[color=gray][h3][sup][sup]This trip was meant to be a celebration. This was the first summer that felt free from COVID. This was the first summer she and her friends could legally drink. They’d pulled out all the stops. They were supposed to be crowded together here, getting ready for another night out, chatting about plans, people, and everything else. It should have stayed that way. It was going so well. Things were looking bright. Now, everything felt wrong. Now, everything looked wrong. Now, there was no sound except for those vanity lights. Their hum was getting maddening. 

She had to try again. She wiped her face clean. The deathly reflection glared back at her again the moment she looked back at the mirror. Her phone was propped up on the counter. The zoomed-in screenshot of her driver’s license picture on LA Wallet felt like it was mocking her. She felt more like a mosquito trapped in a bug zapper than the twenty-one-year-old version of that girl there. 

There was no fixing this. No amount of contour would do the job. Whatever was wrong with her, it had destroyed years of dental work. She dragged her hands down her face. Ugly wasn’t good enough. It just looked so [i]stupid[/i]. It was an unfixable overbite. Sam wasn’t stuck with his fangs, but Caroline? The oversized fangs that practically jabbed her lower gums weren’t even the worst part. Between them, she had these oversized incisors. And they were [i]orange[/i]. It was like someone had jammed nutria teeth in her mouth. It was freakish. They forced her lips forward. It looked like she was holding an orange slice in her mouth. It was hard to even speak properly.

She wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream, cry, or slam her head into the mirror. 

This was a waste of time. She was already an hour behind, with nothing to show for it. But if her plan was going to work, she needed to find a way to compensate for the deformities. The security at a few casinos had done double-takes. They weren’t even giving her money. Whoever at the check cashing place would be checking her ID needed to be damn certain she was who she said she was. 

The mirror gave her an answer. COVID. She looked sick. If she just stopped by the CVS on the way, got a mask, and made a little show of acting and sounding as sick as she looked, they just might buy it...[/sup] 

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[sup]For her entire walk to Moneytree, Caroline went over the plan with herself. Greet the clerk. Play meek about it. Use hand sanitizer liberally. Apologize and chatter about being “Not shure what I’be got, but I’m being ekshtra cautioush.” Offer the check, wait for them to check her identity. Ask for twenties. Only remove the mask if asked. Only give a reason for the $9,000 check if asked. Keep it short. Keep it sweet. Look sick, exhausted—just not nervous. [i]Remember: You want to get this over with. They just don’t need to know why.[/i]

She grasped at memories of sickliness to keep her motions delicate and shaky as she pushed the office’s door open. The clerk greeted her warmly. Caroline nodded and gave a languid little wave in return. Looking around, there were no people ahead of her. The clerk invited her forward just as it registered. 

“How can I help you today, ma’am?”

For a moment, Caroline could almost believe her own act. Sam’s paranoid ramblings crashed about in her head, bringing a disoriented haze about her not unlike that of illness. It felt like she was staring. She jolted herself into action. She approached the counter properly.

“I’d like to cash a check, pleashe.”

The clerk cocked her head. Caroline quickly repeated herself more loudly to compensate for the mask. She fumbled around in her purse for some hand sanitizer as the clerk requested the check. Caroline delivered the cautionary song and dance about “not knowing what she had,” and then delivered the check once the clerk reassured her. The clerk requested ID. Caroline apologized again, offering her LA Wallet. 

“Any other ID, ma’am?” the clerk drawled. Caroline hesitated, fumbled around in her purse, and then told the clerk she “just had the one.” She apologized again. The clerk eyed her, looking between the mobile ID and Caroline. She was quiet for a moment, then prompted Caroline to step back and take off her mask. When Caroline did so, the clerk nodded, sucked her teeth, dropped a little “Mmhmm,” then told Caroline she could put her mask back on. The clerk started typing, and started making small talk with Caroline as she did. Caroline murmured out minimal answers. Caroline could swear the clerk kept shooting glances at her as they chatted. It was wrong. It was all wrong. She was taking too long on that computer. Why was she squinting like that at the screen? What did she see? She got up. Why was she getting up? 

