Exception to the Rule

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Rio Carlsen, being seen. Being friendly. Letting a small town realize he was here, and turning himself into someone comfortable to them. In this area of well-settled German and mixed-mutt ancestry, his own obvious heritage caught their attention. Made him someone they would remember, once he added a smile and respectful conversation and yes, of course, a sprinkling of the almost imperceptible bows that his grandmother had drilled into him so early. If he’d wanted he could have come and gone unnoticed, but he didn’t want. Carolyne, they’d never see. His sick sister, come here for the fresh country air and a glimpse at the fall foliage. He wouldn’t have mentioned her at all except that Angelina and her hubby were clearly active in the community and they already knew of her presence.

And meanwhile, the town would come to know him. If anyone arrived on Carolyne’s tail, he wanted to be part of us and not one of them.

Still. No apple chips. No blue corn tortilla chips. He did find a bunch of touristy brochures by a community bulletin board, and snagged them all, and he spotted a stuffed beaver he knew Carolyne would consider adorable, so put it in the cart. As an afterthought he grabbed a box of frosted cherry Pop-Tarts. Carolyne never had to know….

As he pushed the rickety cart up to the cash register, the diminutive young cashier glanced up with a smile. But when she saw him, it quickly faded. His pleasant greeting went unnoted.

In his home life, he would have let it pass. Not important. Maybe he reminded her of a former boyfriend; maybe she hated breakfast pastries. But with Carolyne’s safety at stake, such mysteries couldn’t remain unplumbed. “I’m sorry,” he said, offering real regret. “Did I offend you somehow?”

She looked down at the groceries as she passed them over the code reader, but she was a fine-haired blonde and her scalp showed red with her blush. He didn’t push it directly. Instead, he said, “My sister was looking for these things called apple chips. I don’t suppose you have them here somewhere and I missed them? I see ’em in Michigan all the time.” Not true—he’d never looked—but he wanted to appear forthcoming, and he sure wasn’t going to mention New York State. The point was to spread obfuscation, not clues.

“Apple chips?” She looked up, revealing a complexion fair enough to match her hair and baby blues the same shade as Carolyne’s. “Sure, we have those sometimes. I think we’re out, though. Y’uns here on vacation?”

Rio shrugged. “Kind of. My folks are having their coral anniversary next year, and we wanted to send them someplace special. This is one of the spots we’re checking out.”

“Coral…”

“It’s Danish,” he said. “Their thirty-fifth.”

“We’ve got some nice canoeing,” she said, and added doubtfully, “I don’t suppose your folks are hunters?”

“I’m afraid not. But the canoeing…that’s a thought.” He retrieved the brochures from the cart, grabbed a paper bag and began bagging his order while she finished ringing it up. “Plus I might find something in here.”

“How’d you settle on this area in the first place?” She totaled the order, and he thumbed a couple of twenties out of his wallet.

He gave her a sheepish grin. “It’s just somewhere we’ve never seen.”

This time she smiled back. And as she handed over his change, she said, “Sorry about before. I know someone who’s worried about being found, and you being such a stranger…”

Someone else? Rio’s coincidence meter hit the far end of the scale. “A friend of yours?” he asked, trying to make it as casual as possible.

“No…I guess she’s from this area, though. She sure talks like a yinzer.”

“Yinzer,” he repeated blankly, thinking he knew more about some foreign countries than he did about western Pennsylvania.

“You know.” The cashier grinned at him, and this time she’d decided to flirt—a good sign. “‘Y’uns’ is what we all say…that makes us ‘y’unzers.’ But it’s easier to say ‘yinzer.’ Anyway, her boyfriend’s bad news and she thinks he’ll send some guys after her. So we’re spreading the word a bit. It’s easy to spot a stranger in this town.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Rio said dryly, still wary of the coincidence factor but deciding he could certainly use it to his advantage. If folks were already on the lookout for strangers in this small tawn, then he had a small population of eyes and ears already at work. Hearing the reports might be another matter, but he’d work on it.

Another cart pushed in behind him, and the woman began moving her looming mountain of purchases onto the conveyer. “Have a nice visit,” the cashier said as Rio gathered up his bags, pushing the cart out of the way with his foot. “Thanks for coming to Jynt Igle.”

Ah. Giant Eagle.

And then Rio grabbed for the cart as it nearly hit a teen headed for the register—or rather, as the teen nearly collided with it. Wearing a green Giant Eagle apron and the jacket and flushed cheeks that meant he’d been out in the cool fall air, he interrupted the cashier’s opening patter with the woman customer. “Missy! That Andrew Stonner is out there again, and he’s been drinking—he’s got a woman customer cornered! That stranger! It’s his usual—he won’t let her leave.”

