Making the Rules

by Doranna Durgin

  "Tell us what you do know. The things we do not."

  Not a bad place to start. "We didn't think security was adequate," Kimmer said slowly, tucking Rio's jacket around her. Sure enough, her knuckles were badly abraded, several fingers swollen. "We decided to stand watch this evening." Ah, a glimmer of memory... "Rio took the kitchen door. I was in the cellar. Two tiers of defense."

  The impression of a struggle from the kitchen, while she prowled the cellar. A clash on the stairs...the crack of bone. Fighting even as the chloroform took hold... And someone cursing...a breathless command. "Leave her! He is enough!"

  Memories, but no answers.

  Really sketchy memories.

  Where did they take you, Rio?

  While Marina regarded her with disapproval. "So you disregarded the Doña's wishes not to act outside your cover identity."

  "Yes," Kimmer said—immediately, without repentance. "That cover was a stupid plan. It got us where we are right now. It got us kidnapped—twice—and nearly killed. It brought the Guardia's attention to us. It left the Etxea more vulnerable than necessary."

  "I saw him," the housekeeper said, just as uncertain as Jefa and speaking up for the first time as she eased into the room. Her short, permed hair was in poodly disarray, and the distress in her eyes had not faded. "Richard. Rio?" She shook her head. "I couldn't sleep, and I thought a glass of cider..." She trailed off, and then repeated, "I saw him at the cellar door. Just standing there. So I went back to bed."

  "Did you see anything else?" Kimmer demanded, perhaps a little too fiercely.

  The woman backed up a step; the cook put an arm around her. "There is another thing," she said. "It might not matter. But in case it does—Larraitz will not be here in the morning."

  "What?" Jurdan demanded, tumultuous hurt in his eyes—and the beginning of anger. "She told me she would be back for early preparation."

  "I don't know why she did that," Jefa said, her voice firming up as she found more familiar turf—that of dealing with the help. "She had a personal matter to tend, and asked for the morning off."

  Coincidence, NOT.

  Not able to put it together so it made sense, either. Nor Jurdan, apparently, for he murmured a few words to excuse himself and left the study. Atze moved up more closely beside Kimmer, not the least bit subtle.

  Marina's fingers twined together, disengaged, and retwined. "There is little we can do," she said. "The Guardia will take the matter from here."

  "The Guardia?" Kimmer said. That's not good.

  "Yes," Marina said simply. "We brought you in to keep this from happening. Now you have failed us. Your partner has betrayed the Doña, or perhaps he has betrayed you and the Doña both. Perhaps you were supposed to go with him, yes? It is not for us to decide. The Guardia will find the truth of it. With Andoni Gandiaga's arrival tomorrow, we cannot afford to keep this to ourselves."

  "Rio didn't," Kimmer said fiercely. "We didn't." But she already knew it was useless. Marina was no longer thinking things through. She had closed her mind.

  So it wasn't surprising when Marina held Kimmer's eye and said, "Tell me your Rio hasn't been affected by drugs since his arrival. Tell me you can accurately predict what any man will do when chained to such evils. Tell me you yourself haven't acted strangely—breaking things, roaming this house at all hours, attacking those who work here."

  Attacking—?

  Atze. Marina meant Atze. Maybe even Jurdan, when he'd come into her room. And while Kimmer might well have muttered he started it, had she been sitting in front of Owen—Owen, who knew she did only what had to be done regardless of her aggressive style—it would be meaningless to this woman, who already had her mind made up.

  So she didn't argue at all. "I need to talk to Owen Hunter."

  "In time," Marina said. "I am not used to such situations; I am not comfortable with the best way to proceed. Until the Guardia arrive, you will wait here." She rose from the chair, so tense and self-controlled that Kimmer was surprised she could even move. "I will make that call."

  Jurdan re-appeared in the doorway with such haste that the cook and housekeeper recoiled slightly. "I checked the house alarm. It wasn't bypassed. Whoever took the Etxea had the code." He looked as grim as Kimmer had seen him.

  Of course she and Rio had that code. Of course.

