“I think he knows me. I think he’ll work with me. I can report back once I get a better understanding of the situation, but right now someone needs to keep that family alive, even Hank. And I need to quit having this stupid argument when you know I’m right. I need to spend my time in the shower and stuffing my face and looking at mug shots.”
Owen nodded, but then added with reluctance, “You know I can’t give you a different car. You’ll have to take your own. Assuming you didn’t shoot it full of holes, too.”
“My car is fine.” Well, once she dug out her spare keys and put certain wires back where they belonged. “Except for the highly recognizable problem.”
He shook his head. “If you do this, it has to look like you’ve done it on your own.” He added a dry twist to his tone as he said, “I’m sure I’ll have my hands full keeping this story off the air.” As Kimmer winced, he added more matter-of-factly, “You’ll need to be out of here before daylight—and to go unseen in between.”
“I can do that,” Kimmer said. “I’ll take one of the overnighter rooms. Grab me some food from the reception and those Pittsburgh mug shots, and I’ll still have time for four to five hours of sleep.”
“There’s food in the overnighter,” Owen said, giving her the look that said she should know that.
“I know that,” Kimmer said. “I just want some of that skanky cheese you’re serving up tonight.”
Kimmer got her cheese. She got her shower, her mug shots, a replacement SIG, a can of soup marketed as gourmet and her cheese. No coffee, no tea, not even Raspberry Reaction—but an uncola washed the cheese down just as well as the wine she didn’t dare have without a full night’s sleep ahead and miles to drive the next day.
Rio couldn’t have come. He couldn’t have driven back here in one shot and then turned around to drive several hours west and south. And she’d told him not to come. She’d hung up on him, for Pete’s sake.
She could do this alone. Chimera in action. It wasn’t any different because of the circumstances.
Right. The dead cat, the destroyed home, the absent boyfriend, the boss who might end up sacrificing you to the cause…
No different at all.
Chapter 11
“Here,” Kimmer had said, presenting the mug shot to Owen shortly before her departure. He’d found the time to change into casual flannel and jeans, and she suspected he’d grabbed his own nap. Kimmer still wore her torn, smoky jeans, but she’d grabbed a dark jersey top from the limited offerings in the overnighter closet, and a dark taupe lightweight jacket—too big—to go over that. She had her bag o’ goodies, and a supply of cash courtesy of Owen. And though on her first time through she hadn’t identified anyone in the mug book, there was one picture that caught her attention. After a few hours of sleep and a second look, she’d realized it was Hammy Hands with a totally different nose—unbroken, and set over a thick, trimmed beard and mustache. Different nose, obscured jawline…but it was him, all right. “Call me if it leads to anything,” she’d told Owen, and then she’d left, easing back through the vineyards to pick up her car and take a roundabout back-roads route toward Erie, Pennsylvania.
At Erie she grabbed breakfast, eating more than she really wanted against possible scarcity in the days to come. She double-checked that the phone charger was actually functioning; she had only the one battery. The one battery, the bag of hastily gathered weapons…otherwise not so much as a change of underwear, no intel…nothing but Hank’s address.
Talk about going in unprepared.
She wished Owen would call with the news that Hammy Hands had been the last piece to the goonboy puzzle, and that they knew who the goonboss was. That they could turn it all over to the authorities and let them gather evidence about this goonboss who’d covered his tracks so well—and who’d been so ruthless in the process. If she’d been only Kimmer Reed instead of the trained operative Chimera, she’d have been killed with his first attempt on Hank—or in his first follow-up attack. Kimmer would have gone to Lafayette Park and never returned, and no one would have understood why or how.
How many others had the goonboss destroyed? You need to be stopped. Now.
Starting with the chop shop at Hank’s farm. Starting with the goonboys who would come after Hank in the wake of Kimmer’s escape and Pigeon Man’s capture, and then…
Then they’d see. If she turned up enough evidence to send the Pittsburgh police after the goonboss, all the better. She could go back home and rebuild her life. See if she still had a job. A home. A lover.
