Benediction: Diversion Book 9

by Eden Winters

  Much.

  He hadn’t seen Bo or Johnson this morning. Bo reported to Walter’s office the moment he arrived. Johnson left the building to make phone calls and reconnect with her former coworkers at Southwestern, under the guise of comparing notes on an old case. Keith’s car sat in the parking lot, so he must be around someplace.

  Salters watched Lucky’s house. He’d damned well better be doing his surveillance outside.

  Lucky sat at his desk trying to dig up dirt on the world’s most boring man.

  For a well-known figure in drug enforcement, there wasn’t a whole lot of personal information easily gleaned on Jameson O’Donoghue. Humble, New York City upbringing, dad a cop, brother a cop. Both killed in the line of duty.

  So, O’Donoghue had to work at making something of himself. Never married. No kids. No known partner.

  He lived alone in an apartment in Atlanta, not the best neighborhood, but far from the worst. Yet O’Donoghue liked nice things, had replaced Walter’s furniture the moment he’d taken over the boss’s job, if even temporarily. The man’s salary wasn’t secret. He could easily afford a much nicer place to live.

  Instead, he rented the studio apartment of a man who didn’t intend to stay long. Or someone who planned to get a promotion and then move to one of Atlanta’s finer neighborhoods.

  Following O’Donoghue led to a lot of boring days and nights. Did the guy have no friends whatsoever? Even the weekends didn’t liven up his routine. Not surprising to Lucky, but the others of his group found it noteworthy. No social life at all? Strange, investigating a man who could step into Lucky’s cube at any moment.

  Was he wasting time, trying to find connections where none existed? His guts said no.

  His personal cell chimed with a text message. Damn it, he’d meant to hit mute. A message read, “Call me in five.”

  Cruz. Lucky strolled down the hall, rode the elevator to the parking garage, and climbed into the late model Chevy he’d gotten from a rental agency and would love to give back. A quick once-over with an RF and camera detector didn’t turn up anything of interest.

  Keith better not have given him duds, like he had O’Donoghue.

  He dialed the number.

  Cruz’s grin appeared in Lucky’s mind from the moment he started the call. “I’m in. I’ve arranged a meeting with the director of the Southwestern Narcotics Bureau’s Department of Interstate Trafficking for Wednesday afternoon. I want you with me.”

  Lucky wanted to. But… “I’ve never been to Southwestern, but someone might recognize me.”

  “Hmm…You established yourself as Ricky Getsinger, working for Vincent Mangiardi. But someone might know that name too.”

  “As much as I want to be there, it’s too risky.” Damn the luck. Walter hiring a known felon, and the felon supposedly dying, meant his face might be known. Plus, he’d worked with Southwestern on cases. He might not know the director, but the director likely knew of Lucky.

  “Let me put you on hold.” Cruz came back a few moments later. “It won’t be a problem. I’m texting an address. I want you there at six A.M. Wednesday morning. Trust me. When we get through, even your own mama won’t know you.”

  What the hell did they plan to do?

  Eleven hours to get there by car, with breaks, so he’d have to leave early in the morning to get some sleep before his six A.M. appointment. Was Lucky going to have to take a day off to manage sex with Bo?

  Walter assigning Lucky to audit a string of pharmacies in Alabama provided their cover story. Still being the boss had some privileges.

  Two days later Lucky knocked on the door of a middle of the road hotel room. He hadn’t been followed; he wasn’t being tracked. He’d checked his loaner four times. Paranoia saved lives. The night in a hotel room without Bo hadn’t been kind. His head pounded a steady tempo.

  At least his Ray-Bans protected his eyes from the bright Texas sunshine, and he’d been able to leave his jacket at his hotel. So much warmer in Houston than Atlanta.

  A young woman opened the door wearing a huge smile full of braces, framed by glittery lipstick. “Hi, I’m Viv.” She beckoned with a beringed hand sporting long, polished fingernails. “Come in. I’ve been expecting you. Cruz will be here soon.” She was a bit shorter than Lucky, maybe five-feet-four or so, with tomato red hair cropped close to her scalp on one side and touching her chin on the other. Huge dangly earrings threatened to pull her earlobes off, and the fluorescent lights glinted off an eyebrow piercing. A distinct Texas twang flavored her words.

