Page 102 of So Close

“We’ve waited long enough. Aliyah’s going to stir up problems. We need to execute before she figures out a way to fuck this up.”

There’s another knock on the bedroom door, then Lacy’s voice. “Hey. He’s gone.”

I return to the bedroom with Tovah.

Lacy stands inside the door. “And Salma’s here.”

Dressed in jeans and an artfully ripped band T-shirt knotted at the waist, the voluptuous brunette wheels a baby-pink trolley case into the bedroom behind her. Her face is flawlessly made up, with elaborate cat eyeliner and perfect thick brows.

“We’re sure Witte’s gone?” I ask.

Lacy nods. “Left the parking garage and everything.”

Salma glares at me. “You already did your face!”

“It needs more work,” I assure her. “And I need help with the wig. I used too much adhesive when I did it myself. I thought I was going to rip my scalp off.”

She shakes her head and scowls.

“Hey,” I protest, “don’t look at me like that. If I didn’t make up my face, Kane would’ve stayed home thinking something was wrong. It was an effort to convince him to go as it was.”

She curses in Spanish under her breath. “He’s a serious complication.”

“I know.”

Lacy slouches against the jamb. Dressed in a gray maid’s uniform, she’s restrained her red hair in a bun at her nape and pops a huge bubble of gum before telling me, “We don’t think it’s the right time.”

“I’ve heard,” I say wryly, going back into the closet for the wig. When I return, all three women are staring at me. I pause and give them the attention they seek. “How many chances do you think we’re going to get?”

“At least one more,” Salma says with a defiant tilt of her jaw.

Tovah crosses her arms. “Aliyah’s already giving her grief.”

“Fuck her,” Lacy says. “I never liked that bitch. When she’s not trying to tackle Witte into the nearest bed, she treats Bea and me like dog shit stuck to the bottom of her shoe.”

“How is Bea?” I ask.

Lacy’s nose scrunches. “She’s okay. I talked to her this morning. I feel bad about doctoring her tea yesterday. She said she’s been in the bathroom all night.”

“Her tummy trouble will feel better by dinner. And since we don’t want to make her sick again in the future, we seriously need to get going. We don’t have a ton of time.”

Grim-faced, we keep the plan rolling.

By eleven o’clock, the woman in the mirror has my mother’s face. Contour has sculpted my cheekbones and jaw. A heavier hand with the eyeshadow deepens the sockets of my eyes. Black hair falls down the center of my back in a thick braid.

Makeup has finished the job of transforming me into her very likeness.

A tall, dark figure lures my gaze to the open hallway door behind us. “Hey, you’re early.”

Rogelio studies me as he enters the room, his face tight with concern. He’s dressed in jeans and a Yankees jersey rather than the dark suits he wears at Baharan. His normally clean-shaven jaw is stubbled, his crew cut slicked back with glossy pomade, and a thick gold chain circles his neck. The flat, watchful gaze is the only thing that distinguishes him from a random guy on the street. “I don’t like this. It doesn’t feel right.”

“You, too?” I ask softly. I always take him seriously. We’ve been together a long time.

His hand comes to settle on my shoulder. “You’re too beautiful,querida.”

“As if she doesn’t know that,” Salma says with a roll of her eyes, carefully repacking her trolley.

“She’stoo beautiful,” I correct. “This isn’t my face.” I catch my team’s worried expressions in the mirror. “You all have to trust me.”

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