Beyond the Rules

by Doranna Durgin

  He gave a sullen shrug that meant he didn’t want to admit he was alone. It satisfied Kimmer. She pushed him into the building and over to one of the tool carts, where she pointed to the floor. Once he’d sat on the hard concrete—and he’d be feeling it soon enough, to judge by that skinny ass—she made sure the wheels were locked, secured him to it and gagged him, and then precariously balanced a tray of massive wrenches on the cart directly above his head. “Do I have to explain this to you?”

  He shook his head, a stiff and fractional movement.

  “Good. Now the children and I are going for a walk. Once I’ve got them to safety, you and I will have a chat.”

  And then it’s look out, goonboss.

  Chapter 13

  The children. But not until she’d done a quick sweep of the building, confirming what she’d seen from the window. Nothing much different. The paint tents, the work bays…there was a shelf area right next to the window that she hadn’t been able to see, piled with parts from donor cars. No lurking goonboys.

  In the office she found her earlier perception of its small size borne out, but now the foreshortened appearance made sense. Now she knew that behind it, there was another small room, the kind of small room that a goonboy crew would want to keep on hand for those private moments of intimidation and pleasure. They’d been clever in constructing it, which merely made it discreet instead of blindingly obvious. Kimmer made a quick survey of the office. These goonboys were organized, all right. Registration paperwork, a book listing those recently deceased for use as faux owners with the bribery-bought paperwork, a list of neighborhoods to avoid because of recent heavy “harvesting.” All out in the open. No phone; they probably stuck to cells. She couldn’t help but give the computer—currently turned off—a wistful glance. If she could walk out of here with that thing, she was willing to bet she’d have everything she needed not only to find the goonboss, but to put him away for good.

  But she wasn’t here for the computer. Not this time. And she was willing to bet once she had the girls and their undeserving parents away from here, that computer would become scrap in a heartbeat. If only she had someone local she could trust…some cavalry to call.

  Then again, if only she had her phone.

  No good pining over it. She’d call Owen from the house once she had the girls. She left the desk and the file cabinet and quickly discovered that the heavily shadowed back corner was more than just a corner. It was a slice of space just large enough for a medium-size person to slide in and face the door of the sort-of-hidden room. Kimmer tried the doorknob…locked. Dammit. And not enough room to kick the thing open. Not a sound from within. Either they’d been moved or they’d learned to keep quiet.

  She glanced out at her prisoner to make sure he hadn’t found some way to circumvent her silly booby trap, and returned to the desk drawers. Those, too, were locked. And while Kimmer was no slouch at lock picking, she hadn’t had the time to rescue her pick set from her smoldering house. Sudden impatience flamed through her. She strode out to the work area, found herself a tire pry bar, and returned to attack the desk most literally.

  The second drawer yielded the keys.

  Her hands shook as she unlocked the door. She could only pretend not to notice. Let them be all right.

  The door opened to a sight she’d pretty much expected—and at the same time, not. She’d expected the cot bed along the wall, and even the toilet off in the corner. She’d expected the food wrappers and the general odor of the unwashed, even the inoffensive odor of unwashed child and the faint smell of stale urine. Judging by the silence, she’d expected the girls to be huddled on the bed, fearfully waiting to see what this new arrival meant for them.

  She hadn’t expected the youngest, hardly larger than a toddler, curly hair largely escaped from childishly plaited braids and knobby knees drawn up beneath her chin, to have all the body language of fierceness in hiding. The older girl—brown, dirty hair too short for braids, her jumper torn—looked both frightened and exasperated. Whatever the younger had in mind, the older hadn’t gone for it.

  Kimmer said, “I know your father. I’m your aunt. I’ve come to get you out of here.”

  The younger girl looked at her with narrowed eyes and blurted, “You’re That Bitch Kimmer!”

  Kimmer snorted in amusement. “No kidding,” she said. “And whatever you’re holding in that grimy little hand of yours, I want it.”

  “It’s a hair thingy.”

