Who says you can’t re-write history?
The apartment was nice, clean, and had a lived-in look. I think I would have balked if it’d looked like a model home, but there was even a basket of yarn and some knitting needles next to the couch in the living room. Some clothes were strewn about the bedroom, though they all had that ‘brand-new, never-been-washed’ feel about them. Everything was even decorated in a style I actually liked. For a person who had never so much as spoken to me, Jason had done a good job getting to know me. I plopped down on the couch and turned on the TV. At least I had cable. I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, sunlight was streaming in through the windows and I had a kink in my neck from slumping at an awkward angle all night. I yawned, stretched, and checked my watch. Nine in the morning. I panicked for a moment, and then remembered that I didn’t have to go in to work. I was dead. It was starting to have its pluses.
Another quick tour around the apartment and I settled down at the small desk with the laptop computer perched on it. Next to it was a pad of paper with a list of websites, usernames, and passwords. I booted up the computer, and ignoring the ‘read me’ icon in the middle of the desktop, I methodically checked each one to discover I had a hefty sum of money in the bank and only a few outstanding debts on some credit cards. The due dates weren’t for a few weeks, so I left those alone and went back to the desktop to do as the icon told me.
Turns out the new me had lived a pretty sedate life, and had a solid educational background and work history. There was nothing spectacular about the new me, either good or bad. Rather like the old me, other than the whole death thing. I read that I had left my last job after the company had shut down, and had decided on a fresh start in a new city. I was currently living off of savings and a buyout package, which would last quite a few years if I was frugal. Or I could get off my butt and get another job.
I mulled it over and decided I deserved a week off for dying, but next Monday I’d get right on it. For now I had to make good on a promise and empty out a storage unit. Not a job I was looking forward to, because I may or may not have mentioned this shiny new apartment was on the third floor, and there were no elevators. Lovely.
I picked up my keys, but noticed a second set hanging on a hook by the door. Attached was a parking space tag. I smacked myself in the head. Of course I couldn’t keep driving my old car. I would have made a lousy field operative, forgetting the basics like that. I briefly wondered about my old car, but would have bet my life savings (which were now quite substantial) that it was already gone. And when I got down to the parking garage and slipped into the cute little hatchback parked there, I saw that all the important junk I’d left in my car had been transferred over. A few things had been left, but I didn’t think I’d miss the Snuggie Janice had given me for my birthday. After all, for some reason she decided I would appreciate the ‘designer’ leopard-print Snuggie.
The hatchback was cute and functional, and it only took me three trips to get everything but my furniture moved into the apartment. I didn’t really have room for the furniture, anyway, since this place had come fully furnished. I called Jake and left him a message about the furniture, hoping he wouldn’t be too upset about it and rather glad that I didn’t have to speak to him in person. Wussy, I know, but I figured death was going to be my excuse for a lot of things, at least over the next month or so. ‘Oh, sorry, I can’t help you with that, you know, being dead and all’. Yup, gonna be handy. And I suppose I never have to return that CD Jessica loaned me, either. Might be a little awkward, a dead person returning something.
I plopped down on the sofa, flipped on the TV, and contemplated taking a nap. But a news story had caught my attention. There had been a huge pile-up on the outer belt, several fatalities reported. Seems a small silver compact car had been seen careening out-of-control, then it slammed into several cars before becoming one with a concrete barricade. The news chopped zoomed in on a close-up of the mangled car-corpse, and my heart sank as I recognized the bumper sticker. It was my old car. I hoped Jason hadn’t been the one driving it, and at the same time the thought that ‘this is going to be difficult to explain’ popped into my head. How did the car of a dead girl, one presumably destroyed in the same house fire that killed her, end up on the freeway the next day?
The news crew was giving more details on the crash, though the ‘names of the victims were being withheld until they could identify the next of kin’. But a few of the other drivers described the crazy driver of the small silver car, and their descriptions fit me perfectly. If I were, say, on meth. But pretty accurate other than that. I sat staring, unblinking at the TV as they droned on about the accident for several minutes. To most of the outside world, it would look like I’d been killed in that crash. I was dead for the second time in as many days. Only this time it had to be a coincidence, didn’t it? Jason had already staged my death, hopefully, please, with a cadaver, and whoever would have done this would have sent that girl out there to die. It was horrible, but not unimaginable. But who would want to kill a dead person? Someone who knew she wasn’t dead, or at least thought she wasn’t dead? Someone trying to muddy the waters surrounding my supposed death?
Just then the phone rang, scaring the crap out of me. Who knew this number? Who could possibly be calling me? Other than various campaign groups, charities, wrongly drunk-dialed numbers, and the inevitable ‘but this is the number she gave me at the bar last night’ calls. Okay, so a lot of people. I took a deep breath and answered.
“Hello?”
“Oh thank god you’re all right. I saw… I thought… I… I didn’t know if you’ve heard the news yet, but…”
“My car is an art installation out on the highway.”
“Yeah.” He sounded confused. Perhaps he thought I was being a tad bit too flippant. “What happened?”
“What do you mean what happened? I thought you came and got my car because you’d left me one here.” I’d never even checked to see if it was still parked where I’d left it last night, I realized. I’d just assumed. And you know what that does…
“No, I left you new license plates and registration for your old car.” He sounded confused, and a bit worried. Confused was bad. Worried was worse. All the same questions were probably running though his head.
“No, there were car keys, with the little parking space tag, in the bowl by the door. No license plate.” I hadn’t even checked the registration in the car, what if I’d stolen someone else’s car? But wait, calm down and think. My stuff had been in it. It had to be meant for me. But by who? “And all my stuff had been moved out of my car into this one.”
There was a long silence as we both mulled this over. Obviously, someone other than me, him, and Jake knew I was still alive. Or thought I was. And this couldn’t be Jake’s doing because he didn’t know about Jason the alter-identity he’d set up for me. This was not good news.
“Lemme check a few things,” he said, and hung up. I stared at the receiver for a little while. Then realized I looked like an idiot and hung up the phone. I thought for a little while, and decided I couldn’t just rest on my laurels. I had to take my fate into my own hands, and I couldn’t trust Jason. Or, for that matter, Jake. Not until I found out what was really going on.
I picked up the phone, then replaced it. This wasn’t a call I wanted traced. I had to think like a criminal on the run. I was pretty sure the identity I’d made for myself was completely secret, but I wasn’t sure I could even trust that. There was only one place for me to go. I shuddered, and started taking my belongings back out to the car. After I’d fished out a few essentials and done a teeny tiny bit of hacking, after a teeny tiny bit of breaking and entering, a plan had solidified in my mind. A cunning plan, if I do say so myself.
Turns out the storage unit next to Jake’s had been delinquent on the payments long enough that unless someone pays the balance, it’s going to auction next month. A little bit of computer wizardry on my behalf, and the balance is paid in full and the unit is now under the ownership of one Marissa Dupre. A little more magic with some lock-pick tools, and a quick prayer that the unit doesn’t hold a bunch of moldering corpses, and I had a completely untraceable storage unit. The previous owner had left a stack of boxes that neither smelled bad nor seemed to be leaking bodily fluids, so I ignored them for now. There was plenty of room for my stuff, including my furniture from Jake’s unit. I’d call and leave him a message about that later. For now, I have three more trips to make, a lot of prep work, and one visit I really did not want to make.
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