Beyond the Rules (19 page)

Well. The battery was still charged.

W
hen she’d watched long enough from the barn area to assure herself there was currently only one man hanging out at the Quonset hut, Kimmer moved in to take a closer look. One goonboy…didn’t make sense. If such limited manpower was SOP, then no one could have witnessed Hank’s crime; he could have dumped the body elsewhere and avoided direct suspicion. And if this chop shop handled the kind of volume that would attract a goonboss like the one who’d had five men to spare first on Hank and then Kimmer, then one man couldn’t handle the load.

She needed to know more.

A careful inspection of the Quonset interior through one of several small, dirty windows showed her lots of empty space, and a tiny corner office area that was much neater than she’d expected. She managed to confirm the single goonboy theory—as well as the supposition that it wasn’t always like
this. Not given the equipment inside, given the gear. He probably just handled cleanup and small jobs in between larger shipments. Caddy Escalade, Dodge Stratus, Jeep Wrangler…the popular targets.

She’d have to come back later. Or not. It depended on what it took to extricate Hank from this situation—or whether he was truly in the danger she thought he was in. It depended on whether she had the opportunity to follow through, to find the goonboss and redeem herself.

If redemption was even possible.

It won’t be the end of the world
. Just because her life with Hunter was the only thing she’d known since leaving home. She’d been valuable to them as a precocious fifteen-year-old, valuable enough to mentor and train. Now she had that training, and she still had the knack that had drawn Hunter to her in the first place.

She’d find another situation if she had to.

But for now she took one last look around the building, as much as could be had through the dirty window. Paint tents, a whole row of work bays, slick rolling tool caddies, a parking area, a solidly graveled approach drive not quite big enough for a truck. That meant they had goonboy-wannabe drivers, grabbing a hundred bucks or so to deliver the cars to their distribution points. Possibly even the same people who stole the cars in the first place.

It meant any number of people might descend on this place at any given time, and Kimmer had no idea when that might be.

Hank’s wife might know.

Hank’s wife was the next step in any event.

The house sat closer to the road, at the end of a curving, rutted drive that made this property an excellent choice for the goonboss. How had they approached Hank? Posing as
door-to-door evangelists, scoping out the options? Maybe in a bar—no doubt Hank was a known fixture in several. It was even possible that the conniving weasel-boy had gone out looking for connections.

Doesn’t matter. Kimmer had to clean it up, no matter how it had gotten dirty in the first place.

The house had an abandoned look, and Kimmer glanced at her watch. The kids wouldn’t be home from school yet, not quite. She’d expected a dog—something scruffy and ill-tempered, chained where it could give good warning of her approach—but found only an empty scrap-built doghouse and an upside-down food bowl.

He’d had a dog, and they’d made him get rid of it. Too much noise, Kimmer guessed. Too much declaration of their presence, their comings and goings. Now they probably made do with the goat.

Rural detritus littered the area around the house. An old torn screen, bent T-posts, a headless doll…Kimmer watched where she put her feet. No one popped out of the front door or the back to challenge her, and the wraparound porch kept her from gaining a clear idea of the interior. Once she had a decent understanding of the interior layout, and once her presence failed to scare up any goonboys, she hesitated in the overgrown landscaping long enough to be certain no one was inconveniently turning up the driveway, and then she went and knocked on the front door. A nice, firm, no-nonsense knock. No skulking for her.

Almost immediately she heard movement from within the house—but the door wasn’t as quick to open. She repeated the knock before the footsteps approached the front door, and then she stood back so the occupant—Hank or his wife, she hoped—could open the door. With fingers crossed against
goonboys Kimmer had both her war club and the recently acquired Glock at the ready within the roomy pockets of her borrowed REI jacket. She loved REI. They made the best pockets.

When the door opened, she found herself face-to-face with a woman taller than her—taller than Hank, for that matter, and clothed in a worn cutesy country sweatshirt that didn’t at all suit her demeanor. A woman with lank hair that caught a deep chestnut glint in the light of the early afternoon sun, and a face with features that looked as though they’d thickened instead of refined themselves over the years. A face with a belligerent, mistrusting undertone to its expression, and eyes that weren’t improved by their narrowed suspicion. A face that looked…

Kimmer squinted back. The name, the features…they fell into place. “Susan Goldman!”

