Beyond the Rules (16 page)

“I can’t believe—” Slowicki cut himself short.

Kimmer grinned in what by now was full dark. “Can’t believe I’m leaving you here? Suck it up, Jarvis. I told you I was gonna do this, and I am. You see? I am the one who tells the truth.” She took a few long-strided steps to warm up, ignored his profane muttering, and jogged down the road with somewhat less intensity than she’d come up it.

The flashers still lit the sky, blue and red localized auroras that might have been pretty had it not been for the impli
cation of their very existence. Two engines parked along the street behind the Malibu, an unnecessary ambulance stood by just down the street and a state car blocked the road. Made sense; Glenora was well outside the Watkins Glen city limits. And just as well—the state troopers hadn’t interacted directly with Kimmer before now.

Although the neighbors had been kept back to huddle on the front lawn of the house across the street from Kimmer’s, she didn’t join them. She jog-walked right past the engines and to the Malibu, which hadn’t been locked. Hadn’t even had the keys removed. She grabbed the rental agreement from the glove box, found a proper gun case to fit the Glock stuffed in her back waistband. It held extra magazines, and she took the whole thing. She found a photo of herself at Lafayette Park, big surprise.

Nothing that would tie the goonboys to their boss—to whoever and whatever drove the car theft ring Hank had thought to use for easy money. Not unless the rental agreement held some hidden treasure, and Kimmer didn’t expect it.

What she did expect was for someone to notice her, to call out with demands that she get out of the Malibu, to get away from the scene altogether. Instead the shouting was all to and fro, accompanied by staticky bursts of the fire chief’s big hand radio, and the flashing lights painted the lawns and houses with such surrealistic strobing shadows that no one noticed a petite figure taking the spoils from one car—one badly shot-up car, or had they even realized that yet?—to another. She tossed the goods behind the Miata’s driver’s seat and closed the door as quietly as possible.

And then, finally, she let herself look.
This was my home.

Was.

The charred porch made a cavernous entryway to a blacked interior. Though no flames remained, the fire crew continued to douse the hallway with a wide spray of water.

At least there hadn’t been family photos on those walls. Photos and scrapbooks…that’s what seemed to hit people first. That they’d lost their memory-makers.

Kimmer didn’t want photos to commemorate the things she remembered.

Heavy-duty flashlights strobed through the rooms, hunting flames. The air stank of diesel fumes and throbbed with the
hrum-hrum-hrum
of the emergency vehicle engines. Under it all was the stink of spilled gas and oil, the accelerants Jarvis Slowicki had flung into her house with such sadistic glee. He’d been so sure she’d rush to save the house—fumbling for her cell phone, panicked at her loss. He hadn’t done his homework very well.

Although looking at the house, she wondered if she’d made a mistake after all. For now she had to live with the results. With the sudden, clenching realization that
oh my God
Rio’s cat had been in that house.

But it hadn’t all burned. Flashlights shone through the upstairs window; it must be safe to walk up there. Surely that savvy old creature had found himself a safe nook in the house somewhere….

Kimmer headed for the house. She stepped so quietly, so neatly, that she’d reached the house without being spotted; the fire crew was absorbed in their task. And she wasn’t heading for the strobe-lit charred front porch, but rather around back, to the basement entry. Down a set of concrete steps into the door well and she was in.

God, it stinks
. Heavy smoke, wet charred wood, sharp searing chemicals from burnt carpet and household synthet
ics…a thick, wet combination of smells. Water dripped freely from the ceiling, splashing over the weight set and soaking the boxes neatly stacked away on her storage shelves. The other shelves…not quite storage. Kimmer grabbed up a small, tough red Cordura gym bag and swept the shelf contents within—cartridge boxes, several braces of knives, iron knuckles, a folding baton, a regular officer’s baton, a handful of esoteric war darts and specialized blades. She zipped up the suddenly heavy bag and slung it over her shoulder. The contents clanked in a muffled way. Dripping water spilled over from her hair and down the side of her face. “You’ll get your chance,” she told those contents. “Soon.”

