The Double Read online

  “But I do know Konstantin,” I said quietly.

  “Hailey... you’d be his girlfriend. You’d have to—”

  I flushed. “I know.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  For a second, I flashed back to Konstantin asking me the same question. I shook my head. Men don’t notice me... except him.

  Carrie closed her eyes. “I—No. No, this is beyond crazy. No.”

  “It’s the only chance we have,” I said.

  She stared at me for a moment, then whirled around and stalked over to the window, wrapping her arms around herself as if the view suddenly made her cold. “I can’t ask you to do this,” she said at last.

  “You don’t have to.” I said. “I’m volunteering.”

  She turned and pinned me with a look. “Hailey, there’s not a shred of compassion or warmth in that man. If he suspects, even for a second, that you’re not Christina, he will kill you.”

  I took a deep breath... and nodded.

  Carrie pressed her lips tight together, deciding. Then she nodded. “Alright, then. We’ll get the operation organized. You get down to the detention area. She just arrived. You better start getting familiar with her.”

  It was time to meet Christina.

  8

  Hailey

  I DIDN’T GO IN right away. I stood in the room next door to the interrogation room, watching her through the one-way mirror. How was it possible for someone to look that serene? Christina was sitting on a metal chair at a metal table, both of them bolted to the floor, in a featureless underground room. She was facing serious prison time for the drug charges. And yet she sat with her legs elegantly crossed, her chin resting on her perfectly-manicured fingers. She looked as if she was posing for a lifestyle magazine photo in the lobby of some luxury hotel. I can never be like that. I couldn’t believe our bodies were even the same. If that was true, how come she could look so lithe and leggy, and I always felt so short and dumpy? And I was sure our breasts were different. Hers were small and pert and perfect, like some Hollywood actress’s. I’ve always been self-conscious about mine because they’re on the big side, for my frame.

  My heart was hammering as I walked to the door that led into the interrogation room. I’d never interrogated anyone before. I understood why Carrie wanted me to do it: it was me who was going to have to impersonate her. Or maybe she was trying to make me see that I wasn’t cut out for this at all.

  I gathered up all my confidence and marched into the room, trying to do it like Calahan would. I needed to get answers out of this woman.

  But as I crossed the room, Christina looked at me. Just a glance out of the corner of her eye, as if I wasn’t worth turning her head for. Her eyes tracked up and down my body just once... and she gave a tiny sniff of disgust and looked away.

  I faltered, mid-step, my face hot with shame. Suddenly, I was back in high school: the weird country kid who all the cool kids sneer at.

  I steeled myself and walked over to the table. I couldn’t let her intimidate me. I was going to have to be her.

  But as I started to sit down, she nodded towards the mirror and said, in a clipped, polished accent, “How long were you watching behind that mirror before you plucked up the courage to come in?”

  My face went hot all over again. My mouth opened stupidly, but I couldn’t deny it. I’d completely lost all authority here. “My name is Hailey A—Akers. I need to ask you some questions about Konstantin.”

  She grinned and put her feet on the table. Her shoes were scarlet, the straps covered with tiny, glittering jewels and her legs were flawlessly smooth. Her voice was really something: moneyed and cultured, a razor dipped in honey. “I already told the Italian police, I don’t know the details of his business.”

  Calahan had once told me that, to get a suspect to tell you something, you should lean forward like you’re sharing a secret. I leaned in to her. “I want to know about your relationship with him.”

  She pushed her face close to mine. “Do you?!” she gushed, loudly enough to make me jump. “Do you want to know about my relationship with him?” She studied me again: my dry, dull hair, my cheap suit, and my flat shoes. “Is that the closest you get to a man? Do you want to take notes about Konstantin’s big, thick cock plunging into me? Do you want to know how it feels when he’s pounding me from behind?”

  I couldn’t look at her. I stared at the desk, my cheeks scarlet.

