The Business Trip

by Jessie Garcia

I was mostly OK being away from all of them now, but sometimes I wished I had a family to lean on. This was one of those times. Instead, I would have to rely on my own smarts. I might not have been book-smart, but I was street-smart, I knew that.

Jasmine

Running a meeting was bad enough. Running one when you weren’t expecting to was worse. I felt out of sorts and screwed up the order of people I needed to call on, even though I had done it many times.

Bruce

“I have some new information from Stephanie’s sister. Here, come sit.” She motioned to chairs in the boarding area. “Dave texted me that he spoke to Steph’s sister, Renee, who spoke to her son, Evan. Evan was able to do ‘Find My iPhone.’ Robert—I don’t know if this is good or bad news, but it pinged at the address you told us about: 4240 Horizon Lane.”

Robert

That night at my place when Steph told me that she would be willing to endure a disease, a few nights in the woods, or a friendly kidnapper to get her son back in her corner. This wasn’t some giant cat and mouse game, was it? Was Trent the friendly kidnapper? Could she possibly have staged this to make Evan worry for a while and then return triumphantly?

Robert

Police entered the residence. Enough evidence was found to take a Trent J. McCarthy, age fifty-two, who is employed at NBC6, into custody on suspicion of two homicides.

“That one is a Jasmine V. Littleton. The second potential victim is a Stephanie H. Monroe. Personal items from both were found buried in the backyard. We know that Mr. McCarthy and at least one of the victims attended a conference together in La Jolla, California, last week. This remains a very active investigation and we ask anyone with information to come forward. There will be no questions, and I mean it this time: No. Questions.”

Bruce

The postmark said Atlanta. To my shock, $500 in cash was inside. I knew then it was from Jasmine. She had come through! How she got that much money, I had no idea, but she was true to her word and had paid me back.

Anna

If there were two things I couldn’t stand, it was getting laughed at and appearing weak. Weakness was not the trait of a leader; my team needed to see me strong as an ox at all times. If their leader was down, how would they go on?

Trent

It was either some woman trying to frame me—Stephanie? Katrina?—or the police themselves. For what reason the police would do it, I didn’t know, but they could have planted evidence when they barged into my house in the middle of the night.

Trent

Things were starting to leak out—Steph had withdrawn large sums of money both in San Diego and Atlanta. Police surmised that she and Trent started a hot romance at the conference and he convinced her that he needed money for his growing child support payments.

Lucy

“Lucy, I got the NPF sign-in sheet and sent it to my handwriting expert. It’s definitely written by someone who is right-handed. We’ve got something here. And that’s not all. I went to your website and found a video of Stephanie giving a mission statement about your station. I wanted to compare her voice to the one I remembered from San Diego since the face wasn’t a clear mental image for me. Lucy, I don’t believe that’s the same voice I heard at the conference. We need to call the police.”

Lucy

“My name is Jasmine. Are you from Madison?” “I’m Stephanie,” she responded. “And no, I mean, not from Madison originally. Indiana. I’ve been there about ten years, though. You?”

Jasmine

What if I took this one step further and actually became her? How would that look? What would that mean? If she disappeared and I became Stephanie, the high-powered, rich TV executive, even for a few days, I could truly disappear.

Jasmine

The driver’s license slipped out of its plastic holder easily, and I gently eased it into an inside pocket of my purse.

Jasmine

I needed to pull myself together, go back into the party, act natural, and blend in. And I knew with complete clarity all of a sudden that Drake would take the fall for this. His sperm inside her. A clear rape and assault. It was him or me, and it wasn’t going to be me. I didn’t owe him anything. He had never been kind to me either.

Jasmine

I had just killed someone. For a second time. What. The. Fuck. Like murder, real premeditated murder this time. A woman I barely knew, a woman who had woken up in her home in Madison that morning without a clue that she would be gone within twenty-four hours in a hotel room in San Diego.

Jasmine

Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing to have his key card. In fact, the most sinister plan of all started to reveal itself. If I had his key card and he was gone at the cocktail party or elsewhere …

Jasmine

That would be the paper trail for police. The DNA would already be inside his condo without him even knowing it. And he lived in Atlanta—perfect. Raven came to mind. She would be happy to help—she had even told me so. She was always out to make a little cash and liked a good scam.

Jasmine

“Just a waitress, huh?” asked Officer Healy. “You did a pretty good job impersonating a news director in San Diego, Jasmine. Your time is up. Give it up. Do it for Diana. Do it for Allison. Don’t you owe them at least that?”

Stephanie

Diana could have been my sister, we were so close in looks, and I was shocked at the further resemblance when I used the “transfer my hair” option to swap her hair for mine. I paid the premium for the high-end wig.

Stephanie

“It wouldn’t be the same without you,” he said. “Two former news directors who got the short end of the stick but came back swinging. It’s an American tale of redemption. People will love it. Come on, Steph.”

Stephanie