Undercover Twin

by Heather Woodhaven

  Lee’s stiff posture indicated he was taken off guard, but he didn’t have a chance to answer as the other intimidating man stepped forward.

  “Mrs. Kimmet, please place your purse on the belt and step through.”

  Audrey’s intentions may have been pure, but she’d been foolish to ever think she could step into Kendra’s shoes. Even in the Parent Trap movies, the twins had all summer to get to know each other. Audrey had had what? Thirty seconds?

  She stepped through the body scanner, picked up her belongings and forced herself to stride forward to meet a waiting Sylvia. The woman looked to be in her early forties, sporting silver sandals and a floral maxi dress with a slight reflective sheen as she moved. The shoes alone probably cost several weeks’ worth of Audrey’s salary.

  Sylvia beamed and gave her a once-over, a small frown creasing her otherwise smooth forehead. “A little birdie told me you were coming this week. I was hoping we would cross paths.”

  Audrey hesitated for a second and glanced over her shoulder. Security was still examining something in Lee’s suitcase. His face touted a nonchalant expression but judging by the fists at his sides, he never intended for Sylvia to have a moment alone with her.

  How would Kendra play it? Was she normally cool and loud, ready with entertaining stories at a moment’s notice? Audrey’s mind went blank in social situations, but she could always come up with questions. People loved to talk about themselves, right? Judging by Sylvia’s frown, Audrey probably appeared frumpy compared to Kendra. Travel always took it out of her. She could wrinkle any wrinkle-free clothing.

  There was only one logical way to play this. She turned back to Sylvia. “To be honest, I’m not feeling like myself.”

  Sylvia’s eyes widened, and she looked past Audrey to Lee and nodded, clearly interpreting the cause to be Lee’s fault. “Ah. I see. Too much partnership can be a bad thing. Business or personal problems?”

  Audrey shrugged. “Where to start? I don’t want to bore you, I’d rather hear about your trip to Europe.”

  The woman noticeably relaxed. “I took the liberty of perusing your itinerary. We’ll meet tonight at dinner. I only had to slip the receptionist a hundred to get her to change your reservation.”

  Audrey’s heart rate tripled. What if the Masked Network CEO was supposed to talk to her at dinner? Had Sylvia messed up their meeting? “I’m not so sure—”

  Sylvia held up a finger. “I know. I’m going to complain. It should’ve taken at least a thousand to make that happen. Don’t worry, I know all about your plans here. I won’t get in the way.” She laughed at herself before frowning. “Your lesser half is approaching. Let me know if you want me to take care of him.” She wiggled her fingers as she walked away. “Enjoy your sauna time.”

  Sauna time? Was that something Kendra enjoyed? The woman sauntered away as Lee reached her side. “What’d she say? Why was she frowning?”

  “She bribed someone to change my reservation so I could have dinner with her.”

  Lee straightened. “Good. That solves a lot of problems and explains why you’re not part of the CEO meeting if it happens tonight.”

  Solved a lot of problems? Maybe keeping her out of his hair, but it certainly made a lot of problems for her. “She also assumes we’re having marital problems and offered to take care of you. What do you think she meant by that?”

  Lee’s eyes widened and he laughed uncomfortably, almost as if the notion scared him. “Could you indicate we’re fine next time you see her? She’s never taken a shine to me.” He waved toward the reception area. “We should check in.”

  The receptionist smiled warmly, but Audrey didn’t trust anyone who sold their integrity for a hundred dollars. In fact, the more she thought about it, why should she trust a man who clearly didn’t feel it was necessary to adequately prepare her for playing the part of his partner-spouse? She didn’t even know how long they were supposed to have been pretend married!

  It was as if Sylvia had whisked away the shocked fog Audrey had been in for the past day. Her emotions needed to step away from the controls and let the researcher take the lead. This was no different than a new laboratory, with a fresh problem and volatile compounds. She could do this with the proper background information, the proper tools.