From there she moved quietly up the stairs. She had nothing to lose if they caught her now, and she couldn’t leave without at least trying. Trying to see what was left—if any of the furniture had survived, if she could grab cold cuts from the fridge, if she’d be doing repairs or rebuilding from the ground up. She slipped out into the kitchen, waited for the pair of firefighters to pass from the interior to the front door, and then moved out to the stairs, her footsteps careful and her sneakers crunching on charred wood.
I made love to Rio on these stairs
. That was a memory. That was a memory that surged up so strongly as to bring her first sense of loss. She bit down on it—literally clamping her teeth together—and moved on, her eyes on her footing and her ears tuned to those also moving through this house. It wasn’t hard to catch the remarks.
What a mess. Don’t know if this can be saved. Watch your step, the floor won’t hold you there
.

They had no clue she was here. But then again, her early life had made her the best, hadn’t it? The best at staying out of the way.

In the bedroom, she found what she was looking for. The
room itself was barely touched; it reeked of smoke but had been spared most of the damage. Rio’s family album sat on the windowsill. And there, in the very middle of the bed with his feet tucked beneath his chest in his imperturbable cat mode, OldCat waited. He looked so normal, so natural, that Kimmer instantly felt an absurd flare of hope—hope that turned just as quickly to pain when OldCat didn’t move, and when she realized, here in the darkness with only the unnatural aurora of flashing light reflecting through the window, that OldCat’s head had drooped forward until his nose touched the bedspread.

No doubt he’d heard the ruckus. No doubt he’d chalked it up to one of those strange things that humans do. The old dock cat had seen plenty of it in his day. No doubt he’d come up here to wait out the disturbance, confident in his ability to do so.

Kimmer rested her forehead against the door frame and took a deep breath. She remembered quite suddenly why she’d never chosen to get a pet of her own—not after a series of dogs and clever little goats and even a pig had paid the price for being loved by gawky young Kimmer Reed. She remembered how it had hurt.

The house, it seemed, held more by way of memories than she’d ever expected.

She heard someone come up the steps behind her. A flashlight beam bounced into the room, settled briefly on OldCat, and then mercifully moved away. From right behind her, a woman’s voice said, “Smoke inhalation. Looks like he went pretty peacefully, if that’s any comfort. Just passed out from the smoke.”

Kimmer said roughly, “He was an old cat.”

The firefighter gave her another moment and then said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

The story of my life.
And no reason to change it now. But Kimmer glanced back at her and nodded. She gathered up the afghan at the head of the bed and carefully bundled up Rio’s dock warrior companion, holding him as carefully as if he were still alive. With all apparent meekness, followed the firefighter down the stairs and out the front door, even accepting direction across the unstable front porch and assistance in descending without the stairs. The firefighter escorted her to her car, although not without some confusion over how the car came to be where it was given Kimmer’s absence until this point.

Wait till the morning, when the bullet holes in the Malibu became obvious. Then people would have something to puzzle about. Kimmer dumped her clanking gym bag behind the driver’s seat, shoving the Glock case aside. In the dark, no one had noticed the pistol at her back; the .38 had already made it into the gym bag, trigger resting on an empty chamber in the absence of a holster to protect the trigger. She added the Glock on top of its case and then—upon glancing up to find a state trooper headed her way—carefully settled the bundle of OldCat into place on top of the case instead of in the front seat as she’d meant to.

“Kimmer Reed?” the trooper asked. In the background, one of the fire crews finished buttoning up its engine and the huge vehicle rumbled into gear and away. The ambulance followed. One engine crew batting cleanup, the state cop car and the big crowd across the street remained, but even the crowd was thinning, as it became evident the fire was considered to be out.

“That’s me,” Kimmer said.

