimmer’s pistols into his coat pocket with a casual proprietary air that set Kimmer’s teeth on edge. You, Slick, are taking things for granted. She glanced at Rio, a reality check, and found in his grim expression the awareness of the decision they’d only delayed. Escape to deliver Carolyne’s notes, or make a move now to free Carolyne and risk that no one would ever find the notes at all. And Carolyne, upon seeing them die, upon watching Scott beg, would break. Would spill her secrets as fast as she could.

But although Kimmer saw imminent action in Rio’s tension, his expression, the way the air fairly vibrated around him, she had no idea what he might do. She couldn’t read him, couldn’t work with him, she couldn’t tell.

Then she’d just have to trust him to be true to himself.

She knew him well enough. He’d never walk away from Carolyne. He’d never look at Kimmer the same if she did. And unless they chose the same course, neither of them was likely to succeed. She held Rio’s eye a moment, finding there the frustration and doubt and the awareness that if they chose separate paths, neither would succeed. And as the distinctive rumble of a diesel pickup tickled the edges of Kimmer’s senses, she tried to read just exactly what he’d do.

She couldn’t.

But she knew anyway.

And she could only hope that diesel engine belonged to Leo’s honey of a truck.

Slick gestured for Kimmer and Rio to move away from the little group, and Kimmer saw it coming. Carolyne’s eyes, suddenly narrowed. Her face, suddenly hard. She turned on Scott with a vengeance, kicking and pummeling and shrieking—enough to turn Slick’s attention. Kimmer leaped at him, whipping Boots’s flat, lead-shot-filled sap from her pocket and slamming it down edge first on Slick’s arm. She dropped down to sweep her leg in behind Slick’s knees as his cry of pain hit the air and his gun hit the ground.

A glance showed her Rio heading for Carolyne and Scott headed for a flailing impact with the ground; she tossed Rio the sap even as she sprang up to snap-kick at City Shoes’s head, ignoring the explosive report of his gun. They fell together, and while City Shoes hit hard, Kimmer rolled and bounced to her feet, leaving Rio to snatch away the gun and keep Shoes down, because there went Slick, scrambling away—

Not as fast as Kimmer could scramble. Agile and explosively quick, within moments she overtook him, armed with her very own little war club. She brought it against his side as they fell, using as much restraint as the tumble allowed her. Still it was enough to break a rib, definitely enough to get Slick’s attention. Not enough to keep him from flipping over and landing on top of her, the world going crazy in the background with wildly flashing bright light and dark spinning woods. Kimmer’s side burned; Slick’s weight kept her from pulling in air, his knee pinning her hand and the war club with it. She fought an instant of panic, of knowing she was overmatched now that he’d claimed advantage of his size, and he saw it in her, his teeth gleaming in the darkness, his expression growing mean.

Kimmer squirmed to get her hand on the stun gun, and couldn’t find her pocket. She fought to pull the little knife from her jeans, and couldn’t reach it. She aimed an instant of frantic thought at Rio, and knew he had his hands full, that he was counting on her to handle Slick on her own.

Trusting her.

And then Slick moved his knee to her arm, pinning it just above the elbow into instant numbness and freeing his own hand to reach inside his jacket for a knife, a slim street weapon that flicked open directly before Kimmer’s face. And while his expression twisted with mean triumph, Kimmer snarled her own victory right back at him—for with the war club thong slipped over her wrist, she didn’t need to feel her fingers; she needed only to bend her elbow.

And this time she didn’t use restraint.

She heard the bone break. Slick’s bone, a sound almost obscured by his cry of surprised pain. He rolled to the side and Kimmer followed with fierce intent, wrenching the knife from his hand to jab it at his neck, just barely breaking skin.

Slick froze, his breathing a pained, shortened grunt, his eyes wide with disbelief, his mouth in an ugly rictus of fear—all perfectly visible as light flooded the area, shining directly into his face and splashing a world of dark shapes and darker shadows into a startling chiaroscuro assortment of scattered images.

Kimmer blinked, scrubbing gloved fingers across her eyes without so much as twitching the knife. The light wavered slightly; footsteps approached. And then Leo said, “You need some help with this one?”

They hadn’t waited. They hadn’t stayed in the truck, out of the way, safe and sound and watching the rest stop exit. Dammit. And thank God, for in a sudden rush, adrenaline strength abandoned Kimmer for adrenaline shakes. With all the casual attitude she could muster, she said, “Yeah, I’m through with him—maybe you can escort him to the parking lot and sit on him. Try not to break him any more than he is.” She eased back, waiting to see if resistance lurked behind Slick’s still stunned expression, and then added, “On the other hand, who really cares?”

But Slick only let his head fall back into the dirt, and as Kimmer dragged herself to her feet to let Leo and Bob move in, she reluctantly shook her head. “So tempting. But don’t mess with him unless he resists.” She gave Leo a pointed glance, finding him half covered by Bob’s heavy-duty flashlight. “And trust me, I know just which marks I’ve already put on him.”

“Yeah?” Bob gestured at her coat. “Looks like he got his licks in, too.”

“What?” Kimmer looked at herself and found insulation sticking out of a hole in her coat, suddenly became aware of the wet warmth trickling down just inside the curve of her hip and then again along her flank. Then she felt the burn, the skim of it along flesh. “Dammit, that was a new coat.”

