Behind the Mask (Undercover Associates Book 4)

by Carolyn Crane

  This one was too small for a TV and, anyway, she doubted they had reception up here. Was it possible they used it for its original purpose? Treasures collected over a lifetime? If so, it could hold a lot of clues to this man. She burned to rule him out as Kabakas. She had to know once and for all.

  She went to it and ran her hand around the ornate carving. Yeah, she could pick that lock in two seconds flat. “Very pretty.” She turned to check Paolo’s expression. “What’s in it?” She tried to give her question little weight—she didn’t want him relating her curiosity to Hugo.

  The boy was already shaking his head.

  “TV? Television?”

  “No.”

  “What, then?”

  “No sé. I do not know. Not for you.”

  She pulled her hand away and smiled. “What is the sword?”

  “Moreno. A great warrior,” he said. “A story of Valencia.”

  “What’s the story?”

  “A story of Valencia,” he said again. “Not for you.”

  Yeah, the boy definitely wanted her gone.

  The tour ended in a small side room with nothing but a bed, a table, a dresser, and a window. The window was covered, as they all were, with an ornate grate. A maid’s room. She went to the closet and opened the door to a row of gray dresses. Uniforms.

  “From your last cook?” she asked.

  Paolo grunted.

  O-kay.

  She pulled one out. It was gray with short sleeves and white buttons that ran all the way down the front between vertical lines of white piping. It was too large for her, as Hugo had predicted, but wearable. Sensible black shoes sat at the bottom of the closet.

  “She cooked? Did she clean and teach, too?” she asked.

  He watched her blankly, but he understood perfectly well. This kid was observant, articulate, and definitely intelligent.

  “A maid? A governess?” she pointed at the floor. “The woman here?”

  “Sí,” he said, simply. Speaking to her in Spanish. Outside of Hugo’s stern purview, it seemed, Paolo was willing to break the rules.

  She looked at the dress, wondering if she was trading one dead person’s clothes for another’s.

  “You stay inside.” He turned and left, closing the door behind him.

  She stripped off her clothes. She didn’t know what she hated wearing more—the lingerie or the dead man’s jumpsuit.

  There was a simple tile bathroom attached to her room. She went in and took a quick shower. Afterward, she pulled off the bandage and inspected the wound on the back of her wrist. It was deeper than she’d realized—quite the gash. She’d really messed it up trying to free herself from the Jeep; in truth, it needed stitches. There was probably a sewing kit around, but sewing a wound with regular thread sucked—you reopened it trying to get the thread out. Hugo might have something more appropriate, like fishing line, but keeping her cover as Liza was critical now. Liza the prostitute would not sit around stitching herself up.

  She found an unopened toothbrush. She sat down on the toilet seat with the towel tucked around her, feeling utterly exhausted now that she was clean and alone. She stared at the toothbrush. The last thing she wanted to do was to scrub the hell out of her wound with a toothbrush and then figure out how to make a meal. She bowed her head on the cool sink, wishing she could just curl up on her couch with her cat. She’d put her face on his soft fur and maybe even cry.

  She’d been so frightened. So, so frightened.

  Handle it! She stood, ripped open the toothbrush, got out the soap, and started in on her wrist. She scrubbed and scrubbed, biting back the pain, just powering through it. She worked at the wound steadily, getting out the grit and paint flecks, pissed at herself for even imagining falling apart. Imagining falling apart was the first step toward falling apart.

  She was alive, unscathed.

  When she finished, she refolded and retaped the bandages Hugo had given her in the Jeep, reusing them the best she could, then she searched the chest of drawers for underwear. It was mostly blankets and towels, but she found a small, strappy T-shirt that would have to do for a bra, as well as cotton granny panties and stockings, too. Good.

  She pulled on the austere gray uniform and tucked the recipe in the pocket.

  What had happened to the former cook or maid?

