Behind the Mask (Undercover Associates Book 4)

by Carolyn Crane

  The boy’s revolver glinted in the gloom as he spun it. Was he the dark attacker’s son? Though he seemed to obey the attacker more as a subordinate to a military commander than a child. A dog to a master.

  So much about this fighter said impostor.

  Yet he felt like Kabakas to her.

  It was impossible. But what if?

  What if?

  The possibility felt like a tide of magic inside her.

  But no. He’d let her see his face and live.

  Sweat poured off her skin. She rolled up her sleeves, loosened the buttons. People didn’t realize how heavy a suitcase full of money could be, but she carried it gratefully.

  The jungle became darker the deeper they walked. The attacker lit a torch and continued on. Where were they going? Did these two have some sort of a compound nearby? The too-big boots were giving her blisters, but she trod on.

  She thought about the tanker standoff. Had anything new happened? She needed to contact Dax ASAP and let him know the files were not forthcoming, but maybe they could work on the disgruntled guard. And her sister was home free.

  The mission was only half a failure.

  In maybe two miles, they reached a Jeep. The boy stuffed the rifle and Kabakas’s weapons into a pair of duffel bags and then he took the driver’s seat; the fighter took the passenger seat. The kid was driving? He was young to drive.

  The fighter motioned. “In,” he said to her.

  She swung the suitcase into the backseat, keeping her expression a blank slate, and settled herself next to it. The fighter was already in the front. He twisted in his seat, nodding at her left arm. “No drugs. Understand?”

  Her left arm—that’s where they’d put the track marks tattoo. The long sleeves of the jumpsuit covered it now, but even in the heat of battle, he’d seen it, remembered it.

  “I’m not on drugs,” she said in English, maintaining her cover as Liza, the prostitute who spoke no Spanish. Convenient that Aguilo had made that possible. “I quit. No drugs.”

  He eyed her. “Lie to me, and you die,” he said. “Disobey me, and you die. Run, and you die. Do you understand, señorita?”

  Her blood raced. The Kabakas impostor was literally taking her captive?

  “Do you understand?”

  Would he expect sex, too? Of course he would. She’d been presented as a prostitute. She’d ditch him before that happened, of course. She’d get to a phone and call Dax for an extraction.

  But every time she imagined leaving, a sparkly little question still played in the corner of her mind: What if?

  Everything about him said impostor—his weaponry, the boy, and the carelessness of letting her see his face.

  But there was something about him…

  What if?

  “Answer me.”

  “I’m not on drugs,” she repeated. “I said I wasn’t, and I mean it.”

  He turned in his seat. “Dale la caja,” he said to the boy. Give her the box? What did it mean? It sounded ominous.

  The boy passed back a small box. She opened the top; it was loaded with gauze and bandages. Ready for wounds.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  Chapter Eight

  The headlamps bore into the dim world underneath the thick jungle cover as the boy navigated around masses of vines and fallen trees. Hugo glanced again at the rearview mirror. The American whore had finished bandaging her wrist.

  She rode in silence, swaying slightly as the Jeep bounced, eyes fixed upon the surroundings. At times the light illuminated the smooth curves of her cheekbones and her intelligent eyes, and Hugo found that he liked those times.

  Hugo forced his eyes from her, teeth clenched in disgust—at himself. He should not focus on her. He should not obsess about her injury—though it did look deep. He should not have shown her his face. He should not have taken her.

  It was the killing trance. The trance sometimes moved him to act in deeply primal ways that went beyond fighting. Like taking the woman. He’d known he would take her before he’d asked the questions. It was something in the way she’d held his gaze, and the spirit of her as she’d struggled, like drowning life coming up for air. It was something in the way she had refused to subside in the wake of his power, as though she were forged of a pure metal. That too had struck him.

  And so he’d taken her.

  He adjusted the side mirror to center her within it. She was inspecting the trees.

  Contrary to myth, he did not kill the innocent, but he never took them. Except for the boy.

  He told himself he would kill her if he had to. She would’ve died if he’d sent her off with the messenger—El Gorrion’s violent tastes were well known. She would’ve died even faster left in the jungle. A kinder, faster death, but death all the same. If he had to kill her, he would do it fast. If he couldn’t trust her, he would have no choice but to kill her.

  He forced himself to note the false and garish green of her eyes, to picture the obscene clothes under the coveralls, the track marks on her arm, but it was no use. She was beautiful—not in the regular way of the women he had down in Bumcara, but in a deep, elemental way. She had the kind of beauty that made beauty irrelevant.

  He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Over the years, bands of scars—contractures, they were called—had tightened across his shoulder and side. The contractures made wild movement painful. Some of the scar tissue would be torn now—the sting was bad, and it would be hell tonight. But his discomfort went deeper than his skin. Even violent animals had souls that could be torn.

  He concentrated on the trail ahead, bracing an arm on the door as the boy navigated.

  True, she spoke no Spanish. And as an American whore, she would perhaps be unaware of Kabakas, but it was a risk. He could accept the risk for himself, but not for the boy.

