Snow Jam by Rachel Hanna Page B

right that I was up. The dream had faded. Now all my nervous energy was focused on the upcoming day – drive, interview, presentation. I called the hotel and told them about the storm. It didn't occur to me until partway through the conversation I had service again. I asked them to hold the room. I'd need somewhere to shower and change. I wasn't far outside of Hanlin. The interview was at two. I wanted to leave the hotel at one to make sure I was on time. Which meant showering and getting ready at noon. Which meant getting on the road at eleven.
    Which wasn't a problem since it was – I looked at my phone again – just after six. In fact, Rick sleeping till ten wasn't a problem.
    But I couldn't. I had to get moving. Even if it meant extra hours worrying in a hotel diner and reading the same sentences over and over in the battered novel I'd brought with me, it was better than being this far away and not knowing if it might start snowing again or Rick might take it into his head to do something unpredictable and slow me down.
    I was dressed and caffeinated. The sun was out and the snow dazzling. My cell worked and I could clearly see the tracks from Rick's car. There hadn't been that many turns – just right into the group of cabins, right onto the very long driveway that was really a road from the interstate. We'd gone less than five miles on the highway, probably more like two. I could walk that. My boots were waterproof, my sweats had dried, and the caffeine was arcing through my system.
    And Rick was snoring out of spite. So it seemed.
    I rinsed my coffee cup and used the bathroom. I found a notepad and wrote him a note and, after considering, left my cell phone number. Part of me wanted to leave a nasty note, like "Money's on the dresser" like he was a gigolo, but it had taken two of us last night even if I regretted it now.
    On the porch I contemplated texting Sunny. She usually gets up early. But there's early and there's just plain mean and the sun was just up. Stupid, probably, but if the rental wouldn't start or I couldn't get unstuck I could call the agency and get a ride while they reclaimed their car. If they asked why I hadn't reported it the night before, the lack of cell service helped.
    The air was cold and dry, like little effervescent stings on my face. I pulled my scarf up around my face, shouldered the messenger bag, criss-crossed the carryon over my chest, and hiked up the road.
     
    Rick had grown up in Georgia. I'd grown up in Southern California. Didn't matter. What my father had done spread to national newspapers. The financial adviser who advised some of his clients right out of their wealth.
    Sunny said it didn't matter. My last name of Powers isn't that unusual. No one would know who I was. Or who my father was. Or care anymore. I was twenty-six. It had been ten years since Mr. Powers defrauded all those people.
    But I'd had more than one date recognize the name until I started dating people who weren't apt to have read the papers at the time.
    "They're not stupid," Sunny said one of the last times I broke up with a guy because we had nothing in common. I'd just been glad he didn't recognize my name. "It's been ten years , Mya."
    And then the next date knew who I was. Ten years or not. It wasn't just that my father had embezzled. It was that one of his clients had committed suicide when his new business went down the drain as a result of my father's manipulations.
    A man with a wife and children and a future as an entrepreneur. Gone because someone took everything he'd worked for and he couldn't bear telling his wife his new worth was now zero.
    Not my fault, my friends said, but relationships were hard enough without wondering what kind of trauma could drive us apart, or whether or not they'd known who I was.
    Not my fault, but I'd felt horrible when the emails and calls came, the How can you live with yourself? messages. I was a junior in high school.
    I'd taken to economics like it was going