  Lee turned around with a set of papers in his hand and two keys. “We apparently arrived just in time. We have thirty minutes before our first scheduled event.”

  A man in a white polo and tan pants took their luggage and strode across the marbled floor. Above them, twenty feet in the air, a glimpse of color flashed across the skylight. “Was that a hot air balloon?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Kimmet.” The man hesitated for the briefest of seconds as if waiting for permission to keep walking. Every six feet a hallway branched out from the circular lobby. If not for the gold-plated plaques at every exit, even the employees would get lost. The man took the fifth hallway, but instead of seeing hotel room numbers, doors were labeled as massage rooms, sauna rooms and treatment rooms.

  The hallway ended and exited onto a covered outdoor path. Lee looked back over his shoulder as if everything was perfectly normal. They passed several nondescript cottages. So far she hadn’t seen very many guests, but maybe they were in these cottages planning crimes that would make her skin crawl. They stopped at a set of stairs. Lee held up the key card against the front door.

  She followed him inside and almost gasped, until she remembered she was supposed to be used to a life of luxury instead of an apartment on a teacher’s assistant stipend. Wall-to-wall glass windows made up the backside of the cottage looking out onto the Pacific Ocean. Like a magnet, she was drawn to the patio. Nothing was underneath the flooring for over a thousand feet where the ocean crashed against the rocky shore.

  “We’re at the edge of the cliffs!” She spun around to find only the employee behind her, setting down her luggage.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied. It had to take an enormous amount of control not to answer sarcastically. “I’ll leave you to enjoy your stay.”

  She didn’t even care if she appeared foolish. She spun back around to feel the ocean breeze on her face. The water below formed a teal ring close to the rocky inlet made of sand, golden brown vegetation of some sort and shiny copper rocks. Farther out, past an invisible line, the water turned a deep blue. The colors complemented each other so well, it reminded her of a makeup artist’s eye palette.

  No wonder the garage was underground. They didn’t want to waste any of the beautiful view.

  Almost more beautiful than the scenery were the plates of watercress and tuna salad with spring greens and dandelion leaves, all placed on a buttery croissant with a side of berries and little individual bottles of imported water. She didn’t wait to ask if it would be an extra charge. She stuffed one end of the sandwich into her mouth and didn’t even give the food time to melt in her mouth before she took another bite. The FBI was getting her for free. It was about time they fed her.

  Lee tipped the man as he left and joined her on the patio, eyes wide. “Hungry?”

  “You forgot to drive-through for breakfast.” She finished off the croissant and started on the berries. Though, to be fair, after having a gun pointed at her, she hadn’t had much appetite until now.

  “Oh, sorry. I don’t eat breakfast.”

  Figured. He probably lived on danger and bullets. “Maybe it’s being surrounded by criminals, but I was a little hungry.”

  Lee slid the patio door closed and swiped his hand over every nook and cranny of the outdoor furniture and the clear glass balcony. He pulled out his phone and pressed an app. Loud static marred the peaceful crashing of waves and seagull calls below. “I don’t think we’ve been bugged in there, but the outdoors is probably the safest place for us to talk. Ideally, we would have time to relax and enjoy the view, but we have to follow this itinerary to the letter.”

&nb
sp; “Are all guests given one?”

  “The club sets up schedules and meals based on the goals for your stay. Ours was planned by a certain CEO. Not a single entry lists a meeting with him. My guess is he surprises us at one of them.”

  “So you think the next thing we go to will be the meeting.”

  He shrugged. “We have to be ready for anything. The first thing on the agenda is a cold plunge session.”

  She almost spit her strawberry out. “A what?”

  “I believe you start in a sauna then you plunge in cold water. Like the kind they do in Finland. I don’t plan on actually doing it, but we need to go in case our contact is there.”

