Doranna Durgin - Exception to the Rule

On the other hand, if she was making bad jokes, perhaps she wasn’t as shaken as she’d seemed by the close encounter.

He hoped not. He very much suspected that her safety—and apparently that of the entire nation—rested on just how fast she could pull herself together and patch up whatever code weakness she’d found.

With Mill Springs fast approaching, Kimmer did just as she’d heard Rio planning: she pulled to the side of the road for a quick search of the car and her belongings, parking in close to the edge of the woods. She hesitated long enough to plug her cell phone into the dash for recharging, guiltily knowing she should have done it much earlier. Stupid things, batteries. Then she started with the car exterior—aside from a few rest stops, her belongings hadn’t been out of sight since she packed them—and didn’t have to look hard. The basic wheel-well tracker bug, easy access and quick to place.

Good God, was there anyone who wasn’t after this woman?

Kimmer contemplated the little bit of technology for a moment, then crushed it under her heel—or tried to. Sneakers, lightweight spy…In the end she resorted to a rock, trying to preserve the bug as much as possible in case Hunter resources could help narrow down a source. Looking at the flattened disk, she couldn’t keep a frisson of apprehension from running down her nape. How long had it been since Carolyne had found the weakness in the laser-guided missiles? Perhaps thirty-six hours? And already someone knew of Kimmer’s involvement and had tailed her, already someone had bugged Carolyne and made a try at her, someone had bugged Kimmer…

Privately, Kimmer thought those who tailed her this morning were likely the same set of undesirables as those who had planted this tracer. Easy enough to have done it as backup before she got in the Taurus, and then tailed her. Once she’d shaken them, they simply hadn’t bothered to pick her up again. They’d wait until she settled in one spot.

But she wouldn’t assume she was right. She’d keep in mind that they might well be dealing with three aggressive groups of Carolyne hunters. And she found herself grateful for the extra buffer Rio provided. He’d backed up that résumé of his with action, and he hadn’t been annoyingly full of himself. She might even consider working with him, except—

Down, girl. It hasn’t been that long.

That kind of thinking was reason enough to keep herself separate. Owen was wrong. Seriously wrong. Separate was best.

In fact…Still eyeing the hapless tracker in her palm, Kimmer’s eyes narrowed in realization. Her observations about Rio hadn’t been anything special. No special insight, no sense of him, of who he was and how he’d react. Any living, breathing woman could have done as much, checking out his appearance and watching his behavior. And yet she’d made her usual assessments of the shop owner, the goonboys, even Carolyne. But Rio…

He’d struck such a response in her that at first she hadn’t realized, but now…It put a fierce scowl on her face as she tucked the crushed bug into her wallet and—out of soothing habit—pulled her digital camera from the depths of the backpack purse. She hadn’t meant to take photos, not here. Not even with the fall colors in full bloom around her, arranged to full advantage on hills and curves that were both steeper and sharper than those by Seneca Lake. But she could use that distraction right now.

It wasn’t that her knack had never failed her before. It had, most certainly. But only with those who were closest to her—those from many years earlier, with whom she’d lived and schooled.

Those who were closest to her.

Kimmer put her back to the sun and found a quirky arrangement of a fallen tree with bright scarlet-orange Virginia creeper winding up from the base and deeply shadowed woods behind—very Ansel Adams. She took a few shots, played with the framing, and then checked the camera’s playback display, deleting all but two of them.

It settled her. And by then Kimmer knew that for Carolyne’s sake, she needed to keep her cover in spite of recent developments. For it was those who were closest to her, those who somehow escaped her uncanny assessments, who invariably betrayed her. Her family. The schoolgirls she’d called friend. The teacher who’d urged her to fulfill her potential, and who eventually tried to grope her in an after-school meeting. No one got that close anymore; she used others and others used her, and everyone knew the score.

Rio’s obscurity meant not only that she couldn’t quite bring herself to trust him, but also that she couldn’t trust herself. She’d second-guess her decisions, hesitate when she needed to act; she’d be a liability to Carolyne instead of an asset. She needed to work apart from him.

Didn’t matter. The two-layer protection was what they’d planned all along.

Kimmer switched the camera off, put it on the passenger seat and settled back in behind the wheel. Less than an hour to go, and she’d be in Mill Springs, occupied with setting up her cover and learning the territory, planting the seeds that would have the locals watching for strangers for her, extra eyes and ears to supplement her own. She wouldn’t set eyes on Carolyne or Rio until she set up watch over them later in the evening, and by then…

She’d be ready. Whatever she read or didn’t read from Rio, she’d be ready.

Just outside of town, Kimmer found a Mill Springs Tireland and Gas—little more than a small gas station with an empty one-bay garage at the end, big enough to hold several racks of tires along the walls. The station itself had a single row of pumps, and everything about it made Kimmer want to invite Mr. Clean in for a visit. The building looked worn, the tire racks were forlornly half-full, the paint job looked as if it wanted to crawl away and hide…even the fall weeds edging the building and the lot looked tired.

Kimmer pulled over to the side where she thought she’d be most out of the way, and squelched an impulse to dig out a marker and change the hand-painted sign from Tireland to Tiredland. Instead she found her cell phone, realized it hadn’t been charging after all, and jockeyed the plug around until she convinced herself it wasn’t working. That was worth a curse. Her usual luck with these things. She scowled at the phone and checked for messages anyway. None. Not a bad sign.

She hit the autodial for Hunter and waited, tapping newly adorned nails against the wheel. At least they were still short and rounded, practical. And on the positive side of things, if she found it necessary to take to the woods, their bright red color—callor to Bonnie Miller—would alert deer hunters that she was only a hapless human, and not good for their meat freezers. Maybe she should paint her toenails, too, just for fun—

“Chimera,” Owen greeted her. “You’re in Mill Springs? How’s it look?”

“Short version? Getting too interesting. I haven’t reached the site yet—I’m on the outskirts of town. If a town this small has outskirts…maybe it’s just a hem.”

“You ran into more trouble?” His focus tightened; he’d stopped the habitual multitasking in which he’d been engaged. “Already?”

“‘Already’ in spades. Our friendlies ran up behind me in a roadside store—they’ve switched cars, by the way.” She rattled off the new license-plate number for him. “They’d been tagged with a tracer, and the BGs were right on their heels. We had quite a little dance session right there in the store.”

“Casualties?” he asked sharply.

“None on our side.”

“Cover?”

“Safe enough. Carolyne was too panicked to notice anything out of place—she’s trying, but she’s not cut out for this kind of thing. Carlsen was busy. I managed to have a quick chat with a BG who accidentally took a soup can upside his head. He knew nothing about me—this is a different set from the ones who followed me this morning.”