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"I’mnot" Vance sputtered his reply, but finally slu, Dee?" He reached out a hand, and we shook

"I’ood Who wants me followed?"

He folded his arms "Can’t say" Yeah, probably Bea

"That’s okay" I patted his shoulder "See you around" I got the money I needed, then I drove back to the motel Vance followed dutifully

I still wanted to talk to Hale so I could enlist his But the last thing I needed was Vance reporting all of this to her, so I had to lose hi Vance wasn’t the sharpest pencil in the box

One of the features of this motel that made it a useful hideout was that it had a back exit The bathroo to a fire escape That led to a strip mall around the corner and from there, to freedom

Because Vance was parked outside the door to my room, I climbed out of the bathroom , hailed a cab at the strip mall, and rented a different car My plain, brown sedan was easy to ignore, but I needed so completely different I needed a car that could hide me both physically and conceptually It had to be so outlandish that nobody would suspect I was driving it I chose a big, black SUV with tinted s The car screa anonymous--just what I needed Now I could sneak around town in relative safety

For the duration of this con, whenever I went to see Bea or someone related to the swindle, I’d drive the brown sedan But when I was visiting Hale or someone unrelated, I’d turn on the television and sneak out the bathroo the same way

Safely in my SUV, I drove to the pizza place to see Hale Since he’d been able to hack into the license plate database, I asked him to invade Bea’s finances for e locker, I’d knohere it was and could get reed to look

Next, to ht soattention to ht a few proper outfits so that e ran the con, I’d look like an appropriately serious daughter