Kate's journey to find herself and others.
Part one - The Cabin
Damian walked over to Kate who was struggling with the spreadsheet she'd been given.
He smiled, "Hi, it's Kate isn't it?"
It was the first time he'd said anything to her in the six months since she'd started at O'Neil and Proctor.
She knew who he was though, the youngest partner at the firm, mid thirties, good looking, single and considered by the girls working there as the ultimate, if unobtainable, catch.
"I need to ask you something Kate," a smile playing round his lips.
"Yes?"
"Are you doing anything tonight?"
Kate felt butterflies in her stomach.
Kate's Friday night schedule was, as usual, pretty empty, telephoning mum for a chat and watching TV.
Since she'd moved to the city Kate had struggled to make new friends, she knew that several of the firm's staff went out together on Friday nights, but she had yet to be invited into that exclusive club.
She smiled back
"Nothing I can't get out of, why do you ask?" her heart beating faster.
"It's just...erm...do you drive Kate?"
"Yes," she replied, too quickly, calm down and try not to blush, she told herself.
His smile widened
"Great, I need to get a contract to Jayne Simmons, she needs to sign it, and I need it back here on my desk, by Monday at 9:00 latest."
Kate feeling foolish, nodded and forced herself to keep smiling.
Damian continued "Trouble is Kate, she's left for her cabin by the lake already, so I need you to drive over tonight and get her to sign it."
"Couldn't we just use a courier?" Kate suggested.
"Christ no, the last time we did that the idiots lost the documents, by the time they found them we'd missed the deadline and almost lost the client."
He leaned in touched her arm and quietly said, "Look, I'd really appreciate it if you'd do this for me, and as you've not got anything on tonight?"
His smile now seeming slightly less charming to Kate.
"Don't have a car."
"No problem Kate," his smile as bright as ever "Alex can get you a pool car, one of those electric things, I'll get her to sort it now and give you the address of Jayne's cabin for the GPS, you'll need it."
He looked round and gave a wink and thumbs up to one of the other partners, who was looking nervously on.
"Oh and don't let that lesbian bitch seduce you," he laughed.
Kate wondered what he meant by that, but didn't ask.
Alex did indeed sort out an electric pool car for her, one of two Nissans the partnership had procured to highlight their support for the environment to one of their larger green energy clients.
The two cars spent most of their time unused in the basement car park, the partners preferring to drive their company supplied Range Rovers and Aston Martins, unless seeing that particular client.
Kate looked at the dashboard in front of her, nothing like her old Toyota used to be.
In the centre of the dashboard the energy management panel proudly boasted that a range of 174 miles was available, caveated with the notice, 'Range is subject to vary accordingly to driving conditions.'
She put in the address of the cabin she'd been given, shit, according to the GPS the cottage was 108 miles away, she would need to charge it at some point, just so she could get home.
The car was easier to drive than Kate had imagined, two pedals, stop and go, ideal for the rush hour traffic she found herself sat in.
Within 10 minutes of leaving the underground garage it started to rain, she peered through the windscreen into the dark of the winter night and turned on the heater.
The local radio station warned her of storms for the next 8 hours.
Half an hour and 4 torturously slow miles later the dashboard told her she had 160 miles range remaining.
She had only glanced at the laminated instruction sheet she'd been handed with the car keys, but remembered it had mentioned something about extending the car's range by not using the heater, radio and lights unnecessarily.
Kate turned the heater down and the radio off.
The sound of the windscreen wipers and occasional blast of someone's horn was the only sound she heard while waiting for the traffic to move.
Her mind wondered to what Damian had said earlier, "Don't let that lesbian bitch seduce you".
She'd never met Jayne, but had heard she could be hard to work for, in her head she imagined what she might look like.
Feeling a little happier once on the highway, the traffic, still Friday night heavy, was at least now moving.
Ninety minutes later the GPS 60 showed miles to go and the car displayed an available range of 75 miles, she began to worry.
She pulled off the highway onto a service station forecourt, only to find two out of the three 'fast charging points' out of action, the third had a queue of four cars already waiting to use it.
Kate checked Google, there were a couple of other charging points advertised but both were at least five miles out of the way, which could mean a ten mile round trip only to find the same thing, she felt nervous but decided to push on.
Not long afterwards the GPS informed her to take the next exit.
Once off the highway the road seemed to close in on her, only painted lines and the occasional sign illuminated by her headlights kept her company.
By the time the GPS showed her there was 10 miles to her destination the range was down to 16 miles.
A final turn took her down a much narrower road.
"You have reached your destination, the destination is on the right." the GPS finally announced.
Kate couldn't see a thing, just a wall of trees.
She drove on until told to, "Turn around where possible."
Kate did this twice before finally noticing an opening in the dark wall of trees, guarded by a gate leading to a single track cinder road.