Beyond the Rules

by Doranna Durgin

Although…this woman had nothing of the downtrodden about her. Chronically frustrated, yes. And with frown lines between her brows that seemed pretty well entrenched for her age of just past thirty. But she had no cower in her. No lurking flinch. And she was still talking. “What the hell are you doing here? Haven’t you caused enough trouble?”

  Okay, Kimmer hadn’t been expecting that. But she shot back, “Not nearly enough. I need to talk to you.” And her hand only tightened a little around the war club handle.

  Susan glanced over Kimmer’s head to the driveway, and in the direction of the barely visible Quonset. She concluded with obvious reluctance that it wasn’t in her best interest to be caught with Kimmer on her front porch, and stepped aside so Kimmer could enter. She didn’t take a closer look at Kimmer herself, and showed no awareness that Kimmer’s jacket pockets were full of more than her hands. When Kimmer stepped into the house, Susan closed the door abruptly behind her and didn’t invite her in any farther. The bright afternoon sunshine streamed in through the south facing windows of the house, dimmed by the screen of dirt but leaving plenty of light to display Susan’s accusatory flare of nostril and the slight twitch of her cheek—not quite a sneer.

  No, not what Kimmer had expected of Hank’s wife. She delved through her memories to hunt those few she had of Susan Goldman, remembering only the sturdy young woman who seemed to have plenty of friends in tow.

  That’s how it had been. They’d been in tow. She’d been the one in charge.

  “How,” Kimmer said bluntly, “did you ever come to marry Hank?” She’d been so sure Hank would choose a mousy woman. Someone he could bully, continuing family tradition.

  Susan’s mouth tightened. “He got me pregnant. He wanted to get rid of the baby. That’s not the way we do things in my family. My daddy let him know what was expected.”

  Kimmer remembered Susan’s father as one of the largest men in Munroville and quite suddenly wished she’d been there for that conversation.

  But not so much that she regretted running away.

  Susan didn’t wait for Kimmer to work it through. “The only reason we’re talking is because I can’t afford to have you hanging around on my porch. You didn’t answer my question. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “It’s not obvious?” Kimmer was pretty sure Susan would miss the dry tone of her voice, and didn’t much care. “I’m here to save Hank’s scrawny ass.”

  “Save it?” Susan snorted, leaning forward to use her height as intimidation. “It’s your fault we’re in this fix in the first place!”

  Kimmer took a slow, deep breath, carefully unclenching her jaw. She swept away thoughts of her burned home, of her jeopardized job, of the recent goonboy encounters in her own backyard. “Really?” she asked, eyeing Susan with her best predatory expression. “And how is that?”

  She didn’t really want to know what Susan thought. She didn’t really care. Except that her understanding of this situation had taken a sudden detour, and if letting the woman spew acrimony made things more clear, well then, let Susan spew.

  Susan jabbed a finger at her. “You should have let him die!”

  Kimmer blinked in surprise. It didn’t even slow Susan down. “You haven’t been here in over ten years. What do you care about Hank Reed? What do you care about any of them? I bet you don’t even know your father’s dead. But no, you had to play hero! You not only saved his scrawny ass, you killed the wrong men to do it! Now they’ve got Hank working a delivery and they’ve grabbed my kids to keep him in line. This was supposed to make my life better—it would have made my kids’ lives better—if you’d only done your part!”

  “Then maybe you should have sent me a little heads-up,” Kimmer said, waiting to be hit with some sort of shocked reaction to the news of her father’s death.

  Nothing. Just faint regret that he’d never known of her success in spite of him. Just a little spot within her that had always been hollow now knowing with final certainty that it would always be that way.

  “You’re a Reed,” Susan spat. “I counted on you to act like one.”

  “Your mistake.” Kimmer couldn’t believe her voice came out so calmly. She couldn’t believe she stood here in Hank’s entryway and listened to this angry woman spit out her cruel and angry words, and yet she felt nothing. Nothing but the hollowness at losses old and new. Dissociation. She knew the terms, the words to use. They seemed meaningless just at the moment.

  Susan pounced on the quiet response, mistaking it for true hesitation. “You should have stayed out of the way. You’ve ruined everything!”