  A scraping sound came from the direction of the kitchen. The scrape of a chair, maybe, followed by a few knocks. That would be the pantry. There had been a small table at the side of it—just right for Paolo to climb up on. Was he putting away the weapons? The hatch was just large enough for those duffel bags. What else was up there? She hadn’t seen any phones or communication equipment whatsoever on her tour with Paolo, and he’d clearly lost his signal partway up the mountain. That was bad; she had to find a way to get word to Dax, dammit—before the morning.

  She waited until the sounds ceased, and then wandered out.

  “Hello?” she called, warning Paolo of her approach.

  She followed the sound of Paolo’s soft footsteps across the place. The click of a door told her he’d gone out. She moved into the kitchen. Empty. She drew the recipe from her pocket and set it out on the tile counter.

  Back at the roadside stand outside Bumcara during those precious few moments when she held that phone, she’d considered trying to get a quick email out, but it was far too risky, what with them both hovering over her, seeming ready to snatch away the phone. Finally Hugo had. He’d checked the screen.

  Once she set the meat to marinating, she set out again, creeping through the home, looking for anything she could communicate on, preferably a satellite phone.

  She’d ask how they liked their steak cooked if they caught her.

  Quietly she moved through the little dining room just outside the kitchen to the large, long living room that overlooked the veranda and even what seemed to be Hugo’s bedroom.

  Nothing.

  She’d seen what looked like a steerable microwave antenna down in the ruined village. There’d be a wrecked satellite phone in there somewhere; they wouldn’t have left the antenna if the satellite phone were operational. She could probably get it working, but it would be a bitch to get down there—it was just over five miles away, and not an easy five miles, either—more like a steep and treacherously curvy five miles.

  She’d run it tonight if she had to, but it would be slow going with the altitude and her general exhaustion. She’d need a flashlight and a gun.

  She took a survey of the herbs and spices in the kitchen, anything she could use as a soporific, and came up empty.

  Her mind went to the hatch above the pantry where she suspected the weapons were. If she wanted to hide a satellite phone, that was where it would be.

  Door. Footsteps. Paolo came in and grabbed a Coke, then left.

  She flattened out the recipe. The dinner needed to be decent. She wasn’t stupid—she’d put it all together when they went through the ruined village: this man and this boy depended on resources there to eat—that was why she was alive.

  Maybe the only reason.

  All men moved on their stomachs. Peaceful men and the killers alike.

  She’d never learned to cook Valencian food—she’d spent most of her time in Colombia, Ecuador, and Costa Amarrilla, but the street fare they’d had today had given her an idea of the similarities and differences in the flavorings. She’d had lomo saltado before—in Peru, maybe. It was thinly cut steak cooked with onion, tomato, and French fries, of all things. Rice on the side. She started water for the rice.

  So much had become clear when she’d seen the ruined little village. El Gorrion had attempted to annex Buena Vista for its surrounding cropland—a lot of the gangs were in expansion mode thanks to the CIA herbicide program; even Roundup-resistant coca wasn’t growing well in the heavily sprayed areas. The scene was a classic example of the first phase of a takeover—the gangs sweep in, kill a few people, do superficial damage, and drive the people out. The farmers get ultimatum
s: switch crops or lose the land.

  And Hugo had retaliated.

  Kabakas or not, Hugo was a seasoned killer, likely out of the Valencian conflict. The plan might not have worked if the village had been on a transit route, but it was out of the way, a bit of a bother, logistics-wise, to begin with. She could see somebody like El Gorrion dithering over whether to bother with it in the first place. It was high enough up that you could get the rare frost, even. And Hugo had been very convincing…to put it mildly.

  She chopped the potatoes.

  What if he really was Kabakas? Maybe he’d thrown away his weapons, gained a kid. Maybe he’d sworn off violence. Then the bad guys destroy the village. Little do they know that Kabakas loves that village. They’ve pushed him too far and he once again takes up the barong blades. It was like a trope straight out of an old western. Her skin tingled. That sparkly good feeling filled her. That old good feeling from before. The feeling of the hunt.