  "I have to make a call," Jurdan said, and disappeared again.

  Great. Everyone making their phone calls but Kimmer. Her Hunter phone was in her backpack, in her room.

  She glanced out the open curtains at the darkness, and suddenly realized she had no idea of the time—"middle of the night" was close enough. And who the hell was Jurdan going to call in the middle of the night? She disentangled her crossed arms to tug back a sleeve of the oversized jacket and look at her watch.

  Atze took exception to the movement, and put what was meant to be an intimidating hand on her shoulder.

  "Oh," she said. "I wouldn't."

  "Be still," he told her, and squeezed his hand in a painful grip.

  "Seriously," she told him. "Don't do that."

  He bent close to her ear. "It is nothing compared to what the Guardia will do."

  "They're going to rude me to death?" But she hardly thought about her flippant words. She thought, instead, about her situation. Furiously.

  She really needed to talk to Owen.

  She really didn't want to be in Guardia hands. Even if she revealed her cover immediately, they'd be furious that she'd been playing on their turf. They'd feel that she'd made a fool of them, acting the tourist while taking down airport thugboys. And if they connected her to the activity at the harbor...

  No, she really didn't want to be in Guardia hands.

  And Rio. She had to find him. She still had no idea what had happened in the kitchen—just that bare sense that they'd stuffed her in the cave room, unprepared to deal with her ferocity, right before the chloroform cool-whipped her brain. She had no idea why the hell Rio had gone with them—or why, if he'd gone after them, he would leave her closed up behind, slumped next to the niche where the Etxea had once resided.

  She wouldn't know until she found him.

  And she wouldn't find him—or find the Etxea, or stop whatever political mischief might occur in the wake of the theft—if she continued to sit nicely in this chair. If she waited for the Guardia. If they tied her up in knots of questioning and suspicion.

  Marina wrapped up her phone conversation with the Guardia just out of sight. Atze ignored her most recent comment; his hand lingered on her shoulder.

  Kimmer didn't want to hurt him. He was untrained; he had only his willingness to act tough and his belief that he was—especially now that he thought he was ready for her. He completely lacked the perspective to imagine that she had met and matched much worse than him.

  Otherwise he might have at least bothered to secure her hands.

  Not that it would have mattered.

  She glanced back at him—made it uncertain. Opened her mouth on words she didn't say and closed it again. Sighed, huddled in on herself, and then...another glance back.

  Curiosity got him. "What do you want?"

  "Please," she said, quietly enough so he'd have to move closer to hear the words that followed. "I need to call Owen. My boss."

  "What? Speak up!"

  "My boss," she repeated, without raising her voice.

  And move closer he did, trying to hear. She waited...waited...waited...

  Struck, her hand flashing out to grab and twist his nose. And because he was untrained he didn't instantly strike back. He yelped and grabbed at his nose, and by then she was up, whirling to slam her hand up against his throat, high under his jaw where it wouldn't do permanent harm even as it gagged him

  Marina shrieked as Kimmer leapt up on the chair, cranked Atze by the nose to twist him around before her, his back to her front, and wrapped her arm around his throat.

  Only then did he fight, battering back at her, trying to jerk her over the chair
. But no blood in the brain...it didn't last long.

  He slumped and she let him fall, leaping off the chair. Jefa and the housekeeper had long since fled, and Marina stood poised with one startled hand at her throat, the other reaching as though she could actually ward off Kimmer.

  Except Kimmer wanted nothing to do with her. "I'll find your Etxea," she said, her voice on a verge of tremble with its very intensity. "I'll find your Etxea and I'll find your thieves and I'll find Rio—and then we'll be back. Together."

  And she ran.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  CHAPTER 13

  But Kimmer didn't run far. Straight up the narrow stairs, all the while aware that she might run into Jurdan and that Atze wouldn't be out for long. Into her bedroom, scooping up her backpack, grabbing her laptop...and right out the terrace door, stuffing the laptop into the pack as she ran.