Caroline felt her gut retreat in on itself. It felt like her insides were collapsing. Should she run? No, that would only look more suspicious. But what if the clerk came back with cops? What if she’d already called them and was buying time? What if that was why she’d taken so long on the computer? She wanted to book it. It was like that time she’d seen that street performer breathe fire. She’d seen the flambeaux plenty of times. She hadn’t flinched at the heat since she was a kid. And yet that time? She wasn’t even that close, and she wanted to jump into the nearest fountain. She had to force herself not to break into a sprint. She caught something in the corner of her eye. She snapped her head to look at a corner of the ceiling. Was this how Sam felt? Had that camera caught something? Was she screwed? She needed to get out. This was a terrible idea. She’d ruined everything with this stupid move. She needed to grab her phone and go. But she had to do it slowly. Carefully. Like she wasn’t fleeing.

Caroline’s hand crept forward along the counter. She grasped her phone and withdrew slowly. She turned and began to walk away, playing as calm as she could.

“Ma’am?”

Caroline froze. She turned slowly.

“Is everything alright?”

Caroline let out a nervous chuckle and began to fumble for an excuse—anything to pretend she wasn’t just about to run. As she laid eyes on the clerk, she saw no police. No gun. The clerk had an envelope. Caroline stopped stammering on the spot.

“Did you get your phone, ma’am?”

Caroline nodded. The clerk continued. Everything was in order. The clerk apologized for the wait, claiming she’d needed to go in the back to access the safe due to the amount Caroline had requested. Caroline stared at her blankly. The clerk delivered an expectant nod and shook the envelope.

“This is your withdrawal.”

Caroline approached hesitantly. The clerk gave her a confused squint. She set the envelope on the counter and slid in forward. Caroline pulled it towards her suspiciously, gave it a look, then looked again at the clerk. She muttered a sheepish thanks, and hurried off.

She darted off in an awkward half-gallop—the closest imitation of a jog she could muster with her cloven feet and digitigrade ankles. She kept on for several blocks, only stopping at the light. She kept wanting to breathe heavily, yet she felt neither the need to do so nor the relief of air when she did. She ran her hand through her hair. She needed to find somewhere private to check the envelope. They had to have known. They must have put one of those paint bombs inside or something similar—something to catch her red-handed as the undead, money-laundering freak of nature she was. No, that wasn’t right. They probably thought she was her own murderer, now masquerading as their victim to wring more money from her account. She looked in every direction, certain one of the cars would reveal police lights, a siren, and she’d be charged as her own murderer. Her entire family would be there. Her friends would be there. The image came together so easily. Everyone still living crowded the courtroom. All their eyes—their judgemental eyes staring at her. Picking her apart. Putting everything on her. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her fucking fault. She hadn’t wanted to go to that shady private casino and get scammed. She’d told her friends as much. Her [i]friends[/i]. Their ghosts were judging her instead of judging with her. She wanted to go home to her car and her family and everything else. She wanted to deposit everything and go home. But she’d get caught and arrested and charged and probably blamed for her friends being dead, like they weren’t her only real friends in the world. And then everyone would hate her. Like that was even the worst of her worries. They’d take her outside and make her look at the sun, and they’d laugh as she bubbled and burned and turned into cinders instead of getting a loving burial from her great-grandkids in seventy years. She didn’t even get to be a ghost with her—

Walgreens. It was right there. It probably had a bathroom. A single room, hopefully no cameras. She could wash the money. Make sure the paint, dye thingie—whatever!—wouldn’t get everywhere. Then she might not get caught. She forced herself back into a walk. It was still just as awkward as her run; it all looked sort of like she was unfamiliar with heels. She did two laps around the inside of the store before confirming that the bathroom was locked. Of course it was. They probably thought she was an addict, just like all the other vagrants who used the bathroom for God-knows-what. She had to prove she was normal—that she was a normal woman making normal purchases who used bathrooms for normal reasons. Her eyes went to a bottle of Coke. She could pour it out in the dirt and throw away the bottle afterwards. She could get it with a plastic bag so she could put her envelope of cash in there while she washed away the ink. Perfect.

