Studying Scarlett the Grey

by Kelle Z Riley

  Kelle Z. Riley

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by E. H. Kelle Zeiher (Riley)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover Artist: Jaycee DeLorenzo, Sweet ’N Spicy Designs

  ISBN 978-1-63795-920-6

  To the real life “Grant” and “Norah”

  and to their parents Mitchell and Bethany

  Thank you for lending your names to two of my readers’ favorite characters! And most of all, thank you for being such a wonderful part of my life!

  I love you.

  Acknowledgments

  This work would not be possible without the help of many. Thanks go to:

  My “neighbor” Pepper, the African Grey Parrot whose antics inspired Scarlett.

  The Crazy Buffet Club writers, for being a constant source of inspiration and prodding.

  Author Denise Swanson, for continued support and inspiration in this crazy business.

  My writer community—CARA; Windy City RWA, GRW, TGN, CWG. If you can figure out the alphabet soup, you know who you are! Your encouragement, advice, critiques and support keep me motivated, sane, and humble.

  My science colleagues—you know who you are. You inspire my characters!

  My wonderful editor, Tina Winograd, who always knows when to push for “more” and never lets me get lazy. Thank you for making my books better.

  My cover designer, Jaycee DeLorenzo of Sweet ‘N Spicy Designs for creating such excellent branding.

  My formatter Katie Salidas, for her excellent advice.

  Most of all to my beloved husband, Tom Riley. If this dedication never changes, it is because you are an unfailing constant in my life. You are my cheerleader, unpaid assistant, the one who lifts my spirit when I’m down, and, of course, baker extraordinaire. You light up my life and make everything worthwhile—and much more fun! I love you.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  The Undercover Cat Mysteries

  Author’s Notes

  Experiments from Bree’s Recipe Book

  About The Author

  Chapter 1

  Bree Watson curled her hands around the paper coffee cup, but its feeble heat didn’t penetrate the icy chill in her fingers.

  So much for the notion that California temperatures were always balmy. A stiff wind whipped across San Francisco Bay, chasing away the afternoon warmth and sending tendrils of fog twining among the uprights of the Golden Gate Bridge.

  She huddled deeper into her Halloween inspired I survived Pier 39 souvenir sweatshirt, wishing she’d donned more than a long-sleeved tee shirt and her adventure vest for her sight-seeing trip.

  The multi-pocket adventure vest—her favorite travel accessory—kept her valuables out of reach of pickpockets but did nothing to keep out the cold which knifed through her.

  Turning from the view of the bay, she headed to the main section of the pier, tempted to purchase a second overpriced sweatshirt when a shiver of a different kind prickled her skin. The vibration of her phone in her vest pocket followed.

  Bree activated her hidden earpiece. “Watson here.”

  Her colleague Milt Shoemaker—code named Shoe—responded. “Project Isomer is a go.”

  Named for clever mirror image molecules, the complex mission involved two sets of look-alike agents, at least five mission objectives, and a hefty dose of smoke-and-mirrors misdirection. Bree focused her attention on the mission, calling on her Sci-Spy training to block distractions. Without total concentration from this point onward the mission could fail.

  “Tugood’s airplane is approaching U.S. airspace,” Shoe said, referring to their boss. “I expect him on the ground and through customs in forty minutes.”

  “That’s cutting it close.” Bree’s words came in labored huffs as she hurried down the pier toward the parking garage, calculating the time it would take her to drive to the airport.

  “I’ll buy you as much time as I can. You’ll need ten minutes to get from the rental car garage to where the switch takes place.”

  “Or Sasha can freeze her little Russian butt off while she waits for me,” Bree muttered, sprinting up the stairs two at a time to the garage level.

  Shoe’s laugh reverberated across the line. “I’d like to see that. Unfortunately, my part in this little operation requires me to be far away from her.”

  “Lucky you.” Bree slid into the car and started the engine.

  “I’ll call again once Tugood lands, and we’ll patch into his com.”

  “Will our conversation be shielded?”

  “The communication protocol will let us hear him, but he won’t hear us. Neither will anyone else. Good luck.” Shoe disconnected, leaving Bree alone with her thoughts as she wound her way out of the parking garage and through the streets.

  Six weeks ago, she’d been with Matthew Tugood on the Pacific Rim, ferreting out a suspected terrorist. Then he’d met up with his former partner, Sasha, and sent Bree home while he accompanied the sexy Russian spy to undisclosed places.

  The reunion of the former partners put an end to Bree’s illusions that there might be more between her and Matthew than a simple working relationship. Bree was just a curvy chemist learning the spy trade. One who couldn’t compete with a svelte, seasoned operative like Sasha.

  Bree eased into a line of vehicles and stepped on the brake waiting for the others as ramp traffic lights merged them, one-by-one, onto the southbound 101. She pulled her blond wig from a duffel bag on the passenger seat and stuffed her own brown hair beneath the curling synthetic strands.