  “Oh, look at you, that is it, isn’t it? God, have you been fantasizing about him?” She leaned even closer and whispered. “Does that get your poor little FBI pussy wet?”

  I leapt up from my chair as if burned.

  “He’s the most exciting thing to come your way in years, isn’t he?” asked Christina. She mock-cried. “Poor. Little. Haiiiiiiley. All she wants is a man and she can’t get one, so she rubs herself off thinking about what the big, bad mafia boss would do to her if he got his evil hands on her.”

  I drew in my breath but it went shaky and gulpy. I realized my eyes were filling with tears.

  “Oh dear,” said Christina innocently. “Did I hit a nerve?”

  I very nearly ran. But if I folded now, I’d never have the strength to come back in here. I took two long, shuddering breaths. “Look,” I said desperately. “I know you want to protect him. I get that you’re loyal to the man you love, but you—”

  “Love?!” Christina sounded genuinely bewildered for a second. Our eyes locked. Then she burst out laughing, her shrill peals ringing around the room. “That’s what you think? You think it’s all fluffy toys and walks in the rain?! You think I love him? You think he loves me?”

  I tried to get her on my side. “You’re beautiful. Why wouldn’t he love you?”

  She looked at me as if I was an idiot child. “Because a man like Konstantin isn’t capable of love.”

  “Then why are you together?”

  “Why do you think? It used to be a different woman every time, but then some girl played him, distracted him while her hitman boyfriend sneaked in. Having me is easier and safer.”

  “And you….”

  “I get to live like a queen, Hailey. I get a bottomless credit card and shopping trips to Milan.” She smirked at me. “You think I’m a cold-hearted, evil bitch?”

  I hesitated, then nodded.

  “That’s what makes me perfect for him.”

  * * *

  I walked out of the interrogation room still stinging from how she’d humiliated me and still trying to work out how the hell I was going to pull this off. She was sexy, glamorous, ruthless... I was nothing like her. She was the perfect match for Konstantin.

  And the revelation that they weren’t in love with each other! So it was just convenience, just about sex and money? I couldn’t even imagine that sort of relationship and I was going to have to live it.

  I headed up to the tenth floor, but slowed when I reached the hallway outside Carrie’s office. I could hear a familiar, deep voice yelling. No, bellowing. Oh God. I could make out a quieter, more measured voice between the rants: Carrie. I could only make out the odd word but I heard my own name several times. There was a thump that sounded like a big, male fist coming down on a desk. That triggered a threat from Carrie about gross insubordination and then, as her voice rose, exception this one time because you’re clearly acting on personal feelings.”

  I flushed.

  Calahan stormed out of Carrie’s office. As he passed me in the hallway, he spat one word from the corner of his mouth. “Garden.”

  I ran after him. I should have talked to him first, as soon as I volunteered. But I hadn’t been able to face telling him. Some FBI agent I was.

  The garden is where Calahan and I go when one of us has had a bad day. It’s a big, oddly-shaped section of neatly-mown grass with a monument in the center. There’s no shade or trees or benches, it’s designed to be ornamental rather than a place to hang out. But in summer, if you don’t mind getting some funny looks, you can sit on the ground, cl
ose your eyes and feel the grass against your fingers and it’s a little bit like being back in Wisconsin.

  Now, though, it was fall and the sky was an ugly gray. I pulled my jacket tight around me: it was too cold to be outside. But the garden had another advantage: it was private.

  Calahan had managed to bottle up his rage all the way there. Now he finally unleashed. “You’re out of your fucking mind!” he snapped.

  “I know what I’m doing,” I told him. I was pretty sure that was a lie.

  “This is Konstantin. He scares the other crime bosses. He scares me.” He grabbed my wrist and hauled me with him as he stalked across the grass to the monument. “Look. Look!”

  I looked. The monument is a big slab of black marble with a list of names etched into it in gold. The names of agents who’ve fallen in the line of duty. “You want to be one of them?” he demanded.