The narrowed eyes widened, blinked. “Holy shit,” Susan said. “What the hell happened to that mess on your face?”

Laser surgery. A wonderful thing. But Susan didn’t actually leave any room for Kimmer to respond before she added, “Hank wasn’t kidding when he said you’d changed.”

Same to you
, Kimmer thought. This woman had been in Hank’s high school class, and at that age had been an attractive girl—always a little coarse, but always carrying herself well. With pride.

Being married to Hank had probably taken care of that.

Although…this woman had nothing of the downtrodden about her. Chronically frustrated, yes. And with frown lines between her brows that seemed pretty well entrenched for her age of just past thirty. But she had no cower in her. No lurking flinch. And she was still talking. “What the hell are you doing here? Haven’t you caused enough trouble?”

Okay, Kimmer hadn’t been expecting that. But she shot
back, “Not nearly enough. I need to talk to you.” And her hand only tightened a little around the war club handle.

Susan glanced over Kimmer’s head to the driveway, and in the direction of the barely visible Quonset. She concluded with obvious reluctance that it wasn’t in her best interest to be caught with Kimmer on her front porch, and stepped aside so Kimmer could enter. She didn’t take a closer look at Kimmer herself, and showed no awareness that Kimmer’s jacket pockets were full of more than her hands. When Kimmer stepped into the house, Susan closed the door abruptly behind her and didn’t invite her in any farther. The bright afternoon sunshine streamed in through the south facing windows of the house, dimmed by the screen of dirt but leaving plenty of light to display Susan’s accusatory flare of nostril and the slight twitch of her cheek—not quite a sneer.

No, not what Kimmer had expected of Hank’s wife. She delved through her memories to hunt those few she had of Susan Goldman, remembering only the sturdy young woman who seemed to have plenty of friends in tow.

That’s how it had been. They’d been in tow. She’d been the one in charge.

“How,” Kimmer said bluntly, “did you ever come to marry Hank?” She’d been so sure Hank would choose a mousy woman. Someone he could bully, continuing family tradition.

Susan’s mouth tightened. “He got me pregnant. He wanted to get rid of the baby. That’s not the way we do things in my family. My daddy let him know what was expected.”

Kimmer remembered Susan’s father as one of the largest men in Munroville and quite suddenly wished she’d been there for that conversation.

But not so much that she regretted running away.

Susan didn’t wait for Kimmer to work it through. “The
only reason we’re talking is because I can’t afford to have you hanging around on my porch. You didn’t answer my question. What the hell are you doing here?”

“It’s not obvious?” Kimmer was pretty sure Susan would miss the dry tone of her voice, and didn’t much care. “I’m here to save Hank’s scrawny ass.”

“Save it?” Susan snorted, leaning forward to use her height as intimidation. “It’s your fault we’re in this fix in the first place!”

Kimmer took a slow, deep breath, carefully unclenching her jaw. She swept away thoughts of her burned home, of her jeopardized job, of the recent goonboy encounters in her own backyard. “Really?” she asked, eyeing Susan with her best predatory expression. “And how is that?”

She didn’t really want to know what Susan thought. She didn’t really care. Except that her understanding of this situation had taken a sudden detour, and if letting the woman spew acrimony made things more clear, well then, let Susan spew.

Susan jabbed a finger at her. “You should have let him die!”

Kimmer blinked in surprise. It didn’t even slow Susan down. “You haven’t been here in over ten years. What do you care about Hank Reed? What do you care about any of them? I bet you don’t even know your father’s dead. But
no
, you had to play hero! You not only saved his scrawny ass, you killed the wrong men to do it! Now they’ve got Hank working a delivery and they’ve grabbed my kids to keep him in line. This was supposed to make my life better—it would have made my kids’ lives better—if you’d only done your part!”

“Then maybe you should have sent me a little heads-up,” Kimmer said, waiting to be hit with some sort of shocked reaction to the news of her father’s death.

Nothing. Just faint regret that he’d never known of her success in spite of him. Just a little spot within her that had always been hollow now knowing with final certainty that it would always be that way.

“You’re a Reed,” Susan spat. “I counted on you to act like one.”

