“Yes. I’ll be there. Where do I go?”
The woman gave her an address in the next town and she wrote it down, thanking her before hanging up the phone. She was torn. It was more money than she had. She had a car she could sell, but then, how would she get around? It didn’t matter, she decided. First, she had to put as much distance between her and this place as possible. She picked up the phone again and hit speed dial, waiting nervously as it rang on the other end.
“Otters,” came a voice from the other end of the line.
“I need to speak to Stephen.”
“Hold on,” the voice barked.
She could hear them yelling for Stephen across the shop and then there was a clatter as they lay the phone down. A few moments later, there was another as it was picked up again.
“Stephen here.”
“Stephen, it’s Kelly. I brought my jeep in last month for new tires and you were interested in buying it. Are you still interested?”
There was some hesitation from the other end and then he seemed to remember.
“Oh, yeah. You’re the curvy brunette in the Jeep Renegade.”
“Yes, the Renegade,” she said, not acknowledging the rest. She had no desire to encourage any attraction.
“Absolutely. I’d love to have it. Your price was a bit steep for my taste though.”
“What if I knock five thousand off of it?”
“Seventeen? Still a little high. How about fifteen?” he replied, obviously sensing her desperation.
It was highway robbery, but she didn’t have time to haggle with him or to try to sell it elsewhere.
“Fine. Fifteen, but only if we can do the deal today,” she replied.
“I can do that. Bring it on in and I’ll get the cash together. Say two?”
“I’ll be there then,” she told him.
“Great. See you at two,” he replied, hanging up without further comment.
Kelly hung up the phone and breathed a sigh of relief. Now, she just had to figure out how to work this. Stephen was about thirty miles away and the people she was going to see were in the same town. It would be best to just take the Jeep, sell it and then spend the night in town until her appointment the next morning.
“Right, Kelly,” she said aloud, repeating the two words running through her mind. “Let’s just go. Let’s do this.”
She wasted no time stuffing whatever she could get into a single suitcase and backpack. With no clue where she was going or what she would do once she got there, she retrieved the money she kept stashed in a pair of boots in her closet and stuffed it in her pocket before putting them on her feet.
She left a quick note for Muriel, telling her that she was going to spend a couple of days helping a friend out with her cubs, not specifying which friend. By the time anyone realized she was missing, she’d hopefully be long gone.
Everything after that seemed to just fall into place. She took the cash from the sale of the Jeep and pulled out what money she had in the bank from the local branch. With what she had from her hidden stash at home, she had more than enough money to pay for the relocation services and get resettled somewhere, even if whatever employment they had to offer didn’t work out.CHAPTER TWOThe small office belonging to the relocation services was deceiving. The front of the building appeared to be a travel agency. She had thought she was in the wrong place until she gave her name and was escorted through a side door into a tiny waiting room outside what appeared to be the administrative office of the travel agency.
“Kelly?” a woman said as she appeared in the doorway, looking out at her.
“Yes,” Kelly replied, noting that the woman was wearing a simple white button down and faded jeans rather than business attire.
“I’m Charlotte. Let’s not waste time. Did you bring the payment?”
“Yes, but I’d like to know a bit more about what will happen before handing over that kind of money.”
“Just as we discussed yesterday,” the woman replied, stepping around the desk wedged into the cramped space and taking a seat. She waved toward Kelly to have a seat in the chair opposite it before continuing. “We will provide you with a new identity: New driver’s license, birth certificate, social security number.”
“How does that work? I mean, are they just for show or will I be able to use them?”
“They are just as legitimate as the ones you have in your old name.”
“And the employment?”
“A bit more to that. In addition to relocation services, we offer services in the areas where we send our clients. For numerous reasons, we have clients that have a need to simulate a happy marriage. For this, they need willing participants in their deception, preferably someone like yourself, a shifter they can trust with their secrets. Put simply, you have a secret and so do they, so you trust one another’s confidentiality.”