Page 26

Chapter

Twenty-Six

GRACE

B uilding out their plan included disguises, photographs, costume changes, more pictures, and testing facial recognition against their changes. Maybe I’d never had to build a brand new ID before, but I’d certainly had to build new looks, new attitudes, and inhabit them.

“What about dying her hair?” Bones asked after I’d pulled my hair back into a chignon to give myself a more severe look that I could enhance with cosmetics.

“No,” I said, slicing a hand through the air. “For one, dying my hair would require bleaching the color out of it in the first place and you’re talking a time consuming process that would not only need to be repeated a few times, it’s damn hard to replicate and it could seriously damage my hair. Add to how fast my hair grows and the dark growth would be at the roots in a matter of days. No. We’re not dying my hair.”

“You have distinctive hair.” He didn’t add any qualifiers to it, but he also didn’t push on that train of thought. “Maybe a wig would work.”

“Possibly,” Voodoo said, though he had leaned away from the handful of hair pieces he’d brought back with him from his supply run. “The trick is securing them. Most security agents aren’t going to challenge you on the wig, but they may want to search under it. We are trying to draw no attention to you.”

My stomach sank before I even made the next suggestion. “What if I cut it? Take it super short.” I suppressed my own shivers. It was hair. It would grow back. “If I close crop it, then it can look like I’m just getting my hair back after some hair loss or something.”

I really didn’t like that idea.

“No,” Alphabet said from the laptop he was working on. We weren’t in his office or my room, but an entirely different kind of room filled with all sorts of costumes, cosmetics, prosthesis, including the kind to adjust the shape of a chin or a nose. I hadn’t seen this much gear outside of a movie studio's special effects and makeup departments before. “One, even if it would alter the shape of your face enough, the longer hair gives you more options in styling. Second, you don’t want to cut it.”

I frowned. “It was my idea.”

“Maybe it was your idea, Firecracker,” Voodoo said from where he was checking different cases. “But you don’t want to do it and if it were life and death—specifically yours—we could revisit it then. We have ways to do this that can distract facial recognition and help minimize people noticing you.”

I didn’t think of myself as having notoriety. “I don’t really know how many people in general would recognize me. People in the business? People I’ve done ads for? Maybe. But the average person?” I shrugged. “Then again, Lunchbox did, but nothing about any of you is that average.”

“Thank you,” Voodoo said with a grin and a wink. He pulled out a case and carried it over. “I think this color palette is the closest to your own. We can do some minor adjustments with your nose, add a little sharper point to your chin. Maybe a little more fullness to your face.”

He flipped it open to reveal the contents.

“Colored contacts will disguise the eyes. Maybe a birthmark…” He tilted his head as he studied me, his assessing eyes probably didn’t miss much. “You know, a little mole right there at the corner of your upper lip.”

“Reshape her face, add some contours,” Bones said, circling around to glance inside the case with Voodoo before studying me. “Maybe a little pallor and some shadows under her eyes?—”

“Won’t make her any less pretty,” Alphabet stated with a shake of his head. “I mean she’s standing here bare-faced of any cosmetics, hair in a pony tail and wearing an oversized sweatshirt and she’s drop dead gorgeous. What the hell do you think some dark shadows are gonna do?”

I bit my lip. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, pivoting to look at us. “We can go glasses. Different shapes can alter the look of the face.”

“You can’t put on eyewear for passport photos,” I reminded him.

“Don’t need to worry about that.” Alphabet’s confidence didn’t waver. “Passport photos are generally shitty quality, it just has to look like you and then you need to look mostly like it.”

They went around another circle. The amount of work they wanted to do might help with the identification, then getting through the security both at the airports and on entering France—where I’d need a visa. Fortunately, it would just be a tourist visa, still…

“What if we went the military ID route?” Lunchbox suggested and it was my turn to give him a bland look.

“No one is ever going to believe I was in the military.” They were mountains, and I was definitely a molehill.

