Page 29 of Conning the Billionaire
But Kylie didn’t get flustered when talking to people who wrongly thought they were in charge. Right away, she was analyzing the driver’s license on the screen, and something about it was off. “That’s a fake license.”
“It’s got your face on it.”
It was a fake license, but it wasn’t her fake license. “I don’t think it looks like me,” she lied.
It wasn’t quite the same picture as on her fake ID, and it wasn’t her Kylie Miller fake driver’s license. The motor vehicle department number across the top was different. Hers had HKN in the number, and this one was all Cs and Fs like her high school report card.
As she looked at the image on the computer tablet, other problems popped out.
Lots of them.
The font spelling out NEW JERSEY at the top was just slightly wrong. The downstrokes on the letters were too spindly, and the hologram of the state outline looked flat.
Kylie looked up at the managerial guy, who was a shade paler than the basic beige with anger reddening his nose and cheeks. “That’s a fake license. You didn’t run it through the MVC, did you?”
New Jersey called their state motor vehicle registration department the Motor Vehicle Commission, the MVC.
The manager frowned.
“So, you didn’t run it through the MVC, ‘cause if you did, you’d know it was a fake. That’s your problem.”
“Yeah, what’s your name then?”
“I don’t have to tell you that. But I am telling you that I am not Kylie Miller, and I did not give you that fake driver’s license.”
“Well, someone did.”
“Besides, it says on there that the person’s height is five-eight.” She pointed to the screen and looked up at the manager, a Jersey short king, himself. “Do you think a New Jersey MVC clerk would let me get away with listing five-eight on my license?”
It was good that she wasn’t wearing her stiletto strappy sandals from the night before. She’d kicked them off during the night because her toes had been going to sleep.
The manager frowned down at her because she was maybe five-four on a big hair day. “Probably not.”
“And it says that person has green eyes.” She looked straight at him, widening her dark brown eyes. “Do you think they’d let me list green eyes, either?”
“It’s not my fault you uploaded a fake ID and a stolen credit card when you reserved this room online.”
“I didn’t do it. If I’d uploaded a fake driver’s license, it sure as hell wouldn’t have had my picture on it, or close to it, anyway. If you look at it, it’s not quite right.”
Oh, it was a picture of her, all right, but the image was too pixelated for a real driver’s license, like it had been copied from social media.
Now that she looked at it, that picture was from a group photo on Insta that Priyanka had posted with the four of them “partying” with a group of car salesmen three months before. The square neckline and spaghetti straps of the black dress she’d worn that night were visible in the picture, and the background had been badly photoshopped out.
But this was an elaborate con, and she needed to get the hell out of there.
She stepped toward the door, but the bouncer stepped in front of her and stared her down, his washed-out blue eyes narrowing.
Kylie turned back to the manager. “I didn’t reserve this room, and my name is not Kylie Miller.”
The manager’s jaw bulged. “But it says right here—”
“I told you that’s a fake. I don’t know who’s trying to frame me, but they gave you a fake ID.”
The manager turned and spread his arms as if he had the ultimate winning hand. “Yet your picture is on this fake driver’s license, and here you are in this suite.”
He had a point. “I never checked in. Check your surveillance video and see who checked into this room.”
The manager frowned harder and tapped the screen a few times, and then dammit, he smiled. “We don’t need to go to the surveillance footage. It was a no-contact mobile app check-in, and the QR access code was sent to your phone to act as the room key. You bypassed the reception desk.”
