Cold in the Shadows 5 (38 page)

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Read the first chapter of RITA® Award-winning and
USA Today
bestselling author, Carolyn Crane’s latest Associates book,
Behind the Mask
.

Behind the Mask
(
Undercover Associates
)

by Carolyn Crane

Copyright © 2015

ISBN: 9780988313163

BEHIND THE MASK

TO SAVE HER TWIN SISTER SHE MUST SWITCH PLACES WITH HER…

When her long lost sister—a prostitute—is won in a card game by a brutal drug cartel, Zelda knows what she has to do: take her place. Save her. Focus on infiltrating the shadowy group on behalf of the Associates, and try not to think about why she left the spying game years ago. She’s slept with dangerous criminals before; she can do it again.

Hugo Martinez is one of South America’s most lethal and wanted men, a legendary mercenary living on a windswept mountain. Even at the height of the war he wasn’t in the habit of taking women captive, but the American whore has seen his face. And he and the orphan boy need a cook. He shouldn’t want this woman, but there’s something so unusual about her…

Little by little, Zelda finds herself falling for her captor…but is he the killer she’s been hunting all these years?

Chapter One

Miami

Z
ELDA ROOTED THROUGH
her twin sister Liza’s suitcase; the thing was pink and orange and studded with rhinestones in true Liza style. It squeezed Zelda’s heart.

Zelda would carry it now. She’d do whatever it took to save her sister, including taking her place.
Won in a card game by a brutal drug cartel
. Liza could never survive that.

But Zelda could.

Liza brought over a pair of fuck-me heels, looking apologetic. Liza had looked apologetic a lot over the past twelve hours. “They’re a little crazy, but it’s what I’d wear,” Liza said.

Zelda took them and ran her finger over one spiked heel, thankful for the closed toes. She didn’t want Liza to see her toes. The men she needed to fool definitely couldn’t see them.

“Mikos knows they’re my favorites, though,” Liza continued. “It’s what I’d wear on a day like this. To make myself feel better…
you know.
” This last in an angry whisper.

Zelda nodded, glad Mikos would recognize the shoes. A strong visual cue went a long way toward fooling people, and she’d need all the help she could get during the twenty-minute limo ride to the airport. Even an active field agent would have a hard time fooling a shrewd and paranoid drug dealer like Mikos, and Zelda was six years retired.

Liza insisted that Mikos had no idea she had a twin, but you had to expect the worst.

“You probably can’t walk in them.”

“Oh, I can walk in them.” Zelda had walked in plenty of shoes like that. She put them aside and grabbed the bottle of red nail polish and shook it, feeling like she might actually throw up. When she looked up next, she found her twin watching her, pretty lips parted, eyes sparkling. The look brought her straight back to their childhood.

They hadn’t spoken for years, but in some ways, it was as if she’d seen Liza just yesterday. “When you were a
spy
, you mean? You would wear shoes like this when you were a fucking spy? Because, fuck, Zelda!”

“Field agent,” Zelda corrected for the umpteenth time.

“Fuck,” Liza said. “You were out chasing bad guys in different countries and wearing disguises and stuff, so I’m going with spy. All this time I thought you were a botanist, and instead you’re this spy?”

“I was still doing some botany as an agent.” Plants could tell you a lot, like whether a body had been moved and how long it had been there. Forensic botany was how she got into the CIA.

“So wild.” Liza was impressed. She shouldn’t be; a lot of spying, especially for the female agents, was done on your back. She and Liza hadn’t turned out so differently after all.

“I’m best behind a desk,” Zelda mumbled, although the truth was that she’d loved being in the field, loved being out there making a difference. Until a good agent had been killed because of her.

“You used to say the CIA did bad things. When we were in high school? Remember? You always had so many opinions on everything.”

“All the more reason to get involved. If you don’t like something, change it, right?” She was shaking the nail polish again, way too vigorously. She forced herself to put it down. “Tell me the limo ride like a movie. How you see it going in your mind.”