  “It’s not.” Kimmer held out her hand. A closer look at the little girl revealed similarities Kimmer hadn’t seen at first on those diminutive features. That’s me. Five years old, and that’s me. And perhaps not quite so obedient as Susan thought. “Give it up.”

  “Karlene,” the older girl said, and her bossy tone had tears mixed in. “She knows!”

  Karlene gave her sister a supremely disgusted look and held out her hand, slowly uncurling her fingers to reveal a sharp wiry twist of metal that could only have come from somewhere on the bed. Kimmer didn’t bother to smother her grin as she took it. “Good thinking,” she said. “But we’ll use a different strategy.” If Hank couldn’t see Kimmer in this child, he must be in deep denial.

  “What stragedy?” Karlene demanded.

  Kimmer smiled at her. “The one where we walk out of here together.”

  The two exchanged glances, and in this, the oldest—Sandy, Susan had called her—made the final decision, pulling gently on a lock of hair as she nodded. “We’ll go see Mommy and Daddy?”

  “Not right away.” Lying would get her nowhere. “We’ll go somewhere safe, so your parents can deal with the bad guys.” Sort of. More or less. Especially when “someplace safe” meant the Miata. Until she could make contact with Owen, Kimmer had no one to trust. She felt a wistful fondness for Trooper McMillan, who at least would have seen the little girls to a safety that Kimmer knew would actually be safe.

  The girls hesitated at this news, for which she didn’t blame them. She said, as gently as someone who didn’t get children and had never truly had her own childhood could manage, “It’ll make things easier for your mommy. She’s worried about you now, and she wants me to make sure you’re safe.”

  That got them. Kimmer held out her hand again, this time in a welcoming gesture, waiting for a smaller hand to fill it. “Let’s go.”

  And just as Sandy reached for her, the ground vibrated slightly beneath Kimmer’s feet. The girls both stiffened, exchanging frightened looks. Young Karlene threw herself into her sister’s arms with no sign of her previous defiance. Far too close to suit Kimmer, a semi used its engine brake, gearing down in a noise that reverberated through air and ground alike. Sandy said, “The mean people are here!”

  “How many?” Kimmer said sharply, and modulated her tone with effort. “Are there usually lots of them, or just a few?”

  Karlene said, “Lots and lots. Someone always looks at us. They say mean things and tell us to be good.”

  It’s too early! Susan hadn’t been lying, Kimmer was certain of it. Something had changed, and the crew had returned early with their latest harvest.

  Doesn’t matter. These would be mechanics, no tougher than Lazy Boy. They’d be hired hands, with maybe a few real goonboys spread among them. But she couldn’t deal with them from in here; she couldn’t fight her way out and be certain the girls would stay safe in her wake. She needed them to stay in here—as safe a place as any with action going down—so she could step back and identify the problem goons, pick them off and then take out the others on the way in. By the time the girls came out, the way would be clear.

  “Change of plan,” she said, dropping her hand. Sandy’s face crumpled. Karlene glared at Kimmer through hot, angry tears. “You’re leaving us!”

  “For now,” Kimmer said, her attention divided as she strained to hear the very first sounds of arrival—and knew she had to be away from here before then. “I’ll be back.”

  “Baloney!”

  Startled, Ki
mmer looked back at Karlene and suddenly realized how very lame her reassurance must have sounded. “Listen,” she said. “Do you think those mean people want me to come back?”

  No, they didn’t. Sandy shook her head through her tears, and Karlene finally followed suit.

  “When your daddy talks about me, does he say I ever did what he wanted?”

  Both girls stilled, their attention fixed on her in unwilling hope.

  “No, he damn well doesn’t.” She gave an inward oops at her language but didn’t let it slow her. “I did what I wanted. And right now I want to get you away from here.”

  “Why?” Karlene asked, her tone that of habitual suspicion.

  I don’t have time for this….