  She thought she heard a shout deep within the house and let it spur her on. Jamming her arms through the pack, she leapt one terrace wall and then another, and then the tall retaining wall upon which Rio had once waited for her. Straight out to the car, knowing she'd left the keys in it, hoping they'd still be there...

  Ohh, yeah.

  She forced herself to ease down on the gas, headlights off. In the east, dawn barely peeked over the top of the nearest craggy ridge; it was enough light, barely, to navigate—as she drove right off the driveway and onto the lawn, heading cross-country across the groomed villa grounds. She dodged around a few spreading, pampered oaks and drove straight to the huge hedges that lined the boundary; the iron-spike fencing that edged the wrought iron driveway gates was only token at best.

  Kimmer pulled up parallel to the hedges and rolled the window down, then cut the engine. Dark car, dark hedges...pre-dawn. She didn't think she'd be seen—and she didn't think she'd have to wait long.

  And in the meantime she pulled her phone from the damp backpack. Waterproof casing, she'd been told. Ha.

  Surprise gave her a double-take when the display blinked to life; hope flared. Don't get cocky, she told herself. There was, after all, still the issue of the battery life. And she was in a rural area—a goat might just come along.

  She didn't have good luck with goats.

  All the same, she auto-dialed Owen, wincing as she calculated the time difference in her head. But she never doubted that he'd pick up—even if with a sleep-graveled voice. "Kimmer. What is it?"

  "You screwed us on this one, Owen." She hadn't meant to say it. Not first thing, not so bluntly.

  Only the slightest hesitation. "Situation?"

  She laughed, short and hard. "I'm in a stolen car, about to evade the Guardia. Heck, maybe they'll get the National Police and the Basque Ertzaintza in on this one. The more, the merrier."

  "Kimmer," Owen said, his voice unusually gentle. Had she actually sounded that close to hysteria? Surely not.

  "The Etxea has been stolen," she said, snapping out the words in a concise report. "Rio is gone. I was chloroformed and missed the whole thing—but the Doña's people think we were involved. The Doña may think so too, for all I know. Marina called the Guardia. And oh, did I mention that the Basajaun made another play at us? Never mind whoever's sending me those little love notes."

  "I got the forwards," Owen said. "About that—"

  His voice told her everything. "No clue, huh? Well, guess what. They're the least of my worries right now."

  "Do you want to come in?"

  She snorted. "With Rio still missing? What do you think?"

  "Go to ground, then." He knew better than to suggest working with the Guardia if she'd already decided on evasion. "I'll get some people in there ASAP—"

  She interrupted him. "I don't think so, Owen. You knew what you were doing, dangling an opportunity to work with Rio overseas, didn't you? Well, yay for you. We came into this damned scenario against better judgment, and no one's listened to us since we got here. We've had two skirmishes with the Basajaun because of the damned cover, and we've been blind because I couldn't openly interview staff. It looks to be an inside job, did I mention?"

  "Kimmer—" He wouldn't have used that placating tone if he weren’t offering tacit acknowledgment of her point. Something inside her hurt a little more for knowing he'd done this thing, that he'd compromised their scenario for his own means.

  "Don't even go there," she snapped, though her voice broke. She cleared it. "You wanted insight on the current local conditions, even if it meant putting us out here. Well guess what, Owen? You're damned well going to get it. We're in the thick of it now."

  "I can help," Owen said. "The Monaco crew can back you up."

  "I don't think so. I'm going my own way, Owen. Rio is missing, did you hear that? Rio. So Chimera is on the loose, and you can explain that to the Doña and the Guardia however you damned well please."

  He didn't respond right away. She read it not as hesitation...but as the time it took him to accept the responsibility that was his—and the certainty that she, too, would do as she damned well pleased, even if it resulted in losing Hunter when she returned to the States.

  So now, finally, she'd do what was right for her—for Rio. For Andoni Gandiaga, the politician who didn't yet know he was part of this—and for the people of Bilbao, who would suffer if the area was destabilized.

  But face it. Mostly for Rio.

