Chapter 1...Part 3

When the issue of the Merrill Lynch/Bank of America merger came up, Alyce decided she needed to do more research into what was happening. Was this even legitimate? She called a friend of hers who was big in the financial world. He said that yes, ML and BofA were merging and that no one had known this was happening. He said that all assets could be frozen for up to 4 weeks while the merger was taking place.

Four weeks was a long time for all those people waiting on paychecks. Bills needed to be paid for the company as well as personally for the employees. Emotions were starting to run high and stress was very much a factor.

Things all came to a head when Voldemort was asked to leave the house where he was staying. Now he was literally homeless. Voldemort, Alyce, and Shawn ended up discussing everything at length. Where to go from there? How to get money? The conclusion that Voldemort had come to was that he needed to get to Florida where his accounts had originally come from and where he could straighten things out.

The only way to even start to accomplish this was to try to get money. Everyone involved in the business was out of funds. They had all spent their money taking care of themselves or paying bills and helping out Voldemort. Alyce thought long and hard and asked how much money it would take. Alyce had barely been out of her own state before, let alone 2,000 miles from home. Voldemort told her that it would cost about $300.00. This didn’t sound incredibly unreasonable and if a $300.00 contribution would help them get money to pay employees and take care of things she would do her best to get that.

Alyce e-mailed a friend of hers and loosely described the situation. She figured that she would get the money back to her friend in about a week so that would not be an issue. Her friend agreed to loan her the money to take care of what she needed to take care of.

Originally when the trip was discussed, Shawn was willing to go on this trip also and use his car. After the money was secured, he had changed his mind and decided not to go and not to let his car leave the state. This meant that the plans would have to be to use Alyce’s SUV which used a lot more gas. Voldemort and Alyce recalculated how much money it would take to get to Florida and realized that they would not be able to make it on the money they had borrowed.

In the meantime, a lot of the models had gotten together and decided they were unhappy with not being paid and they also discussed this with their respective boyfriends. The boyfriends decided they needed to do something about the situation. When Voldemort ended up totally homeless one of the models contacted him and told him that she would put him up in a hotel for the night and that she had the key, he just needed to come get it. Alyce thought it would be a good idea for them to spend a relaxing evening together and finalize plans the next day.

When the couple went to pick up the room key things looked suspicious. Voldemort came back to the vehicle and seemed very agitated. He got into the SUV and drove toward the exit of the apartment complex. As they neared the exit they could see several males walking quickly towards the SUV and it looked like they had baseball bats or something similar in their hands. Voldemort drove faster and almost hit one to avoid them. The couple drove out of the complex and quickly entered onto the freeway. Alyce looked back and she could see several SUVs following them.

The vehicle was almost out of gas and there weren’t many options. Voldemort called one of the models to find out what was going on. She said that her boyfriend was mad that she hadn’t been paid and that she and another model were on their way.

The couple got off the freeway and were followed. Once they got near the city they saw a police car and made a u-turn on a bridge to get the attention of the cop. They were pulled over. When the cop asked what was going on the couple gave them a brief explanation. He took Voldemort's driver’s license and told them to stay there. He walked back and all the vehicles following had pulled over behind the cop.

The cop came back and told Voldemort that all the boyfriends wanted were the files with the models’ personal information. They had the work files with them and told the cop he could have all of them. They gave him the file box and drove away.

Now the couple was even more unsure what to do. Alyce made a few calls and secured them a place to stay for the night. However, Voldemort didn’t want to go stay with a friend of hers and after they picked up the loaned money, he convinced her the best course of action was to get a room for the night and decide what to do in the morning. Alyce was overcome with all that had happened that day and finally agreed.