“Trooper Zack McMillan. I doubt you’ve heard of me, but I’ve heard your name before. Somewhat recently, in fact.”

“This does not come as a huge surprise to me,” Kimmer said, and sighed. Playing it matter-of-fact…and just waiting for the chance to get out of here. To call Owen out from the winery function he was hosting this evening and let him know the stakes had changed. Again. She added to the trooper, “Things have been exciting around here lately.”

“Haven’t they, though.” He flipped through the little notepad he’d been holding, aiming his small, bright Maglite at the page. “Witness heard gunfire,” he read out loud, then looked up at her. “Quite a few shots, it would seem. I don’t suppose you know anything about that? Or maybe you know something about the incident near Montour Falls late this morning?”

“I’ve been pretty busy,” Kimmer said. “I haven’t kept up with the news. So I’m not sure what incident you might be talking about.” She hesitated, and decided against revealing Jarvis Slowicki’s plight at the side of the little no-name road. Owen could handle that situation.

The trooper let it pass, but the set of his shoulders told Kimmer it was only for the moment. That, in fact, this man expected to detain her before the night was over, but that he planned to stay low-key. He gestured at the house with his flashlight. “This fire was set. But then I suppose you know that. Though I’m surprised you’re not more upset about it.”

Just shows what little you actually know.
Kimmer cleared her throat and gathered her fraying temper and tumultuous build of emotion. “I’m alive,” she said, not addressing the nature of the fire at all. “But my boyfriend’s cat isn’t. I guess I’ve got plenty on my mind. In fact, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to call him. I don’t want this—” she, too, gestured at the house, and she let her hand tremble visibly in the flashlight beam McMillan had again used to spotlight her, a barely po
lite distance from her eyes “—to come as a surprise when he gets home.”

Never mind that he had no immediate plans to return.

McMillan’s voice softened, if only marginally. “You have a cell phone?”

Kimmer indicated the car interior, where the cell phone sat plugged into its cigarette lighter charger. McMillan shone the flashlight throughout the interior, leaned in to snag her keys, and then nodded for her to sit. “Call him,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

Yeah, you’ll wait all right.

Kimmer slid behind the wheel, leaving the driver’s door open to keep McMillan feeling in control. He backed off slightly to stand with much patience by the Miata’s fender. She flipped her cell phone open with her shaking hands, fumbled it and let it slip between her fingers to fall at her feet. Ducking to get it took only an instant—and yanking wires to start the car only a moment more. Kimmer didn’t bother with the door; she put the car into reverse, slung it around in a sharp backward turn that put her on her own lawn and then floored it in first gear as McMillan ran for the door. It slipped from between his fingers and slammed shut with the car’s movement as the wheels dug up sod and propelled the Miata out onto the street.

McMillan didn’t waste time chasing her on foot. Her quick glance in the rearview showed him already speaking into his shoulder mike, and she could only hope there weren’t any troopers—or locals, for that matter—in a position to intercept her on the way to Full Cry.

On second thought, she’d better count on it. She’d go a roundabout way, ditch the car and come in on foot. And she’d hope—hope hard—that Owen would be in a receptive mood.

At the first chance, Kimmer headed north, leaving the wreckage of what had been a perfectly good life behind her.

T
he night hung dark around her, the moon at a gibbous two-thirds and waning. Not a night for a young woman to be out on her own, hanging at the edges of a cemetery, making her way to the fresh grave near the back. No headstone yet, no marker other than the slightly raised aspect of the replaced sod
.

She didn’t need a headstone to find this grave. Her mother’s grave. She’d been here before. She’d found the spot before her mother was buried, she’d marked it in her mind’s eye, and she’d come back every evening since the burial.

Pneumonia, they’d said. This mother’s daughter knew differently. Pneumonia might have been the end of her, but it hadn’t been the death of her. Her family had played that role—years of abuse, sons who’d grown up not to protect her, but to scorn her weakness
.

