get involved, but the hundred dollars waiting between them made up his mind. He gave a short nod, and Kimmer released the bill.
“Ten minutes,” she reminded him.
“Or you’ll be back for the change,” he finished for her, his voice dry as dust.
She only smiled again, stuffing her purchases into her leather backpack and heading not for the door, but for the exit sign at the back of the store.
To his credit, he didn’t question her.
At the back of the store, Kimmer wove her way between pallets and a particularly odiferous Dumpster, and then through the raggedy, dried goldenrod at the side of the building. At the corner she pulled off the hat and wedged herself behind a big freezer with giant blue ice cubes painted across the front, her eyes on the lone man occupying the sedan. She had only a few more moments….
There—he looked down at something. A cell phone, one that held his attention as he dialed. Kimmer scooted to her car and behind it, leaving her backpack purse next to the driver’s-side back wheel, checking the sedan’s side-view mirror to see that her new pal was involved in conversation, his eyes on the well-lit fish bowl of a store. Arrogant of him, just sitting here out in plain view. He’d done just as she wanted, assessing her by her feeble attempt to lose him and by her apparent inattention to his continuing if stealthy presence. It’s nice when you’re predictable, she thought at him. No doubt he intended to vacate the small, ragged parking lot as soon as he saw her heading out of the store.
Not gonna happen. With one crouching step she crossed the wide space between cars, ending up snugged in behind the sedan’s bumper. In an instant she retrieved her stout toothpick blade, jamming the tip into the sidewall with only enough force to penetrate the outer layer of rubber, and not enough to alert the man within the car. She didn’t bother to glance at her watch, knowing she’d used up her ten minutes. Any moment now…
“Hey!” the storekeeper bellowed, muffled through the glass storefront. “What’re you—put that down! You can’t go back there!”
On a scale of one to ten, Kimmer put his acting in the negative numbers—but gave him points at the loud crash from within the store. For a hundred dollars, he’d apparently found something to knock over.
The sedan shifted as the man within took notice—and a second crash piqued his curiosity beyond tolerance. The driver’s door opened; the car rocked as the man exited.
Kimmer took advantage of the moment to drive the knife home, twisting it to shred rubber and release air. As the bells of the store’s front door jingled, she crouch-walked behind the car to the other back tire—he’d probably risk driving on the minispare to follow her, but there was nothing to be done about two flats—and jammed the knife home.
He might not notice right away, but it wouldn’t take long.
At that she stood, retrieved her backpack and slid behind the wheel of the Taurus. With no haste, she backed out into the road and headed onward. Another mile or two and she’d take the turn that would lead her back to Route 17 and onward to merge with 86.
She watched her rearview mirror as the sedan appeared on the road behind her. It took only a moment before dark strips of rubber flew out behind the sedan, followed by a dual line of sparks. The car slowed to a stop. Kimmer smiled into the mirror and gave the emerging driver a little wave he probably wouldn’t even see. She hoped that the object he flung to the ground in disgust wasn’t his cell phone.
On the other hand, all the better for her.
As she reached her turn and headed back in the direction she should have been going all along, Kimmer settled into the car’s worn but comfortable seat, digging the bottled drink out of her backpack. Ah, caffeine. It would serve her in good stead; with the time she’d lost, she’d go without much in the way of driving breaks to reach Mill Springs before her quarry. Although somewhere along the way, she’d have to touch base with Owen…and let him know someone was already on to Hunter’s involvement.
She twisted the cap from the Frappuccino without taking her hand from the wheel and raised it in salute to the man she’d left behind. “To you,” she said. “Thanks for tipping your hand so soon.”
But she wondered if he’d be the only one.
Kimmer stretched hugely, her secured cell phone ear bud in place as she stood beside the little station wagon and waited for Owen Hunter to answer the phone. He didn’t always answer on the first ring, but he always answered.
“Chimera,” he finally greeted her, using her handle in a way that made it seem more personal, not less, than her real name. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you until you reached Mill Springs.”
“I was followed out of Hunter,” she said. “Would have called even sooner, but I wanted to get some miles under my belt after the delay.”
“Have any trouble?”
Kimmer made a dismissive noise. Pfft. “An amusing diversion. But you might want to warn Carlsen’s fiancé. Someone found out about this assignment right about the same time you did—he could be tapped. They might even go after him for more information now that I’ve dumped their clever tail.”
The faint clicking of his keyboard told her that even as they spoke, someone in his surprisingly vast resource pool was being alerted to do just that. After a slight delay, he asked, “You lost a lot of time?”
“I’m only just past Erie—nice big anonymous rest stop here. For all I know, Carolyne Carlsen left north Albany in the middle of the night with her cousin the bodyguard, and they’re right on my tail. Do you know how hard it is to coax speed from this old thing?”
She heard the frown in his voice. “I had the engine checked—”
“You should have looked at the alignment instead. This car took a knock at some point—push it over sixty and it rattles hard enough to chip your teeth.” Kimmer rummaged in the tote bag of provided goodies and dug out the nail polish, giving the bottle a few good hard shakes. Time to start transforming herself into Bonnie Miller. “Another two hours and I might make it to Mill Springs.” She applied quick-drying nail polish with quick, economical strokes. Red, red, red. “It’s not perfect, but I don’t foresee any problems—at least, not as long as the gas gauge on this thing is working.”
Owen cleared his throat, a faint but definite sound. “Perhaps you’d better fill up along the way.”
Mill Springs, 50 Miles.
The hand-painted sign greeted her from the side of the road, part of an advertisement for Hillside Gas & Food. Beneath it perched a more precarious seasonal sign declaring Hunters Welcome.
Meanwhile, no signs of further interest in the Taurus, no random acts of stupid motorists in her path, no signs of construction on roads turned classically wretched at the state line…another hour and she’d be there. Not bad, considering the state of the car—and that she’d turned off the interstate to travel quieter roads as soon as the opportunity arose. She’d also taken advantage of another short break to apply a metallic-blue eye shadow and pull her almost nonexistent bangs aside with a tiny plastic barrette, and to play with her long-buried accent. I’m Baw-nie Miller….
The hilly Pennsylvania woods unrolled before her, full of waxing fall color; the number of dead deer by the road reminded her that it was indeed the
