“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.

Dear Reader,

We’re new, we’re thrilling, and we’re back with another explosive lineup of four Silhouette Bombshell titles especially for you. This month’s stories are filled with twists and turns to keep you guessing to the end. But don’t stop there—write and tell us what you think! Our goal is to create stories with action, emotion and a touch of romance, featuring strong, sexy heroines who speak to the women of today.

Critically acclaimed author Maureen Tan’s A Perfect Cover delivers just that. Meet Lacie Reed. She’ll put her life on the line to bring down a serial killer, even though it means hiding her identity from the local police—including one determined detective.

Temperatures rise in the latest Athena Force continuity story as an up-and-coming TV reporter travels to Central America for an exclusive interview with a Navy SEAL, only to find her leads drying up almost before her arrival. That won’t deter the heroine of Katherine Garbera’s Exposed….

They say you can’t go home again, but the heroine of Doranna Durgin’s first Bombshell novel proves the Exception to the Rule. Don’t miss a moment as this P.I.’s assignment to guard government secrets clashes with the plans of one unofficial bodyguard.

Finally, truth and lies merge in Body Double, by Vicki Hinze. When a special forces captain loses three months of her memories, her search to get them back forces her to rely on a man she can’t trust to uncover a secret so shocking, you won’t believe your eyes….

We’ll leave you breathless! Please send me your comments c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

Best wishes,

Natashya Wilson

Associate Senior Editor

Exception to the Rule
Doranna Durgin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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!

Chapter 1

“Y ou’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

R io 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

C arolyne 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

R io 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?”

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