As a mother, she’d given all her strength to her daughter.
Protecting her. Teaching her. Setting an example to be avoided.

And yet the loss was unfathomable.

Here, crouched not beside the grave where she could be easily seen but behind a nearby tree, she wrapped her arms around her knees to crush them to herself. Maybe the pressure against her chest would keep her from flying apart from the vast swell of emotion in her throat. Maybe not.

She forced back the sob, knowing if she let it slip past, there’d be no stopping the explosion. Knowing she’d never survive it.

She was alone, now. Just as her mother had said. She was the only one left to take care of herself…just as her mother had said. And she found it to be a role she gladly would have accepted had it not come at such a price.

The night hung dark around her, the half-moon just rising. Kimmer sat in the car at the end of a service road on the backside of Full Cry Winery, rows and rows of freshly leafed vines stretching out before her, and fought a sudden sense of loss. More than just her house, more than just a cat she told herself she hadn’t known for all that long anyway. More than her awareness that deep down, Rio might well not be able to accept what her life had made her. And more than that brief glimpse she’d seen in Owen’s eyes, the regretful one that meant he was coming up to a line he wouldn’t cross for her.

All together, they took what she’d made her life and turned it inside out.

I started over once. I can do it again, if I have to.

And she could. But it would still hurt. It would still mean the loss of who she was, the Kimmer Reed she’d built for herself…and been happy with.

It struck her then, that perhaps she hadn’t realized it before. That she’d not only gotten away from her past, but that she’d finally found a way to be happy with her present.

So for a long while, while the moon rose and the OldCat lay in silent vigil beside her, Kimmer sat in her car, struggling with what lay in front of her. All of it. Facing Owen. What she’d learned from Pigeon Man, aka Jarvis Slowicki.

And what she was going to do about it.

But first, she had a phone call to make.

Z-D-P-L-U-R-T.

“Plurt,” Rio said, frowning at the Scrabble letter tiles arranged before his crossed legs. “It must be a word. As in when someone plurts out bad news.”

“Yeah, nice try.” His brother Ari—stockier than Rio, browner of hair and broader of cheek and currently carrying enough stubble to be on the way to a beard—displayed no sympathy at all.

“Plurt,” Rio repeated, in the manner of one reciting a memorized phrase. “The sound of Scrabble tiles bouncing off your head.”

Ari shook his head. “All that CIA training and that’s the best response you can manage?”

And their father, his blond hair gone slyly gray and his face newly worn, lowered his paper from his spot on the couch and gave their mother a meaningful eye. “I thought you said they’d outgrow this stage.”

“Did I?” she murmured, quietly tending paperwork—insurance stuff, Rio was given to understand—at the sleek secretary desk against the wall. She’d recently escorted Sobo to her rooms so that frail lady could putter slowly around them and make them just so before she retired. Not that they ever weren’t.

“Ten years ago. Or so.”

“I must have been mistaken.”

Lars Carlsen shuffled his papers back into place with a harumphing sort of sound, and Ari looked over to give Rio a wink. Rio got the message quick enough—that things had not been this relaxed around here for a while, that his brother was relieved to see their parents joining in the banter.

There hadn’t been much discussion this evening. Rio hadn’t been out of touch; between the phone and the growing necessity of e-mail, he knew that Ari had broken up with the woman he’d been dating—no big deal, since it had never been serious. His dock and repair business was in the seasonal boom, just as fall would keep him busy with storage duties. He thought it would be good if Rio decided what to do with the stuff still cluttering Ari’s garage but didn’t truly mind having it. Not yet, anyway. And he’d done what he could to make things easier for their parents, but they weren’t asking as much as they should because of the busy season factor.

In fact, right up until Carolyne had called Rio to let him know about Sobo, Rio hadn’t felt particularly distant from them at all. And then they’d gone into crisis, and they’d been doing the hospital juggle, and suddenly he’d felt a million miles away. And here, now that he was home…

This place had always been home, even during his CIA years, but now it suddenly felt like something he’d left behind and simply come back to visit. But it was not quite, somehow, where he belonged anymore. No matter how important it was to be here at this moment.

