Bulletproof Mascara: A Novel

Q:
What do you get when you cross
Avon Ladies with Charlie’s Angels?

A:
A world-class intelligence organization run
by women who really know their foundation.

When Nikki Lanier signs up as a cosmetics rep at Carrie Mae, it’s hardly her idea of a dream job. With a degree in linguistics and a hard-core workout regimen, the twenty-six-year-old redhead once had hopes for a real career. But unemployed and desperate to escape life at home with her nagging mother, she’ll try anything—even selling makeup to housewives. Soon, Nikki learns that the powder and lipstick are simply cover-up for the Carrie Mae Foundation: a secret organization of international espionage and high-tech mascara founded for the purpose of “helping women everywhere.”

Whisked off to Thailand with the legendary Carrie Mae agent Val Robinson, Nikki is soon in over her head. Between investigating the abduction of a human rights activist, tracking down a murderous arms dealer, keeping up with her wildly dangerous new partner, and occasionally trying to date a hunk who may or may not be CIA, Nikki has to use all the courage and cosmetic technology she’s got to bring down the bad guys and get out alive.

With the support of the colorful Carrie Mae crew, Nikki will overcome even the most harrowing obstacles—including incessant phone calls from her mother—or die trying.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Bethany Maines

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

First Atria Paperback edition March 2010

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Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Maines, Bethany.

    Bulletproof mascara / Bethany Maines.—1st Atria paperback ed.

      p. cm.

1. Women spies—Fiction. 2. Cosmetics industry—Fiction.
3. Undercover operations—Fiction. I. Title.

    PS3613.A34964B85 2010

  813'.6—dc22 2009014250

ISBN 978-0-7432-9277-1

ISBN 978-1-4165-4635-1 (ebook)

To Jennae

PROLOGUE •
CANADA

After the Interview

“Excuse me, Nicole?” asked the man next to her at the bar in a voice like Jack Daniel’s whiskey. “Would you care to be my wife?”

Nicole Lanier looked up from the depths of her vodka martini–drenched misery. The man was holding her passport, plucked from the debris scattered by her purse when she’d flung it down in fury on the hotel bar. She had noticed him earlier, despite her headlong rush to become an alcoholic. He had been speaking into a cell phone, his back to her—a solid wall of well-tailored gray suit—his voice set at pissed-off growl. He flipped her passport closed and held it out to her with a friendly smile.

“It’s Nikki,” she corrected, dazedly smiling back at him.

“Nikki,” he said, with a nod. His eyes were a warm dark brown, sleepy yet observant. She tried to guess his ethnicity. Not quite black or Italian or Hispanic or white. Not quite anything in particular, but maybe a lot of everything.

“The question stands. Would you care to be my wife?” The
question didn’t make any more sense the second time around, but it sounded good coming from him.

“Sorry?” asked Nikki, uncertain if she had heard him correctly or if the vodka was just now hitting bottom.

“Just over my left shoulder there’s a man out on the terrace talking to a man in golf clothes.”

Nikki wondered if he had escaped from the group home. Brushing an errant red curl back behind her ear, she leaned to her right and looked through the tall windows of the hotel bar. There was indeed a pair of men on the terrace, one in a navy suit, the other covered in an obscene amount of plaid. She returned her gaze to the stranger with a questioning look.

“Yes?” she prodded, one of her eyebrows raised in a way that made her strongly resemble her father when he was being sarcastic: it was a look her mother hated.

“His name is Jirair Sarkassian. He’s a very big man in shipping and a very important asset to my company. When he’s done talking to the man in golf clothes he’s going to come in here, shake my hand, and ask to meet my wife.”

“So why don’t you introduce him to your wife?” asked Nikki.

“I haven’t got a wife.”

“But he thinks you do?”

“I told him I did.”

“Then I can see why he would think you do. But why would you tell him that you’re married if you’re not?”

“Because he has a sister and I have a boss who believes in customer service.”

“Lots of men have sisters; that doesn’t mean you have to get married. She can’t be
that
bad,” Nikki objected reasonably.

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d met his sister. She’s . . . difficult.”

“Oh.” Nikki tried to imagine what kind of woman would be so
intolerable. “Is she horse-faced or something?” For guys,
difficult
was usually code for either ugly or smart.

“Ha. I wish she were horse-faced. Horse-faced I wouldn’t mind. Look,” he said, running his fingers over the closely cropped stubble of his brown hair, “I had a friend who was going to help me with this, but she’s stuck in traffic. All you have to do is shake his hand, say, ‘Nice to meet you,’ and then make a graceful exit.”

