Perfect Cover
Page 34

“Pointy-toed boots.”
“Depends on the color.”
“Designers whose last names are hard to spell.”
“In.”
“Heiresses.”
“Out.”
“Celebrity children.”
“In. When Angelina Jolie’s little boy grows up, he’s going to be a total babe.”
“Guys, we have audio.” Chloe took that moment to cut in on their game of “In or Out,” for which I was grateful.
“When you get within a quarter-block of the building, hold back, Tiff. Give Brittany a ninety-second head start.”
“Uh-huh,” Tiffany said.
“Awesome,” her twin agreed.
I watched the plasma screen as the two visual feeds split. From the one on the left, I could see the back of Brittany’s head as Tiffany fell back, giving her sister a lead. On the right side of the screen, the other feed showed us a clear image of the building as Brittany approached.
As Chloe’s surveillance reports had predicted, security on the bottom level was relatively lax. There was a single guard, and if it hadn’t been for the length (or lack thereof) of Brittany’s skirt, he probably wouldn’t have looked up from his computer, which I was about eighty percent certain he was using to look at a website whose name I totally didn’t want to know.
When a flash of real, live cheerleader leg caught his eye, he turned his full attention to Brittany. “Can I help you?” he asked, the question coming out noticeably too fast.
Brittany leaned forward. “I’m looking for a bathroom,” she said.
“Tiffany, move to flank position,” Chloe said. “Brittany, you’re a go.”
Tiffany approached the building and held her position just outside the double-door entrance.
After the security guard stuttered out directions to the nearest bathroom, Brittany flounced off. Two minutes later, Tiffany made her way to the desk. “Which way did you say that bathroom was?” she asked. “I get lost really easily.”
This time, the guard just pointed.
They hit the stairs then, Brittany taking the lead. If I hadn’t been forced to endure the Cheerleading Practice from Hell the day before, I would have been surprised at their stamina, but now I knew better. To someone who could do two hours of kicking, jumping, and shouting out annoying rhymes without ever losing her larger-than-life cheer-smile, eight flights of stairs was nothing.
The door at the top of the stairs was locked, and for the first time, it occurred to me that April, who’d stayed back with Tara to party plan, might have actually come in handy. After all, her “special skill” was lock-picking.
As it turned out, though, the twins didn’t need April.
“Tell them to use the grape-flavored one,” Lucy said brightly. Chloe nodded.
“Guys? Use the grape-flavored one.”
From Brittany’s video feed, I could see Tiffany reach into her bra and pull out what appeared to be a single piece of bubble gum. All business, Tiff unwrapped it and folded it in two. Then she bent down and smushed it between the door and the wall, even with the doorknob.
“Stand clear,” Chloe said, and the twins backed up a few steps.
The next thing I saw from the video feeds was a small spark of light, a single tendril of smoke, and an open door.
“Bubble-gum bombs?” I asked.
Lucy nodded. “Coolies, huh?”
Coolies wasn’t the word I would have chosen to describe that particular explosive, but if I had one soft spot on the Squad outside of my partner, it was Lucy, so I let it slide. Without so much as a single sarcastic comment, I turned my attention back to the screen. The twins were no longer together, and Brittany was approaching a second security desk. There were two guards at the desk, and a quick infrared scan of the building, courtesy of Chloe’s cell phone, showed two more around the perimeter of the offices Chloe had identified as our primary target.
I expected Chloe to dish out some more directions, but instead, she just let Brittany do her thing.
Britt slinked toward the security desk. To their credit, these security guys weren’t looking at porn on their computers, but they were just as fascinated with Brittany as the guy on the first floor had been.
“Hi,” Brittany said, shooting them a slow, sultry smile.
“This isn’t the bathroom.”
“Hell-lo,” one of the guards said. The other one gave her a stern look.
“No, miss,” he said. “This isn’t the bathroom. This is a secured wing, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Brittany stuck her lower lip out slightly. “Leave? But I haven’t gone to the bathroom yet.” She leaned forward and grabbed a piece of candy out of a bowl on their desk. She unwrapped it and put it slowly in her mouth. “Can’t you two help me?”
The first guard dissolved into a puddle of testosterone on the floor.
The second guard trembled noticeably, but held firm. “There’s a bathroom on the first floor, Miss…”
“Bunny,” Brittany said. “My name is Bunny.”
I rolled my eyes. She was already practically oozing sexuality out of her pores. The name Bunny was probably overkill.
“Miss Bunny.” Apparently, the guards didn’t share my reservations about the name.
With security suitably distracted, Tiffany snuck out of the stairwell and positioned herself out of sight, behind a pillar.
“First-floor bathrooms are always so icky,” Brittany said. She let a single finger trail along her chest and down toward her cleavage. “And I’ve got such sensitive skin.”
“Bud, she’s got sensitive skin,” the puddle on the floor begged. “Just let me show her to the bathroom.”
“Please, Bud?” Brittany wheedled.
Poor Bud caved. “Fine,” he grumbled. “But, Jimmy, you wait for her right outside that door, and if anyone sees you, tell them she’s somebody’s niece.”
Jimmy, thanking his lucky stars, hit a button behind the security desk, unlocking the main entrance to the secured wing. Trying desperately to look debonair, he escorted Brittany inside.
Chloe watched carefully, and the second Brittany was in the bathroom, she cued Tiffany. “Go for it,” she said. “Guard at the desk is named Bud.”
“Bud?” Tiffany approached the desk.
He looked at her. “What are you doing back so soon?” he asked. “And where’s Jimmy?”
Tiffany stuck out her bottom lip. “Jimmy left me,” she said. “And I never found the bathroom.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “I thought maybe you could show me.”
Bud stood straight up, and I got the sense that when he escorted Tiffany toward the bathroom, it was more to ream out Jimmy than because of Tiff’s feminine wiles.
“Lose something?” Bud asked Jimmy darkly.
Jimmy did a double take. “But you’re in there,” he said.
Tiffany subtly pulled her shirt down and her skirt up. “I got lost,” she said, and poor Jimmy melted into another puddle on the floor.
“I’ll take it from here, Jimmy,” Bud said.
Jimmy looked from Tiffany back to the bathroom door.
“But…but…”
“Now, Jimmy.”
Jimmy, looking strikingly like a heartbroken puppy in a security guard uniform, started walking back toward the front desk. Bud gestured toward the bathroom door.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” Tiffany said. “I didn’t get lost. I just thought you were cuter.”
And then, while Bud, who was easily forty years old and forty pounds overweight, stared at her, she popped into the bathroom.
After straightening each other’s hair and reapplying lip gloss, the twins flushed one of the toilets, and then Brittany exited the bathroom, leaving Tiffany inside, undetected. From the feeds, I could see a newly confident and swaggering Bud escorting Brittany out of the secured area, and once both guards were back at the desk, Tiffany exited the bathroom.
“Doublemint complete,” she said under her breath.
“Good job, Tiff. Now go into the corner office and place the magnifier under the desk.” Chloe checked the satellite feed from the infrared scanner. Either that, or she was reading her text messages. From the backseat, it was kind of hard to tell. “One of the guards is in the kitchenette. The other is making his loop. He just passed the southmost corner office. Give it five seconds, and then head in. You should have about two minutes before he loops back by.”