A sudden blitz of doubt washed over her—doubt akin to terror. What was she doing on the road, haring off to rescue the weasel brother who’d gotten her into this mess with his conniving betrayal? Even if he hadn’t planned it from the start, he knew well enough what he’d done when he’d put the goonboys on her trail, muttering about nonexistent recordings. What the hell am I doing? Racing back toward Munroville, and in the process endangering everything that meant anything in her life? Endangering her life itself, as well?
She almost pulled over to the shoulder, her hands shaking on the wheel and her jaw aching from where she’d clenched hard without even realizing. Almost.
And then she realized what her subconscious already knew—that she’d reached the county line. That the next exit would take her to Munroville, and a few winding roads before that she’d find Hank’s small farm. That as much as anything, she was simply frightened of where she was.
She pushed her foot down on the accelerator.
A flashing light bar appeared in Kimmer’s rearview mirror just inside the county line and just before her exit. She checked her speed…too fast. Dammit. A deep breath brought perspective. She’d take the ticket, she’d apologize to the nice officer and she’d drive on. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a big deal. A fifteen-minute delay.
She flipped her blinker on and pulled over to the shoulder, then sat quietly in the car with her window down and her license ready while the state trooper approached her with rather more care than necessary. Wary tension tightened Kimmer’s back. Either this was no regular traffic stop, or her knack had been skewed by her arrival in this area.
But Kimmer didn’t think her knack was skewed. Not when the officer’s gun hand hovered a little closer to his holster than it had any reason. She hadn’t been going that fast.
Play the game, she told herself, and smiled at the man. An average man in his late thirties, a little thick around the middle but still plenty fit, a man with enough years under his trooper utility belt to know how to do the job right. “Hi,” she said, and handed over her license with carefully slow movement. “I’m sorry. I should have put it on cruise control.”
He took her license without comment, comparing the picture to her own ruefully smiling face. He didn’t return it to her; he tucked it in his front shirt pocket.
And he didn’t even have his ticket book with him.
Uh-oh.
“Would you step out of the car, please?”
“I’m sorry?” Kimmer said, pumping up her confused and harmless act. “Why—?”
And he should have said, “Just get out of the car, ma’am,” but instead his nerves overrode his years of experience and he said, “I’ve got an outstanding warrant for your arrest. You’ll have to come with me.”
I don’t think so. Even if he’d had some kind of bench warrant, the situation was still well within the bounds of a normal traffic stop experience. This was more than that. The trooper was on edge, believed he had a lot riding on the success of this arrest, knew he was dealing with someone who was more than she seemed.
The goonboss, it seemed, had connections.
Of course he has connections. He’d be in jail by now if he didn’t.
And the trooper’s gun hand moved slightly, and Kimmer, still offering him puzzled compliance—the slow movements of a woman who didn’t understand what was going on as she unlatched her seat belt and opened the door. He’d done well to move just beh
ind her door; she couldn’t see him except in the side view mirror and she sure couldn’t slam the door into him as she opened it.
Didn’t stop her from slipping on the brass knuckles from her jacket pocket or groping for her war club. Gotta be careful. The statie could be directly connected to the goonboss, or just a regular guy doing his job as best he could.
Up till now.
Kimmer turned in the seat, kicked the door open, rolling out in a pivot to end up at his feet. On his feet. She slammed the brass knuckles into his shin, hitting the sensitive nerves there. His leg buckled. She pivoted around to sweep behind the other leg and he fell right on his ass, still scrabbling for his gun with one hand, the other heading for his pepper spray.
Sorry. She would have said it out loud had she the breath for it, but she lunged for the gun, tapping his wrist with the war club and wincing as he cried out. She yanked the gun and tossed it carefully away, far too aware that it didn’t have a safety. He had the pepper spray out by then and she lunged to land on his hand with her knee, wrenching the spray away as well and knowing she had only an instant more of this advantage. He was bigger, he was stronger, and if she didn’t get control now she was going to lose this one.