“Hard to hide those bullet holes,” Leo said, a dry humor she wouldn’t have expected from him as he reached down to haul Slick to his feet. “C’mon, asshole, there’s a cold wet spot in the parking lot waiting for you.”

Kimmer slipped the club from her wrist and back into her pocket, pulling off her balaclava to scrub her hand through her hair as she found her way back to where she’d started. She found the other two bubbaboys dragging an unconscious City Shoes away, but they’d left a flashlight propped in the crook of a tree branch and it was easy enough to spot Carolyne, sitting on the ground with her knees up and her head between them. And Rio, who stood beside her with his big hand resting on her head in an easy gesture of comfort, blocking her from Scott—who sat on his other side, his slicked hair disheveled and his expression more so. It could have been an afterthought that Rio’s foot was firmly planted on the tail of Scott’s coat, but Kimmer doubted it. She traded a glance with Rio, a quick thing that held mutual relief and gratitude and even the promise of a more thorough exchange later on.

Scott seemed oblivious. Scott, caught up in his own internal world of maneuvering events to his advantage, no doubt was oblivious. “Look,” he said, gesturing helplessly with his still bound hands. “Things turned out okay, didn’t they? I bought you some time, right?”

Kimmer thought of that moment when this little battle would have ended before it truly started, had Scott not received Carolyne as a prisoner instead of a refugee. Had he taken a chance and run for it, cuffs and all, as soon as Carolyne reached for him. Kimmer put her hands low on her hips and cocked her head at him, wondering if he was smart enough to shut up right then and knowing he wouldn’t be.

“It’s not like I’m really part of this,” Scott said. “I didn’t have any choice, did I? I mean, they said if I’d help, they’d make sure she wasn’t hurt.”

Carolyne, head still down, made a muffled noise of dismay. Kimmer put a hand to her burning side and crouched down beside Scott. She kept her voice low and menacing. “Tell you what, you little weasel, why don’t you just make a try for it? Let’s see how far you get, shall we?”

Scott responded with a startled stare, and then a foolishly quick once-over of her, a calculation of how far he might get.

“Go ahead. I’m done here tonight,” she said, as inviting as the spider to the fly—and was surprised when Rio lifted his foot off Scott’s coat in a tacit permission. “Oh, but here’s the thing…I’ll never quit chasing you.”

His flare of hope faded; he subsided, settling his butt more firmly on the damp ground.

Kimmer stood and looked down at him. “I thought not,” she said. “And now you get to find out what it’s like to go to trial for treason.”

Rio gave her a sharp look, knowing as well as she that the circumstances wouldn’t support such charges. Scott had been too ignorant of the stakes, as Carolyne had intended. But kidnapping, oh, yeah, there were felony charges lurking for Mr. Boyle. And meanwhile, if he thought he was into treason…

Let him chew on it a while.

Leo returned, eyed the three of them and wordlessly offered his cell phone.

“Thanks.” Kimmer took it, nodding at Scott. “He goes with the other two, if you don’t mind.”

“Mind?” Leo looked at her in a manner that made her recall just how much he’d enjoyed finding ways to humiliate her back in those days when her life was all about humiliation and fear. This time around, she’d found a way to use that…but she still wanted to take a shower.

But Leo didn’t notice and wouldn’t have cared. “I reckon I don’t mind at all. This is an evening I can tell to my grandchildren.”

Ugh. Leo with grandchildren. Kimmer didn’t even want to go there. She stood aside and watched him escort Scott from the woods, and then stepped into the circle of uneven light.

“Hey,” Rio said quietly, straightening to remove his hand from Carolyne’s head but leaving his leg snugged against her side; she leaned on him.

“Hey,” Kimmer said quietly, as though Carolyne weren’t there at all.

He nodded at her torn jacket. “Doesn’t look good.”

She frowned, unzipped the coat and pulled her shirt free of her jeans to expose the tender flesh of her belly to the cold air, showing him. “That’s what I thought,” she said. “Just sort of skipped under the surface. It’ll hurt like hell tomorrow, I bet.”

“Hmm.” Rio scrutinized the spot a moment longer. “Nice abs, though.”

“You think?” Kimmer pulled the shirt up a bit farther to check out the definition there. “I suppose.”

“You go ahead and suppose all you want. I know.” He took a deep breath, finally relaxed again now that Carolyne was safe. Finally allowed himself to show the pain—and Kimmer knew what it meant when he gave that subtle stretch of his back. She wasn’t so sure what it meant when he tipped his head in a minimalist “Come on over here” request—but when he did it again, she went to him—and when he held out his arm, useless hand and all, she moved into the opening, easing up against him while he settled the arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close. “There,” he said. “That’s better. Let’s just do this for a while.”

She had no idea it could feel so good. The embrace itself, the unspoken words behind the embrace. We did good. We did it together. It can be this way for us. She absorbed the moment, intensely aware of his breathing, of the comforting weight of his arm, of her burning side, of Carolyne’s slowing sniffles and the moment she lifted her head to look out toward the parking lot. Rio knew it, too, and took a deep, careful breath, giving Kimmer’s shoulders a tiny extra squeeze. “You ready?”

Ready? To accept all she’d learned these past days, all she’d been given, all she’d been offered? Everything that this moment embodied…the connection, the family, the trust…a new way to live.

And Kimmer surprised herself, looking up so there could be no mistake between them.

“Yes,” she said, “I am.”

ISBN: 978-1-4268-5125-4

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Copyright © 2004 by Doranna Durgin

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