  Fucking Kabakas.

  What if?

  She grabbed an onion and cut out the core, began chopping, thinking about the way Hugo’s gloves strained and hugged his massive hands out on the field like a second skin, flexing and stretching, black as night, the leather taut and shiny over his massive knuckles. She’d used to really stare at those gloves in the photo.

  A lot.

  Stop it. She pushed the onions aside and cut the meat, then seasoned it with salt and pepper. He’s not a rock star, a colleague had once said. Not a rock star.

  She went at the bell pepper, then the hot pepper. Kabakas had gone dark at the end. A psychopath. He was dead, and it was good that he was dead.

  Zelda turned the meat and spiced the other side. She didn’t cook, but she was a scientist, and cooking was nothing but chemistry, complete with a recipe for a formula. She assembled the spices according to the consensus of the three recipes. You always double-sourced where possible, and ideally, you triple-sourced. That was Intelligence 101.

  You will not teach the boy the word for birthday.

  Who didn’t let a child have a birthday? Show him he was worth celebrating?

  She had to stop letting him push her buttons. She needed to rule him out as Kabakas and get the hell out.

  But what if he was Kabakas?

  “You’ll cross that bridge when and if you come to it,” she mumbled to herself.

  “Cross what bridge?”

  She spun around and there he was, leaning against the wall in all his dark glory. His unshaven cheeks glinted in the firelight and his shirt was soaked through with sweat, pasted to his muscular form.

  “Nothing,” she whispered, wiping her hands on her apron—not because they were dirty but because they were trembling. Because here he was. And Kabakas or not, Hugo did something to her.

  He had that elemental beauty that really strong and brutal men could sometimes get; even his harshness was a type of beauty.

  He pushed off the wall and came toward her.

  She pressed her hands into her apron pockets but stood her ground. She would not be intimidated by a Kabakas impostor.

  He stopped in front of her, gaze sweeping over her body. His midnight-black hair was technically short enough to stay within the category of short hair, but it was thick and a tiny bit choppy. The effect was barbaric and ever so slightly arresting.

  A shiver ran through her. “What?”

  He grasped her arm, drawing her hand from her apron pocket, lifting it in his massive paw. She forgot to breathe as he cradled it. His hands were warm, wrists like small tree trunks jutting out from frayed shirt cuffs. His touch felt electric.

  What was he doing? Did he mean to kiss her hand?

  Back when she was active in the field, she always knew what to do, how to handle a man. She’d certainly never been bewildered by one.

  He didn’t kiss it; he simply cradled it in his rough palm. Eventually, it dawned on her that it was her wound he was interested in. Sure enough, he began to work at the tape around the bandage.

  “Hey.” She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip around her fingers and continued to peel back the tape, scowling, which caused the crease between his eyes to become downright gouge-like.

  “It’s fine.”

  “I will be the judge of that,” he said, keeping hold of her as though she were an unruly child.

  She gaped at him. He would treat her like a child, now?

  Yes. Yes, he would.

  She watched, stunned, as he peeled the tape up, little by little.

  He would treat her as he wished because she was his captive. She sucked in a breath. It was insane.

  She studied his dark brows and his inky lashes, which emphasized the sharp beauty of his eyes. His face had a hard, jagged quality, especially in the harsh cut of his cheekbones. The furrow between his eyes seemed to deepen. Anger? Concern? Annoyance?

  He grunted as the bandage came up. Air rushed in around against the pink of the wound, cooling her tender skin. She felt exposed to the world.

  “See? It’s fine,” she whispered hoarsely. “It’s nothing.” The last thing she wanted was for him to get it into his head that she needed stitches.

  He kept her fingers wrapped in his and tipped his head to get a better view, cheek stubble gleaming darkly. Her heart raced as he pressed a thick, callused finger to the pink skin around the wound.

  “This. Does it hurt?” he rumbled out. Does eet hurt?