  As did the chewing gum she popped loudly. This woman was an agent? Lucky owned socks older than her.

  Dressed in dark leggings and a white button-down tied at the bottom to expose her waist, she’d have been right at home at Ty’s school—bending the dress code.

  What looked like instruments of torture formed a neat row on the bed, and a rather uncomfortable-looking chair sat in the middle of the room.

  Were hotel rooms supposed to be this bright?

  “Sit,” she commanded. Her cocked eyebrow and scowl struck fear into Lucky’s heart. Something told him she might be small but fierce. Another cocky bantam rooster? More fashionable than Lucky, and undoubtably better mannered, but still, the woman came with attitude to spare.

  Lucky sat, facing a full-length mirror. Blood-read nails combed through his hair, lifting. Silver rings clinked together on her fingers.

  “Yes, I can really do something here,” Viv said with a happy-sounding sigh. She draped a plastic sheet over his shoulders and held it together with a hair clip. “I won’t change the color too much since Cruz says you’re not used to the level of disguises we use, but I’ll change the texture and cover the gray.”

  Cover the gray? Lucky opened his mouth to ask, “What gray?” when two taps at the door preceded Cruz waltzing into the room.

  He held a tray carrying three Starbucks cups. “Stevia, decaf, no cream, right?” Cruz lifted one leg and kicked the door closed.

  “Yeah.” Cruz remembered how Lucky took his coffee. Creepy.

  Viv wrinkled her nose, making her look even more like a high schooler. “You didn’t get me the same thing, did you?” She popped a bubble—loudly. How the hell did she chew gum with braces?

  Cruz lifted a cup and grinned. “Nope. Skinny vanilla latte with soy milk.” Lucky bit back, “Isn’t she a bit young for you to flirt with?” But he’d seen Cruz flirting. The way he eyed Viv was beyond his normal meaningful glances. No, he studied this woman like she’d hung the moon.

  Like Lucky watched Bo.

  Viv took the cup and grinned. “You’re the best.”

  “You are too, but we need to get going.” Cruz winked. Yup, there he went with the flirting again, but with more meaning somehow.

  Lucky sipped his coffee and tried not to pay too much attention to the chatter and suggestions going on behind him. His straight hair turned wavy, and two shades darker than normal. “Temporary color. It washes out after a few shampoos,” Viv explained, moving on to his eyebrows.

  She colored his brows, and shaped them to be un-Lucky-like. “I hear you got a baby on the way. Boy or girl?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “Go you! Old school!” Viv popped a bubble way too close to his ear. “I like. In my opinion, life shouldn’t be so planned out. Where’s the excitement in that?”

  Still, Lucky would like to know.

  “Got names picked out?”

  “We’ve got a short list. We can’t really decide on a name until the kid gets here. Bo’s a third, so says anything but William Patrick Schollenberger IV.” Or as Bo said, “This name needs to stop.”

  “How about your family names?” Viv continued working on him, never missing a beat.

  Lucky’d kept his naming requirements simpler. “We’re not naming a kid after a NASCAR track.”

  Viv looked from Lucky to Cruz in the mirror.

  “Don’t ask,” Cruz said, from his place on the bed, propped against the headboar
d and occasionally offering unhelpful advice like, “Think you can make him prettier?” and “you know, we could always put him in drag.”

  With a bit of glue and a lot of time, Viv attached hairs to Lucky’s upper lip and chin, a light mustache and goatee, in a similar shade to his hair. He’d gone undercover many times, but he’d never changed his appearance to this extent. Nor had he ever seen a disguise look so real.

  The jar of stuff and tiny brushes were going too far.

  “No makeup!” Lucky barked.

  Viv scowled. “How many people have you transformed for undercover work?”

  Lucky didn’t dignify her question with an answer.

  “Thought so. Now, shut up and let me work.” The defiant tilt of her chin reminded him so much of Charlotte—and Bo.

  He wanted to be home.