  Anger finally pushed away the shock of Susan’s earlier words. Kimmer gave her a mean little grin. “You think I’ve been trouble? I haven’t even started. My life is upside-down because of you, and I’m here to straighten it out.” She pulled her hands from her pockets, forewarned by Susan’s shift of weight. “Whatever you’ve started, it’s way out of your control. Whether you like it or not, what happens to your ass next is my decision.”

  “You dare!” Susan drew back to deliver a powerful slap, and Kimmer’s hand shot up to block it. Just as fast, Susan went after her with the other hand. When Kimmer blocked it she wrapped her hand around Susan’s wrist, slid to her thumb and twisted. With a cry, Susan went down to her knees. Kimmer didn’t break the thumb because…

  To be honest, she’d provoked the woman on purpose. She didn’t have time to argue. She certainly didn’t have time to convince someone who saw the world through Susan’s conniving eyes. She leaned over Susan and said, “I killed those men, you bitch. I killed them because of you. You brought me into this mess. Now you’ve got to deal with me. So start talking. I want everything.” She twisted the thumb a little harder.

  Susan’s face drained of blood. “It’s not my fault! None of it is my fault! They came here—”

  Kimmer used her free hand to gently tuck a strand of lank hair behind Susan’s ear. “Susan, dear,” she said, her voice no louder than a gentle whisper, “Did Hank ever mention how I know when people tell the truth? He ever mention my knack, how his weird little sister seemed to know things she shouldn’t? It’s true. It’s very, very, true. Should I add another ‘very’ to make sure you get it?”

  Dumbly, Susan shook her head.

  Kimmer leaned closer. “I killed those men, Susan. It wasn’t hard. And I feel like hurting someone right now, so I think you should talk fast. Really fast.”

  “You—!” Susan gasped, but it was in disbelieving comprehension more than protest, so Kimmer let it pass.

  “I’m going to let go of your hand,” she told her erstwhile sister-in-law. “But you should notice that I’m between you and the door, and that I’m faster than you, and also that I’m currently armed in more ways than you can even imagine. And do I have to mention there’ll be no screaming? Even if there’s a nice goonboy or two close enough to hear you, I don’t think he’s going to worry very much about hitting you in the inevitable crossfire.” She waited until she saw the understanding in Susan’s eyes, and then slowly released the woman’s abused thumb. Susan instantly shifted away from her, ungainly on the floor. Kimmer crouched to look her in the eye. “Talk,” she said. “Talk now.”

  “My father knew…” Susan started, and then stopped to look away. “I wanted to save for the kids, in case they made it to college. I wanted something nicer to drive. I wanted to fix this place up. And Hank…he started out pretty well, working in Dad’s garage. But then he got this idea he could do better on his own.”

  Kimmer filled in the blank. He’d been wrong.

  “Dad was approached by this guy from Pittsburgh, but they decided the garage was too visible. So Dad thought of this place, and he asked me, and I put it to Hank. He wasn’t hard to convince.” Susan got a hard, triumphant little look on her face. “Give me a night or two, and I can convince that man to do anything I put my mind to.”

  Kimmer wrinkled her nose. “That,” she said, “is too much sharing. Just stick to the whole goonboy thing
. Do you know who’s behind it? Who’s sitting pretty in good old Pixburg?”

  But Susan was telling the story her way. “I know about Hank’s little affair. It’s not like he doesn’t get enough at home. He’s just a jerk.” She gave an indignant little toss of her head, seeming to forget her own precarious situation and her undignified slump on the floor. “I’ve had enough of it. With the money this car thing brings in, I don’t need Hank. God, what a moron. So the girl came around a little too often, and caught a city boy’s eye. What did Hank expect? What did he think would happen if he killed the guy? That no one would find out?”

  Yes, there was a little gleam of triumph hiding in her eye, all right. Kimmer said, “You told them. You ratted him out.”

  Susan didn’t even bother to nod. “I didn’t want things getting messy around here. And I thought about what Leo had said when he drove over to drink himself into a stupor during the Superbowl with Hank. He kept talking about Hank’s little sister, about that girl who’d run out on the family, how she’d made him a hero to even the score.” She slanted a look at Kimmer, a devious expression. “Some kind of superspy, he called you.”

