Chapter 15

Raina Duncan studied the fake ID with critical appreciation. She'd just updated it to say she was 22 years old and added a new, more mature picture. The picture was the most important part. It had to match the person holding the ID, but it needed to be just right so as not to draw attention. Hers was perfect. Not too attention-grabbing, nothing suspicious. She'd worn a pink collared blouse and her gold chain. Her blond hair was left to flow in loose waves around her face, spilling across one shoulder. Piercing blue eyes looked back at her from behind a pair of trendy glasses with thick, light pink plastic rims. She'd wanted to look young in the picture, but not too young. She needed to look as though she could be younger than 22 but only thanks to great genetics.

Her eyes moved to the two ID's next to hers, for her friends, Noah and Cass. They looked just as good as hers, she thought, tooting her own horn. She was damn good at making ID's, including, driver's licenses, state identifications and passports. She needed something to supplement her University tuition. Pennsylvania State University wasn't cheap and her parents couldn't afford to help her out much. They were farm folk; good, honest and hardworking. And though Raina was willing to put a certain amount of hard work in, she wanted to see big payoffs. Which is why she wasn't nearly as good or honest as mom and dad.

Raina assumed she got a good portion of her personality and all of her looks from her birth parents. Both of her parents had dark hair and eyes, ruddy complexions and stocky builds. Raina was the exact opposite, small, slim, blond, blue-eyed. Her temperament was much different too. She was headstrong, stubborn, sneaky and smart.

Too often her parents hadn't known what to do with her. But she loved them and they loved her, unreservedly and unconditionally. They had stood by her side since she was a baby, protecting her through illness and major surgery. Raina had been born with poorly functioning kidneys. The problem had started to make itself known when she was only five years old. She'd had a kidney transplant at thirteen and been relatively healthy ever since, though she had to watch her diet carefully to make sure her one functioning kidney remained that way.

It was Raina's 19th birthday and she was going to celebrate. Well, it wasn't actually her birthday. It'd been her birthday five days ago, but she and her friends wanted to wait until the weekend to celebrate. Take their hot new ID's and hit up a bar, dance and drink until they either got kicked out or moved on to the next party.

A tall, curvy brunette breezed through Raina's door without knocking and tossed herself onto the bed. She bounced, dropped her purse and then sat up with a grin.

"Hey loser, you ready to go yet?" Cass asked happily. Then her eyes crawled over her best friend. "No, you are not. What the F, Raina? You can't go bar hopping in your Uni sweater and sweat pants. Those are really ugly pants, by the way."

Raina giggled at Cass's refusal to say 'fuck.' Like Raina, Cass had grown up in a small farming community. Unlike Raina, Cass took right after her God-fearing parents. She was fun, energetic and generally a good upstanding citizen. It had taken some convincing on Raina's and Noah's parts to convince the third in their Three Musketeers group to come out and party. But once she got on board with the idea, there was no stopping Cass. She loved to dress up, wear makeup and have a good time. Raina was convinced once they got a few drinks in her she would be dancing on tabletops and saying 'fuck' with the best of them.

Cass dug around in Raina's closet while Raina checked her emails and Facebook. "What about this one?" Cass twirled around with a dress in her hands. Raina glanced up briefly, saw it was her short skirted, peek-a-boo sleeved blue dress with a pattern of tiny white flowers scattered across.

"Sure," she replied quickly. She didn't care much about clothes and fashion, though she had some nice outfits thanks to her ill-gotten money and Cass's shopping addiction.

She dressed quickly, ran a brush through her hair and turned to Cass. "I'm ready."

Cass rolled her eyes. "Not even some mascara? I mean you're gorgeous, girl, but it wouldn't hurt to give those pale eyelashes a little zing."

Raina shrugged, grabbed her purse and the ID's and said, "No one can tell if I'm wearing mascara or not under my glasses. Besides as soon as I take my glasses off I can't see what I'm doing and end up smearing it everywhere."

Cass sighed and dug around in her own purse until she came up with some lip gloss. "Put some of this on. It's got that plumping stuff in it. I love it."

Raina accepted the lip gloss and put it on, mostly so Cass would stop bugging her. "It tingles," she said with a frown handing it back.

"It's working!" Cass explained, grabbing Raina's arm and dragging her out the door. "Makes your lips plumper."

"I like my lips the way they are," Raina complained.