Much to his disgust, Ari displayed zero respect for Rio’s interlude of thoughtfulness and played a killer
Q
word. Rio said, “Oh,
right
,” and was plenty happy that his cell phone chose that moment to ring.

“CIA,” Ari murmured. “I know you arranged for that call to save your ass.”

“Of course.” Rio flipped the phone open, discovered Kimmer’s cell number on the caller ID and greeted her, “Hey there! You kept it charged.”

Her hesitation was all it took. No smart response, no flippant comment. Just that hesitation. He straightened; it was enough to catch Ari’s eye. “Kimmer?”

“Rio.” And another hesitation. “Things got busy here today. Hank’s goonboy friends weren’t as gone as we thought.”

He couldn’t figure out her tone of voice. Kimmer didn’t hesitate over goonboys. She got mad. And then she did something about it. “You’re okay?”

His father’s paper lowered again, and his mother turned sideways in her chair, her ankles neatly crossed and her posture quietly attentive.

“I’m okay,” she said, and Rio gave the faintest of nods, automatically including his family in on the conversation. “I won’t need to work out for a few days, but I’m okay.” The phone crackled; wherever she was, she didn’t have a great connection. But he heard her take a breath, and knew she would finally say what she hadn’t been saying. “Pigeon Man torched the house.”

Rio blinked, felt a strange kick in the chest and realized he’d stopped breathing. Breathing was good. Breathing would let oxygen flow to his brain. Would give him something to say. Some distant part of him realized she’d said
the house
instead of
my house,
as though she couldn’t yet face the loss. And just as he was about to ask again if she was okay, she rushed through another set of words. “Not the whole house. Molotov cocktails, but the firefighters got there pretty
fast. The hallway’s a loss, and the porch, and the den. Basement’s flooded, the kitchen, too. But Rio…” and she ran out of words again.

He suddenly understood. “Oh, God,” he said. “OldCat.”

“In the bedroom.” Kimmer’s voice came through strained and he didn’t think it was just their bad connection. “Untouched, but…the windows were closed. The smoke…”

Rio closed his eyes. Tough old cat. He’d thought he’d done the right thing by taking him off the docks. He’d thought the old fellow deserved a posh retirement.

Kimmer said, “I’m sorry,” and behind the usual steel in her voice Rio heard the misery.

“You didn’t do it,” he said, finding his voice at last. “Pigeon Man did it.”

Ari raised his eyebrows at “Pigeon Man.” And though there was no way he could have followed the details of the conversation, the dark look on his face said he’d understood about OldCat’s passing.

Kimmer’s voice got hard again. “I misjudged him. I misjudged the whole situation. I didn’t take Hank seriously so I didn’t take the rest of it seriously, either.” But then she regained some of her offhand flippancy. “On the other hand, Pigeon Man, otherwise known as Jarvis Slowicki, made the same mistake about me. And he’ll have plenty of time in jail to think about it—unless they kill him like they did Wolchoski.”

“Wolchoski’s dead?” He’d definitely lost his grip on this conversation.

“And Hammy Hands. Also underestimated me. You’d think he wouldn’t make that mistake twice.”

“You’d think,” Rio said. But he got his conversational feet back under himself and said, “What now?”

He really hadn’t expected more hesitation. But after a loud crackle of static she said, “I’m not sure. I’m about to pull Owen out of some wine thing he’s got going on tonight. The sheriff’s department is looking for me…things got a little dramatic with Pigeon Man on my street. I don’t think the fact that I left him gift-wrapped is going to make much difference. I’ve got to avoid them or I’ll never—” She broke off. Stayed silent.