  Kimmer relied upon an answer as old as the question. “Because.” And then she stuck her head out the office, just in time to see a spiffy, gleaming dark blue Escalade pulling up the curving secondary drive. “I’ve got to go. I’m going to lock and close this door behind me, and then I’ll show the mean people what mean is all about, and I’ll be back to get you. Believe it?”

  “No,” said Karlene, her little face set in stubborn. But Sandy poked her and she relented. “Maybe. Prove it.”

  Kimmer grinned at her. “That’s fair,” she said. “Listen. Don’t tell anyone I’m coming back.”

  “That’s lying,” Sandy said, most solemnly.

  “If they ask directly, it is,” Kimmer agreed. “Just don’t offer it to them.”

  Karlene pressed her lips tightly together and put her hand over Sandy’s mouth. Kimmer refrained from rolling her eyes. They were just little girls.

  She’d cross her mental fingers. It’d be best if the goonboys didn’t realize she’d been in this vile little room at all, best if they absorbed themselves in the bustle of arrival, and didn’t check on the girls until later. Lazy Boy was going to tip them off to her invasion—but he knew only that she’d come to the office, not what she’d done here. Not that she’d found the key and had known to look in the room.

  She headed for the door, hoping for escape before Karlene remembered to ask for her little weapon back. She ducked out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her and locking it, heading for the desk….

  Oops. She hadn’t exactly been subtle in her search for the key. With that in mind she put the key where she’d found it and broke open the remaining desk drawers. Let them think she’d searched in a frenzy and not found what she wanted. Let them think anything, as long as it bought her time to sort things out.

  She left the office, sliding along the wall and back toward the single exit door at the other end of the building from the big sliding entry doors, the gravel drive and the accumulating pack of vehicles. They wouldn’t be able to see Lazy Boy till they got inside the building; she’d made sure of that. Now she could only hope that the back door would open easily and quietly, and she’d walk right out from under their noses. Already she’d realized that the goonboys would probably be sent out to the woods to water the trees since the toilet was out of commission; perhaps Hank even had an old rickety outhouse around here that had been pressed into service.

  An excellent time to pick them off. She thought she could get several before they realized what was going on at all.

  She slipped by the gray metal shelves with their incongruously mundane supplies—garbage bags, toilet paper, paper towels, a few tightly rolled sleeping bags. Boy Scout goonboys, always prepared. Finally she crouched by the metal door, glancing over her shoulder as her hand fell on the knob, testing it and finding it loose. No one had come in the front yet, which surprised her but suited her. She stayed down anyway, just a matter of caution, drawing the Glock. She cracked the door open.

  It all happened at once—the gunfire, the sharp jerk of pain in her arm yanking her hand from the doorknob, the sullen impact on the metal door frame just behind her. Whatwhohow? Kimmer threw herself back and then instantly forward—get him now, get him fast—and emptied the gun into the too-soon-triumphant figure moving away from the outside of the building beyond the door. Blamblamblamblam, wasting ammo but riding a shocked adrenaline high that peeled her lips back against her teeth and sent her straight to ferocity. And she would have kept right on going had she not glanced down and seen the blood spatter, the drip of bright red off her elbow.

  Even city boys could follow the trail she’d leave. But there’d been those shelves….

  She rolled back against the half-open door, leaving one foot to hold it open while she dropped the useless Glock and snatched a careless handful of garbage bags from the gray shelves. The goonboys saw her, of course, a wave of men rushing through the front doors as though they’d been lurking just beyond, and Kimmer jammed the bags into her less-than-useful left hand and went for her SIG, managing a single covering shot that sent the mechanics diving for cover but didn’t deter the hardcore goonboys at all.

  A tremendous crash of metal and heavy tools startled them all, as well as the muffled cry of pain. The hardcore goonboys were close and slowing to draw bead on her and Kimmer was up against the door. Helpless.

  Not gonna make it. She should have taken her chances with the blood trail. She should have known Susan would be wrong—except Lazy Boy had thought just the same. But they’d known she was here. How the hell…? They’d set a trap for her, waiting for her front and back. She should have realized.