“What if he wants me to have lunch with you or something?” Nikki asked, taking a sip of her martini.

“Tell him you have plans and can’t possibly join us.”

For a moment, Nikki was tempted. What was five minutes of her time, anyway? She reached for her drink again, and as she leaned forward she saw the dark silhouette of a shoulder holster peeking from the man’s suit jacket, and in her mind the headline “Canadian Gangster Kills Girl in Bar” splashed across the top of a newspaper. Then she shook her head; she couldn’t imagine anything that sounded less Canadian than
gangster
. He was probably just an overvigilant businessman, but getting involved with a guy who packed concealed weapons was not on her list of things to do that day, no matter how good-looking he was. Pretending she hadn’t noticed the gun, Nikki picked up her martini and finished it in one long swallow. Setting it down firmly, so that it made a solid sound on the bar, she slid it into place next to her other empty glasses.

“Sorry, buddy,” she said, counting out cash for the bill and tip, then shoveling the contents of her purse back into her bag. “I’ll give you an A-plus for bravado, but a C-minus for believability. I mean, come on, I wouldn’t even buy that from a romance novel.”

The bartender came back, and Nikki started to push the pile of money across the bar, but the stranger put his hand firmly over hers.

The shock of physical contact ran from his fingers and through
her arm like an electrical current, holding Nikki paralyzed. She found herself staring at their hands where they overlapped on top of the pink Canadian money.

“Put it on my room tab,” the man told the bartender, moving his hand away. Nikki wanted to grab it back and hold on—it had felt safe and comfortable. She felt an irrational twinge of anger at herself for wanting to hold a stranger’s hand.

“No, really,” she said, transferring her irritation to the man. “I don’t need you to pay for me.” Buying drinks was a way to buy leverage, and Nikki wasn’t going to fall for it. The brown-eyed man gave a nod to the bartender, who shrugged and walked off without her money. Nikki felt a surge of exasperation as she stuffed her cash back into her purse, stubbornly leaving the tip. Why did guys always stick together?

She shut her purse with a fierce snap and stepped off the barstool. The ground took an odd lurch as she stepped on it, but she still had one hand on the bar for stability, so she didn’t think it showed. Maybe finishing that martini hadn’t been the best idea.

“I’m sorry, Nikki,” the man said, perhaps sensing he had offended her somehow, “but I’m really in a bind here. Come on. It’ll only take a minute, and you’ll be saving my bacon.” And then he smiled. Nikki found herself smiling back.

“Please,” he said, sensing her hesitation, and touching her lightly on the arm. It wasn’t a touch as much as a suggestion of contact. His fingers barely brushed the fabric of her sleeve, and inside her stylish yet businesslike jacket, Nikki felt the hairs on her arm stand upright. “No risk, no fun,” the man said, with an expression that suggested he was both of those things.

Nikki felt herself waver. She shook her head, trying to clear it and firm up her resolve. Everything seemed a little fuzzy. She didn’t want to do this, did she?

CALIFORNIA I

Burbank

The problem with Burbank, Nikki decided, was that it wasn’t in black-and-white. The low-slung airport was perfect for some tragic forties drama; they even wheeled the stairs up to the doors of the airplane. All she needed now was a man in a trench coat.

She ignored that train of thought and exited the plane, swinging her backpack up onto her shoulders; she staggered a little as it connected firmly with her back. Her feet followed the arrows on the baggage claim signs while her head swiveled around, taking in the scene. Nobody was wearing a trench coat; flip-flops and micro jean skirts seemed to be the order of the day, hardly the Bogart-esque style Nikki had been picturing.

Since she was already carrying all of her belongings on her back, she avoided the mob of people who were lining up for the baggage carousel and looked around for someone holding a card with her name on it. But no one in the crowd seemed to be looking for her. Nikki found a bench near the double sliding doors and checked her watch. She was a little bit early.

Sitting down, she took out her cell phone and turned the power back on. It cycled through the On sequence and then declared that she had three new messages. Nikki dialed voice mail and then dutifully listened to each message from her mother. It was raining in Tacoma, where had she put the remote, and hadn’t Nikki landed yet? Nikki hit Erase following each message and flipped her phone closed, determined not to return any of the calls. Her resolution was rendered obsolete when the phone rang. Nikki picked it up with a sigh.

“I thought you only packed that ridiculous backpack,” said Nell without preamble.