Doranna Durgin - Exception to the Rule

“Two players, then,” Owen mused. “I’m trying to compile a list of potentials…it’s pretty wide ranging. Contract players to terrorist groups to enemy black ops.”

“Leave room,” Kimmer said dryly. “Because the Taurus was bugged, too. I think it happened before I even got in it, but I do have this thing about avoiding assumptions.”

Owen was silent a moment. Not generally a good sign. Then he cleared his throat. “Do you want backup?”

“I want it ready to go,” Kimmer said. “But I don’t think there’s any way you’re going to cram more than one Hunter agent in this town without attracting notice, even if we all wear this demure shade of fingernail polish I found in the car.”

“Liked it, did you?” Faint amusement filled his words, but quickly faded. She heard the faraway sound of his chair wheeling over the thick carpet protector, from one end of the desk to the other. A few keystrokes followed. “Okay, I’m putting two people on stand-by—Dave and Rayna. That suit you?”

“Might not suit Dave,” Kimmer said, a pointed reminder that Dave Hunter had gone independent of the family.

“That’s my problem.” Owen didn’t even try to pretend it would be an easily reconciled problem, but he meant for her to dismiss it and she did. “Speaking of problems, Scott Boyle’s been in touch. We warned him, of course, that there was already activity and that he might be approached. I’m not sure it took—he’s too used to painting himself in a caretaker role.”

“I wish I’d been able to talk to him,” she muttered, tipping her head back to examine the stained interior of the car just above the visor. Was that ketchup? Her gaze wandered over to the garage, and she found herself under scrutiny by a man in baggy jeans and a dark blue button-front shirt that seemed so ubiquitous at garages everywhere. He had a cap pulled down low on his forehead, with what looked like a Michelin logo on the front. Please don’t turn around and prove me right about how low those pants are riding. Heaven forbid he should bend over.

“I wish you’d been able to talk to Boyle, too,” Owen said. “Things are moving fast, and there’s no telling what tiny bit of insight might help us protect Carolyne Carlsen better. He’s pretty possessive of her, though—he pressed for details. I have the feeling he’d like to ride to the rescue.”

“You told him nothing?”

“I told him nothing. I believe he’ll call early this evening, at which point I’ll tell him nothing again. He asked us to protect her—he’s paying us to protect her. He might not like what that involves, but he’s out of the loop for now.”

“And is that all?” Kimmer asked suddenly. The man at the garage had disappeared, but she knew he’d be back—and probably bolder. “Is that Hunter’s only interest in this?”

Owen returned a guarded question. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on, Owen. This woman is packing a secret that poses a threat to our national security. At what point are you going to tell me that the bottom line is keeping that security intact, regardless of what it means to Carolyne? That stopping the BGs has priority?”

Silence. Then, “Later. Quite a bit later. Never, if things went as I hoped.”

“And are they? Going as you hoped?” Kimmer knew the answer…but she wanted this conversation on the table. Garage Boy reappeared, commencing to saunter in her direction. Kimmer turned away from the window slightly, ignoring him even as he came to stand beside the door, peering through the glare of the sun on the window glass. “Owen?”

“No,” Owen said abruptly. “No, they’re not, and you know it. Now, do we need to have that other conversation?”

“We do,” she said. “Those orders, I want to hear directly.” From behind her came the sound of a knuckle rapping glass. Arrogant jerk. She’d stopped to use the phone…what could be more obvious? But no, he had to make it clear that he owned this particular strip of land, and that he therefore had an interest in anything she might do here. She sighed a gust of annoyance. “We’ll have to do this later. I’ve got company, and its name is Bubba.”

“Just keep it in mind, Chimera,” Owen said. “I mean it.”

“So do I,” she said, flicking a hand at Garage Boy without so much as glancing at him, buying a moment. “Later, Owen.”

She folded the cell phone closed and replaced it in her purse with no haste. The impatience from the other side of the door grew palpable. Finally, one hand still in her purse—and not coincidentally closed around her diminutive war club—she unrolled the window. “I’m sorry,” she said. Sore-ey. “Am I in the way? I was just about to buy some gas, but I didn’t want to block your other customers while I called my ma.” Never mind that there weren’t any other customers.

“Just checking.” He eyed the inside of her car, making no attempt to hide his interest. Just plain nosy, more like it. He tipped his hat up against the afternoon sun, revealing enough forehead that Kimmer could be pretty sure his hair wouldn’t make an appearance until much farther back on his head, and said, “We’re out of premium.”

Kimmer gave a little laugh. “As though I’d put premium in this old thing!” She cranked the engine, and he took the clue to step back so she could safely pull up to the pumps, but now he had a puzzled little look on his face, and she didn’t like it. Not with that kind of scrutiny attached. And it shouldn’t matter—he was of no consequence in her life or her assignment.

But it did matter. And she’d learned to listen to that instinct. As she exited the car and went through the motions of pumping gas, she never put her back to him. She gave him a friendly yet distracted smile, letting him know she was aware of him as he leaned against the glass door of the small garage store and watched.

As she replaced the handle at the pump and pulled a few bills from her back pocket, he finally pushed away from the building to approach her, pulling his own wad of bills out in case she needed change. But he was ready to approach her again anyway; everything about his expression gave him away. “Eight-seventy,” he said. “Just topping off, were you?”

“Gas gauge doesn’t work,” she said truthfully enough, handing him a ten. “I like to keep it full.”

He counted out a couple of dirty bills and some coins. “I feel like I’ve seen you before,” he said, and there was something of an accusation in his voice—as though it might be her fault that he found her familiar and yet couldn’t recognize her. “But you don’t live around here, do you?”

“I might for a while,” she said, hoping to change the subject. “You got any place around here you recommend to stay at?” She kept her voice friendly and her posture casual, pocketing her change—showing no signs of the tension that ratcheted along her back, or the sudden cold spot in her stomach. He knows me. Munroville was the next town over, and somehow, somewhere, this man had seen her in those years before her escape.

And she had no idea who he was.

She took him in again, assessing his age—he’d lived hard, had unpleasant teeth and the skin of a smoker who spent time in the sun, and for all she knew he was the same age as her. Or he could be ten years older, even fifteen. He’d had his nose broken, and under the baggy jeans and button-front shirt he was starting to gather the pounds.

Even if she’d known him, she wouldn’t necessarily recognize him now. Not with life wearing on him. Not when she’d left this area at fifteen—more than ten years earlier—when many of the teens were still just undeveloped boys and would look entirely different when they matured to men. With some desperation Kimmer recalled once sitting in a diner beside two women who’d just been to a twentieth high-school reunion. All their girlfriends had been instantly recognizable, but they’d only been able to identify a handful of the men without looking at the name tags.