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 theFull 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 grapegrowers 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 andsituations, 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
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 grapegrowers 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 andsituations, 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
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