Reluctantly, precisely, she knocked the side of his head with the war club. Not enough to put him out, only enough to daze him.
How many cars had passed them by? How many had noticed the scuffle?
She didn’t even bother to get to her feet. She scrambled around behind him, slid her hands under his arms, and yanked. He slid roughly across the gravel of the shoulder. “Sorry, sorry,” she muttered, gathering herself for another tug, and another, then rolling him over behind the Miata to snag his handcuffs and damn—
She hadn’t hit him quite hard enough.
She’d held back, not really wanting to hurt him at all and only making it harder for both of them. She had only one wrist cuffed when he rolled around to swing out at her, connecting without any real strength but enough impact to knock her out of her crouch and back to the gravel.
She struck out with her foot, a double-tap into his ribs. He doubled over with a grunt of pain and it bought her the time to throw herself on him and try, in desperation, the thing that had worked with Brown Suit on their first encounter. She reversed her grip on the war club and jammed it into his ribs, making sure he felt it before he could even consider how lightweight she was on top of him. “Freeze, dammit!”
He froze.
“Good,” she panted, hesitating just long enough to make sure he’d truly stopped fighting. “Now listen up. Have you got it figured out that I’m not your average traffic stop? Has it occurred to you that I could have blown you away with your own gun and instead I threw it away?”
The cop said nothing. Panting. Thinking. Probably hurting. Probably planning his next move, just as she would do in his place.
“The warrant’s a fix,” Kimmer told him. “Not that I expect you to believe me. It comes courtesy of someone I’m chasing down in Pittsburgh.”
“Don’t be stupid,” the cop finally grunted. “You’re only making it harder on yourself. You won’t get away—”
“With this? Yes, actually, I will. I’m pretty good at getting away, and I’m pretty good at bringing in whoever I’m after. So here’s the deal. Bring your other hand behind your back and I’ll cuff you and then I’ll go away.”
The back of his neck turned red. “Fuck you,” he spat.
“Can’t. Busy right now. Take a breath, get your temper back and give me your other hand. I’ve still got the brass knuckles, and I’ve got the little club you’re still trying to figure out. Next time I hit you, I’ll have to do it harder. And I really don’t want to leave you by the side of the road with a brain bleed.”
His shoulder radio crackled something fuzzy and obscured by his body pressing it into the ground; he stiffened slightly. Hoping. Kimmer made a disgusted noise and jerked the cord loose. “They’ll find you eventually, but I’m not going to make it all that easy,” she said. “Now give me your damn hand.” She prodded him with the end of the club. Hard.
Very slowly, he moved his hand into her reach. She grabbed it, cuffed it and then pushed herself away from him, letting him warily work himself into an awkward sitting position to regard her with subdued resentment. He tried to regain his professional composure. “If the warrant’s a fix, we can straighten this out,” he said. “If you walk away from me, there’s no turning back.” He eyed her, hunting for a strategy to talk himself out of the situation. “Even a bounty hunter can’t get away with assaulting an officer.”
“Think of me as freelance rather than a bounty hunter,” she said. “And you’re perfectly right. Too bad I don’t have any choice. I’ve got someone’s life to save. His whole family, in fact. Even if he is a weasel-creep.” She climbed to her feet, keeping an eye on him as she tested the patrol car’s front passenger door and found it open. She considered smashing up the communications panel in the center of the dash and decided against it. She was in enough trouble already, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything with it with his hands cuffed behind his back. By then his gaze had turned wary along with the puzzled undertones. He couldn’t figure her out.
She couldn’t blame him. She couldn’t figure herself out, either.
