Lipstick and Lies Read Free Page A

creating a highly specialized team made up of a mix of women and dwarfs, recruited mainly from the entertainment business.
    The small man yawned and stretched out his arms before starting down the sidewalk. Fair-skinned, his blond hair trimmed in a bowl cut, he was clad in dungarees and a short-sleeved chambray shirt. He vectored toward a side entrance to the factory and I stared after him, wondering if I might recognize him from a movie.
    Two men, one with a pug nose and small protruding ears, the other with prominent nostrils and a scouring-pad mustache, got off the bus last. “Hey, Chaplin, wait for us,” one of them called, racing to catch up with the small man.
    Miss C had been eyeing the dwarf, too. “Where were we?” she asked, turning to me. “Oh yeah, the cloak-and-dagger stuff. Did you enjoy it, then?”
    Did Tuesday follow Monday?
Microfilm, invisible ink, ultraviolet light, secret weaponry, disguises, codes—what could be more exciting?
    “It was swell,” I said delicately. “I liked it fine, thanks.”
    Modesty had its rewards. “Let’s cut to why you’re here,” she said. “Day before yesterday, I was in Washington planning my trip back to the ranch. Decided to break up the flight, surprise my girls at Romulus Field. Got in yesterday. Had barely touched down when a call came in, asking me to route you here.”
    “Really? Who called?”
    Miss C had raised her voice to counter the noise of an approaching Lib. I was nearly shouting, too, but it was hopeless. We cranked up our windows. The sound was still deafening. While we waited, Miss C began twisting the cord of a two-way radio mounted on the dash between us. The radio’s presence startled me. That I hadn’t noticed it before seemed to underscore just how on edge I had been since entering the Ford.
    A St. Christopher medal and a horseshoe charm hung from a chain looped over the rearview mirror. Odd enough to be meeting in a car in the first place, but
whose
car was it? For sure not Miss Cochran’s.
    Quiet again, we rolled down our windows. My queries about the caller went ignored. “You won’t regret not going overseas with the others?” she asked.
    OSS was responsible for intelligence work behind enemy lines. It was why candidates accepted into the program had to meet a foreign language requirement. It was also why I had been surprised when OSS approached me. I’d never mastered a second language.
    “Who wouldn’t want to go to the front?” I replied honestly. “But going in, I knew it wasn’t an option.”
    My walk on the shadow side had opened up an entirely new approach to life in which suddenly everything that had once been forbidden now became a way of thinking in wartime. Heady preparation, but I had never been tested under fire. For that, I needed an assignment. A
home front
assignment. The dead spy with a knife wound in his neck lying on the floor of the garage at the opposite end of the factory was a ready-made prospect. “Miss C,” I blurted, exasperated. “I’m happy staying stateside. I feel lucky and proud to be a WASP,
but
—”
    Miss C appeared to reach some kind of resolution. “Good. You’re an excellent pilot. I need you. But for the moment, the FBI needs you more.”
    My heart pounded. “Oh?”
    “They handle domestic intelligence.”
    I knew that.
    “They’ve got trouble here. Something to do with German spies operating from inside this plant.” A movement outside the car drew her attention. “Ahh, here’s Agent Dante. We drove over together. He’ll do the explaining.”

Chapter Two
    The Ford Deluxe was Agent Dante’s, courtesy of the FBI. Miss C had ignored my attempt to tell her about the body in the alleyway. We stepped out to greet the G-man and I was about to disclose that the agent and I had already met when a second car pulled up. It was Miss C’s ride back to Romulus. The driver and Miss C shoved off, and I waited on the sidewalk while Dante, begging privacy, contacted his office using the