Page 63 of The Business Trip

I made a list of Steph’s cell phone contacts—who I thought they were and how I was going to respond to each. For Robert, it was falling in love and going to Atlanta. For people at work, it was a more ambiguous “something came up”–type thing, as I thought running off with a guy might seem odd to them at first. For her son, it was simply going to be that I was extending my trip. That one gave me a pang. I knew what it was like not to have a mom in your life, but if he had one good parent around, he still was doing better than me. He’d get over it.

Then there was Raven. I needed help with something elsefrom her, a new ID. I couldn’t cross the border as Stephanie. That would ruin the whole thing. Texting Raven again, I offered her an extra $1,000 to help me get a fake passport for Mexico.

When do you need it?

ASAP. It’s urgent.

Do you plan to come back to the US? Mexican authorities don’t look nearly as hard as US authorities. If it’s one way, I can do it. But it’ll cost you $2,000, not $1,000.

I paused before texting her back. This was a pivotal moment in my life. Would I ever return to the only country I had ever been in? Ever? The answer was clearly no. I would be much safer there, and I would just have to build a new life.

Never coming back

I felt the finality of those words as I hit send.

OK, then text me a photo of you against a wall that looks like a passport photo. It doesn’t matter what your hair looks like. I just need your face and I’ll have my buddy do some digital work. What kind of hair do you want?

My eyes went to the box of hair dye.

Black pixie cut. I’ll pay you in cash in person when I see you. Coming tomorrow.

I stood against a blank part of the wall of the motel, the paint on it a dullish gray, and snapped a selfie, then texted it to Raven, who gave a thumbs-up.

There was nothing much to do until the next day, so I spent a lot of time lying on the lumpy bed staring at the ceiling, which was painted a boring beige and covered in a texture that reminded me of mosquito bites. It occurred to me that I should be sure Glenn hadn’t gone public about my disappearance, so I called up the website for Stephanie’s TV station and scrolled around. No stories on me, thank goodness, but there were a lot of stupid videos about things like a baby giraffe at the zoo and the “World of Weddings” show at the expo center that weekend. Who created this kind of dumb stuff? Was it someone’s actual job to do so? Scrolling further, I came to the national news section, and a headline caught my eye: “AI Voice Cloning Gaining Popularity.”

This brought back a memory of something Anna had taught me.

“Check this out,” she said one night after closing, leaning her elbows on the long bar, a tray of empty beer bottles and dirty glasses next to her. “I recorded my mom’s voice and then put it into this software and it soundsjust like her! It only cost me five bucks and was super easy.”

She hit play first on the original audio of her mom and then on the replica. In the original, her mom was talking about a recipe for casserole, but in the fake she was telling Anna how much she loved her.

“How did you get the fake voice to do that?” I asked.

“You can write whatever you want, and the voice will read it. It just needs to learn the voice first, then it can say anything, and I do meananything.”

At the time, I had just laughed, thinking how weird it would be if I could get my own mother’s voice to say whatever I wanted. Maybe she could finally tell me she loved me, that she was sorry for the awful ways she had treated me. But that seemed too bizarre and ultimately unsatisfying, so I hadn’t thought much more about it until now.

Quickly I opened the article on the Channel 3 website and scanned it, taking in details. Another possible step in my plan began to formulate. Texting with Stephanie’s friends and family was one thing, but I couldreallyfake them out if I could get her voice to leave them a voice memo.

Sitting up and googling Stephanie’s name, I hit “Videos,” and watched with joy as several popped up: her speaking at a Rotary Club banquet, her being on some panel at a university, even a video posted by her own station where she was reading a mission statement about how committed they were to local news.

That one was the winner, winner, chicken dinner. It had the best, cleanest audio and was about a minute and a half long. Anna had told me the sample needed to be at least one minute. I couldn’t remember the exact website Anna mentioned, but the article on Stephanie’s station’s page listed several, and I fished around until I found one that came with a free one-month trial.

Uploading Stephanie’s voice took just a few minutes, and afterward the site asked me to type in whatever I wanted the fake voice to say. I was thinking ahead to the various texts I planned to send Robert from Atlanta, to draw out that Steph was in love at first andlaterin harm’s way.

There would be one from Trent’s house, one or two from sightseeing, and one from Trent’s station. Voice cloning could be perfect for one of those. That would also be about the time I would be dropping the first hints that Trent wasn’t the super guy I had made him out to be, so I composed this into the software program for her voice to read:

“Last stop: Trent’s station! He’s the boss here and he’s very bossy with me—tells me exactly where we should go and what we should do and I just follow. Talk soon!”

Reading it over a few times, I was satisfied and hit “Create.” Within minutes, my clip was ready. My heart pounded as I hit play.

Holy crap, it sounded like Stephanie. I couldn’t believe it. I was giddy with possibilities now. Maybe she would even call 9-1-1 herself near the end of her time with Trent!

Speaking of Trent, it was time to plant the first seed with Anna too. I needed her to think that I had also met a wonderful new guy. Later that relationship would also take a dark turn, and I would be dead at his place too. For now, it was time to answer her original texts about whether I was OK. I picked up my phone.

Hey Anna—I’m more than OK. I met a great guy named Trent McCarthy. He makes me feel safe and beautiful. More details when I can!

OMG, Jasmine, that’s awesome. I’m so excited for you!

---