  Audrey attempted to peek around each side of their balcony to catch a glimpse of other guests, but it was impossible. The angle of the cottage was situated to guarantee privacy. Too bad she couldn’t enjoy it. She flicked a longing glance at the gigantic bed—it seemed larger than a king—and trudged to the marbled bathroom with her suitcase. “Do you need a turn first in there?”

  “There’s another bathroom past the living room, where I’ll sleep,” he explained.

  While it didn’t look like exclusive luxury standards, she figured the modest sundress and wedge sandals she had packed would seem appropriate enough to wear to a sauna. Lee had made it clear they wouldn’t need to swim. Kendra’s clothes had fit thus far, but she’d be lying if she said the waist wasn’t a little snug.

  Despite the so-called health benefits, Audrey didn’t find the idea of sitting in an enclosed room solely for the purpose of sweating to be appealing. She caught her reflection in the mirror and stared at herself. A few hairs at the nape of her neck had rebelled and curled into ringlets. Audrey never straightened her hair. Was this what Kendra looked like right now in the hospital bed? Was she still alive? Her throat tightened at the thought.

  Lee knocked on the bathroom door. “Almost ready? We’re due in five minutes.”

  Audrey cracked the door open to find him in a shirt and navy shorts that could likely pass as business casual. He didn’t look ready to relax at all.

  She wanted a chance to explore the cottage, but Lee hustled her out the door and back to the outdoor path. “Remember,” he said, “let me do all the talking, but if asked, you are a lawyer who got into laundering money and needs their services to expand.”

  “What’s the law firm called?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Kimmet & Kimmet, Attorneys at Law.”

  “Okay, that’s easy enough. Do you have real employees?”

  “Yes. To answer your next question, they all work for the CCRSB—Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch of the FBI like I do. And we should probably stop talking for now.” He opened the door to the closest entrance of the main lodge.

  A woman wearing a black and golden outfit with a name tag that read Darcy approached. “You must be the Kimmets.” She escorted them to a room with a swimming pool, hot tub and a glass wall with yet another breathtaking view. She made a beeline to a wooden wall on the right and opened the door where they stepped into a room designed to hold their personal belongings. They begrudgingly left their phones behind in the cubbies per the employee’s instructions. Electronics don’t mix well with extreme heat and humidity.

  The second wooden door had a square window in it and led them inside a cedar room. The heat hit Audrey before she could take in her surroundings. Aside from the benches, the room lacked amenities except for fresh towels, a wooden pail filled with water, a wooden ladle and a black podium filled with steaming baseball-size lava rocks.

  “We recommend a maximum of ten to fifteen minutes before exiting to plunge in the pool.” The woman set a built-in timer. “Enjoy.”

  Audrey stood awkwardly in the center of the room as Lee did the same. “Do you really think we’re going to have a business meeting in here?”

  Lee shrugged. “Let’s give it just a couple minutes. If no one joins us, let’s skip this part of the agenda.”

  They each grabbed a plush white towel and sat on opposite sides of the room. Her skin didn’t hesitate to start sweating. Toxins or no toxins, she would much rather wait poolside for the meeting, but Lee was the special agent so he probably knew better. After several minutes her head started to spin and her heart sped up. “Maybe I ate too fast, but saunas and I don’t seem to mix well.”

  Lee’s face flushed red like the beginning of an epic sunburn. “I usually like the heat, but this is an especially toasty sauna.” He stood. “I think we’ve waited long enough. Let’s get out of here.” He reached for the doorknob and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. He grabbed the wooden knob with both hands and tugged.

  Even breathing felt like effort. It was just too hot. She craved cool air against her face. “What’s going on? Why won’t it open?”

  “The doorknob won’t twist.” Lee stood on his tiptoes to look out the small square window then dropped to the ground, a grave expression on his face. “Someone doesn’t want us to leave.”

  * * *

  Lee hollered and pounded on the thick square of glass for ten full seconds before dropping his hands. All that yelling took a toll in the heat. “No one is going to hear us. There’s a second, thick wooden door before you get out of the sauna and then quite a ways before the hallway door that lets you out of the pool room.”

