My grip on the steering wheel is strong, perhaps too strong—by contrast to my grip on the rolling disaster called my life. I tell myself to just hold on, just be me, but that has never been trickier, now that someone else is a contender not only for my name but also for who I am.
As I drive to Ma’s home, my knuckles turn bone-white no matter how often I try to relax them. Of course, Ms. Voola is to blame. I feel an undeniable urge to wring her neck for stealing my money along with my identity. Who knows what other surprises that woman has in store for me.
Unfortunately, it’s one thing to promise I’ll get my hands on her— quite another to actually do it, especially when all I know about that woman with any degree of certainty is that she has sunken cheeks. That’s the only facial feature she failed to disguise while playing the role of Ashley Winters at the bank.
Clearly, Ms. Voola has a penchant for acting. She’s good enough to be a professional, given her performance mimicking the way I walk and talk, not to mention the makeup and hairdo job that fooled even my own eyes.
I turn a corner and nosedive into sudden despair. What I’m looking for is an actress with sunken cheeks, probably residing in LA. That’s like looking for a needle in a haystack of needles. A prickly proposition. Chances are I’ll come out of it empty-handed.
I marvel at the skill of that woman and fear her in the breath of whispering, “Who are you, Ms. Voola?”
How long has she been studying me? In other words, was it simply by accident that I stumbled upon her during a casual walk on the beach, or did she plan it well ahead of time? Over and over again, I picture her hand reaching into my purse to snatch my driver’s license and health insurance card. Did she pretend to have lost consciousness, knowing I would let her get close to me—close enough to steal what’s mine?
(Volume IV of Ash Suspense Thrillers with a Dash of Romance)
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