‘Do you know any good ones… hotels, I mean. Not plantation houses.’
The driver smiled at Mary. ‘I sure do, ma’am. I know a couple of great little boutique hotels, but the choice is plenty. The I-65 cuts right through Franklin, and honestly, that’s like a hotel boulevard. You look left… you look right… all you see are hotels, ma’am – from cheap ones to living in high cotton.’
Mary nodded at the driver’s eyes on the mirror. ‘Do you mind driving me there instead of the bus station. I can pay cash.’
‘I’ll drive you wherever you’d like me to, ma’am.’ He touched the tip of his hat, as he gave Mary a cowboy nod. ‘It’s my job.’
The driver was right. The ride from The Broadway all the way to Franklin, just south of Nashville, took him no longer than twenty-five minutes. Once there, Mary decided to go for a simple three-star hotel – The Comfort Inn – just off the I-65, like the cab driver had told her.
It was true that the Covid pandemic changed the world in many ways, including how customers paid for goods and services all around the planet. Credit cards and phone pays have become the norm, with many establishments accepting no other form of payment, but in the USA, you could still find plenty of places where cash was king, especially in the Deep South. At The Comfort Inn, Mary had no problems getting the female desk clerk to accept cash instead of a credit card. There was no need to create a digital trail.
‘I need to ask you for a huge favor,’ Mary said, as she handedthe clerk her ID card. Her voice was sad and pleading. ‘Could you please register me under a different name.’
The clerk, an older lady with curly blonde hair and a gentle smile, paused and looked back at Mary curiously.
‘I know that artists do that sometimes,’ Mary explained. ‘To avoid fan calls, journalists… things like that, you know?’
‘Oh,’ the clerk’s eyes narrowed at Mary, as if trying to place her. ‘Are you…’
‘No,’ Mary responded with a shake of the head. ‘I’m not an artist. I’m not famous or anything like that either.’ The sadness in her tone became a little more prominent. ‘But I finally got the courage to run away from a very abusive and toxic relationship. I’m doing this all by myself and to be honest, I’m terrified. I’m not really sure what I’m doing… I don’t really know where I’m going. I didn’t even get a chance to pack a bag or anything.’ She lifted her hands to indicate that all she had with her was her handbag. ‘But I know that he and his buddies will be searching for me.’ Mary shook her head, as tears glassed her eyes. ‘I can’t go back, you know? I just can’t.’
‘Heavens to Betsy, honey,’ the clerk said, her tone tender. ‘Bless your heart, and good for you that you decided to finally leave.’ She gave Mary a kind and understanding smile. ‘And of course I can put you down in the books under a different name. No one will find you here, honey. Don’t you worry about that, you hear?’ She handed Mary back her ID card. ‘Do you have a name in mind?’
‘Oh, thank you so much.’ Mary’s tone was sincere. ‘Right now, I need all the help I can get, you know?’
‘Of course, honey.’
Mary took a second. ‘How about Vicky…’ She thought about giving Vicky the surname ‘Grit’, but Vicky Grit sounded like too odd of a name. She decided that it would be better to go with something more traditional. That was when the cab driver’s name came back to her. ‘How about Vicky Anderson?’
The clerk nodded, as she typed the name into her computer. ‘Vicky Anderson it is.’ She gave Mary a renewed smile. ‘And I’ll tell you what – I think you’ve been through enough for one night, so I’m going to upgrade you to one of our suites, for no extra cost.’ She carried on typing into her computer. ‘It’s a larger and more comfortable room, with a separate living area, a balcony and a super king-sized bed. I’m sure that you must be worn slap out. And the room comes with a complimentary bottle of white wine, which you’ll find in the minibar.’
‘Aw, thank you so much. That’s so very kind of you.’ Mary’s eyes glassed over again. ‘And you’re right, I really am exhausted.’
‘I’m sure you are, honey.’ The clerk handed Mary a keycard. ‘Room 410, on the top floor. The lifts are just over there.’ She indicated just ahead and to the right of the reception counter.
Mary took the card and thanked the clerk once again.
‘Miss Anderson?’ the clerk called, just as Mary got to the lifts. ‘I hope everything turns out just fine for you. You deserve better, honey. You’re doing the right thing.’
Up on the fourth floor, it was only when Mary touched the keycard against the lock pad on the door that she realized how much she was shaking. Inside the large and nicely decorated suite, as the door finally closed behind her, Mary dropped to her knees and broke down in desperate sobs.
Twenty-One
Despite managing to evade gangster-suit man back at The Whiskey Bent Saloon, Mary barely got any sleep that night. First, she took a long, warm shower, allowing the strong water jet to massage her stiff neck muscles for almost ten minutes, before opening the bottle of wine from the minibar and spending most of the night sitting awake in bed, rethinking her plan, and trying to figure out where she went wrong – how had he managed to track her down all the way to Nashville?
Mary thought back to every step she had taken after she was granted her identity change, and she just couldn’t pinpoint where her mistake had come from. She hadn’t told a soul about her new name, not even her lawyer, and the only document she had signed that attested to her name change had been the one at the courthouse, which was a mandatory step to finalize the identity change process – a document that she was told would be kept under lock and key – and that was when Mary remembered what George Oakfield had told her, while explaining the intricacies of the process:
‘Once an identity change is granted and finalized, the documentation for the whole process goes into “lock and key” mode – very, very hard for anyone to get to – but not impossible. And what I mean here is – there are legal and illegal ways of obtaining the information on those records. This is America,where money talks and bullshit walks. And people can be easily bribed.’
‘That must’ve been it,’ Mary said to herself, as she stared out of her hotel room window, down at a completely empty street. ‘One of Nelson’s buddies must’ve managed to bribe someone in the courthouse. But even so…’ she breathed out frustration, ‘…all that anyone would’ve obtained from the courthouse documents would’ve been my new name – Mary Smith – nothing else. So how did that guy find me in Nashville?’
When it came to her money and her bank accounts, Mary had once again followed Oakfield’s advice to the letter. Once the divorce settlement money hit her old account, she had sat tight and waited until her identity change process was concluded. That same day, just hours before she had to sign the courthouse papers, finalizing the entire identity change process, Sam walked into her bank in downtown Boston and, to the total disbelief of the bank manager, withdrew everything she had… to the last penny… and all in cash. Minutes after Samantha Chambers had legally ceased to exist, with a trunkful of money, a newly born Mary Smith drove straight out of Boston and into the city of New York. Her first stop was the JPMorgan Chase & Co. bank on Park Avenue, where she deposited some of the money that she had with her. During the next couple of days, Mary travelled to Pennsylvania, Washington DC, and West Virginia, where she opened three other bank accounts, in three completely different banks. Each deposit was for a different amount, and once again, George Oakfield had been right on the money.
As Sam signed the court documents to become Mary Smith, she was also given a letter, signed by a District Judge, instructing any bank she chose to accept whatever large cash deposit she offered them – no questions asked.
As for the address registered against her bank accounts, Mary had used a different nameless PO Box for each of them.
She thought about it for a while, and the only conclusion that she could come to was that there really was no feasible way that anyone could’ve tracked her down by following the money.