  “Aw, shucks,” Kimmer said, flat of tone. The woman thought she could change her tune and start throwing around compliments? Call on the notion of sisterhood? Not gonna happen. “So you didn’t really believe it, but you thought you’d send Hank my way to get the action out of your backyard. And then you aimed the goonboys at Hank.”

  “I figured they’d catch up to him before he reached you,” Susan said, dropping her gaze.

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t be stupid, Susan. I’m not.” Kimmer drummed her fingers against her knee. “Hank thought of trying to shift their attention to me,” she guessed. “That wasn’t your game plan. You wanted Hank feeling the heat. And Hank thought of selling me out for some nonexistent recording.”

  Susan glanced at her, long enough to openly assess her chances of lying, of denying any knowledge of that aspect of things. She’d no doubt be horrified if she knew how easily Kimmer could read even that much. Finally she nodded, a tiny jerk of a thing.

  “So here we are,” Kimmer said. “Your life’s a shambles and so is mine. I don’t have a lot to lose at this point, in case you didn’t get the implication there. In case you haven’t figured out that you made a huge mistake when you brought me into this.” When you put my boss on the spot with the locals. When you destroyed my home. When you showed Rio just how different we really are. “And in spite of the fact that you’re a heartless, conniving bitch, I suspect you don’t want to see anything happen to your kids.”

  Susan flinched with the first sign of vulnerability she’d shown. Her voice was barely audible. “No.”

  “Then talk to me about what will happen here next. Where’s Hank, exactly? Where are the kids? How old are they? What are they like, how do they react to scary crap? And Susan,” Kimmer lowered her voice into meaningful territory, leaning close again, “have you ever let Hank smack them around?”

  Susan’s snort was unfeigned. “He’d never dare. He wouldn’t touch me again if he so much as raised a hand to them. Or should I say, I’d never touch him.”

  Hank the sex slave. A new and disturbing thought. Kimmer shook it out of her head. She tilted her head in warning as Susan shifted her weight with the intent to rise, and the woman sullenly settled to the floor. No longer scared, apparently…no longer intimidated beyond her own capacity for craftiness. Kimmer had to give her that much. Whatever Hank had thought he was getting into, he’d met his match.

  The thought was strangely satisfying.

  “You’re fine right there,” she told Susan. “Now. Tell me about the kids.”

  On the road again…Kimmer hummed the Willie Nelson tune soundlessly, just under her breath. Hank was behind the wheel of a stolen car, bringing it in from the city and expected sometime this afternoon. Tomorrow the others would converge on this place, the full crew of deliveries and mechanics, working their magic on stolen cars. Within days those cars would be in someone else’s hands, repainted and scrubbed clean of their original identification, some of them broken down for parts with the leftovers hauled off as part of Hank’s salvage business.

  Susan had described it all openly, her words and tone carrying derision for these criminals she’d decided to use and not nearly enough concern for the girls being held in the Quonset. The girls were fine, Susan assured her. She’d seen them, she’d taken food over. The BGs liked Susan; they knew Hank’s bumbling wasn’t her fault. They wouldn’t hurt her kids.

  Kimmer thought, with little kindness in her mental tone, that Susan didn’t have a clue.

  Whatever else the goonboss was up to, stolen cars was the least of it. He was ruthless, slick and entrenched. He probably had his fingers in every piece of criminal pie the city had to offer.

  Kimmer thought she’d see about taking said goonboss down when this was all over. But for now she again crouched outside the giant blight of a hut, waiting for the lone man to come outside and admire the spring flowers or scowl meaningfully across the landscape or even take another stroll around the perimeter. Then she’d deal with him, free the kids, and wait around for Hank. She’d escort the family to a safe house until Hank was suddenly the least of the goonboss’s worries. Of course, she still had to contact Owen and arrange for the safe house, but that was the least of her concerns at the moment.

  C’mon, c’mon…What was the guy doing in there, watching Oprah? Kimmer’s jacket wasn’t warm enough for lurking in shadows. Her toes were numb with inaction and her body slowly chilling, and she wanted this done before Hank showed on the scene.