“Shortstop, don’t think like that. Military is full of all types and tiny doesn’t mean weak or powerless.” He gave my nose a gentle tap.

“Thought about that,” Voodoo said. “Problem is we don’t want anyone side eyeing the ID, and military comes with its own preconceptions.”

When Lunchbox handed me a tall, frothy and very green drink with a straw in it I raised my eyebrows.

“Smoothie, fruit—and the spinach and ginger you mentioned. High in antioxidants, got some proteins, plant protein not the heavier kind. Also some boosters. No extra added sugar.” He managed to deliver the description without sounding too pained about it.

He wanted me to eat more and I just could not eat the sheer amount of food he prepared. Especially when I was so sedentary. The protein shakes were a compromise. One sip and I tested it. Not bad. The second sip was better. The third made me smile. “I like it.”

His little fist pump was sweet.

“Thank you,” I said, brushing a kiss to his jaw before I resumed happily sipping my drink.

“Anytime.” He eyed the others. “So where are we?”

“Still trying to put a plan together.” Irritation stroked through Voodoo’s tone.

“Maybe we’re making it too hard,” I offered and that got all of their attention.

“How so?” The sharp firing the pair of syllables from Bones demanded a response.

“You want to make me not standout. That’s a good idea, but…what if instead of changing my hair, we add some colorful extensions. Maybe purple or blue or both. Feather them through the hair. It’s a bit of a pain in the ass, but doable. Then add some brighter cosmetics—like glitter and sparkle stuff.”

Four pairs of eyes riveted on me and all of them skeptical.

“We want you to blend in so people don’t look at you twice,” Alphabet almost sounded like he was apologizing to me and I felt bad for laughing.

“I get that, I really do. But the thing is…standing out a lot makes you almost as invisible as if you don’t stand out at all.”

A sweep of their expressions didn’t reveal any faith in that idea. Bones, however, folded his arms and focused on me. “Explain.”

“All right,” I said, before taking another long drink of the smoothie. It really was quite good. Licking the taste off my lips, I put the drink down and then spread my hands. “Everyone notices something different about other people, but most of us—at least here—are conditioned to look away, don’t stare, don’t comment, even when you video some altercation or whatever. People tend to avoid eye contact because horrors…” I clutched at my heart. “If you make eye contact, you might actually have to smile at that person or talk to them.”

They were still frowning.

“Look, guys do eye contact with a woman either by accident, because they want her to notice them, or they have noticed her. Then if she doesn’t respond, they get a couple of other reactions—most usual? ‘You should smile more,’ or ‘What’s wrong sweetheart? Where’s the smile?’” I rolled my eyes. “Lots of people make jokes about it, but until you’ve been told fifteen times in one day that you should smile more or worse, snarled and pursued and told to smile more, you won’t get it.”

“Someone has actually snarled that at you?” Voodoo’s tone dipped low and quiet.

“More than a few. Not the whole point right now,” I said, waving that off. We didn’t need to get bogged down in the weeds. “Bright hair colors, over the top cosmetics, even fun and fanciful clothes and jewelry are really popular. Do they get attention? Yes. But what do you think people see or say? Oh, did you see so and so at the airport? Or did you see that blue-haired chick? What about the lady with all the streaks?”

I spread my hands, eyebrows up as I glanced from one man to the other.

“They are looking at the plumage,” Lunchbox said slowly. “Like most people can’t describe what a peacock looks like, but they never miss the fan of feathers on a male. Most don’t even realize the females don’t have the fan tail.”

“Exactly.” I snapped my fingers and pointed at him. “If you want me to disappear, then we just need to make them look at some part of me that isn’t associated with me at all. Adding the streaks, the glitter, and the fun clothes. Make me the peacock…”

“Then the rest of you fades.” Bones finished the thought. While he didn’t dismiss it all the way, he didn’t seem fully convinced. “What if someone locks eyes with you and sees your face? What then?”

“Not an unfair question.”

“Thank you.” His voice was dry as the desert, but I shrugged that off.

