The Missing - Kiersten Modglin (the reading strategies book TXT) 📗

“Of course. I understand completely.” My eyes traveled to the overstuffed envelope of cash in Lester’s hands. “Were you able to get it, then?”

“We were. Twenty thousand. It’s all in hundreds,” Lester said, holding the envelope out with trembling hands.

I took it from him carefully. “You don’t mind if I count it?”

“Of course,” Tom said quickly, and I turned away from them, walking back toward the thin table in the foyer and pulling out the two strapped bundles of cash. I thumbed through them quickly. Two hundred bills, all pristine and crisp, as if they’d come straight from the Federal Reserve. I inhaled the scent and slipped them back into the envelope.

“Everything looks to be in order.”

“Do we need to sign anything?” Tom asked, eyeing me.

I straightened my shoulders. “Oh, certainly. I’ll email the contract over to you, but I’ll need both of your signatures, yours and Alyssa’s. We’ll probably need to meet once or twice in person, but most of the work can be done via video chat or phone. Once you get home and break the news to the bride, you can have her reach out to my assistant with any specific requests she may have—keep the budget in mind, of course—and as soon as you send the contract back to me, I’ll be able to get to work.”

“She’s going to be so excited,” Tom said, his eyes glimmering with hope. Life hadn’t yet crushed it out of him.

“You said there’d be a receipt?” Lester asked, calming his son’s excitement.

“Of course,” I said, pressing my lips together and giving him a condescending look, as if the request were unnecessary, impractical. I walked back across the room and opened the drawer of the table, pulling out a small receipt book.

I scribbled the amount on the first carbon copy. Twenty thousand.

“Whose name do you want on here?”

“His,” Lester said, jutting a thumb toward his son. “Tom. Thomas Clancy.”

“Hm,” I said, jotting it down. “Like the author.”

Lester smiled, his tanned skin wrinkling with suppressed delight. “My wife’s favorite.”

I scribbled a signature on the receipt and wrote Tom and Alyssa’s Wedding at the top, underlined it twice, then tore the top copy off and walked across the room with it in my outstretched hand. “Here you go.”

Tom looked down at it carefully, then looked back at me. “Thank you so much, Ms. Sheridan. I really can’t thank you enough.”

“No thanks necessary. It’s my pleasure. I look forward to working with you.” I rested my hand on his bicep, noticing how muscled and firm it felt despite his relatively small stature. “My secretary has your email, correct?”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s right.”

“Excellent. I’ll have her send over a copy of the contract first thing tomorrow, then. Once you and Alyssa sign it, you can just send it back to me, and we’ll get to work. How does that sound?”

“Great. Thank you. Thank you so much.” He pressed his hands together in front of him as if in prayer. His face pinkened as he took a step back, practically radiating with glee. Within seconds, they had both turned away from me and were on their way out the door with little more than a wave over their heads.

I stood in silence, listening as the truck started up and the sound traveled farther down the street, taking my guests with it. I heard the sound of my suitcase being rolled carefully down the stairs, one step at a time, and when I turned around, Belinda had made it to the bottom step with my suitcase and purse.

“Everything ready?” I asked.

“Yes. I’ve got to grab the bag of trash when we head out, but the dishes and laundry are done and I’ve double-checked each room. Everything’s in order.”

“Perfect,” I mused, opening the envelope and pulling out five thousand dollars. I handed the cash over to her. “Please thank your sister for me.”

“Always a pleasure doing business with you,” she said, a sly smile on her lips as she counted the money then slipped it into her bra.

With that, I tucked the remainder of the cash into my pocket, lifted my bags, and carried them toward the door, slipping outside and shutting it behind us. I opened my phone and clicked on the travel app, tapping the button for the garage to open and the button to check out.

As it asked me to rate my stay, I tapped the envelope resting in my pocket and grinned, then clicked five stars.

Would definitely stay again.

With that, Ms. Sheridan of 52 Wimbledon Way disappeared.

Just like all the others.

Chapter Four

In the beginning, it wasn’t supposed to be something I did regularly. It started in college, when a girlfriend mused about how easy it would be to fake an identity while traveling. Fake phone, preloaded debit card, fake ID, and voilà! You were a new person.

Wanting to test the theory, we decided to try it out by renting a place in Miami, convincing a group of naïve and miserably plain girls to come back to our house with us. We convinced them that we were beauty moguls, who were starting a makeup and fashion empire.

They’d melted into our hands when we offered to show them how to do their makeup and to give them designer dresses for just a hundred dollars each. There were five of them, so we made two hundred and fifty dollars each by applying some makeup to their pudgy faces and giving them dresses we’d picked up at a local thrift shop. They weren’t new, and some of them weren’t even a perfect fit, but we convinced them it was vintage and trendy, and they went on their way none the wiser.

We left that night with money in our pockets, checked out, and heard nothing else about it. From there, the cons grew larger, the targets bigger, the profits as large as the one I’d made today, and sometimes even larger.

When my friend got married, she told me she wanted