She returned to his spot behind the Miata, crouching down out of reach. “Here’s the deal,” she said. “I’m going to walk you over to your car and tuck you inside. Sooner or later, someone will find you. Sooner, if any of these drivers turn out to be Good Samaritans.” There was no telling who’d seen what, who had a cell phone and who didn’t. She had to get out of here. Now. “And here’s a freebie clue for you: someone in the system is dirty. If you already know that, then you’re dirty, too, and I take back my sorries for what happened here today. If it’s coming as a big surprise, then it’s time to keep your eyes open. Someone in Pittsburgh is calling shots they shouldn’t be calling.”
“Don’t do this,” he said, displaying a mixture of dawning awareness and concern that told Kimmer clearly enough he wasn’t involved.
“Gotta,” she said. “It’s a lose-lose situation, no doubt about it. But still…gotta.” Too much of her life was already on the line to get squeamish now. “Now come on. Into the car.”
Another flash of resistance crossed his face, and Kimmer growled, “Do it!” at just the right moment to cut it short. Didn’t hurt to heft the war club.
And so he let her help him to his feet, and he cursed silently but quite obviously when she buckled him safely into place and then wound duct tape—damned straight the Miata had duct tape stashed in the back—around the seat belt latch just in case he turned into Houdini. He couldn’t reach the radio, he couldn’t reach the car horn even with his head, and she finished up by scooting the seat forward so his legs were trapped against the dash.
And then she calmly pulled the Miata out into traffic and took the next exit off I-79.
Gotta ditch the car. Cops across two states were looking for it now. Maybe Hank would have a junker; maybe she could lift something from a neighbor.
Hell, maybe she could find something in the little chop shop Hank had invited to his home.
But for now Kimmer pulled off the road onto a gravel service lane for the power line, hoping she wasn’t so close that her cell phone—fully charged!—wouldn’t function. She called Owen’s Bat Phone, knowing that if he wasn’t in the office, it would reach his cell with a customized ring. He’d never not answered that phone.
Nor did he let it trip to voice mail this time, either. But when he answered it, his voice held a false tone, and the single word was clipped. “Hunter.”
“Not alone?” she asked. Dammit.
“Not right now,” he told her.
“Friends of mine?”
“So to speak.”
“Then I’ll make this quick.” She had no fear of traces or eavesdropping, not with the souped-up phone Hunter had provided, but she also had no desire to make things h
arder for Owen. “The goonboss has an in with the cops—the staties, anyway. Got stopped and there’s some kind of warrant out for me. You’ll note I’m not in custody.”
“Clearly,” he said, and his droll tone let her know he immediately understood the implications.
“I’m heading toward Hank’s place. Nothing new other than that…but I wanted you to know. Don’t trust the Pennsylvania cops.”
“I’ve got someone I can go to,” he told her.
“And Ingleswood?” she asked, shorthand he’d understand. Have you stopped that damned reporter yet?
“Still working on that. I think we’ll be able to cover the situation, but it’s going to be costly.”
Great. More anti-Kimmer points, adding up in the big tally she’d started.
On the other hand, it couldn’t get too much worse, could it? Almost a cheering thought. “Gotta keep moving,” she told him. “I’ll stay in touch.”
“Do that.” And then, for the sake of his company, “Sorry you’re already scheduled. I’ll try you again next time.”
But when Kimmer hung up, she closed her eyes and bumped the phone against her forehead and fervently hoped there would even be a next time.
With Ari taking turns in the driver’s seat on an all-night drive, Rio hit the south end of the lake at midmorning. He dropped Ari off in Watkins Glen to yawn through the day and drive a rental home the day after, and then headed for Full Cry Winery. That, he told Kimmer in his mind, is what family is supposed to be about. As if he could have stopped Ari from pitching in to get Rio back here in a way that left him rested enough to drive safely onward to Erie—and would leave his back functional once he got there.
As if it would have stopped me even if he hadn’t. No matter what Kimmer had said. Because she clearly didn’t get it: she, too, was family. And though he’d needed to go home and reassure himself that things were under control, he needed just as badly to get back here and be with Kimmer. Not so much the white knight—Kimmer had her own suit of armor—as just making sure that for once in her life, she wasn’t alone in her trouble.
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