  La puta de Mikos. He grabbed a water bottle and tipped it onto his head, letting a little trickle down his front, letting the water seep through and cool the sting, aware of her eyes on him now. He now possessed a stinging flank, a bruised rib, and an American whore.

  He wiped the water from his eyes with the back of his hand and checked the mirror.

  Her gaze was back on the jungle. He didn’t get the sense that she was looking to run; she seemed…interested, engaged. Those marks on her arm said differently. Drug addicts always had tunnel vision, focused on their next fix.

  If she tried to rob him in any way or threatened to expose him, he would kill her. If she threatened the boy, that would make it easy.

  “You know llapingachos?” he barked.

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  Of course she’d say yes. They’d find out soon enough.

  They drove on in silence, out of the jungle and into the daylight, up onto the more-traveled road back to Bumcara.

  An hour later, they hit pavement. The boy pulled his phone out, waiting to pick up a signal as he drove.

  Hugo’s belly growled. “What other foods can you prepare?”

  “All kinds,” she replied.

  He found the answer…unconvincing. Could this American prostitute not cook after all? “What foods? Do you have a specialty?”

  “I can cook whatever you like as long as I have a recipe.”

  He frowned. Most every woman in his experience knew how to cook without a recipe—at least the common dishes. He caught the boy’s eye. Even the boy looked skeptical.

  “I’m a fabulous cook,” she said. “If we could get recipes.”

  “Fine,” he said wearily.

  “What sort of foods do you like?” she asked.

  “Tell her,” he commanded the boy. “En inglés.” The boy could practice English with her. Learn some new words. His English vocabulary was not so large.

  The boy began to list meals. Arepas, cuy, seco de chivo, bean soup. The menu of Café Moderno.

  He shifted again, wishing he could shed his skin like a snake and grow it anew.

  She pointed at the boy’s phone. “I could look for r
ecipes on there.”

  “No Internet for you.”

  She fell silent.

  A whore and a drug addict. What had he done?

  “Is there a bookstore we could stop at?” she asked after a while. “To find a cookbook?”

  He twisted around, though it pained his flank. “Does this look like Disney World to you? Perhaps Mickey Mouse has a cookbook for you.”

  She kept her face blank, taking his measure with her eyes. Her gaze was more than a tickle; he felt it in his belly. “You were in America?” she asked.

  “Questions like that, señorita,” he growled, “that is how you die.”

  She pursed her lips and looked away. He found he wanted her to look back at him.

  “You want to live? Then you will cook and you will teach the boy. You will serve in whatever way I see fit.”

  She turned back to him, heat hidden in her gaze. He liked the heat of her.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Liza.”

  “Liza what?”

  “Liza Pierce.”

  “From where?”

  “Miami. Most recently.”

  “La puta de Mikos,” he said, echoing what the man had called her. “Was Mikos on the plane?” She could be trouble if he’d killed her pimp, her lover.

  “He wasn’t on the plane,” she said softly.

  He waited. He required more than that. “What were you doing on the plane? You were traveling to be with El Gorrion? And you changed your mind? That’s why they tied you?”

  “There was a card game.” She looked away. “I was with Mikos. We were together, but…”

  “Your Mikos gambled you. He sold you.”

  Her silence said yes.

  “Say more,” he demanded.

  She sighed and looked away, putting on a blank face. What did she want to cover? “He lost me to the Brujos Cartel. I was supposed to go to Mexico for a few days, but Brujos put me on the plane…” She shrugged.

  “A gift for El Gorrion?”

  Another shrug.

  Aside from her wrists, she seemed unscathed. Had they been saving her for El Gorrion? She kept her blank face, but surely she had been frightened. “You want to go back home? Is that what you want?”

  She seemed to hesitate. Then, “Of course. Yes.”

  “You will stay with us awhile, and we will see about it.”

  She regarded him with surprise. “Really?”

  He raised his brows. He was not in the habit of answering twice.

  “Great,” she said. “Thank you. Really.”

  He nodded. Best to give her something to hope for.

  He would have her investigated. He’d gotten to where he was by knowing his enemies. A woman like this, surely she had vulnerable people she needed to protect. A pet or two, perhaps for leverage. He would make her understand that if she caused trouble for him, he’d kill not only her, but also her people and her pets. Americans were obsessed with their pets.

  Miami. Of course.

  Miami was expensive, dangerous, and flashy. He’d felt assaulted when he’d lived there. In Miami, there was no night and no silence. He didn’t know how people could stand it, but the people themselves were flashy, expensive, and dangerous, as if the city had bred its own kind. Including Liza with her flashy blonde hair and outlandish green eyes. The intelligence in her eyes was real, but the green was false. He did not like the green.

  He watched a drop of sweat roll down the side of her forehead, down past the outer edge of her eye with its lush, dark lashes, and over the swell of her cheekbone. His mouth went dry watching it.

  Another drip followed the same track, glinting in the sun. This second drip moved faster. He imagined swiping his thumb over it. Her skin would be warm and slick with sweat.

  The drips had to tickle, but she made no effort to wipe them away. She sat there in a hot jumpsuit in the blistering midmorning heat without complaint. Keeping her thoughts to herself with that blank face. Not stupid, this one.