  I relived the sickening fear when Konstantin had grabbed me and pinned me against the wall: the brute strength of him, the coldness in his eyes. I felt myself crumpling. Of course this was a mistake. I needed to tell Carrie I was backing out.

  But if I did that, we’d lose this fight. We’d lose our city. And all those people who died in the coming gang war... that would be on me.

  Someone had to do something. I was the only one who could.

  I turned to Calahan. “If it was a guy they wanted to impersonate, and you were a match, would you do it?”

  He sighed in exasperation and glared at me. But one thing Calahan always is, is honest. “Yeah,” he said at last. “But I’m me. You’re….”

  He looked away, glaring off into the distance for long seconds. “You’re my friend,” he said at last.

  I reached up and pulled him down to me and he wrapped me up in a hug.

  * * *

  Back upstairs, Doctor Franklin started talking me through the operation. “We need to shave the bone a little here,” he said, drawing on my nose with a magic marker. “And your chin needs to come in just a touch.” He was almost gleeful and I found it unnerving. I’m just a project, to him.

  “Will it be... permanent?” I asked.

  He tilted his head to one side as if he hadn’t even considered that. “Some of the changes could be reversed, in theory. But with each surgery, there’s a risk of weakening the underlying bone structure….”

  I nodded, feeling ill. I was going to look like Christina forever. Why did that bother me? It wasn’t as if I was pretty.

  “We’ll tweak your cheekbones,” said Doctor Franklin, still drawing. “And... here and here and... there!”

  He handed me a mirror and my stomach lurched. My face was a mess of marker lines. I could barely see me, anymore.

  I glanced down, remembering something. “I, um...I think my breasts are bigger than Christina’s,” I said awkwardly.

  Doctor Franklin shook his head.

  I bit my lip. He was the doctor, but I knew my own body. Her hips and waist might be the same, but I swore I was at least a cup size bigger. “Maybe we should check—”

  “I assure you,” he said stiffly, “You’re exactly the same.”

  I nodded meekly.

  “You’ll need laser eye surgery,” he told me. “Christina has 20/20 vision.”

  I hadn’t even considered that. No more glasses.

  “At the same time, we’ll use a different laser to destroy the brown pigment in your eyes, turning them blue.”

  There was a sudden, unexpected wrench, deep inside me. My dad had always loved my brown eyes, saying they matched my mom’s. “Okay,” I said in a voice that didn’t sound like mine. “That’s fine.”

  * * *

  For three days, while Doctor Franklin made his preparations, I sat behind the one-way mirror and watched Christina. A whole host of FBI interrogators tried to question her, but none of them could get anything useful out of her. I didn’t understand why she was being so loyal to Konstantin, since she didn’t love him. Fear of what he’d do to her?

  I put my weird brain to work, noticing the details that made her her: the way she ran her hands through her hair when she was thinking, the way she walked, slinking around the room, trying to distract the male interrogators with her ass. Out of sight of everyone, feeling ridiculous, I started to mimic her.

  At first, I had no luck imitating her voice. She’d grown up in a very respectable Boston neighborhood, a long way from Wisconsin. Her accent shone like a polished scalpel, making mine feel clunky and dull. Then there was the confidence: where I mumbled and ummed, the words poured from her mouth easily, seductive and teasing one moment, cruel and cold the next.

  But one thing I’ve always been is patient. I recorded her talking, put on some headphones and played it on loop with my eyes closed, repeating each sentence as if I was learning a language. And slowly, very slowly, my tongue learned the new shapes of words.

  The mimicry became almost abstract, like a game. I almost forgot why I was doing it. Then, on the morning of my operation, something happened that brought it all home to me.

  Carrie called me aside and pressed a rectangle of foil into my hand. “We found these in Christina’s luggage,” she told me. “I thought you should know, in case you needed to make an appointment with your physician.”

  I looked down at my hand. It took me a few seconds to recognize them as birth control pills. “Mm-hmm,” I said, all cool professionalism. “Thank you.”