  She didn’t coat his face in goop, but simply ran a brush over his cheek—repeatedly, and a few other areas, but not his whole face. Cruz blocked his view of the mirror. Viv exchanged one jar of goop for another. “I’m giving you a scar. Nothing too graphic, but noticeable.”

  He wanted to see, damn it!

  The woman paying entirely too much attention to Lucky’s face stepped back with a grin. “Pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. What do you think?” she asked Cruz.

  Cruz climbed off the bed and posed, hand on his chin. He leaned right and left, raised a brow, circled, and otherwise got on Lucky’s last nerve. “He’ll do. He definitely doesn’t look like Simon Harrison.”

  Viv opened the closet. “Now for the clothes.”

  Black slacks, black turtleneck of some super-soft material, which appeared expensive, but not new. Yup, they had to look like he’d worn them before. All-new clothes could tip off suspects. “Take off your shirt.”

  Of the two people in the room with him, Lucky feared Viv more than Cruz. Some of the things she’d spread out on the bed could probably kill a man. He removed his shirt.

  “Give me a hand with this?” she asked, dragging something out of a black canvas bag.

  Lucky almost got a peek in the mirror as Cruz helped Viv pull a padded garment over his head. Next came the turtleneck, stretched at the neck to avoid ruining the cosmetics. Lucky hated the things, felt like they were choking him. Viv patted his chest, the thick undergarment dulling the sensation. “This adds a few pounds, but it’s also got Kevlar, so works as a tactical vest too. It won’t hold up to large caliber at point blank, but it should do the trick for most situations you find yourself in.”

  He went into the bathroom to change his pants—a man had to retain some pride.

  “No peeking!” Viv called through the door.

  Lucky looked up, to find the mirror covered with brown paper duct taped to the surface.

  When he emerged, Cruz handed him a zippered plastic bag. “Put this in your mouth.”

  “Excuse me?” Lucky tried to figure out the piece of plastic. What the hell was that thing?

  “Stick that into the roof of your mouth.” Cruz pantomimed shoving something to the top of his pallet.

  Ow! On the third try Lucky managed to wriggle the plastic into a somewhat comfortable position. “What’s this for?” The lightbulb came on the moment Lucky tried to talk. The appliance changed his speech. Not garbled enough to be misunderstood, but enough to make him sound totally different.

  “You might not have to speak at all, but if you do, you won’t sound like yourself,” Viv explained.

  “Shoes.” Cruz eyed Lucky with enough scrutiny to kick Lucky’s paranoia up a notch.

  Lucky slipped the offered shoes on and nearly fell over. He stood a good two inches taller than normal.

  Cruz handed him a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. “Now for these.”

  “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with my eyes.” Not that he’d admit to, at any rate.

  “Didn’t say there was. These are clear, tinted glass.”

  Lucky put the glasses on.

  “Now, look.” Judging by Cruz and Viv’s grins, he might soon become the butt of someone’s joke.

  He stared at himself in the full-length mirror.

  Darker, wavy hair, gelled into some semblance of style. The glass lenses made his eyes appear darker for some reason. The bit of facial hair and whatever other magic Viv worked took about ten years off his age.

  “Try not to smile too much. We don’t want wrinkles around the eyes.” Viv touched a finger to the crow’s feet he’d rather not acknowledge.

  Lucky nearly growled.

  “I don’t think that will be a problem,” Cruz assured her. “He’s already smiled twice this year. I think that’s his quota.”

  Liv circled him, admiring her handiwork with the occasional grin or “oooh!”. “The goal is to make you completely forgettable, to have you fade into the background. You don’t look like yourself, but your disguise isn’t obvious, nor will it draw attention. If you need to do a quick change, peel the scar off first. It’s noticeable enough that if someone is looking for you, they’ll hone in on men with facial scars.”

  “Quick change?”

  “I’ll show you in a minute.”

  His nose appeared narrower, and snubbed; his jawline more defined. A scar ran across his cheek, that could have been the result of a knife fight. The man in the mirror also weighed about twenty pounds more than Lucky, though the padding appeared more muscle than fat.

  A hired gun.

  “Take a turn on the catwalk,” Viv ordered, using two fingers to simulate walking, then making a turning motion with her finger. “I was going to put a marble in your shoe to give you a limp, but it looks like you already have one. Play it up, okay, but only if you can maintain it. You don’t want to slip out of character at some point and change your gait.”

