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If I was going to be a single mother, Vegas was not the place for me. I needed somewhere with more education resources, help programs, and less extreme temperatures.
“Then you know what you have to do,” I told myself, getting to my feet and gathering my meager surroundings.
It didn’t take long to have everything packed. It felt almost surreal putting everything away, but I knew what had to be done. And even if I wasn’t pregnant and I was over reacting to everything, I still needed to go somewhere with better job opportunities. Vegas had, unfortunately, been a bust for me.
Checking my phone, I looked at the cheapest bus tickets and where they would go. After a little bit of research on the cities that were available, I headed to the front desk to check out with the hostel-mother.
I had started over once before, I could do it again. But last time, I hadn’t been nearly so terrified.
Chapter Eight
~James~
I got into my office at work and checked my email, doing it out of habit more than actually looking for a response. It had been three and a half months since that fateful weekend in Vegas and I still hadn’t found the mystery woman who I was married to.
At first, I had thought that maybe this was all some big scam and she was going to message me with a sort of ransom demand for our divorce, so I had waited for the shoe to drop while I went back home and went about my business, cursing myself for my own stupidity for being so easily snowed.
But then the days started to pass, then weeks, until I realized that obviously wasn’t the case at all. For whatever reason, the girl had run.
I couldn’t piece together why though, unless she had no idea we were married. I had done a lot of investigating on my own, and my credit card statement showed that I had spent thirty grand on a pair of matching wedding bands from a jewelry store in Vegas.
The PI team had descended on that place, of course, looking for anything that would give them details about my wannabe Cinderella, but there was nothing. We had security footage, sure, but she didn’t sign anything or buy anything, so that ended up being a dead end.
For a month or so I had been very frustrated, wanting to end my marriage as soon as possible and hating every moment that it was out of my control. I hired a lawyer and asked him to get the divorce started without her. He said without our marriage certificate to find her identity, he couldn’t do much of anything, so then the PIs went scouring through all of Vegas and every single chapel to see what they could do.
There was an unfortunately large number of them, however, and all of them had ridiculous requirements to get reissues of the marriage licenses, so that was taking its sweet time too.
Honestly, it was seeming pretty hopeless, so I more or less had tucked it into the back of my mind. Sure, I checked certain things out of habit, but there was no active hope in any of my conduct.
So that was why I was so surprised to see an urgent email sitting there from the team.
We got a hit on your ring at a pawn shop. The report is attached.
I never downloaded a document so quickly. Seconds later, I had it open and I was reading it as fast as humanly possible.
Apparently, it was pawned off in St. Louis about two weeks ago. The information she gave on the pawn sheet didn’t have an address, but it did have her work information and a cellphone number.
I thought about calling it instantly, but what if that made her spook again? I needed to talk to her and get her to sign the court documents before she slipped into the wind again. While St. Louis was a good distance away from me, I could make it in a short flight.
But if she pawned the ring, that brought up an uncomfortable question. She had to know that we were married then, or at least she was married to someone, so why would she bolt? Did she have an abusive ex? Was she already married? A student immigrant who had overstayed their visa? She was young, so I supposed that was a slight possibility.
Either way, I was going to get my answer. I shot off an email to my secretary to find me a flight that would get there before the end of the work day and got ready to finally re-meet my mystery bride.
***
The flight wasn’t that bad, and neither was finding a cab to get to her work. I guess I had to hope that she worked a regular nine to five, otherwise she wasn’t going to be there, and her coworkers might tell her about the tall, rich man who came to check on her.
