****
Two days later, Rachel had formally quit her job, not even giving notice, and submitting a resignation letter that, if formal and moderately polite, at least provided some food for thought to any of the people in HR who might have actually concerned themselves with a disaffected employee. She had not given specific reasons for why she was leaving so abruptly; to Rachel’s mind, the fewer people who knew about her unexpected windfall, the better. But the question of just who had sent her the money, why they had sent it to her, continued to plague her in the back of her mind, even as she went about putting plans into place to not only protect it, but to make it last as long as humanly possible.
She had gone into the bank the same day and spoke to a manager who had been unable to discover the source of the transfer—it had been done anonymously. The trail was worse than cold; the manager told her that deliberate steps had been taken to obscure the identity of whoever had sent the transfer into her bank account. “Whoever gave you this money sure doesn’t want anyone to know it was them,” he had said, shaking his head at the vagaries of the wealthy.
Rachel decided to forego the pursuit of her mysterious benefactor for the time being. When the bank manager had suggested that she work with the bank’s wealth management division, she was more than happy to go along with his idea, knowing that while she had ample experience making twenty dollars last for a week, she had very little notion of how to live with millions. She knew that decisions would have to be made—whether to invest, what to invest in, how much money she really needed to live every year, all the myriad of choices that came along with a sudden windfall. Taxes, charities, debts to be paid off; did she want to buy a house, since she had the money to pay for it outright? Did she want to get a new car to replace the old jalopy she had scrimped to purchase when her first car had finally, irrevocably died?
Her phone rang as Rachel was getting out of her old, worn out car, preparing to walk into the bank to talk to someone about a safe, long-term investment strategy. She dug her phone out of her purse, glancing at the number flashing across the screen. It wasn’t a complete number; it was only four digits long. She shook her head and moved out of the flow of traffic, deciding that she would just answer it. If it was a telemarketer or scammer, at least she would know for sure. “Hello?”
There was a crackle of interference on the line, a high-pitched tone that nearly made Rachel pull the phone away from her ear, and then a distorted voice. “That money doesn’t belong to you. We’re going to get it back.” She turned her head, staring at the phone for a moment in mute shock.
“What money? Who are you?” Her mind flip-flopped between confusion, anger and fear. In an instant, she realized that whoever had called her, they were almost certainly referring to the anonymous transfer into her account.
“You got money that you didn’t deserve,” said the distorted voice on the other end of the line. “We’re going to get it back. We know where you are at all times.” The call cut out, and for a moment, Rachel wondered if it was intentional or accidental. Her hand shook and she waited for a moment to see if the number would flash on her screen again. There was nothing. Rattled, looking around her—remembering what the person on the other end of the line had said about knowing where she was at all times—Rachel slipped her phone back into her purse and swallowed against the tight, dry feeling in her throat, gathering up what little composure she had at her command before she walked towards the entrance of the bank.
She sat through the meeting, even though her mind was spinning from the phone call she had received. Logic dictated that Rachel should call the police, but what exactly could she tell them? “Some strange person with a distorted voice and an invalid number called me and said that they were going to get their money back from me.” Not only would there be nothing for them to really go on, but Rachel suspected that they wouldn’t even take it seriously. She signed the papers after barely reading them, realizing that she should have taken the time to read the fine print.
As she left the bank, she was so consumed with confusion and fear that she didn’t notice a man standing off to the side, watching the entrance. Rachel moved towards her car, looking at the ground, trying to make sense of what had happened—not only the sudden wealth, but the even more recent fact that apparently, someone didn’t want her to have it—and didn’t see the man slowly starting to walk in her direction. She heard the sound of idle whistling, but didn’t pay any attention to it as she neared her car, trying to decide where she should go next—whether it should be home, or somewhere public. “We know where you are at all times,” the voice had said. Presumably, as long as she was in public, she was at least relatively safe; she didn’t think that anyone would be stupid enough to grab her where there might be witnesses.
She turned the key in her lock and suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. Rachel wheeled around, bringing her hands up, holding her keys tightly in her right hand to provide herself, instinctively, with something that had a little more heft than her fist itself. Her heart was pounding in her chest as her gaze fell on the man standing behind her: tall and muscular, towering over her, his eyes were covered by a thick pair of dark sunglasses, his face half-hidden behind dark brown hair that fell nearly to his shoulders. He was dressed in jeans, a tee shirt, and a hooded sweater, all carefully nondescript, in washed-out colors.
Rachel backed up until she collided with the door of her car, trying to decide whether it would be better to try and get in—potentially putting the car between herself and the stranger—or to cry out for help, struggle, call attention to herself. Before she could decide, the man smiled slowly. “You’re a woman with a big load of trouble on your hands, and you let me nearly get the drop on you—not the best strategy.” The man’s voice was light and low, almost gravelly to her ears, rippling with an Irish accent that made him sound even more amused than Rachel thought he actually was.
“I—who are you? What do you know about my troubles?” she looked around quickly, to see if there was anyone loitering in the parking lot at the bank who might come to her aid; it was almost suspiciously empty, just one or two people walking with self-absorbed determination towards the entrance or back to their cars.
“Name’s Dylan,” the man said. “As for what I know about your troubles: I know you probably got a phone call not too long ago that you have no idea how to trace, regarding a very large sum of money you recently came into.” Rachel stared at him in shock; how could he possibly know what’s going on?
“You—were you the one—” she shook her head, looking around in panic again, reflexively grabbing at her car door.
“No, Love. I’m not the one who’s after you. But I know who is—and you’re going to need me around. I got dropped off here to wait for you to come out, so I don’t have a car to my name, and you don’t really need to be driving anywhere alone just now. So, how’s about you unlock the car, let me in, and crawl over to the passenger side; then you can tell me where we’re going.” For a long moment, Rachel considered refusing. She looked around again, but there was no one around. They were alone in the parking lot. She had her phone—but if this Dylan person had bad intentions for her, she doubted he would let her get a call out to anyone. If he had bad intentions, he wouldn’t have even let me stand here this long, he’d probably have just grabbed me… he did say he was dropped off… how stupid do you have to be to take someone’s words at face value when you’ve already been threatened by someone else? She took a deep breath.
“Can I make a phone call first?” she asked. Dylan raised one dark eyebrow from behind the sunglasses he wore.
“Don’t see as it would change anything. I’d recommend against calling the police—the folks who are after you are in pretty deep with them, and at best you won’t be taken seriously.” Rachel swallowed. Should she trust him at all? “I swear to you, Rachel, I’m here to help; I’m not going to get you into the car and cart you off to someone else. Get in, tell me where we’re going, and that is precisely where I’ll take you.” Rachel hesitated a moment longer, trying to decide to what extent—if any—she could trust the stranger. She sighed; he had her blocked off. She was within arm’s reach. Rachel took a deep breath and turned her back to Dylan, opening the car door and crawling from the driver’s side to the passenger side.
Dylan swung into the driver’s side and snatched up the keys from Rachel’s nervous hands, inserting one into the ignition and turning it. As the car roared to life, Rachel pulled the seatbelt around, glancing at Dylan as misgivings filled her mind. “So, tell me where we’re going, Love.”