Jann - A Short Story Part 9

The cheque arrived, eventually. Rick and Jann were married. They had a nice honeymoon, upgraded their car, treated the kids and extended their wardrobes. They settled down. They probably both intended their life of crime was over. If they now left it behind them they were unlikely to ever be traced.

Was it greed? Was it a desire for a thrill? Was it the little kicks from the against-all-odds pregnancy threatening their finances. Nobody knows, but they decided to go again. Same stunt, different places, new rented property, false name.

The discovery of their fraud was as fortuitous as Jann and Rick’s meeting. In a small hotel many miles from their home a relationship, no, an affair, had begun. Sue and Tommy, clerks who worked in insurance call-centres, bored with their own lives, booked a hotel room for a long lunch hour. Over a post-adventure cigarette they chatted about their work and came up with the coincidence that a current claim for jewellery theft Sue was handling looked remarkably like another one Tommy had dealt with a few months earlier. Back in the office Sue brought the record up on her database and made a call to Tommy. She pulled on the thread and all Jann and Rick’s trails unravelled.