“You there?” Rio asked. His brother and parents watched him quite openly, and for the first time since his awkward teenage dating days, Rio wished they weren’t. He wished he was down in Glenora—or wherever Kimmer now sat—having this conversation in person.

“Yeah,” Kimmer said. “Here’s the deal, or at least what I know of it. Hank killed one of the goonboys, because said goonboy was making time with Hank’s woman-on-the-side. I think maybe…dammit, I think he came to me for help not just because he thought I could handle things for him, but because once I had, he could divert goonboy attention from him to me. Buy his way to safety by giving them the one who’d really caused all the trouble up here. I think that’s why he made up that bit about the recording, to make me more enticing to the goonboys.”

You’re plenty enticing
, Rio thought, but he didn’t say it. He said what Kimmer didn’t seem to be able to, even though she’d never doubted her brother’s nature. “That son of a bitch set you up.”

She seemed relieved to hear him say it. Relieved, no doubt, that he could see it in spite of Hank’s family status. “Probably. Whether he intended it that way or whether he made it up as he went along…he thinks he’s safe now.”

“As if.”

“Exactly. As soon as they’re satisfied they don’t need more information from him, they’ll get rid of him. And my guess would be that they’ve just about reached that point. They’ve lost five men now. Jarvis seems to be a new believer as far as the recording is concerned. And I bet when the goonboss hears that, he’ll cut his losses. It’s not like he has to kill me to save face. He’s got no reputation to preserve here, and no one to contradict him if he says he’s taken care of the situation. All he’s got to do first is kill Hank.”

“I can be there in a day.” A very long day of excessive driving for which his back would make him pay, but he could still make it.

“You went up there for a reason,” Kimmer reminded him.

“And guess what? They don’t really need me. They’re tolerating my help so I can feel useful.” Rio ignored Ari’s surprised look. “I’ve picked up a prescription and cased out some assisted-living situations. But Sobo is feeling better. Her medications are working, and life here has changed…but it’s settling in.”

“No,” Kimmer said. “It’s bad enough I don’t get the whole family thing when it’s so important to you. I’m not going to get in the way of what you need to do for yours.”

“Kimmer—”

“No!” she said, and hung up.

Rio stared at the phone, and looked up to find his family watching him with concern. “She’s frightened,” he told them. And he knew it for the truth. Not frightened of the goonboys…

He closed his eyes, put himself in her place. Owen had drawn the line about maintaining Hunter’s local reputation. Rio had openly struggled with Kimmer’s attitude toward family, and then he’d left to return to his own. She’d never
assume he would return for good, not even with OldCat and many of his clothes left behind. Except now OldCat was gone…along with her home.

She must think she’d lost everything. Or was about to.

But now Rio understood the depth of Hank’s betrayal. He just hoped he hadn’t understood it too late.

Kimmer hadn’t seen herself in a mirror. She didn’t know what she looked like. She knew her jeans were torn; she knew she smelled like smoke. Her legs and arms ached from the day, and she was tired enough that maintaining her balance with the very heavy gym bag swinging off her shoulder and her arms full of one very special afghan proved to be a challenge.

As soon as Owen looked up and glimpsed her in the doorway of Full Cry’s wine tasting room, his eyes flashed a peculiar combination of concern and anger. No one else noticed—or would have recognized it had they seen it, as quickly as Owen covered his reaction. She faded away from the doorway, knowing he’d make polite excuses for his impending absence. The old barn, as refurbished and spiffed up as it was, still held the same kinds of nooks and crannies that had served her so well in her childhood. She found one, propped herself up in it, and waited.

For the moment.

Until she’d talked to Rio, she hadn’t known what she intended to do. She’d known Owen would want to keep her under wraps and pull in Hunter agents to clean up whatever trouble remained here locally. She’d known she would resist such a course, that she wanted to follow up on her own. To look through those mug shots Owen had obtained for her. To take herself down to Pittsburgh and find the big goonboy be
hind Hank’s chop shop and put a complete and final stop to this mess.