  She inched the car forward then braked again, giving her a few minutes to don a wide brimmed hat and sunglasses. As each block passed, Bree transformed, one layer at a time, into her character.

  A Sasha clone.

  She snorted. No one with eyes would mistake the two of them unless Sasha’s disguise included several inches of padding. But people saw what they wanted to see.

  She checked the time and eyed the traffic ahead. Breathe, Bree, breathe. Drawing on her high school acting lessons, she immersed herself in her spy character. She was no longer Dr. Bree Mayfield-Watson, chemist. She was Cat Holmes, undercover operative for the Sci-Spy organization.

  By the time her turn came to merge onto the freeway, calm replaced her earlier frantic actions.

  “This is the easy part,” she muttered. A Harrod’s of London shopping bag in the car’s trunk had the items Sasha requested. Swapping bags with the spy at the airport w
as nothing compared to smuggling disassembled tech and weapons into San Francisco then reassembling them for the transfer.

  Bree grinned, knowing Sasha was getting more than she requested. Not that she’d realize it. Grant Mitchelson, the newest addition to the Sci-Spy team, had created micro-tracking devices and other surprises embedded in the equipment. Sasha may have once been Matthew Tugood’s partner, but he clearly didn’t trust her.

  Bree’s earpiece crackled to life. “Watson?”

  “Here,” she replied to Shoe.

  “Tugood just touched down. Once the coms are active, I have to hustle through airport security and get ready to meet him in the airline lounge.”

  “What if Sasha sticks with him?”

  The plan depended on Shoe boarding Tugood’s plane to Chicago, complete with Matthew Tugood’s luggage and identity, while Matthew slipped away to meet Bree, free from any surveillance Sasha may have planted on him.

  “She won’t. She needs the package you’re supplying more than she needs to follow him. Remember,” Shoe’s voice dropped low, urgency threading the words, “you’ll hear them both up to the point he ditches the coms he shared with Sasha. He’s playing a role with her.”

  “He’s always playing a role, Shoe. Even with us.”

  “Trust your team.”

  Bree bit her tongue. Now was not the time to remind Shoe of all the roles Matthew had played in their short association—married marketing colleague, spy handler, fake boyfriend, corporate lackey in a company he owned. The list went on. “Good luck with impersonating Tugood,” she said, pushing Matthew’s many faces aside.

  Shoe chuckled. “Playing a weary, nondescript businessman headed home after a long international trip isn’t hard.” Bree could picture him, fading into the background like a good agent. Seeing, but not seen.

  “Bree?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve got this. Be yourself and ignore Sasha. Your advantage is that she’s likely to underestimate you.”

  “Copy that.”

  Shoe left the conversation and minutes later Matthew's and Sasha’s voices filtered through the earpiece.

  “Are you sure you won’t come to D.C. with me, Matthew?” Sasha’s husky plea ended with an emphasis that made Bree wonder, yet again, what the man’s real name was. Surely "Matthew Too-good-to-be-true" was just an alias for a man she’d never know in any real sense.

  “My team is based in Chicago.”

  “You mean the inept chemist you allow to play at being a spy?” Her voice hissed through the connection as if she’d breathed directly into the ear where Matthew wore his com device. “It’s so cute to see you indulge her fantasies.”

  “It amuses me.” Sounds of lips meeting in a hasty kiss filled the dead air. Bree’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the steering wheel and scanned the deadlocked freeway ahead of her. “And it gets you the package you need.”

  Package. Unregistered firearms, surveillance equipment, and other items a Russian national couldn’t easily obtain in the U.S.

  “Cell phones off,” an unfamiliar voice shouted through the com. “No cameras. Have your passports and customs forms ready.”

  Bree listened, following Matthew and Sasha’s progress, envisioning the lines that snaked around the hallways at passport control. Snippets of conversation—mostly grumbles from exhausted travelers—mingled with Sasha’s innuendo-laden comments and Matthew’s replies.

  Bree spotted the airport exit and inched her way across three lanes of traffic while Matthew chatted with a customs agent. By the time she’d entered the rental car return garage, Matthew and Sasha had passed the baggage checkpoint, claiming, and rescanning their baggage as required at U.S. ports of entry.

  “Is this really good-bye, my love?” Sasha’s husky voice poured over the coms.

  “We’ll always have Moscow. And our memories.” More kissing sounds—Bree wanted to gag—followed Matthew’s words.

  Shit. Despite the relatively warm air in the garage, an icy chill encased Bree’s fingers as she exited the car. They’d finished the entry process sooner than expected. She jammed her arms into the cheap tan trench coat Matthew had insisted she wear and pulled on a pair of gloves.

  Damn Tugood for his idea to have her and Sasha dress like some cartoon spy characters. She cinched the belt—barely—over her layers of clothing and dragged a nondescript black suitcase, her briefcase, and the Harrod’s of London bag from the car, hustling as fast as she could for the tram that connected the rental car lobby to the International terminal.