  She swallowed. “It’s fine. It’s clean. I cleaned it.”

  He raised his deep brown eyes to hers. They had just a hint of gold in them, like root beer. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not much.”

  “How much?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’ll worry about it if I wish to.” He waited for her answer, expressionless as a boulder. She amended his eye color to root beer in the sunshine. “We do not have the luxury of a hospital on every corner,” he added.

  “It doesn’t hurt. But if it gets infected, hey, Mickey Mouse can come and pick me up in a helicopter, right?” She bit her lip, thinking that was pretty funny, but he didn’t seem to, or, if he did, he showed no sign of it, other than the slight tightening of his warm grip on her arm. “Look, I washed it out with soapy water. We’re good.”

  His thick lips twisted slightly. Yeah, he could see as well as she did that it needed stitches. He let go and went to a cabinet, pulling down bandages, boxes, and bottles. She spotted an irrigation bottle.

  “Come,” he said, standing at the counter sink, holding out a hand.

  “I’m fine.”

  He frowned, hand outstretched.

  “Really, I’m good.”

  He raised his inky brows. “It was not a request. You will come over here. You will give me your arm. You will stand here quietly as I wash it properly.”

  She felt her lips part in shock, felt heat invade her face.

  “It is best.”

  Suck it up, she told herself. He just wants to wash it. She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, senses tingling.

  When she got to him, he took her hand once again, held it gently. She was close to him now—close enough that she could feel his breath on her ear as he growled, low and slow, “Was that so hard?”

  She had the weird sense that he was enjoying this.

  “Was it?” he pursued.

  “Somewhat.” She meant it humorously, but it was the truth. It was hard because he bewildered her exhausted mind, and because he felt the way she’d always imagined Kabakas would feel, and that was a mindfuck. Ever since the Friar Hovde incident, she hated people fussing over her and caring for her.

  When he didn’t do anything for a long time, she looked up into those sharp brown eyes and she had the crazy sense that he understood. It felt raw and scary. Like falling.

  He went to work, rather expertly irrigating the wound over the sink. She stood there, fully given over to his strange, rough brand of care.

  “You’re delaying dinner,” she said.r />
  “Then you’ll cook faster.”

  She bit her lip, praying for him not to get it in his head to stitch her up, much as she needed it. Of course he’d be good at it. Medievally meticulous, the way he’d been with the knives on the field. He was a man into control and precision.

  Hugo patted her skin dry.

  “Thank you.” She pulled her arm, but he didn’t let go—he kept hold, studying the wound.

  “This will require a stitch,” he said. “Perhaps two or three.”

  “No,” she said.

  “It is not a matter of debate. The cut is deep.”

  Her eyes fell to the box of vendas de mariposa—butterfly bandages—which he’d pulled down with the stuff. “Those bandages—they’ll keep the skin together. One of those would be perfect. That’s all I need. Please…”

  Again he twisted his lips. It meant something when they twisted like that; hesitation, maybe.

  “Please, Hugo,” she added softly, using his name, aware that she was pulling him, that she could pull him, affect him. It was a little bit of a thrill, like walking a bloodthirsty bear on the end of a fragile silken cord.

  “Do you remember what I said? This is not a democracy.” He released her and grabbed an ice cube from the freezer. “You will hold this to the flesh.” He pressed the ice to her wound.

  She complied, full of disbelief and awe at the way he was steamrolling her with his one-pointed confidence. She’d had that confidence once, before Friar Hovde. It was a revelation, seeing it in him, being near him. That fuck-it-all confidence. God, it was beautiful.

  It was only when you’d lost your confidence that you came to see its beauty, like a long-lost lover who will never again have you.

  He taped plastic over the rough counter and wiped down the surface with rubbing alcohol. He then snapped on latex gloves and doused them with the alcohol, rubbing his hands together to spread it around. He watched her eyes as he held his hands still, hovering them, allowing the bacteria to dry and die.

  “Seriously, Hugo—”

  “Shhh,” he said.