  She used a few more moments entertaining herself with the image of Hank and Susan, dumped in a safe house and left to deal with one another, Susan’s scheming revealed. Not the kids, of course. Once they were cleared of injury, the kids would be sheltered until provisions were made for their care. Two girls, seven and four and described as quiet, obedient girls. Kimmer wondered if they’d had all the life stomped out of them or if they were just savvy.

  Oh, enough waiting is enough. Kimmer had children to save. A big BG to bring down. And mostly, a life to salvage. Maybe it was too late, maybe not, but she wouldn’t have the chance to find out until she finished up here. She eased up to the corner of the building, over junk Hank had somehow forgotten to salvage and through several seasons of brushy growth—sumac saplings, old mullen stalks and fresh green growth plattered at the ground along with the inevitable poison ivy. A peek through the Virginia Creeper clinging to the corner showed her the door. It was open to the sunshine; more sunshine finally sliced off the corner of the building to warm Kimmer while she watched for signs of movement within and saw nothing.

  The rescue thing had to be done before things got busy here again, even if Susan had said Kimmer would have the rest of the day. She hadn’t been lying. Kimmer’s knack told her that much. But Kimmer still didn’t trust her.

  She crept away from the building and made her swift way to the goat pen, where she coaxed the wary goat over with a handful of the alfalfa hay under shelter on the other side of the fence. While she was there she kicked aside the spilled bale of alfalfa and yanked the baling twine free, stuffing two of the lengths in her back pocket and twisting the third around the animal’s head to create a makeshift halter, unbuckling the bell collar while she was at it. Another handful of the alfalfa, fed in carefully metered portions, and she got the goat through the pen gate and out near the door of the hut.

  It wouldn’t stay there long—only as long as the alfalfa lasted. Time to get Lazy Boy outside. She tucked herself back in at the side of the building, where she sliced off a slender, freshly leafed box elder branch. Before the goat could get too interested in this potential food, she reached back to tickle the metal side of the building, a random pattern of movement. After a few moments with no response, she pulled it back with her other hand and let it whap the building—and then she stilled, listening.

  For a moment, the
only sound other than her own breathing and the faint breeze in the trees that encroached upon the back of the building was the goat’s happy chomping. Its tail flicked sporadically, happily, as the goat snuffled over the ground in gustatory pleasure—and then it stopped. No flicking, no chewing, head in the air.

  Now this is a stalking goat.

  Lazy Boy sauntered out of the building to stop some distance away from the goat, his hands on his hips and a rough upholstery pattern imprinted on one side of his face. Sleeping, were we? Kimmer eyed his rumpled coveralls for signs of a gun. If he had one, it was well hidden—and he had no reason to keep it hidden at all.

  Which didn’t mean, as Kimmer withdrew the gun and set herself in a solid two-handed stance, that she wasn’t going to watch for any signs of a fumble toward a gun. And she didn’t want to startle him; she wanted him turning to look, but without alarm. She shifted her foot against an old mullen stalk, making it rattle, and when he glanced behind himself it was a thoughtless, automatic reaction—until he saw her. He stiffened, still twisted around his planted feet.

  “Tsk,” Kimmer said. “Sleeping on the job. See what happens?”

  But his baffled expression said he was still clueless, although he teetered slightly in his altered balance, not daring to move.

  Kimmer nodded at the gun. “Glock,” she said, and lifted her chin slightly to indicate herself. “Kick-ass babe. Get with it, goonboy. This is a rescue.”

  “Those girls!” he blurted. His wide-eyed expression sounded the Oh shit! he didn’t quite say out loud.

  “Bingo. You get the Mr. Badwrench award. Now turn around before you fall over, and back up in this direction. You’ve probably seen it done on Cops. Just pretend you’re a star.” Once he complied, she removed a hand from the gun and fished the twine from her pocket. It cut cruelly into his wrists when she looped them together, and he whined a protest.

  “Aren’t you the tough guy? Jeez, they really weren’t expecting any trouble here, were they? You the only one here?” She patted him down, hoping for a phone and not finding one. He must have one…he’d set it down somewhere, no doubt. Careless and inconvenient of him.