And a glance down the street showed her she might well not be alone this evening after all. Upon spotting the sedan parked at the curb, Kimmer eased off the accelerator, taking an instant to narrow her eyes and sort through the possibilities. Not Rio’s. Not Owen’s antique pickup truck. Not a squad car. In fact…it looked surprisingly like a certain Malibu, its color gone black in the poor light.
If Pigeon Man came to visit, would he leave his car at the curb?
But the closer she got, the more certain she became. And when she was only one yard away, she spotted Pigeon Man on the porch steps before her partially open door. He stood, sent a nasty leer in her direction, and thumbed a lighter, the little flame flickering clearly in the dusk. He held it to several indistinct objects tucked between his fingers, and just before the flicker bloomed into true glaring fire, Kimmer understood.
Molotov cocktail.
She stomped the accelerator, burning rubber and building speed before she hit the brake just as hard, cranking the Miata around to block Pigeon Man’s escape. By then he’d stepped onto the porch and flung the first of the cocktails into the house, creating an instant glare of fire. Another through the window as Kimmer leaped from the car, and then he smashed the last bottle on the porch itself, oil and gas spreading over the wood boards to block entry to the house. At that he ran off to the side, hovering, and while Kimmer first assumed that he waited for her to run to the house and clear his way to the sedan, she quickly saw it was a taunt. A choice. Are you coming after me, or will you try to save your house?
Kimmer wouldn’t think about the house.
She wouldn’t.
She dove back in the car for the S&W in the glove box, grabbed the quick reloader that went with it, and snatched up her war club from the front seat. A few quick strides and she’d jammed the gun up against the Malibu’s front tire and pulled the trigger; the explosive decompression of the tire was as loud as the gun shot. With her eyes on Pigeon Man, she jumped up on the hood. Ooh, she’d made him mad.
Good.
The door to the Morrows’ house opened. Kimmer pointed the revolver straight down and emptied it into the Malibu’s engine. Steam hissed from the holes. The door slammed again. Bring it on, 911. Nothing more she could do—the house had been beyond her scope by the time that first Molotov cocktail landed in her hallway.
Later. Think about it later.
In the failing light, Kimmer pinned Pigeon Man with her gaze, replacing the revolver load without looking. What now, goonboy?
Pigeon Man backed a few steps. He’d expected her to go for the house, to try to beat out the flames, to rush in and grab her most cherished belongings—or perhaps to call 911 herself and sit in her car and cry until they came. He hadn’t expected Kimmer defiant, destroying his car and glaring at him from the steaming hood.
He backed a step…then another. Then he turned on his heel and ran.
Gotcha.
He hadn’t been expecting to run. He wasn’t dressed for anything more than a short sprint. He truly didn’t have anywhere to go—no back alleys into which he could duck, no twisty streets.
Kimmer leaped from the hood and hit the ground running. He gained good ground initially, darting along the front lawns of her street, but she’d expected that. She slid into her miler’s pace—good, strong, smooth strides. One hand curled around the S&W in a safe grip—around the trigger guard, so there’d be no accidental discharge should she stumble in the dusk—and the other around her war club.
After a handful of yards Pigeon Man neared the end of the street. He glanced back and faltered slightly upon seeing Kimmer—not on his heels, but running easily, running well. Drawing on all those days of uphill runs to maintain her pace. He hesitated another moment, bringing up his own gun, but evidently—and wisely—deciding to draw her farther away before slinging bullets.
In fact, he took the same left turn Kimmer had taken in Hank’s Suburban, the slight uphill on the road that would soon turn steep and rutted and interrupted by switchbacks. The same road she often ran herself, and knew just how to pace herself to make it to the top with steam to spare. She notched back on her speed as she took the turn. Pigeon Man already had the slight lack of coordination in his movement that meant he’d blown his anaerobic capacity and floundered to find a new stride he could maintain—if he was even that fit. She’d have to hold the right combination of distance between them to keep him moving, yet not so close he was inspired to take a shot at her. If he wore out too soon, he’d simply stop and stand his ground.
