“Thank you, Gerald.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Dunn.”
I end the call. I just gave Langston two separate leads to follow, and I’m about to give him a dozen more. He’ll have no idea where I’m going when I’m through with him.
I book more commercial and private flights on my own.
I book bus tickets.
I rent cars.
I rent yachts.
I spend more money in a single hour than most people do in a lifetime, arranging dozens of leads that Langston will be forced to check up on.
And then I call Tiffany.
“Liesel! I’m so glad you called, it’s been too long.”
I love her enthusiasm. She’s a struggling actress I met at the beauty salon years ago, and she’s always looking to pick up extra money. Plus, she has a very particular skillset that has come in handy a handful of times before.
She’s not a great actress, but she’s good enough to play me when she needs to. It helps, that with the right makeup, she looks exactly like me. That’s her real skillset—doing makeup. I’ve tried to convince her to become a makeup artist, but she’s always resisted.
“Can you meet me at the salon tomorrow? I need someone to help me with my makeup,” I ask, providing our shared clue that I will be needing her services as discreetly as possible.
“Absolutely.”
I pull Tiffany into the bathroom of the salon before we have our hair done.
“You have a job for me?” Tiffany asks with hope.
I look her up and down. She’s skinnier than the last time I saw her. Her hair is a disheveled mess.
“Yes, I do.”
She lights up with a bright smile.
“I need you to take a one week trip as me; I’ll pay for everything.”
“Where to?”
“Where would you like to go?”
“Paris!”
I laugh. “Paris it is then. If you want to check out London, Rome, Barcelona, or any other city while you’re in Europe, go for it. I’ll pay you a hundred grand in addition to the trip expenses.”
“Oh my god, that’s too much to just take a vacation.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Will I be in danger?”
I shake my head. “The man who is after me won’t hurt me. And he will have no reason to harm you either.” At least, I don’t think Langston will hurt me.
“But we have to make the switch right now. We have to change clothes, you have to drive my car with my cell phone and credit cards to the airport right now, and I’ll have to go back to your place.”
She frowns. “Um…you don’t want to go back to my place.”
“Why?”
“Because my place is a closet with a door that doesn’t lock, cockroaches, and no hot water.”
I smile. “That’s perfect.”
A place like that won’t have any working security cameras. There will be no way for Langston to follow me. And hopefully, he’ll be chasing Tiffany halfway around the world anyway.
We quickly swap clothes, and I tie my hair up in a messy bun. I start tying her broken tennis shoes that are two sizes too big on me, while she fastens on the straps of my heels.
But even dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and her in a dress and heels, I still look like I come from Beverly Hills, and she looks like she hasn’t gotten a decent night’s sleep in months.
I pull a wet wipe from my purse and wipe the makeup from my face before I hand my purse to her. She digs through and starts applying makeup that makes her freakishly look exactly like me. When she’s done, she turns and looks at me.
“How do I look?” she asks with big eyes.
I let my eyes drag up and down her body, looking for any tiny details that will tip-off Langston right away.
“You look perfect,” I say with a tight smile. “Now remember how I said you should act when you’re playing me?”
“Like a bad bitch who isn’t afraid of anyone and looks up to no one.’
“Exactly.”
I feel around in my pockets. All I have is a twenty-dollar bill, her ID, and a pay-as-you-go phone to get me through the next part.
“I’m going to go. But you stay and get your hair done however you like before you leave. What’s your address?”
She gives me directions to her place, which will either cost the entire twenty dollars I have in bus fares to get there, or I’m going to be taking the subway—something I haven’t done in years. But now isn’t the time to get grossed out by how half of New Yorkers live.
I thank Tiffany one last time, and then I sneak out the back door of the hair salon while Tiffany struts out into the front.
I look around for any way that Langston could be following me, but I don’t see any cameras or any people.
This will work.
Three subway trains later, I finally make it to my stop, which is still a good ten-block walk away from the apartment. Thankfully, I have tennis shoes instead of heels. For the first time that I can remember, I let my head fall a little. I let my shoulders slump. I feel less than I actually am. And for once, it feels good to not have to worry about anything. To not have to worry about power or control. To just be.
When I make it to Tiffany’s apartment building, the sight of a crumbling building and cockroaches does nothing to deter me. I head inside to the third floor and then collapse onto her stained mattress on the floor. She doesn’t have a pillow, just a ratty old blanket.
Regardless, I will rest well, because tomorrow I have to do something much worse than sleep in an unsafe apartment with no air conditioning or pillow. Tomorrow I have to go back to where my life began, to where the nightmares started. That is the one place Langston thinks I’d never go.
The next day, I wake up early. The sounds of people yelling and alarms blasting fills my room even though I’m in the apartment alone.
I don’t know how Tiffany lives like this. I hope the money I gave her is enough to start a new life.
I rinse off in her cold, broken shower. I change into sweatpants and a sweatshirt I find in her closet but keep the same tennis shoes. Lastly, I start the long subway journey to the pier.
After several train switches, I make it to my boat rental.
My heart freezes at the sight of the boat. It’s modest, nothing like the yachts of the family I grew up next to but never truly in. My mother worked for a dangerous man as a maid. I grew up with that dangerous man’s son, Enzo, and his friends Zeke and Langston. I know how to operate a boat. I know the benefits and dangers.
I just never thought I’d willingly step onto one.
“Do you know how to operate this thing, miss?” the man in overalls and a bandana asks.
I smile as I take the keys from him. “Better than you do.”
His eyes widen, and then he chuckles like there is no way a woman like me knows how to operate a boat better than him—misogynist.
I start untying the boat before he’s even stepped off, and then I start the engines, forcing the man to jump back onto the pier.
I wave at him with my adorable, shameless smile, letting him know how much of a catch I truly am beneath the ratty clothes, but he’ll never get me. Then I peel out in the boat, taking off hard and fast and letting the breeze run through my hair.