Chapter 11: Perfection

LAST NIGHT, I did something I never do: I slept in all my makeup. This morning, I woke up to see what I would have to do if I maintained a disguise overnight.

The morning after

It was hard enough to be with Angel while she flirted with me. It was scary as hell to run into Jordan and deflect his interest. The two encounters left me in such a serious panic attack after I escaped from them, I practically ran back to my car jumped in the back seat, curled up into a little ball and rocked back and forth while I panted and sobbed. It wasn’t even that important. I could have passed off the disguise with Angel if she’d caught me out. I bet her I could have a direct encounter with her and she wouldn’t recognize me. Oops. I lose the bet.

I didn’t think Jordan would understand as well.

And what was with that? Why is Jordan watching Angel’s business and poking at people who go there?

Well, duh. That’s easy. She’s helping people launder money. What she does might violate the spirit of the law but as well as I can read it, unless they can prove that she’s receiving money from some illicit source, she’s technically legal. At worst, a misdemeanor. I don’t think he was satisfied with my answers about booking travel but it was more important to him to follow Angel wherever she was headed than to keep questioning me.

My mustache was loose on one side, as was a piece of my hair on the left temple. I must have scratched at it in the night. My five o’clock shadow looked like a smear of mud on my face after my cry. I tidied up as much as I could and headed for Stevie’s place. She promised to help me perfect the disguise this morning. And believe me, it needed perfecting.

Stevie looked at my hair and makeup job critically. She made a few adjustments and then had me sit in the chair of her salon for several hours while she completely redid everything, lecturing me the entire time. The first task was to make it easier for me to get into the makeup and hairpiece. The second was making it foolproof against detection at close range. If I was going to pull the same ruse with Cinnamon I had with Angel, I would need to get close without being recognized. Even if she didn’t recognize me, if she realized I was in makeup and a costume, it would be just as much a failure.

There was no question I’d need to get more comfortable being around girls when I was dressed as a boy, too.

Here’s a bizarre question. Who do you think would be more pissed off at me: a straight girl who finds out I’m also a girl or a gay boy who finds out I’m a girl? Oh, this gets so confusing. Why do I feel so obsessed with perfecting my boy act all of a sudden? I should be sitting in my office trying to break the code of Simon’s little game or tracking down Brenda. Instead, I’m getting lectured by Stevie on stippling my five o’clock shadow, fastening my hair on, and walking like a man.

When Stevie was finished, I looked incredible. I couldn’t even recognize myself. She instructed me to leave the makeup and hair on again tonight and then bring it back to perfection in the morning. Tomorrow, I’m really going to need a shower. I can only imagine what this stuff is doing to my skin. I promised to complete the day today in disguise, seeing and talking to people as a boy. I still need to run by the office though.

Wanted

WTF? Something has gone terribly wrong and I don’t know what it is. I had lunch on the way to the office and flirted with a clueless teen waitress. It was easily two o’clock when I finally meandered down to the pier. I had in mind a couple more experiments with the thumb drive to see if there was anything on it other than the destructive virus. I had to remember it was all going to be a game of ‘Simon Says.’

Before I reached the office, I could hear voices and see my door was open. I started to hurry toward it but realized I had no Deb Riley ID and no proof that it was my office. I didn’t want to barge in on a burglary anyway. I approached quietly and listened from outside the door. The voices were from the inner office. The outer office was empty, so I slipped in to hear better.

“Nothing,” I heard a voice say. “The place is clean. I don’t find a random electrical signal or any indication there’s activity in the area.”

“It must have been cleaned out,” said a second voice. The voice sent a chill down my spine. “Dag did work in here he couldn’t have done on the little laptop he carried around. The only person who could have the server is Deb Riley—or at least access to it. We’ve got a subpoena for the server and a warrant to search the office. We need a warrant for her apartment. I hate to do it, but we’d better get a warrant for Deb as well. We can do it on grounds of wanted for questioning. She must have Dag’s research on Simon and Brenda Barnett and I want it.”