“Question—do we have any alternative identities with us?” I ask.
He rubs his palms on his pants, then comes and sits across from me at the dinette. “I was working on passports, but I wasn’t done before we left.”
“Did you bring the half-done papers?”
“Yeah. But I’ll need supplies to finish them.”
“How much do you think it would cost to finish them?”
“About a grand. Maybe a bit more. The paper is super tricky to copy, so it would be preferable to steal it rather than forge it. Atleast for the US identities. I don’t know what we should do about the Canadian paper.”
RJ shifts his weight, his voice low and soft. “I can probably scrounge up two more American identities if we really need them. But splitting nationalities is smart, especially if we all travel together.”
“What about passport cards?” Jansen pushes open the accordion door.
Walker’s brows scrunch together, and Trips stares at Jansen like he’s dumb.
“What are passport cards?” I ask, leading them away from whatever those faces mean.
Walker turns, his eyes suddenly brighter. “They’re basically drivers’ licenses for going to Mexico and Canada. If we don’t fly, we can leave without getting a passport stamped.”
Trips leans back, crossing one leg at the knee. “Can you make those? It would limit our distance, but we can disappear for a while in either Mexico or Canada.”
“Yeah. I can. I’d need a real one, so I make sure I get it right, but yeah. Although all my equipment is back at home.”
RJ leans forward. “I can get you your set-up again. And I can make sure you have the right shit without us needing an example.”
“How long would it take? How much would it cost?” I ask, something finally going right.
Walker shrugs, looking at RJ, who stares at the floor while he answers. “Probably the same cost as the passports, if I source things carefully. Maybe more.”
My gut twists as I think of a solution, one that I don’t think Trips will get behind. “What about Emma?”
“What about Emma?” Walker asks.
“She could mail you your supplies. Send them to a hotel under an assumed name. We could spend the night and collect the box.”
“No,” Trips says.
“Why not? I’m sure you’ve got a key stashed somewhere, and it’s not like your dad is watching her.”
“He might not be watching her, but he sure as shit will watch the house.”
“Yeah, but your dad is a misogynistic asshole. I can work with that.”
He glares at me, challenging me to come up with a way for this to work.
But my mind is already spinning out a plan. “We have her pretend to be drunk, screaming at the house for me ignoring her, or for running away and not telling her anything, something like that. She yells about how she’s going to take my collection of...something girly. Then she comes back out, stumbling with a box of whatever dumb girl thing your dad wouldn’t care about that she took from me. Only it’s the ID equipment.”
The RV is quiet as they think through my slap-dash plan. “How do you do that, beautiful?” Jansen asks, shock on his face.
“Do what?”
“Make elegant solutions to impossible problems with all of ten seconds of thought?”
Embarrassment has me tapping my fingers against my thigh, but Walker steps close, squeezing my hand in his. “It’s a good thing, beautiful. An amazing thing.”
Swallowing down a flood of emotion, I turn to the rest of them. “Would that work?”