  In these foot torture devices? Not likely. Lucky almost fell on his second step. The shoes took some getting used to.

  Cruz scrutinized him again. “Yes, yes. I can see it.” He faced Viv. “I didn’t think anybody could un-Lucky Lucky, but you managed.”

  Even Lucky couldn’t see Lucky in the mirror. He’d become someone completely different.

  “Thank you.” Viv preened and dipped in a curtsey. “Oh!” She shoved a hand into her handbag, brought out a bottle, and gave Lucky a liberal spray. “Between the clothes and cologne, you now reek of money. Plus, the cologne hides the smell of the hair color and makeup. You’ll also need this.” She attached a crucifix around his neck.

  “Aren’t religious symbols and drug trafficking an odd mix?” Lucky fingered the pendant.

  Viv swatted his hand away. “You’d be surprised. Don’t fiddle with it. You’re supposed to be used to wearing this. It has a tracker and microphone.”

  Cruz took a few pictures with a digital camera. “Hand me your wallet.” He extended a hand.

  The last few hours left Lucky reeling. “Excuse me?”

  “Your wallet.”

  Lucky handed it over, with extreme reservation.

  Cruz handed him one back. “Your name is Eric Howard. You have an outstanding warrant for breaking and entering, and attempted murder charges against you were dismissed. I’ve already provided your name to my contacts. They’ll have researched you, and me. I’m having your new driver’s license delivered to my hotel.”

  Cruz’s connections worked a whole lot faster than the SNB’s.

  With a trademark grin, Cruz dropped into the chair. “Viv, my love, do your worst!”

  It took only a few moments to add crows’ feet to Cruz’s eyes, and a few gray hairs to his head. No big change, but he now looked old enough to have headed a drug trafficking outfit for a while.

  “So, you’re posing as Nestor Sauceda’s successor to his drug cartel in Valle Hermosa.” Cruz certainly looked the part.

  Cruz nodded, more to the mirror in front of him than Lucky. “That I am. Now. My hotel is being watched, so I’ll slip in the back way and get dressed.” He texted on his phone. Lucky’s chimed. “That’s the hotel address.” He dropped a set of keys in
to Lucky’s hand. “These are to the black Escalade on the other side of the parking lot. Join me in an hour. Leave the vehicle in the main parking area and wait in the lobby. Text me, and I’ll come down. We’re going a few places to be seen, and give you time to practice your role. At four o’clock, you’ve gotta give the performance of a lifetime.”

  “My car?”

  “We’ll make sure it gets back to the SNB. You won’t be needing it. You’re taking another ride home.”

  “Oh, one more thing before you go.” Viv yanked off her red wig, shook out a brown bob, untied the bottom of her shirt and smoothed it down her thighs to settle over her leggings. A wipe of a tissue cleared away the glittery lipstick, and dulled the bright magenta eye shadow to a soft mauve. She popped out blue contacts to show brown eyes that she covered with a pair of plastic-rimmed glasses, and pulled the fake braces from her mouth. Two tugs removed the dangly earrings, leaving a pair of understated silver studs, and she popped off what must have been a glue-on eyebrow piercing. One by one she peeled off the garish nails, leaving her nails shorter and a soft pink. A bevy of rings came off last.

  She picked up a belt from her things scattered on the bed and wrapped it around her waist. Lastly, she spit her gum into the trashcan, donned a dark blue jacket, and traded her flats for heels, shooting her height closer to Lucky’s.

  Thirty seconds. In thirty seconds, she’d gone from a college girl no one would take seriously, to a thirty-something businesswoman. She’d still blend in with a crowd. Anyone looking for the redhead would walk right by this woman.

  Impressive as all hell. Quick change. Lesson learned.

  Every trace of Texas left her voice, replaced by a lilting French accent. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Lucky.”

  Cruz wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She leaned against him with a soft smile. “Lucky, I’d like you to meet my fiancée, Vivienne.” He laughed at the shock on Lucky’s face.

  Which nearly made Lucky forget, if only for a moment, the performance he’d soon have to give.