Behind the Mask (Undercover Associates Book 4) by Carolyn Crane

imagined swiping his thumb over it. Her skin would be warm and slick with sweat.
    The drips had to tickle, but she made no effort to wipe them away. She sat there in a hot jumpsuit in the blistering midmorning heat without complaint. Keeping her thoughts to herself with that blank face. Not stupid, this one.
    He swallowed as another drip of sweat ran down the middle of her forehead, tracing the straight, proud line of her nose until it slid down the side and over her nostril. A woman sweating, face perfectly blank, swaying gently in the back of a Jeep. A man could be lost in just this.
    He tore his gaze away. Perhaps she was thinking about her next fix. Most of the whores around the drug trade were addicted to coca and the many perversions of coca that Americans enjoyed devising. Perhaps she imagined Valencia as a paradise.
    She’d find out differently.
    “Give her your hat,” he said to the boy.
    The boy frowned. He liked his baseball cap, but they were nearing Bumcara now. It would not do to parade her bright and memorable hair through Bumcara.
    He grabbed it off the boy’s head. “Now it is hers to keep.” He extended it back toward Liza.
    “I don’t need a cap,” she said.
    His blood raced hot as she watched him, defying him. He could still remember the way her hair had felt between his fingers as he’d held her to him, keeping her out of the line of sight of that dog of a messenger he’d sent back to El Gorrion. He would like to feel her hair again. “Did I not command it?”
    She reached out and took the cap and she pressed it over her head, expression blank. Too blank.
    “You’re not in America now, you’re in Valencia. You are part of my household, and it is not a democracy.” He turned back around.
    “You commanded him to give it to me, not for me to take it and put it on.”
    Next to him, the boy went still, but Hugo had no doubt that his eyes twinkled at the small uprising.
    “You will wear the cap until we are home,” he said.
    She smiled at the boy as she fit the cap over her head. “What’s your name?”
    “Paolo,” he said.
    “Hi, Paolo,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you. My name is Liza.” She waited expectantly for the boy to reply.
    Hugo gave him a threatening glare.
    “Hello, Liza,” the boy said tonelessly. “My name is Paolo.”
    “What is his name?” She pointed at Hugo.
    The boy pretended to concentrate on his driving.
    “Hugo,” Hugo said.
    “How old are you, Paolo?” she asked.
    The boy looked at him again, uncertain.
    “How many years…” She held up her fingers, then pointed at him. “How many years do you have?” She pointed at herself. “I am thirty-eight years old.”
    Hugo studied the road. She was well preserved for a thirty-eight-year-old cocaine whore.
    She touched her chest. “Thirty-eight. How old are you, Paolo?” She waited.
    Hugo sighed. “He understands the question. He does not know the answer.”
    She furrowed her brows. She had pretty brows, dark and thick. She should’ve left her hair dark. “Do you know?”
    He shrugged. “Fourteen, maybe.”
    “When is your birthday?” she asked Paolo.
    The boy looked at him. “He doesn’t have one,” Hugo said.
    “What?” She gave him an incredulous look.
    “He doesn’t have one,” Hugo repeated icily.
    “Everyone has a birthday.”
    “Not everyone,” he said.
    She asked Paolo a few more questions, staying away from the personal. His stomach rumbled. Hours until home. Possibly hours more until she prepared their meal.
    They took side roads through Bumcara and stopped at a roadside restaurant. It had the advantage of a shady group of outdoor tables, one of which would provide quick access to their vehicle and escape routes around the back. He twisted and shifted—his flank killed. He wished they had more salve, but the boy had used it all on the way in.
    He permitted himself a beer to wash down the ibuprofen; it took the edge off the pain. He would have the boy bring him opium before