“Have you ever met a celebrity before? Or better, run into someone you knew from work, but you’re seeing someone else entirely and utterly out of context?”

“Context defines expectations.” Alphabet leaned back in his chair. “Guys from base, guys we used to work with—we were always in uniform or fatigues, drop them into civvies…”

“They don’t quite fit the context.” Voodoo nodded. “That’s almost uncomfortable in its simplicity.”

I shrugged. “Too much noise. There’s so much media, whether it’s on our phones or on the wall screens around us or whatever. Then you throw in huge crowds of people all trying to get from point a to point b. You don’t go sightseeing in an airport. You’re going to drop your luggage, get through security and get to the damn plane in time. You don’t notice other people unless they are in your way, and even then, you’re more likely to walk around them than focus on their looks.”

“Accepted,” Bones said after a protracted moment. “That doesn’t account for cameras and surveillance. What about the one person who does notice you?”

“You already wanted to shift my features a little. Add a little weight to my face, maybe a beauty mark. If we do the contouring just right, it can help with the facial recognition, in theory it shouldn’t matter as long as I match whatever identification I’m carrying.”

They weren’t dismissing it out of hand, but they were frowning. None of them liked it.

“It’s not perfect.” How could it be? I reclaimed my smoothie. “I don’t think anything can be perfect. You want to go to France, you don’t want me traveling as me—which is good cause I don’t actually have my passport or my driver’s license.” Or credit cards or anything else.

At some point, I would need to deal with that. My credit was probably already well on its way to being fucked and my apartment gone. For now? I could fix those things if I were alive to fix them.

“What do you need to do this?” Voodoo asked and I dug out my phone.

“Let me find some examples. I have no idea where you can get it all here, but maybe we can get most of it.” I settled down, taking sips of my smoothie while I searched. There was something about having a phone in my hand and actively looking for something that would help all of us.

It took just under an hour to put together a list of everything I could think of. When I passed the phone over to Voodoo, he studied the supplies.

“I’ll have to head into town, probably a couple of them. We might have to make do…”

“If you can only find like blond or white extensions, grab some crazy hair colors. I can dye them if they are real hair. Fake hair won’t hold the color, but it’s still doable.”

He nodded. It took him a minute to send my list to himself before he handed me the phone.

“I’d offer to go with you to look but probably not safe for that yet.”

“Probably not,” he said, with a small smile. “But we’re working on getting you out of here, Firecracker. Right…” He looked to the guys. “I’m going to get these, text me with any additions.”

Then he was gone, and it was just the four of us left. The weight of Bones’ regard settled heavily on me.

“Are you sure this is how you want to do it?” It almost sounded like there was just a hint of concern in his chilly tone.

I shrug and says, “Have a better idea?”

“Not at the moment. Unless it involves leaving you here.” That had come up already. Lunchbox and Alphabet both glared at him, but I shrugged.

“That puts you a man down. You guys already decided that. None of you have been to these parties or dealt with Maurizio before. I have. I also speak the language. Fluently.”

“So you’ve said.” He rubbed his jaw. “The rules still stand. You do what you’re told, stay where you’re told and if we say go or run, you do it, no questions or arguments.”

“Acceptable,” I said, mimicking his tone. “For now.”

Lunchbox turned but not before I caught his smile or Alphabet’s soft huff of laughter. I met Bones’ bland stare with one of my own.

“Well, I guess we’re going to find out then. Ping me when Voodoo is back.”

Relief had me sagging. Up until this moment, I hadn’t been one hundred percent sure we would find a way. But we had and they were willing to do this.

I looked at the remaining pair. “So, what do we do while we wait?”

“Biometrics,” Alphabet said and tapped the sofa next to him. “Come here…”

I’d finished the smoothie and Lunchbox claimed the empty cup from me. “You guys work on that. I’m going to work on food. Then we’ll look at packing everyone for the trip.”

“This is going to work,” I told Alphabet as I sat next to him and he shot me an amused look.

“You know this, because?”

“Because it has to.”

It had to.