  Even if the Doña was right. Even if together, they weren't stronger after all.

  ~~~

  Rio came back to himself with one single, overriding and wordless awareness. The smell.

  He gagged, rolling to his side—and came face to face with a dead rat, whereupon he heaved up the sparse contents of his stomach with noisy enthusiasm. But his attempts to then distance himself from the rat only netted a curse and a particularly vicious kick to the small of his back. More retching, thank you so much.

  Someone snapped annoyed orders—Euskari, that knotted language—and he'd barely had time to think I have a bad feeling about this when someone hauled him to his feet and shoved him from the shelter of the dark shipping container into bright morning sunlight. From there—shove—into a large metal building—shove—through shadows, and into a tiny little—shove—bathroom with one bare light bulb, a crusted sink, and a really bad excuse for a toilet. He was given no command, but he scarcely needed one. Clean up. Take stock. And figure out what the hell was going on.

  Or try to.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  CHAPTER 14

  Kimmer sat down at a twenty-four hour Internet café table and flipped her laptop open. A little time with Hunter's satellite mapping program and she'd pin down the very best way—the most invisible way—to get from this trendy little tourist café to the Edorta Ginea's leather shop.

  After all, who better than Owen's favorite contact to put Kimmer on the right track in this big port city with its swirl of combined cultures and underswirl of unrest and violence?

  Whether or not he wants to.

  But first she wanted to make sure she hadn't been followed. A few quiet moments here should do it.

  Rather than meet the Guardia on the road, she'd waited for them to rush through the gates...and then she drove quietly along the hedges and out the gate, into the brightening dawn.

  Another forty minutes and she was back here in the artsy section of the city, as close to the Guggenheim as she seemed likely to get.

  Where she could, for the moment, play tourist.

  She download the pictures from her camera card—lone survivor of the dunking—and flipped through them. Her usual hodgepodge, the camera wielded so casually that she never even thought about what she was doing—lights and shadow and lines that had caught her eye, a few candids of people who hadn't even realized her presence.

  And yes, the one where she and Rio mugged it up in front of the Café Iruña, taken by a friendly fellow tourist before they'd gone in to eat.

  Play tourist, they'd been told. Well, they'd tried.

  She imported the photo into a simple editor
and drew horns on Rio and gave herself mustachios and sent it home to the girls, giving herself a quiet smile in the midst of a difficult moment, imagining their laughter.

  She skimmed Carolyne's new email, reading, with some frustration, the despair between the lines now that Caro was back home again. Caro trying to be light, talking about the girls, about their visit, about her hope that she could try another visit with Kimmer and Rio soon. Honest enough to mention that the girls were unhappy but resigned in their foster care.

  Right. Karlene resigned to causing chaos; Sandy resigned to reading and thinking and coming up with the quiet, sensible escape plot of the century. Both of them counting on Kimmer, who wanted the right thing for them as badly as she wanted the right thing for herself...but who was mired in total uncertainty about whether that right thing would bring them together.

  Right. Instant family. Not that easy, Kimmer.

  At least, not for someone who'd never learned what family was.

  Kimmer had no idea what to say to Caro. Sorry, running for my life again, get back to you later...

  Except this time she wasn't yet running for her life—

  But she thought she might be running for Rio's.

  She wrote a quick email to Caro that had nothing to do with any of it. And then she logged off, leaving the laptop open in the thinnest of disguises, the street map filling the screen. Watching the street itself. Thinking about Rio. About herself. About the two of them.

  Because he hadn't been the only one off his game since their arrival. Kimmer's jittery nature...she couldn't explain that.

  Restless, yes. Edgy, yes. But nail-biting, ankle-jiggling jittery? Mistake-making jittery?

  And Rio. If he was going to mess up with narcotics, he'd have damned well been that way when they'd met. He'd still been working on his recovery, and that particular adventure hadn't done his back any good. But he habitually turned to ice packs and heating pads and stretching and strengthening.

  Besides, he wasn't coy about the damned meds when he took them. He rummaged; he shouted over his shoulder and across the house, wondering if she'd seen them. He groaned and flopped on the bed beside her and fell asleep snoring.