Stonnered. Suddenly the comment he’d overheard earlier made sense.

“Like she doesn’t have enough to worry about. Poor Bonnie!” The cashier grabbed the phone from the other side of the register and hit a quick-dial button. “This is Missy down at Jynt Igle. Best send someone to come get Andrew Stonner, and do it quick—he’s gone wootz on the booze again and he’s got a woman out in the parking—what do you mean, there’s no one available right now? There been a big accident somewhere? Everyone okay?”

Rio took it in with half an ear. Poor Bonnie? Soup-slinging Bonnie? Poor Andrew Stonner was more like it.

But he dumped his groceries back in the cart and ran for the parking lot anyway.

Kimmer had just closed the back hatch to the Taurus wagon on a small stash of quick convenience meals. She’d made a quick circuit of the main street, spread her cover story and found herself anxious to return to the motel room and transfer her photos to her PDA where she could better study them and plan her stakeout strategies. Somewhere along the way she’d hit late afternoon, and darkness came early enough this time of year. So she’d closed the hatch and turned for the driver’s door, unimpeded by other cars in this far corner spot.

That’s when she saw him coming. Weavingly drunk or sick, she wasn’t sure which—but then a breeze wafted her way and the smell of booze made her wrinkle her nose. Every town had one, she supposed. Even one as small as Mill Springs.

She wasted no time ducking into the Taurus, happy enough to pretend she hadn’t seen him at all. But when she twisted in the seat to back out of the parking spot, she startled at the sight of his face pressed up against the back window, framed by his dirty hands. The rest of him wasn’t so clean—dirty hair, the straggly, untrimmed whiskers of someone who couldn’t grow a real beard if he tried, torn green flannel shirt and grease-stained jeans. Hard to tell age beneath it all.

She straightened in the seat, briefly resting her forehead on the wheel. Random male stupidity. Just what she needed. When she turned to look again, he hadn’t moved. With both reluctance and growing impatience, she got out of the car and walked around behind it, leaving plenty of room between them. From here she could assess him better, see how much bigger he was than she, and that he carried relatively good muscle—the muscle of hard labor, when and if he found work. “I’m sorry, you have to move,” she told him. “I’m trying to leave.”

“No, no, no,” he said. “You can’t leave.”

“My groceries will spoil,” she said, wondering if some spot of practical reasoning might reach him. Of course, she also added, “And if you don’t move, I’ll have to run you over. I wonder if you’d get caught on the undercarriage?”

It didn’t matter; nothing of what she said seemed to get through to him at all. More than drunk? Off his meds? “No, no, no,” he repeated. “You can’t leave. All the food stays here.”

“What about him?” Kimmer pointed to a man loading two carts of purchases into his van. “Maybe you should go stop him. I’ve only got a few groceries here, after all.”

That got his attention for a moment; he took a step away from the Taurus, frowning at the hapless victim Kimmer had chosen for him. She took advantage of his indecision by grasping the loose material of his sleeve between thumb and forefinger and drawing him closer to the van. “There,” she said, ready to dash back to the car and escape. “All those lovely groceries…you should save them first.”

It almost worked. Agitated, he shifted from side to side, a creepy motion that seemed ingrained. She wasn’t above leaving him to it—but the instant she eased a step away from him, he whirled and snatched her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh like talons.

Anger, always buried not far from her surface, flashed to the forefront. No one handled her like that. Not anymore. And though she had the choice, knew she could still control the situation without escalating, she also had the ability to stop him.

And she took it.

As quickly as he’d grabbed her, she acquired his thumb, twisting it back. He gave a bewildered cry, buckling to the pressure, going straight down to his knees without resistance. In that instant she pivoted behind him, taking the arm with him and maintaining the angle on his thumb. Big, muscular and clueless…no match for little, quick and precise. “Aren’t self-defense classes nice?” she asked him. “Now, how about we get up and go to the store. Maybe they’ll know what to do with you, and then I can leave.” Groceries and all.

“Not the food!” he wailed, consistent if nothing else.

Kimmer sighed. “I really don’t have time for this. C’mon. Up you go.” She tugged upward on his hand, and he lurched to his feet. As a unit, they turned for the store.

And there was Rio Carlsen.

She didn’t hide her surprise. “Quiet for a big guy, aren’t you?”