She could deal with that. But she’d rather do it her way.
It would have made for a boring chase scene in a movie. She could see his hesitations, his realization that she wasn’t going to quit, his hovering decision to end things. But he also knew she’d killed the first two goonboys who’d given chase; he knew she’d evaded his first attempts to nab her, and that Wolchoski had ended up in jail for his own efforts. She’d taken out Hammy Hands during the ambush on Wolchoski, and she hadn’t fallen apart at the sight of flames in her home.
She and Owen may have underestimated the visiting goonboys, but they’d underestimated her in return. Every step along the way.
If he was smart, he’d keep running. He’d try to ditch her in the brushy roadside or make it to the woods. He might even try his own extemporaneous ambush from the top of the hill.
Too bad for him that she planned to beat him to it.
As Pigeon Man approached the first switchback, Kimmer pushed him, deliberately edging up on him, the first touch of burn creeping into her thighs. And as soon as he was out of sight around the sharp curve, she plunged into the brush to take the tiny, tangled footpath straight up the slope to intercept the road.
Now she felt the burn, all right. Now she set her legs to pumping, ignoring their increasing heaviness, knowing where to set her feet even in this growing darkness. She’d run this trail in the dark before. And he might hear her noisy progress or he might not, not above his own rasping breath. Or above the sound of fire engine sirens closing in on her house from the tiny Glenora station.
She topped out at the edge of the road and stopped short, her own breath noisy in her ears. She gulped a big lungful and then held herself still and quiet, not breathing, until she heard his approach. Practically walking to judge by the sound of it, slogging along in a way that told her he’d never taken advantage of the Pittsburgh hills to train. At the most, a nice flat treadmill in an air-conditioned gym….
She let herself breathe again. Panting but quiet, recovering quickly as she positioned herself at the road edge, waiting.
Waiting…
Now!
She took him from the side in a tackle that hit his tired legs at the knee, dropping the war club to dangle from its thong while she sought his gun hand. Sought it, found it, didn’t try to control it other than closing her hand around his on the grip so she’d know where it was pointed. Then she jammed her revolver into the closest convenient soft spot—his belly. “Gut wound,” she growled at him. “You’ll never be the same.”
She hadn’t expected much fight. She certainly didn’t expect him to snarl, “Fuck you, bitch!” and to fire his gun off into the night as he exploded beneath her. The gun was for the effect, the flash and noise and pure physical impact of the discharge so close to her head.
And it worked, dammit—ears ringing, disoriented for even that instant in the darkness—Kimmer hung on to his gun hand by dint of pure determination while he landed a few hard blows to her ribs, lifting her slightly, giving him more room to move…dislodging her gun from its secure little spot in his belly.
She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe as he landed a lucky blow just below her diaphragm, one she hadn’t been ready for. In the next instant he found her wrist and twisted, grinding bone and ligament until she cried out.
But she didn’t let go. She had just enough control left of her fingers to pull the trigger, with only a general idea of its aim. She was ready for t
he noise and she followed it up by turning into a wild thing, kicking and finding the trigger again and even sinking her teeth into his arm, releasing it swiftly so she didn’t receive a severe jerk when he pulled away—leaving her gun hand free, if numb. She didn’t even try for fine control or aim. She bashed the pistol in the general direction of his head and scraped her knuckles against hard-packed dirt when the road was closer than she’d thought. He cried out at the impact and his resistance faded. She drew back and landed another blow, a harder one.
He went limp beneath her.
“Asshole,” she hissed at him, just for good measure. Then she wrenched his gun away, tossing it carefully to the side—not too far, but far enough. Panting, she quickly patted him down—and glory be, he had a pair of cuffs and the key. Also a long-bladed knife, a switchblade and a backup gun on the outside of one ankle. She relieved him of them all, along with his wallet, as he started to stir again, then she pushed the gun up against the bottom of his jaw. “I’ve got four bullets left,” she told him. “How many do you think it would take to turn your brain to mush?”