  But when I walked away, my legs were shaking. Suddenly, it was all real: I’d be having sex with Konstantin. And not the tentative, let’s take it slow, step-by-step sex of a new couple. He thought we’d been lovers for months. He’d expect me to just jump into bed and—

  Heat mingled with fear rippled down my body and I had to stop and lean against the wall for a second. Am I really going to do this?

  At that moment, Calahan ran up to me, holding a phone. “We’ve got a problem,” he said. “Konstantin called the hospital in Italy, demanding to speak to Christina. The doctors have told him she’s about to have surgery, but he’s insisting. Says he’ll send someone over there if he doesn’t get to speak to her.”

  “We could let him speak to Christina,” I said. “Tell her to say everything’s fine.”

  But Calahan grimly shook his head and I realized he was right. Once she had the phone, we wouldn’t be able to stop her shouting a warning to him. She didn’t know our plan, but she could tell him she’d been arrested. That would blow the whole thing. But what other choice did we have?

  Calahan held out the phone.

  My eyes bugged out. “No! I’m not ready!”

  “You have to! We’re blown if you don’t!”

  I stared at him in horror... and then nodded weakly.

  Calahan muttered into the phone: “Put him through.” Then he handed it to me and I ducked into a side room where it was quiet. A click. A hiss.

  And then I was speaking to Konstantin.

  9

  Hailey

  I ONLY HAD a second or two. I willed my throat and lips into Christina’s cool, precise voice. “Hello?”

  I thought that it would be the same as speaking to him at the hotel. I’d forgotten that then we were strangers; now, we were lovers. His low voice rumbled from the phone’s speaker directly into my ear and from there straight down to my groin, shockingly intimate. Three words that were so normal, but he made them a confession, a grudging admission of... weakness? “I’ve missed you.”

  I swallowed and closed my eyes, trying to focus on shaping the words correctly. “I’ve missed you, too.”

  His voice tightened with anger. “The doctors wouldn’t let me speak to you.”

  “I’m about to have surgery,” I told him. “I won’t be able to talk, while it heals. But once I’m healed, I’ll be able to come home.”

  “I’ve been remembering the night we met.” Oh God, that voice. I knew I needed to focus, but it was so easy to get lost in that Russian accent. Remembering was like a string of pearls, the silky bump of each m caressing
my brain. Then the hard fall of each t, like a playful slap on the ass. His voice always had a physical effect on me, but when he spoke like this, low and growly and intimate, it was taken to a whole new level. I realized I was crushing my thighs together.

  And then I had a horrible thought: I had no clue what happened, the night they met. Shit!

  “You looked so small, by the side of the road,” murmured Konstantin. “So lost.” His voice tightened for a second. “Your boyfriend….”

  I was piecing the story together as quickly as I could. Christina’s boyfriend must have dumped her there, and Konstantin found her. “My boyfriend was an asshole,” I told Konstantin. That felt like a safe response.

  “He didn’t know what he had. But I did. As soon as we got home... do you remember what I did to you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Tell me,” he said, his voice urgent with lust.

  Shit! I had no idea. I flailed around for an excuse. “It’s not very private here,” I lied. “There are doctors all around me.”

  I could almost see his brow furrow. “That never bothered you before. You like people listening.”

  Great. Of course sexy, confident Christina would be an exhibitionist. In desperation, I tried the truth. “I’d rather hear you say it,” I told him. “You know I love your voice.”

  There was silence for a second and I wondered if I’d slipped up. But then, “First of all, I stripped off your clothes. Your dress in the lounge. Your bra on the stairs. Your panties, I tore off on the bed.”

  I swallowed. “Mm-hmm.” I knew I had to concentrate. One slip and he’d realize something was wrong. But his voice was rough chunks of black rock floating on a stream of molten silver. It coursed straight down my body, pooling between my legs. God, I could feel his big hand tearing at my panties, the elastic stretching and then snapping…. I pressed my thighs hard together and leaned back against the door.