TWENTY-EIGHT
Britney returned to her room with the packet the marshals had given her. She opened the large manila envelope, dumped the contents onto her bed, and began looking through her new documents. She picked up her driver's license and studied it as she sat down on the edge of the bed. She was no longer Han Bo-bae. Now she was Britney Bailey Hadley. She looked at the photograph on her Maine driver's license. It was a typical driver's license photo and she looked like warmed over death.
After the ordeal in the court room, she'd spent four days cooped up in the Four Seasons before Martinelli released her. The case was still underway when she boarded the flight to Washington D.C. under the careful supervision of Michelle Walpole. She'd first begged, and then demanded, that Rob escort her to D.C., but the Marshal Service steadfastly refused. When they arrived in the nation's capital, Bae was turned over to another marshal who had taken her to a nondescript building somewhere in the Washington suburbs. That building had been her home for the past two weeks, and she had at least another week to go.
She didn't know what to expect when she entered the witness protection program, but getting a new identity was nothing like in the movies. There wasn't some guy sitting at a computer digging through various government databases and the internet, deleting any trace of her existence. Han Bo-bae still existed, but she was deceased. As it was explained to Bae, her dying was primarily to stop the collection of taxes and payment of benefits. There were procedures already in place to perform those functions, so witsec simply piggybacked on those.
Officially, Bae died in her apartment on September eighth of a ruptured abdominal aorta aneurysm, and her body had been discovered a couple of days later after Bae had stopped responding to friends. As she was estranged from her father, Bae's body was cremated less than a week later without family in attendance, and her ashes were shipped to her father's family in Korea as she'd requested in her will. Bae hadn't had a will, but the Marshal Service showed her one they'd worked up, dated two years previous, complete with an embossed notary stamp.
Seeing the will explained why the marshals had asked questions about how Bae wanted her estate disposed. She'd asked why Britney couldn't inherit Bae's small estate, and the witsec people had explained there could be no connection between Britney Hadley and Han Bo-bae, including the transfer of assets. When the witsec people said Bae had to leave everything behind, they meant
everything
.
Bae didn't have a lot, but since she had no family other than Kwang-hoon and her father, and she wouldn't give Kwang-hoon a pile of her shit, she had her estate liquidated and the proceeds given to Rob. That had caused some raised eyebrows when the Marshal Service realized who Rob was, but she didn't care. It'd take some time for the case to work its way through probate, but it was a legal will as far as the courts were concerned, and he'd eventually get what little Bae's had.
The people creating Bae's new identity gave her a few days to think about where she wanted to go and what she wanted her new name to be, giving her a long list of suggested names to help her get started, along with various other decisions she had to make. She had nowhere to go. She'd lived her entire life in New York City, but she couldn't stay there. The only stipulation to where Britney could live was she had to select a town within fifty miles of a marshal's office. They'd given her a map that showed all the marshal offices in the country, along with all the eligible surrounding towns highlighted in a faint blue circles. The fifty-mile limit was enforced only for the first five years, so Britney's handler could more easily keep track of her. After the five years were up, she was free to relocate to anywhere as the Marshal Service was confident her new life was firmly in place, and during her five years under a Deputy Marshal's guidance, she would have become comfortable with what she could and couldn't do so that her new identity was no longer in danger of being discovered.
When she found out she had a marshal assigned to her, she demanded it be Rob, but once again, the Marshal Service refused to even consider it. She'd argued strenuously for Rob, and even went to far as to demand to speak to the marshal in charge of processing people into the program, but she got nowhere with her demands.
She'd given the idea of her new home some thought and finally settled on Maine. As Rob had warned, they'd taken everything from her, including the battered business card he'd given her months ago, but she still had his number in her head, and they couldn't take that. When Maine was approved, she'd selected Wurth as the town where she wanted to live. That had also been approved before her handlers wised up to why she wanted to live there and reversed the decision, rejecting her request because the citizens of Wurth knew her from her old life. She'd finally settled on Bangor, and so far, nobody had objected to that.
Britney placed the driver's license aside. In addition to the new driver's license, she had a new social security card, credit card, passport, and a birth certificate that stated she'd been born in Portland, Maine. Britney's birthday was the same as Bae's, but Britney was thirty-three instead of twenty-nine. Britney had asked the service to age her up instead of back because she decided she'd rather be a young looking thirty-three than an old looking twenty-five.
She still had her long hair, even though her handlers had wanted to cut it short to better change her appearance. She'd always had long hair, and she liked it long so her lovers could pull her hair when he was fucking the shit out of her from behind, but a compromise was reached where she allowed the stylist to shorten her hair to the middle of her shoulders, that she'd wear it down most of the time, and if she just
had
to put up in a ponytail, she'd wear it low on her head instead of higher up as she used to. The stylist had also stripped Bae's green out of Britney's hair and woven in blonde highlights. She was still adjusting to having her hair always blowing in her face, and she'd taken to tucking it behind her ears a lot, but she approved of her new look.
By the time her orientation was over, she'd have a new apartment waiting for her in Bangor. After that, she was on her own, though she'd have a marshal watching over her like a guardian angel to make sure Britney's true identity was never discovered.
Everyone was polite and helpful, but she missed Rob desperately. They wouldn't allow her to make or receive phone calls. Understandable, since she was dead, but as soon as she was settled in Bangor, she was calling Rob. Britney had to know if Bae had heard what she thought she heard in the stairwell.
She'd been terrified, so scared she remembered little of what happened after Rob shoved her into the corner and covered her with his body as bullets whizzed and cracked over their heads. She thought he said he loved her, but she couldn't be sure. Had she imagined the words because it was what she wanted him say? The uncertainty was driving her crazy.
There was a soft rap on her door. "Britney?"
She smiled. Nobody called her anything other than Britney or Ms. Hadley anymore, ever, to get her used to thinking of herself as Britney Hadley. "Come in!"
The door opened and Missy stepped into her small room. Melissa Guetlind was Britney's coach. In addition to all the technical stuff she had to deal with to become Britney Hadley, Missy was teaching her to think like Britney. Missy was annoyingly good at tripping her up and making her say or do something that gave away Britney's true identity. She was a sweet, personable woman of about forty, and was Britney's self-appointed best friend. She knew it was part of Missy's job, but it was nice to have someone who treated her like something other than a number on a sheet of paper.
"I came by to see if you wanted to grab some lunch."
Britney smiled. She'd learned this was all part of the orientation, and every time she slipped and became Bae, Missy pointed it out, but even so, it was nice to have someone to talk to.
"Sure, I'd love to."
"Great! I have a treat for you."
"What?"
"We're going
out
for lunch. Just you and me."
"Really?"
"Yep. You've been working hard, and I think you deserve a break."
Britney narrowed her eyes. "This isn't one of your tests, is it?"