“I’ll show you.” Liza sat on the couch, draping a hand over the back and crossing her legs. Her pose was relaxed, cool, and angry all at once. “Because this is how I feel. Pissed. But not beaten. Don’t sit up all straight and attentive, like you are right now, or he’ll suspect. This kind of sitting says, ‘I’m fun. I’m the joy in your life, and you ruined it.’ That’s how I would be to make him feel bad for handing me over to some creep.” Liza shifted, looking relaxed and elegant now. “The way you take up space changes everything.”

God, that big attitude. That had always been the beauty of Liza—the wild, fabulous twin.

Again Zelda picked up the bottle of nail polish and shook it, wondering if she could put it on without trembling. She’d need to make up some excuse about why she didn’t put it on her toes.

“Or this.” Liza shifted into another pose. Liza always had a knack for transforming herself into the picture of leisure fun.

Zelda didn’t actually need this lesson. She had Liza down cold—they used to switch places all the time, but Liza needed to feel like she was contributing.

“Mikos will want to fuck in the back of the limo,” Liza continued, “but under no circumstances would I fuck him. He feels bad—he won’t press it. I loved him. If he tries anything, you tell him, ‘I’m not a fucking poker chip to be lost in a card game. Some possession to be gambled away like cattle.’” The tears were starting now. It broke Zelda’s heart. Through all the trouble between them, all the hell of Liza’s drug addiction, she’d never stopped loving her sister.

“Okay, let me try.” Zelda changed her posture and mimicked Liza’s smooth tone. “I’m not a fucking poker chip to be lost in a card game like cattle, Mikos. Some possession to gamble away. So fuck you,” she added.

“Exactly. Motherfucker.” Liza grabbed a tissue and dabbed her eyes.

“Here—help me with this.” Zelda held out the nail polish.

Liza tossed the tissue and took the bottle, sniffling as she unscrewed the top. She grabbed hold of Zelda’s fingers. “You’re shaking.”

“Too much caffeine.”

Liza smiled uncertainly. Could she tell that Zelda had no business going back into the field? It wasn’t just about being out of practice. It was about what happened with Friar Hovde. It was about getting Agent Randall killed. It was about the way guilt operated in the heart of an agent, every bit as lethal as a ticking time bomb.

Liza drew a thick, gleaming swath of red over Zelda’s fingernail. “I’m so sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“I’m done with all that life, I promise,” Liza said. “I really promise this time—I won’t fuck up on you again. I’m so, so sorry—”

“Stop it. Look at me.”

Liza finished a nail and lifted her gaze.

“I’m your sister, okay? And seriously, this is a gift. Do you know how great it is to get inside that cartel right now? Inside Brujos’s ugly, stupid palace? We’re going to get something we desperately need because of you.”

Liza looked dubious, but it was true. The Association had never been able to get on the inside with Brujos and infiltrate his cartel. The timing couldn’t be better. A nice, juicy file full of damaging intel on Brujos was a bargaining chip they could use to prevent a serious disaster that was brewing on the other side of the equator.

“Easy in and out,” Zelda said. Instantly, she regretted her choice of words. They both knew she might have to fuck a few bad men before the thing was done. “It’s so nothing,” she added.

“
So nothing
.” Liza frowned and concentrated on the nails. “You are so full of shit.”

Zelda used Liza’s voice. “You are so full of shit.”

“God, you’re me.” Liza moved on to another nail. “Fucking Mikos. He could’ve sent a runner to get a million bucks to put in the pot, you know?” She sniffed. “A million is nothing to Mikos. He promised me he’d win the hand. He was so sure. And suddenly all the guys are throwing down their cards, and Mikos goes, ‘I’ll have her on a plane in twenty-four hours.’ Like I’m a kilo or something. On a plane to fucking Mexico. We were going to be married.”