She allowed him the brief, feeble burst of profanity he aimed her way and then gave the gun a shove. The front sight would be digging effectively into his jaw with that one. “Very nice,” she said. “Points for creativity. But I’m in a hurry.” Indeed, the sirens had come to an abrupt stop, and a glance toward her neighborhood showed a night alive with red and blue flashers. “So let’s cut to the chase. Chase, get it? Very punny. You may now laugh.”
He didn’t believe her until she gave the gun a nudge, a sharp and painful nudge. He offered an effortful, “Ha, ha,” and she had to allow him a handicap because she was kneeling on his chest.
“Very good. Now here’s the situation. Thing one…you’ve pissed me off so thoroughly that I won’t regret it if you startle me into pulling this trigger. And I feel very delicate right now, if you get my drift. If you understand that, you may grunt.”
Obediently, he grunted. She kept her free hand on his biceps, alert for tension there, alert for tension anywhere in his body. “Now, thing two…you’ve screwed up big. One way or another, you’ve lost all your goonboy pals. You’ve made a big fuss, and you’ve got every law officer in this area hunting you down and then some. If you hadn’t interrupted my evening, I’d be off identifying your mug shot right now, fresh from the Pittsburgh law. In short, you can’t ever make this mess right with your boss. You’re safest in prison…and you’ll get to prison safest if you make me inclined to care. You following me so far? You may grunt.”
Pigeon Man grunted.
“You might live through this yet. Now, I’m going to take my hand off your arm, and I’m going to cuff your wrist to your ankle. You should know that I’m going to do this without removing my gun from your head. Can you guess what will happen if you’re anything but noodle-limp? I should probably remind you of all the grief you’ve put me through, and the fact that you’ve just torched my house.” Don’t think about that. Focus.
He didn’t need the prompting this time. He grunted all on his own.
“Good for you.” Slowly, Kimmer removed her hand from his arm. She’d left the cuffs sitting on his chest and had no trouble snapping them around his wrist. The ankle took some ingenuity; she tugged on his pants leg just below the knee until she could crank the ankle up. At one point he tensed and she gave him a reminder bump against the inside of his jaw. He stifled a response and she finished wrapping him up. Then she sat cross-legged on his stomach, gave him a moment to figure out how he might possibly breathe, and said, “The sooner you talk to me, the sooner I go away. I’ll take your weapons and I’ll leave you at the side of the road. I wouldn’t thrash around much trying to get away—if you fall over the shoulder, you could be there all night before the cops find you. And there are briars.”
“Bitch,” he said, but his voice was low and sullen.
“That’s right,” she said, giving him her cheerful voice even when she felt anything but. “Now. All those things I need to know. Tell me.”
“Get this straight,” Pigeon Man said, released from his silence, his voice hoarse. “I’m not giving up my people. That’s a death warrant, jail or no jail.”
“Hmm. Well, that’s okay. When I get down there I’ll just put it out that you told me. Think they’ll believe me?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m not doing it.” And he meant it, too. Whoever he worked for had enough clout, enough reputation…
Great.
She didn’t get hung up on the matter. Not yet. It would depend on what else he had to say. Not that she’d hesitate to make him hurt. Her throat and chest ached with the hard, hot knot of anger Pigeon Man had put there. He and his goonboy friends and even her brother. She was done playing their games. From here on out, it would be her game. She let him hear the threat in her voice. “Then tell me something else I want to hear.”
“Your brother…” Pigeon Man said, and hesitated, but this time it wasn’t because he wouldn’t talk. This time he was concerned about her reaction.
“That little woods weasel?” Kimmer said, opening the door wide for anything Pigeon Man cared to say.
He relaxed slightly beneath her, as much as he could and still draw a breath. “In way over his head. Stupid fucker, he thought he could kill Jerry and—”
Whoa. She leaned on the war club—not tapping him, no real pain—but enough to get his attention. “Say that again?”
“Hank. Has a woman on the side. Jerry took to her. Hank caught them together, killed Jerry. Lit out for your place. Got followed.”
Hank killed the man. Didn’t witness the murder. Did the murder.
