Page 19 of What Doesn't Kill Her

“Yes. Um...” He glanced at Kellen.

Kellen shook her head slightly.

He got the hint. “Come on. You can put your bag in the back.”

She followed him around, watched him open the van’s cargo doors and slung her duffel bag onto the floor behind the last row of seats.

Rita did not get the hint. She followed, too. “Where are you two off to?”

“We’re picking up an important antique at the Portland Airport, and we need to get going.” Horst was polite, but apparently Rita grated on him, too, for he was terse.

Kellen heard a shout and turned toward the tasting room. “Look, Rita. They’re calling you back to work.”

Rita barely glanced at the temporary manager. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on break.”

“Not according to him,” Horst said.

Rita sighed loudly. She lifted her phone, clicked a photo of the van and trudged back to work, her big feet slapping across the lawn.

Horst watched her. “She’s weird.”

“She’s got...problems.”

“Don’t we all?” Horst turned back to Kellen. “My boss briefed me about you. He told me you’re Army honorable discharge.”

“That’s right.”

“Good news, that. I wasn’t sure if you were someone’s girlfriend looking for adventure or actually in security. What rank?”

She bumped herself down to an enlisted man. “Spec-4.”

“Hey, I outranked you. E-6.” He looked incredibly pleased, as if he hadn’t had the chance to be in charge very often. “Did you bring your weapons?”

No, no. She wasn’t giving up her secrets so soon. “Richart Movers doesn’t supply weapons and ammunition?”

“What security person doesn’t have weapons he prefers?”

“My body is my weapon.”

He laughed.

She didn’t crack a smile. Her drill instructor said her hand-to-hand attacks were organized, focused and deadly in a way he had seldom seen in a woman.

No reason to bring that up.

Horst said, “Youarekidding.”

She allowed her solemn face to break and she laughed back at him. “You caught me.” She flipped the knife out of her sleeve. “What do you have on you?”

He showed her a side holster under his jacket.

“If this mission is dangerous,” she said, “we’d better have more than that.”

“We do.” He pointed toward the ceiling. “Shotgun up there.” He walked her around to the driver’s side. “More shotguns in the door holsters, one for you, one for me. Ammunition above.”

“Slick.” The holsters had been constructed to look like part of the vehicle, unobtrusive yet easily reached.

He pulled one of the shotguns out, a Browning A-5 semiautomatic, handed it to her and watched her check it over.

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