Zelda nodded. She hadn’t said it, but she didn’t believe Mikos would have married Liza. She’d known a lot of guys like Mikos. Guys like that would say anything. You could never let yourself feel warm toward them.

Liza’s eyes went to the track marks on Zelda’s arm. Temporary tattoos. They’d stay on there at least two weeks. “Fuck,” she said.

“Stop it. We’re good. Okay?” Zelda stared into her eyes. It was like looking in a mirror—that was how completely she and Zelda had switched appearances.

Liza moved on to the other hand. Just hours ago, they’d colored Liza’s crazy bright platinum blonde hair brown, and they’d dyed Zelda’s dark brown hair platinum. They’d trimmed Liza’s hair to match Zelda’s cut, and now they both had shoulder-length hair. Liza had styled Zelda’s bright new hair all Marilyn Monroe. “You’ll just say you got a cut for your stint as a cartel leader’s whore,” Liza had said bitterly. “I would totally do something like that.”

“Good. Perfect,” Zelda said. “Perfect.”

Zelda and various IT guys had erased the link between Zelda and her family many years ago—way back when Zelda had joined the CIA. The idea had always been to protect Liza, not to mention their mother and father in their pretty little home in Okinawa. Now the erased link would protect Zelda; nobody could know she was a twin.

“I can’t believe you’re an agent.”

“Retired,” Zelda said. “And I can’t believe you wouldn’t come to me with this.”

Silence.

Stupid question.
Because why would she come to Zelda after Zelda had ejected her from her life? Zelda had used her connections to bail Liza out of jams over the years, but the last time had jeopardized her CIA career. It was then she’d gone the tough-love route, telling her she couldn’t help her as long as she was using drugs. Yeah, it had to happen, but it had never felt much like love.

“Brujos is a horrible man,” Liza said. “I’ve met him.”

“I’ll just have to be more horrible. If he’s not careful, I may have to put soap on his motherfucking toothbrush. See how he likes that.”

Liza snorted. Soap on the toothbrush was a mean move from teen days gone by. “You always tried to protect me, Zelda. Remember that time when the kids were squishing poison berries in my hair by the swing? You were like a shining warrior. I should’ve known you’d fight for right. You always tried to protect everyone. You always had a passion that way—a passion for justice.”

Zelda smiled wistfully. Passion for justice wasn’t enough, unfortunately. Nobody in their right mind would put her in the field now.

But nobody could stop her. That was one of the advantages of helping to head up the secretive and powerful Association—nobody told them what to do. No officials. No governments. No corporations. She and Dax sent their agents—the Associates—on dangerous missions every day, taking down international criminals and terrorists, preventing flare-ups and massacres. Only fair that she’d be willing to get out there and risk herself.

In and out. It would be easy. Nothing.

Zelda looked longingly at the glasses Liza now wore.
Her
glasses. Zelda hadn’t worn contacts since her field agent days, and of course, Liza couldn’t have normal contacts. They had to be an insane shade of green—dazzling with the bleached hair. Their mother was Japanese; their father of mostly European ancestry. This mix of genes had allowed Zelda to pass for different ethnicities in global hot spots in her agent days, though she’d never gone quite so blonde.

“I have something for you.” Liza closed up the nail polish and handed her a small paper sack. Zelda took it and looked inside. Blue and yellow Jelly Belly jelly beans.

“Oh, Liza.” The blues were blueberry, and the yellows were buttered popcorn. When you put two blueberries with one popcorn, you got a blueberry muffin. It was Zelda’s favorite candy, what she always got after doing something successful, a childhood habit. “But I only get to eat these after a mission is accomplished.”

“I’m not going on to a plane right now to be prostituted to Brujos,” Liza said, “because you’re taking my place. Because of your bravery. Because you saved me. Mission accomplished.”

Zelda crinkled the small bag, tears heating her eyes. She spoke without looking up. “You’ll stay in that safe house, right? Don’t listen to anybody outside of my guys. You’ll be bored—”