  Unease prickled along her spine, mingling with sweat from too many layers of clothing. Bree squeezed herself and her luggage into the crowded tram, focusing on the mission ahead instead of the stench and noise of the congested space.

  Planning the mission was the difficult part, not the execution. All she had to do was locate Sasha outside the terminal, switch Harrod’s shopping bags with her, and catch a shuttle to her hotel. Easy.

  But thoughts of Tugood’s former partner—and her possible reasons for needing the package Bree carried—caused the unease to pool in Bree’s gut. Be yourself. She’ll underestimate you. Shoe’s reassurance focused Bree, settling her nerves.

  Eight and a half minutes later, she exited at the International terminal, crossed the polished floors, headed down an escalator, and left the building at the curbside pickup site.

  Sasha, looking perfect in her version of the hat and trench coat, stood beside a glass enclosed seating area filled with people and luggage. Bree adjusted her bags, approached from Sasha’s free side, and placed her distinctive shopping bag next to the identical one at Sasha’s feet.

  The woman glanced at her watch then trained her eyes on the hotel vans in the pickup lane. “You’re late.”

  “And you’re lucky I agreed to help you at all.” Bree eyed a shuttle with her hotel’s logo on it, wishing the mission allowed her to board and leave the irritating Russian behind.

  Sasha pulled a mirror and lipstick from her purse. “Our mutual friend,” she said, angling the mirror so she could see Bree in its reflection, “isn’t the man you think he is. Don’t waste your time indulging in romantic fantasies.”

  She abandoned the pretense of looking in the mirror and turned to Bree, her lips settling into a thin, hard sneer. Faint crow’s feet accented the cold glare in her eyes. “And for God’s sake, stop playing dress-up to try to fit into his world. You look ridiculous.”

  Sasha grabbed Bree’s bag and stalked away, disappearing into a car that pulled up to the curb as she approached.

  Bree turned her back on the crowds and rummaged through her briefcase, anger pulsing through her, sweeping away traces of doubt she’d had. “Little witch,” she mumbled as she extracted a one-inch square cube from the case.

  She activated a switch and set the black and yellow “bumblebee” drone into motion. With a quick flick of her hand, she launched it and watched as it rose, undetected above the crowds and set off after Sasha’s getaway car.

  The tiny drone, developed by one of the Sci-Spy tech team, followed signals emitted from the items they’d supplied to Sasha. Over the next hours, it would track, record, and send reports of her motions to the Sci-Spy team.

  Bree lingered a few minutes until another transport with her hotel’s logo pulled up. Activating another bumblebee—set to track her own motions and those of anyone following her—she hopped into the bus and settled in a seat.

  Mission complete.

  Matthew rolled his shoulders as he entered the airline lounge, relieved to have parted from Sasha’s clinging presence. He removed his earpiece, wrapped it in a tissue, and dropped it in a trashcan as he approached the check in desk.

  “Washroom key, please,” he requested, looking forward to a few minutes in the private showers provided in the airline lounge.

  He entered the washroom corridor, automatically scanning the area for cameras. Shoe stood at the door to a washroom, pointi
ng to the lone camera between the hallway and the main room. “Secure,” he mouthed.

  Matthew nodded, then stepped into the adjoining washroom where he deposited his luggage, outer clothing, and shoes. He quickly switched rooms with Shoe, removed and bagged the rest of his clothing and passed it over to his partner.

  Shoe would take any surveillance equipment Sasha had planted on Matthew’s clothing or luggage with him to Chicago—perpetuating the ruse that Matthew had, in fact, followed the plan he’d outlined to Sasha.

  Matthew ducked under the shower spray, nearly groaning with pleasure as the hot water loosened his muscles. He lathered his hands and scrubbed his body and hair, rinsing and lathering like a germaphobe until he was confident any tracking devices Sasha had planted on his person were also gone.

  Once dressed in fresh clothing from the set of luggage Shoe had left for him, Matthew settled into a corner of the lounge, inserted a new com, and opened the fresh laptop.

  A few clicks later, he logged into a secure, shielded site and checked on the tracking drones. Bree had launched them perfectly, as he knew she would. The drone tracking Sasha’s progress indicated several things.

  One, her car was stuck in Bay Bridge traffic. Two, she’d deactivated—or ditched—her cell phone; and three, the protocol linking the tech she was carrying to the Sci-Spy servers was working perfectly. Confident he’d be able to track her moves, at least for a while, he checked the other drone.

  Camera feeds showed Bree exiting a courtesy shuttle at a site far from the rooms she’d booked. Right hotel chain. Wrong location. She sailed through the doors, head high.

  Matthew turned the drone in a slow circle, sweeping the parking lot. A dark, gleaming sedan pulled into the entrance, taking the spot vacated by the hotel shuttle.

  Tinted windows. Matthew zoomed in on the license plate, only to find it obscured by a thick layer of mud. In drought-ridden California. He directed the lens toward the vin number on the windshield but the tint—or other measures obscured it as well.