“Your mistake.” Kimmer couldn’t believe her voice came out so calmly. She couldn’t believe she stood here in Hank’s entryway and listened to this angry woman spit out her cruel and angry words, and yet she felt nothing. Nothing but the hollowness at losses old and new.
Dissociation
. She knew the terms, the words to use. They seemed meaningless just at the moment.

Susan pounced on the quiet response, mistaking it for true hesitation. “You should have stayed out of the way. You’ve ruined everything!”

Anger finally pushed away the shock of Susan’s earlier words. Kimmer gave her a mean little grin. “You think I’ve been trouble? I haven’t even started. My life is upside-down because of you, and I’m here to straighten it out.” She pulled her hands from her pockets, forewarned by Susan’s shift of weight. “Whatever you’ve started, it’s way out of your control. Whether you like it or not, what happens to your ass next is my decision.”

“You dare!” Susan drew back to deliver a powerful slap, and Kimmer’s hand shot up to block it. Just as fast, Susan went after her with the other hand. When Kimmer blocked it she wrapped her hand around Susan’s wrist, slid to her thumb and twisted. With a cry, Susan went down to her knees. Kimmer didn’t break the thumb because…

To be honest, she’d provoked the woman on purpose. She didn’t have time to argue. She certainly didn’t have time to convince someone who saw the world through Susan’s con
niving eyes. She leaned over Susan and said, “I killed those men, you bitch. I killed them because of you. You brought me into this mess. Now you’ve got to deal with me. So start talking. I want
everything
.” She twisted the thumb a little harder.

Susan’s face drained of blood. “It’s not my fault! None of it is my fault! They came here—”

Kimmer used her free hand to gently tuck a strand of lank hair behind Susan’s ear. “Susan, dear,” she said, her voice no louder than a gentle whisper, “Did Hank ever mention how I know when people tell the truth? He ever mention my knack, how his weird little sister seemed to know things she shouldn’t? It’s true. It’s very, very, true. Should I add another ‘very’ to make sure you get it?”

Dumbly, Susan shook her head.

Kimmer leaned closer. “I killed those men, Susan. It wasn’t hard. And I feel like hurting someone right now, so I think you should talk fast. Really fast.”

“You—!” Susan gasped, but it was in disbelieving comprehension more than protest, so Kimmer let it pass.

“I’m going to let go of your hand,” she told her erstwhile sister-in-law. “But you should notice that I’m between you and the door, and that I’m faster than you, and also that I’m currently armed in more ways than you can even imagine. And do I have to mention there’ll be no screaming? Even if there’s a nice goonboy or two close enough to hear you, I don’t think he’s going to worry very much about hitting you in the inevitable crossfire.” She waited until she saw the understanding in Susan’s eyes, and then slowly released the woman’s abused thumb. Susan instantly shifted away from her, ungainly on the floor. Kimmer crouched to look her in the eye. “Talk,” she said. “Talk now.”

“My father knew…” Susan started, and then stopped to look away. “I wanted to save for the kids, in case they made it to college. I wanted something nicer to drive. I wanted to fix this place up. And Hank…he started out pretty well, working in Dad’s garage. But then he got this idea he could do better on his own.”

Kimmer filled in the blank.
He’d been wrong.

“Dad was approached by this guy from Pittsburgh, but they decided the garage was too visible. So Dad thought of this place, and he asked me, and I put it to Hank. He wasn’t hard to convince.” Susan got a hard, triumphant little look on her face. “Give me a night or two, and I can convince that man to do anything I put my mind to.”

Kimmer wrinkled her nose. “That,” she said, “is too much sharing. Just stick to the whole goonboy thing. Do you know who’s behind it? Who’s sitting pretty in good old Pixburg?”

But Susan was telling the story her way. “I know about Hank’s little affair. It’s not like he doesn’t get enough at home. He’s just a jerk.” She gave an indignant little toss of her head, seeming to forget her own precarious situation and her undignified slump on the floor. “I’ve had enough of it. With the money this car thing brings in, I don’t need Hank. God, what a moron. So the girl came around a little too often, and caught a city boy’s eye. What did Hank expect? What did he think would happen if he killed the guy? That no one would find out?”