  Audrey placed a hand on her wet neck. “How long was our session supposed to last?”

  Each of the four walls was made of boards of cedar without so much as a gap. The place looked like a fortress except for the square window, which at the moment resembled more of a holding cell feature than a spa treatment. “The entire sauna and pool room is scheduled for our private use for an hour.”

  She closed her eyes. “We’ll be dead by then.”

  The way the temperature seemed to be rising, he didn’t argue. “Don’t give up hope. Maybe someone will come offer us food or beverage soon.” He kept his words positive, but he’d read about people who’d died staying in a normal sauna too long. The way his skin seemed to have the moisture steamed from it wasn’t natural. He’d never been in a sauna this hot. As if taunting them, the sauna timer buzzed.

  Audrey slapped the button. “Now I know I’m not panicking without good reason. We’re officially in danger. What’s blocking the door?”

  “I can’t see anything from this angle, but given the doorknob won’t move, it reminds me of penny-locking a door. It’s when pennies are wedged in—”

  “I know what it is. Why would someone do something so juvenile?”

  “In our case it’s less obvious than breaking the doorknob off so we can’t get out. It used to be a problem in correctional facilities. Prisoners would penny lock the guards in.”

  “Or in my case, the dorms. You’re saying someone wants us dead and all they have to do is come back in a while and retrieve the pennies and no one is the wiser.” She shuddered. “If that’s the case, you should be able to put pressure on the common areas that most pennies are inserted.” She stood and pointed at roughly eighteen inches above the doorknob. “I used to be a champ at getting out if someone did that to me in the dorm. They stopped trying.”

  The idea made no sense to him, but he humored her. As he pressed his shoulder into the door, she leaned over and tried to turn the knob. Her hopeful eyes turned downcast.

  “It didn’t budge?”

  “Not even a centimeter. It’s possible we’re dealing with something sturdier than pennies.” She sank back down on the bench. “I’m starting to feel a bit nauseated.”

  He didn’t want to reflect much on her statement as he was beginning to experience the same sensation. If he let it overtake him, he might as well surrender. “We need to get those rocks to stop heating.” His eyes rested on the only thing left in the room. “The bucket of water.” He moved to grab the ladle.

  “No!” Audrey reached both hands out. “Don’t
use it on the rocks. It’ll produce more steam and increase the heat index.” She pointed to the podium underneath the rocks. “The heat is electric. You’ll only cool off the rocks for a minute at the most.” She closed her eyes. “It’s better to pour the water on us.”

  Given the rate at which her skin was reddening, he handed her the ladle first. She poured a scoop over her head and passed it back for him to do the same. The relief was instant but short-lived. “I don’t think a sauna is supposed to get this hot.”

  She cringed. “I’m sure it’s not.” She dropped her head. “I wish I’d brought my phone. What do we do, Lee?”

  The crack in her voice proved his undoing. She needed him to be strong and he had no idea what to do. He forced himself back to standing and tried to bang on the door again before turning back to the rocks. He grabbed an extra towel. “If I’m fast enough, maybe I can use one of those rocks to break the window.”

  “Not before the towel smokes and starts a fire, you won’t. Then we’ll have a bigger problem. Besides, there’s no way you could create enough force to get through a double-walled window without more distance.”

  “Do you have any brilliant ideas, Doctor? The longer we wait, the weaker we become.” As if he needed another reminder that he was failing, her eyes widened and she blinked rapidly. “I didn’t mean to bark at you,” he added. “I’m running out of options.”

  Her long eyelashes fluttered until she straightened and stared past him. “The hinges. We need to get the bolts off the hinges.”

  “You might have noticed I have no tools.”

  She held up one finger as she continued to stare at the door. “Heat. Yes, though that wouldn’t be enough. The key will be constrained expansion.” Her voice trailed off as her head moved side to side, clearly talking to herself, something Kendra never did.