Page 1 of Protecting Maggie
CHAPTER ONE
Maggie Lionetti stood in front of the empty cabinet for several moments. All that was in there was a can of beans and some flour and sugar. And Maggie hated beans. They belonged to her roommate, Adina, who’d been gone on deployment for the last three months.
Sighing, she closed the cabinet and grabbed a glass instead. She filled it with water and went to sit on the couch. She was very grateful to her friend for letting her stay in her apartment while she was gone, but she hadn’t realized how tough life wouldreallybe as a convicted felon.
Convicted felon.
The words rang in Maggie’s head, making her shudder. Never in a million years would she have thought this was where she’d be. In her “before life,” which was how she thought about it now, she’d been a pharmacist. She’d worked her butt off to get her degree and become one ofthe best pharmacists in the area. She had loyal customers who wouldn’t go anywhere else to get their prescriptions filled. She’d had money in the bank, a nice condo, and lots of friends. At least, she’dthoughtshe had lots of friends.
Turns out they’d all disappeared once she’d been arrested. Maggie knew she couldn’t really blame them.
She still remembered the feeling of the handcuffs around her wrists and how she felt when she’d been put in the back of that police car. Humiliated, confused, terrified.
Those feelings had only magnified when she was booked into the local lockup after being fingerprinted and getting her mug shot taken. After being released on bail, she was fired from her job, and without any money coming in but still plenty of bills to pay—while also trying to find a lawyer who would take her case—she found herself completely broke and desperate in a matter of months.
In the end, without any support from friends and no family to lean on, she’d had to settle for a public defender. She didn’t really hold the lawyer responsible for her three-year sentence. He’d done what he could. The evidence was stacked against her from the start.
And when her ex-boyfriend had taken the stand for the prosecution, her fate was sealed.
She’d gotten out early, on account of overcrowding and good behavior, but she wasn’t allowed to leave California until her probation was over. She had to meet with her probation officer regularly and stay out of trouble. Now Maggie was trying to rebuild her life, and she wasextremely grateful to Adina for giving her a place to stay, but she was finding it impossible to make ends meet.
She couldn’t get her old job back—no one would hire a pharmacist who’d been convicted of drug smuggling—and findinganykind of job that paid a decent living wage was next to impossible for a felon.
So Maggie had resorted to doing what her probation officer and likely anyone who hadn’t been in her situation before—hungry, desperate, depressed—would frown upon.
She was impersonating Adina. Using her Uber credentials to make enough money to get by. Barely.
She didn’t like doing it, lying to the people who hired her, pretending to be her roommate, but Uber wasn’t going to letheropen an account. Not with the felony thing on her record. So she had to lie. It was either that or starve.
Feeling her stomach rumble with hunger, Maggie gulped the water down, hoping it would fill her belly at least a little, tricking it into thinking it had gotten something of substance, then stood. She put the glass in the sink and headed for the door, grabbing the car keys along the way.
She’d managed to make enough yesterday to fill Adina’s old Honda Accord with gas, and she hoped today’s tips would be more generous so she could go to the grocery store and get more than ramen. The thought of a huge salad made Maggie’s mouth water, but fresh vegetables were expensive. She’d have to do really well today to splurge on something like that.
Sighing, Maggie made sure the apartment door waslocked behind her—the last thing she wanted was someone breaking into Adina’s place while she was gone—and headed toward the stairs. Today would be another long day behind the wheel, but what other choice did she have?
Maggie was tired. The day had been shit. Almost everyone she’d picked up had been stingy with their tips. And they’d been assholes to boot. Driving people around seemed like it would be a cushy job, but she had to put up with rudeness, people telling her how to drive, telling her she was going the wrong way, or being irritated with her because there was traffic…as if she could do anything about that.
She was at the end of her rope and decided that she’d pick up one more fare, then go home to the empty apartment, maybe try to choke down the beans that she hated. They were protein, right? Good for her.
Pulling up the info on her last pickup of the day, she saw it was at a grocery store she’d passed earlier. The one she’d planned to go to after work if tips had been good, to buy dinner. It felt as if karma was laughing at her.
The name of her fare was Remi Stephenson, and she was relieved that her pickup was a woman. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t be treated like shit—women could be just as awful as men—but at least the odds of her being accosted or sexually harassed were less.
Maggie pulled into the parking lot and saw a woman standing not too far from the entrance of the store lookingdown at her phone. She had several bags at her feet, the reusable kind. It was a dead giveaway that she was probably her fare. She pulled up next to her and rolled down the window. “Remi?” she called out, wanting to make sure she was really the person who’d ordered the Uber before unlocking the doors.
“That’s me. Adina?” the woman asked.
Hearing her roommate’s name was always a little jarring. She merely smiled and clicked the automatic locks. Remi picked up her bags, opened the back door, and got in. Then she took a quick picture of the identification card on the back of the passenger headrest.
“My boyfriend hates when I take an Uber, but I don’t like to bother him or his friends,” Remi said with a small apologetic smile.
Maggie didn’t like when people took pictures of the ID card. Thankfully, it didn’t have Adina’s picture on it, but it had her information—name, Uber license number, things like that. Things that could get Maggie in big trouble if it ever came out that she was impersonating her friend. But at the same time, she approved when women like Remi took steps to protect themselves. No one could be too careful these days. It made her laugh a little that, in the past, people were warned never to accept rides from strangers, and today theypaidstrangers to drive them around. It was ironic.
“It’s okay. I’d do the same if I was in your shoes,” Maggie said as cheerfully as she could. She recited the address that had been put into the app to verify that’swhere Remi wanted to be dropped off.
“That’s me,” Remi said with a smile as she turned around to grab the seat belt. Thankfully the address wasn’t too far away.
Maggie did her best to make small talk. Sometimes the people she picked up wanted to chat, and other times they simply stared out the window and ignored her. But Remi seemed friendly enough.