Super.
Kimmer dropped a deliberate tidbit, just for the reaction. “When I toasted them—that was an accident, by the way—Hank told me I ended his trouble.”
Pigeon Man gave a jerky little snort of a laugh, which she took to mean no way. He said, “When Reed came back, he came straight to deal. Said he’d give you up to even the score. Said he’d give up that recording, even though he made it to cover his ass.”
Kimmer’s mind gave a little blink. That hot knot of anger swelled, spreading out to encompass her, to stiffen her. Pigeon Man must have felt it. He, too, froze, stopping his labored attempt to breathe, waiting to see if she would—literally—shoot the messenger.
Hank. He’d thought to trade her off after she’d saved his life. Hell, maybe he’d come up to see her hoping the goonboys would at least find themselves caught and jailed. Maybe he’d counted on her to cause enough trouble for the goonboy gang that trading her off had been his intent all along. He’d certainly known that their search for a nonexistent keychain drive with a nonexistent recording on it would keep them busy…and quite probably tear her life to little pieces.
Has it?
Owen was on the borderline of allowing her to stay with Hunter, or at the least of allowing her to stay in this beautiful area she’d come to love as home. Rio was gone…and though he’d had plenty of good reason to go, she’d known there was more to it. After seeing Hank, after seeing her reaction to Hank, he had to be wondering if he’d made the right decision after all. If Kimmer Reed was simply too different, too scarred, to fit into his life.
Pigeon Man ran out of air; he sucked in as deep a breath as he could manage, rocking Kimmer on his stomach just like he’d rocked her world. And then, cautiously, he said, “Dumb-ass thinks he’s bought his life. Gets to go back to the way things were. He’s lost his little sputzie, thinks his wife don’t even know about her. That ain’t the way it is. Soon as we wrap up with you, he’s done.”
“Not caring,” she said.
Except he had kids. And a wife.
Losing Hank could be the best thing for them.
Having Hank out of their lives might not be so bad. Losing him like this…
Might not be so good.
Not something to decide this moment, either. Time to wrap this up, get back to her home—and hope there was something left
of it. And let Harrison know this little bundle of badness was waiting by the side of the road.
She leaned close to Pigeon Man, rocking forward on her crossed legs. “I want two things. I want your name—we’ll get that regardless. Don’t even try to tell me your prints aren’t on file somewhere.”
He hesitated, and realized she was waiting for an answer before continuing. “Jarvis Slowicki.”
“Jaar-vis,” she said, playing with him a little, letting some of her own tension ease out. “So distinctly unpleasant to have made your acquaintance. Now here’s the other thing. You tell the chief I said you could have two phone calls. And after you call your lawyer, you call someone from your Pittsburgh crew, and you tell them this…. There. Is. No. Recording.”
He made a noncommittal noise and she bounced slightly on his chest, inspiring an oof! “Practice,” she suggested. “Say it like you mean it. Because I do.”
“There is no recording,” he said quickly, if not convincingly.
“Jarvis,” Kimmer said, as patiently as she could, “let me put it this way. Hank says there’s a recording. I say there’s not. You’ve had a chance to get to know each of us. So you tell me…who’s actually telling the truth?”
She gave him a thoughtful pause in the darkness, and just before she would have nudged him, he offered up a begrudging, “Truth could bite Hank in the ass and he wouldn’t know it.”
“That’s my brother,” Kimmer said with patently false affection. “Alrighty then. I’ve got things to do. Reports to fill out, other bad guys to catch.” A house to check. Except if they hadn’t put the fire out by now, there’d be no house left at all. She climbed off him, keeping the war club against his chest as a pivot point—and the S&W still close at hand, although he’d have no way of knowing that for sure. If he was smart, he’d guess. She did briefly tuck it away in her back pocket as she bent to tug him closer to the side of the road. “Don’t forget the briars,” she told him, recovering the weapons she’d left there and then straightening to assess herself. Nothing more than the aches and pains a minor tussle usually engendered, even if there’d been a few moments when minor verged on major.
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