LITMIR.BIZ

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her at Hunter, and she wanted to get it over with. She also wanted to escape Hank. And mostly, she needed time to consider Rio’s situation.

      The blunt truth was that she had no idea how to respond to his grandmother’s illness, a conjecture he confirmed in a few murmured words before she threw her tough black Eagle Creek bag in the Miata and headed the twenty minutes to the Full Cry vineyards and winery. Sobo had been diagnosed with mild congestive heart failure, briefly hospitalized and was now adjusting to a new regime of medicines while her family made hasty arrangements for the partial nursing care she’d need until she stabilized. And it was killing Rio to be down here, to be away from them…not even to call them. But Carolyne had said they needed the space to make the necessary arrangements, and that he should wait.

      That left Rio in limbo. He couldn’t go rushing off to save the situation as he had so many times in the past, he couldn’t pull off his casual laid-back average-guy mode to continue life as normal, and he wasn’t made for sitting around doing nothing.

      Kimmer didn’t know what to say to him, what to do for him. She didn’t have the faintest idea what it felt like to have family—people known from childhood, people immersed in and part of her life—in crisis.

      So she didn’t linger. She stayed long enough to see Hank set up in front of the television and to see Rio changing into shorts, a cut-off sweatshirt and running shoes, and she didn’t say anything absurd like “It’ll be okay,” because who knew? She just ran a hand down his arm, waited for him to notice, and said, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

      Full Cry Winery was nestled between two of New York state’s southern tier Finger Lakes, near the shore of Seneca Lake. Kimmer knew the winding road between her Glenora hilltop home and Full Cry well enough to make navigation second nature—and to sail past the speed limits when occasion warranted, slowing down only for the tiny town of Rock Stream.

      At midafternoon, the area’s surfeit of farmers and grape growers were at work, but few of them took to the road and Kimmer had command of it to travel south in record time. She pulled past the lot of the old barn converted to a visitor’s center and around behind to the addition and modern outbuildings where working areas of the fully functioning winery were located. The double-level cellar started beneath the business offices and ran under the barn. Kimmer liked to walk it in the hottest part of summer and absorb the stringent smells of tannin and crushed grape and wine and damp concrete.

      Not far from the parking lot sat the Hunter family home, a surprisingly modest structure. And snuggled away behind the winery’s business section, buffered by discreet security measures, the Hunter Agency maintained its own entrance to its offices, one that was, without fanfare, labeled Viniculture Development.

      Kimmer reached it and flipped up the weather cover over the security pad next to a steel door that gleamed even in the darkness, pressing her thumb against the glass. It gave a brief blue glow and then issued an invitation with the quiet thunk of disengaging locks.

      As she pushed through the door she considered this abrupt change of plans. Hunter maintained an extensive string of operatives, from part-timers to those who lived undercover, and although they all had specialties, they were also widely cross-trained. Kimmer herself fell in the middle of the spectrum—a full-time operative who went from job to job, usually undercover. “Chimera,” they called her, because she was so adept at reading people that she could live up to their expectations, going undetected. She could be all things to all people.

      Hunter made good use of her knack to suss out people and situations, using her where their background intel had failed, inserting her into quickly developing situations to assess personalities and even clients. Often their game plan developed around Kimmer’s reports.

      Kimmer went down the curving, carpeted concrete stairs. They spit her out at the end of a long hallway, where she had to navigate another security feature, this one a chamber of bulletproof glass that let her in but only let her out when it was satisfied about her identity. The whole handprint this time.

      Gadgets. You gotta love ’em. Personally she trusted her own judgment over any gadget, and she was just waiting for the time one of their own became stuck in this flytrap.

      With a pneumatic hiss, the door slid aside and released her into the Hunter Agency proper, a place of no-nonsense but quality furnishings, never metal where warm oak would do, everything oiled and polished. No doors squeaked; no dust dared settle or fingerprints linger. She went straight to Owen’s office, through the small area occupied by his secretary during “normal” working hours, and rapped lightly on his door before opening it and inviting herself in.

      He looked up from his desk, expectation on his craggy features. He raised a heavy, dark brow at her. “What took you so long?”

      Since she’d basically taken no time at all, Kimmer ignored him. She cared more about the fact that he was annoyed and trying to hide it. “I see you,” she told him, sitting in the chair across from his desk. They both knew she wasn’t talking about his mere physical presence. I see your hidden stress and anger.

      Owen sighed, acknowledging the annoyance as he shuffled the papers he’d been studying aside. “Bad timing,” he said.

      “Is there ever a good time to blow up a propane tank and a couple of bad guys with it?”

      That got a wry smile out of him as he leaned back in his chair. “Point well taken. And I do realize you did what you could to contain the situation.”

      “Given that I had zero notice.” Kimmer scowled at the thought of Hank’s arrival, and then again at the way he’d rabbited from the hilltop. “If he’d just stayed on the damned hill where I put him…”

      Owen shrugged. “I’m not sure I blame him. I think your brother was in way over his head.”

      Kimmer thought back over the events of the previous day. “He came here hoping I would kill them. He thinks I’m the kind of person who’ll just…do that. And damned if I didn’t turn them both into toast. Never even had a chance to talk to them.” She frowned at the situation a moment. “There’s no telling if they’ll ever be able to ID the guys. You can bet Hank’s not telling.”

      Silence fell between them, until Owen said, “And how’s your brother strike you?”

      Kimmer blinked. “What do you mean? You know I can’t read him. A fact for which I’m almost grateful, I should say.”

      “I’m not sure it adds up, that’s all,” Owen said. “If Hank saw someone killed, why is it safe to go back?”

      “He told me the dead guys were the only others to know about it. I gather it wasn’t a large organization. Just a few guys running a chop shop under the cover of Hank’s salvage business.”

      “Hmm.” Owen gave a thoughtful rub of his chin. “Would have been nice to have talked to those two men.”

      “Too bad toast doesn’t talk.” Pieces of toast, to judge by the condition of the sedan after the explosion. “Wildly scattered” was an understated way to have put it; identification would be impossible unless they’d been in the DNA database. No wonder Owen felt he needed to appease the local law agencies. “Tell me you’re not sending me away.”

      “I’m not sending you away.”

      “Because I really can’t—” Oh. She looked at him, realized she’d been about to say she couldn’t leave Rio right now, not again. Not with his grandmother sick. Then she realized she didn’t actually know if that was best. Maybe Rio just needed to do his thing. “Okay, then what’s up?”

      “You’re going to put your unique abilities to work right here.”

      She tipped her head at him, an unspoken is that so?

      “The governor is making his rounds across the state this spring,” Owen said. “Election year prep. I’ve offered Hunter’s services as backup security. You won’t be the only one. I want you working undercover as he comes through Watkins Glen next week. From arrival to departure, I

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