Chapter Seventy-Six
Seventy-Six
Fourteen Years Ago
London
Grace’s chance meeting with Phillip that night got her thinking.
The ‘hotel room’ con was a good con, bringing her and Julia a steady income, but they both knew that running the same con for two years straight, especially such a risky con, was pushing their luck.
They’d never been caught, but they’d run into trouble plenty of times during those two years.
Even before Grace had met Phillip, she and Julia had already begun discussing a few new ideas, but they were all small, street-type cons – the kind that would keep them going from one day to the next, nothing more – and Grace was growing really tired of that grinding.
‘Please tell me that you’re fucking kidding,’ Julia said, once Grace told her about her new idea for a scam.
‘I’m dead serious, Jules.’
‘No, you can’t be,’ Julia said back, her eyes wide at Grace. ‘Unless you’ve lost your mind because what you’re talking about here is real marriage, with a wedding dress, guests, a priest, a church, a ring… the fucking lot… including a legal document saying that you’re married.’
‘Followed by a divorce with a settlement for millions,’ Grace added, her voice calm.
‘Fuck! And how long will that take?’
‘Two years,’ Grace replied. ‘Maybe less.’
‘Two fucking years?’ Julia’s jaw dropped. ‘For a single con? Are you fucking high?’
‘The “hotel room” con has been our most profitable con to date, isn’t that right?’ Grace said.
‘Yeah, but—’
‘We’ve been running it for two years, Jules,’ Grace cut her short. ‘And how much have we made in that time? The two of us together?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I do. Just under one hundred grand. And the two of us combined have run the con seventy-four times in two years.’
‘OK.’ Julia was sure that Grace was right. She had everything written down and catalogued in a file.
‘That’s seventy-four times that we’ve put ourselves at risk.
Seventy-four times that we could’ve gotten caught.
Think about it.’ She gave Julia a moment.
‘This is one con, Jules.’ She lifted her right index finger at Julia.
‘One. And at the end of two years, we’ll both be in the millions… millions.’
That word alone made Julia pause. ‘I need a drink.’ She got up and poured herself a large glass of white wine. ‘Do you want one?’
‘I’m OK for now, ta.’
Julia sat back down before having a healthy sip of her wine. ‘So, who is this bloke? Where did you meet him?’
Grace told Julia everything she knew about Phillip Evans.
‘Grace,’ Julia countered at the end. ‘Do you really think that a millionaire – someone who owns bars and restaurants in London – will simply up and marry someone he just met on a random night, without asking for a pre-registration agreement? Because if you do, you’re living in a fantasy.’
‘Pre-registration agreements aren’t legally binding in this country,’ Grace informed Julia. ‘Did you know that?’
Julia frowned. ‘No, I didn’t. Are you sure about that?’
‘I’m positive,’ Grace explained. ‘They do exist, and in case of a divorce, they’re taken into consideration by the judge, but legally, they don’t mean anything.
’ She allowed Julia a moment so that the information could sink in.
‘And who cares if I sign a pre-registration agreement, anyway. The real money won’t come from the divorce settlement. ’
‘What? What do you mean? Where’s the money going to come from then?’
Grace tilted her head to one side, her eyebrows angling up curiously.
Julia knew that look well enough. ‘You already have a plan, don’t you?’
‘I have an outline,’ Grace admitted. ‘But you and I… I just know that we can come up with something great.’
Julia took a breath before refilling her wine glass. ‘OK, walk me through this plan of yours, step-by-step.’