  Nowhere to run. Not this instant, and not if she got through that door. The law was corrupt, and her presence here had been blown in too many ways to count. No safe harbor…no backup.

  And they’d kill her if they got their hands on her. They’d play with her first to see if they could extract the truth about Hank’s elusive recording, then they’d dump her body in the woods.

  Kimmer pressed up against the door in an instant of preternatural self-awareness. The wild thump of her heart, the tingle of her face going pale, the warm blood streaming inside her jacket…the weakness in her knees that was shock, and which would take them right out from under her if she didn’t make some kind of move. Face the goonboys and run.

  She’d always been on her own. But she quite abruptly couldn’t have felt more alone.

  A tremendous crash jarred the air; Kimmer found herself too vague to make out the nature of it. Even to guess. But the goonboys startled to a stop, jerking back to look out the front doors and to shout words Kimmer could no longer puzzle out. Not good, that roaring in my ears…not good—

  But not enough to keep her from taking advantage of the moment—of slipping right out the door. She glanced at the dead goonboy’s semiautomatic but didn’t bend to scoop it up, not trusting herself to get upright again. Time to run. If you could call this running. She forced herself into a moderate but steady pace, already gasping. Not toward escape, but directly away from the Miata, from Hank’s house, from the road…headed into the wooded acreage backing Hank’s property. She stopped when she figured she had enough of a lead to catch her breath. Kimmer pulled a trash bag from her gunky hand, thrusting her fingers through the bottom and using teeth and her free hand to tie a cuff from the bottom corners, then slicing two wide ribbons of plastic from a second bag to tie directly over both entrance and exit wound. Deep breathing. Get her body through the shocky moments and hope for a second wind, hope she hadn’t lost so much blood she couldn’t find her legs again at all.

  Her arm burned as she tightened the second tie. Whatever, she told it. Just stop bleeding. There’d been no spurting, but there’d been enough of a flow to let her know something important had been nicked. She flexed her hand, testing—nerves intact.

  By then her heart had slowed from an explosive rate to something merely frantic, and her vision only grayed around the edges. She stuffed the remaining garbage bag and remnants in her back pocket and prepared to move on, this time with as much stealth as possible.

  At some point in the last few moments she’d gone down on her knees. Now she used her good hand to haul herself up the nearest stout sapling. She altered direction
and pushed herself into a forced pace—four steps jogging, four steps walking. Her world became all about moving forward and listening backward, and her vision was just some vaguely useful tool that let her avoid the biggest trees. The sweat she’d worked up grew clammy as the afternoon cooled, and she hesitated long enough to slice head and armholes in the remaining garbage bag, cutting an extra hole through which to tuck her wrist and rest her injured arm. The all-purpose garbage bag. She giggled and clapped a hand over her mouth.

  That couldn’t be good.

  Suck it up, Kimmer. She’d find the Miata and use it to orient on the dairy farm to which the pasture belonged. All she needed was a barn with a loft—no one would know she was there, nor even think to look. She’d get warm, she’d see about stealing an egg or two to supplement the snacks she’d left in the Miata. And then she’d arm herself to the teeth and go back to where two little girls waited.

  If they’re even still there.

  The thought snatched away her energy; a stumble turned into a fall, and she had just enough wherewithal to turn her good shoulder into it and roll away the impact. From there she blinked up into the spring canopy of the woods, unaffected by the disgusted voice in her head that urged, Get up, you fool!

  Instead what started out as a small conflicting voice quickly grew loud. I can’t do this alone.

  Which was absurd, because she always did it alone. She might be part of a team, she might have Hunter at her back, but she never counted on them, not deep down. Deep down, she was always going it alone because she never gave anyone else the opportunity to be in it along with her. Not Hunter…not Rio.

  Did I drive him away?

  Foolish, foolish, to lie here on the cool ground and ponder such things.

  But I hurt. And I’ve lost blood. Determination can’t always be enough. Sometimes the world was just bigger and harder than any one person could overcome.