She went to the register to check out. She requested a bag, then hesitated to leave after she’d gotten her habitual $100 of cash-back with her purchase. She asked for the bathroom key; the cashier then led her back and let her in. Caroline felt like she should have seen Sam in the mirror by the way she looked at every corner, in every nook, and in every cranny for hidden cameras. There were none that she could see. It was [i]Walgreens[/i]. It was a [i]bathroom[/i]. She hit herself in the forehead to try to get it through. Surely there wouldn’t be any cameras. Why was she looking! There wouldn’t be any cameras; that would be such an invasion of privacy!

Her attention returned to the sink. She stopped the drain with paper towels, then started filling the sink with hot water. While she waited, she poured the Coke out in the toilet and flushed it. When the sink was full, she shut the tap off, then put the envelope in the plastic bag and plunged it all under the water. Treating the bag as a shield, Caroline opened the envelope as if she were defusing a bomb.

Nothing went off. Bill by bill, she fished out her cash. [i]$20, $40, $60...[/i] A stack she balanced on the edge of the sink. She felt her shoulders twitch with tension every few bills. How long was she taking? She tried to rush herself. But she needed to be careful, or she’d end up with a bunch of unusable bills. But she needed to hurry or the staff would come knocking, thinking she was doing drugs. Why hadn’t the dye pack gone off?

[i]$9000[/i]. She recounted three times. How tiny could the dye pack be? She couldn’t have just gotten away with this, could she?

Caroline doused the money several times before an employee knocking at the door finally snapped her out of it. She stuffed the shredded remnants of the envelope and the plastic bag into the trash, washed her hands, then wrapped her money in paper towels and stuffed the wad into her purse. She opened the door and saw the employee who’d knocked looking like she had been bracing for something. When Caroline muttered out an apology for taking so long, the employee let out a relieved sigh, then asked her if there was anything else she could help her with. The bathroom wasn’t trashed; Caroline didn’t need anything. They parted ways.

This had to be a trap. The cops hadn’t come because they must have been trying to get her to let her guard down. Previous murders flashed through her mind. Many were fairly close to ATMs. Had she been caught on camera? Was she a suspect in a bigger case? Standing at the stoplight, Caroline’s mind raced with explanations for the calm. It had to be a trick. It had to be. They were gathering evidence, preparing their case. Her body was gone. She was stealing evidence from a murder case by walking around! She’d get charged for killing everything. She’d probably get nailed for Sam too. But then they’d try to bring her into the sun and she’d burn. On camera, she’d burn in the sunlight and people would call it CGI while the feds would douse her and bring her inside, never to be seen again. Could she die? Could she even escape it? She’d be an experiment erased from everything. Nobody would remember her name. Nobody would pray for her, not even her mother. Did they even know what had happened to her now? Did anyone even know she was dead? Did they mourn her? When was her funeral going to be? Did she even get to have one, or was she just some terrible cold case slated to get rehashed on some television show or another, her only sympathisers relegated to some losers in sweatpants listening to podcasts and really, probably wanting to [i]be[/i] her so they could live out some stupid fantasy of getting [i]murdered[/i] by the maladjusted freaks that did this type of thing to people. Like Jeffrey what’s-his-fucking-name. The only people who’d know her story would be the audiences of [i]true crime[/i] podcasts. Caroline wanted to retch.

She needed to get somewhere to check her social media, Sam’s advice be damned. If anyone knew anything, surely they’d have at least sent out [i]feelers[/i] on some site or another. She’d resisted the temptation many times before. She’d deleted Facebook, Instagram, and anything else that she could log-in to from her phone. Checking what other people had to say about her death was vain and stupid. She knew that, even if it really did [i]feel[/i] important. But this? This was different. This was fact-finding. This was finding out what people even knew about what had happened to her. And the perfect place to do it? It was tantalizingly close.

Clark County Library was literally across the street. She’d considered going there many times before. Now she was looking right at it, with all the reason in the world—in her mind—to take a look. Sam did online investigations on his personal laptop. Wasn’t she being [i]more[/i] careful by using a library computer? If only she could speak as fast as the excuses came to her. She needed to know.[/sup][/sup][/h3][/color]