Exception to the Rule

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.