Chapter One

He's still there.

Still following us, dammit.

Kimmer Reed glanced in the rearview mirror and gave an unladylike snort completely at odds with her shimmery taupe jacquard tunic, her carefully understated makeup, and the lingering taste of an exquisite lunch on Captain Bill's Seneca Lake cruise.

The big man filling the passenger seat of her sporty Mazda Miata immediately understood the significance of such a noise. Rio Carlsen turned his gaze away from the typically picturesque wine country scenery speeding past them-- spring green everywhere--to stretch a long arm across the back of Kimmer's bucket seat, glancing behind them and bracing himself as she took an unsignaled left turn. "Suburban. Big. Old. Can you say 'eat my dust'?"

Kimmer shook her head, short and firm, eyes on the road. She could outrun him...but she wouldn't. She took another left, accelerated down a barely traveled alley on the outer edge of Watkins Glen, shot across a one-way feeder road, and downshifted to take the next left at speed. "This isn't a Hunter assignment. This is my home. There are rules."

Rules about how to live...rules for those around her.

Rio's hand strayed from the back of the seat to stroke the hair at Kimmer's nape, a short dark fringe that showed well enough how her hair would explode in curls if she ever freed it from its close cut. A reassuring touch that could turn smoldering in a moment...but right now it wasn't nearly as casual as it might seem. It connected them...and it transmitted his readiness. He said, "Let's go explain the rules, then."

Another glance showed her that the idiot had stayed with her, bouncing along the rough roads on spongy shocks--if anything, closing the distance between them. "He's persistent enough. This isn't casual."

Rio glanced behind them. Kimmer knew that quiet tension in his body, the tall rangy strength he hid so well in his amiable nature. "The question is, is this about you or is this about me?"

"Your turf was overseas." The Miata slewed back out onto the main road, a two-lane state route between Watkins Glen and Rock Stream. "And you're ex-CIA."

"Hey," he said, wounded. "I'm good ex-CIA. I might have made an enemy or two. And it doesn't make sense for it to be you--you don't exactly work on your home turf."

"Not if I can help it," she grumbled, not bothering to point out the irony that she'd met him on a job she hadn't wanted simply because it was too close to her childhood home. Her long-buried, long-hated childhood. She blew through a stop sign--not a significant risk on this particular stretch of road--with her eye on the upcoming turn, the one that started off with a decent paved road, turned abruptly to dirt, and even more abruptly came to an end, a service road made obsolete by underground utilities. She thumbed the switch to bring up the Miata's barely open windows. "Check the glove box, will you?"

"God, is it safe?"

Kimmer smiled. "Probably not."

With care, Rio flipped the latch, hands ready to catch whatever spilled out. "Switchblade," he reported, ably maintaining his equilibrium as Kimmer hit her target turn at speed, luring her pursuer along behind...enticing him to carelessness. "Tire gauge. Knuckle-knife thing. And this."

She glanced. "War dart."

He grinned, for the moment truly amused. "War dart. Of course it is."

His wasn't the grin she associated with Ryobe Carlsen, former CIA case officer and skilled overseas operative. No, this particular grin belonged to the man who'd left the Agency after a bullet took his spleen and kidney. Eventually he and Kimmer had collided during one of Kimmer's assignments; eventually he'd turned just this same honest get a kick out of life grin on Kimmer. In response she'd turned the fine edge of her no-nonsense temper back on him, and--

And now here he was at Seneca Lake.

Kimmer's car hit the rough seam between asphalt and dirt. She'd gained ground with the turn; she spared an instant to warn Rio with a predatory expression that really couldn't be called a smile.

Rio braced himself.

Kimmer hit the brake, slinging the car around in a neat one-eighty and raising enough dust to obscure the rest of the world. She didn't hesitate, but punched down the accelerator, heading back up the road just as fast as she'd come down it. They ripped out of the dust and back onto asphalt, passing the Suburban.

"I think I lost the dart--" Rio groped along the side of his bucket seat.

"Got my club," Kimmer said. Miniature war club, iron set into smooth red oak wood, sleek with time and use. She handled it with great familiarity and precision.

"You brought your club?" Rio said as they whooshed past the Suburban. "On our date?"

"As if the whole world is about you. Of course I brought it." Kimmer didn't warn him this time; she hit the brake, gave the wheel a calculated tug, and ended up neatly blocking the road. She reached for her seat belt before the car had even rocked to a complete stop. "You coming?"