  He swallowed as another drip of sweat ran down the middle of her forehead, tracing the straight, proud line of her nose until it slid down the side and over her nostril. A woman sweating, face perfectly blank, swaying gently in the back of a Jeep. A man could be lost in just this.

  He tore his gaze away. Perhaps she was thinking about her next fix. Most of the whores around the drug trade were addicted to coca and the many perversions of coca that Americans enjoyed devising. Perhaps she imagined Valencia as a paradise.

  She’d find out differently.

  “Give her your hat,” he said to the boy.

  The boy frowned. He liked his baseball cap, but they were nearing Bumcara now. It would not do to parade her bright and memorable hair through Bumcara.

  He grabbed it off the boy’s head. “Now it is hers to keep.” He extended it back toward Liza.

  “I don’t need a cap,” she said.

  His blood raced hot as she watched him, defying him. He could still remember the way her hair had felt between his fingers as he’d held her to him, keeping her out of the line of sight of that dog of a messenger he’d sent back to El Gorrion. He would like to feel her hair again. “Did I not command it?”

  She reached out and took the cap and she pressed it over her head, expression blank. Too blank.

  “You’re not in America now, you’re in Valencia. You are part of my household, and it is not a democracy.” He turned back around.

  “You commanded him to give it to me, not for me to take it and put it on.”

  Next to him, the boy went still, but Hugo had no doubt that his eyes twinkled at the small uprising.

  “You will wear the cap until we are home,” he said.

  She smiled at the boy as she fit the cap over her head. “What’s your name?”

  “Paolo,” he said.

  “Hi, Paolo,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you. My name is Liza.” She waited expectantly for the boy to reply.

  Hugo gave him a threatening glare.

  “Hello, Liza,” the boy said tonelessly. “My name is Paolo.”

  “What is his name?” She pointed at Hugo.

  The boy pretended to concentrate on his driving.

  “Hugo,” Hugo said.

  “How old are you, Paolo?” she asked.

  The boy looked at him again, uncertain.

  “How many years…” She held up her fingers, then pointed at him. “How many years do you have?” She pointed at herself. “I am thirty-eight years old.”

  Hugo studied the road. She was well preserved for a thirty-eight-year-old cocaine whore.

  She touched her chest. “Thirty-eight. How old are you, Paolo?” She waited.

  Hugo sighed. “He understands the question. He does not know the answer.”

  She furrowed her brows. She had pretty brows, dark and thick. She should’ve left her hair dark. “Do you know?”

  He shrugged. “Fourteen, maybe.”

  “When is your birthday?” she asked Paolo.

  The boy looked at him. “He doesn’t have one,” Hugo said.

  “What?” She gave him an incredulous look.

  “He doesn’t have one,” Hugo repeated icily.

  “Everyone has a birthday.”

  “Not everyone,” he said.

  She asked Paolo a few more questions, staying away from the personal. His stomach rumbled. Hours until home. Possibly hours more until she prepared their meal.

  They took side roads through Bumcara and stopped at a roadside restaurant. It had the advantage of a shady group of outdoor tables, one of which would provide quick access to their vehicle and escape routes around the back. He twisted and shifted—his flank killed. He wished they had more salve, but the boy had used it all on the way in.

  He permitted himself a beer to wash down the ibuprofen; it took the edge off the pain. He would have the boy bring him opium before bed; that would give him a few hours of peace. He drained his beer and began on his churrasco. The boy and Liza had pollo asado.
The boy finally got service. He began surfing the Web, scrolling his phone with one hand and eating with the other.

  “You can make this, right?” He nodded at his churrasco. “This would be acceptable.”

  “Let’s find a recipe.” She inclined her head toward the boy’s phone.

  “It’s only a grilled steak,” he said. “This is rice. An avocado. You can find out the recipe from looking at it, can you not?”

  She gazed at him straight on. “I like a recipe. I like to do things right.”

  “The ingredients are there to see.”

  “To make it the best as possible,” she said, “with the right seasonings, I need a recipe.”

  “The seasoning is chimichurri sauce,” he said.

  She asked the boy to look up three recipes for chimichurri.

  “Three?” Hugo pressed. “You need three?”

  “Yes,” she said, still with that blank face. “I want it to be right.”

  Americans. They needed help with everything. Everything was Mickey Mouse. Shiny. It disgusted him. “Get her three recipes. And three for llapingachos stuffed with cheese as well.”

  They named off more meals. Hugo decided she would make lomo saltado for dinner.

  The boy furrowed his little brow, punching away at the tiny screen, which shone with the liquid colors of his game, Hugo noticed.

  “Now!”

  The boy complied, and then passed the phone to her. The boy retrieved a pencil from the Jeep. She copied the recipe onto the back of the wax-paper wrapper. When enough time had passed, Hugo snatched away the phone. “No Internet unless I’m present.”

  He couldn’t have her communicating with the outside world. His eyes fell to the bandage on her wrist. He needed to get a look under there. She was his to care for now.

  She dashed a drip of sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. “I might want to contact a friend to say I’m all right. Could I do that?”

  “We’ll see,” he said as he emailed her name and everything else he had on her—Miami, Mikos, all of it—to his private investigator in Bogotá.