Hammer did a brief search through Sarah's belongings to see if she could learn anything about the type of person she was supposed to be. It wasn't much, mostly clothes and other generic pieces of luggage you might expect someone to have while traveling. Still, Hammer noted, the clothes all seemed to be big brands, so Sarah DeVries had not been a small spender. Reaching into a side pocket, she pulled out a couple of unused condoms. She shuddered briefly and tried to not think about what they implied.
Breaking into the various pieces of the original Sarah's online identity had been remarkably easy. Hammer had gotten into her e-mail by resetting it through Sarah's cell phone, and from there was able to reset all her other passwords. After a brief trawl through her social networking sites, Hammer thought that she had found enough information to pose as Sarah for the time being.
Posing before a mirror, Hammer lightly spoke to her new reflection, trying to imitate the type of person Sarah DeVries had been. "My name is Sarah Courtney DeVries. I was born on May 12, 1898, and I love tennis, well-written novels, and sleeping in when it rains."
There was a knock on the door. "Sarah? Can I come in?"
'Sarah' jumped. "Um, just a minute!" she said as she hastily shoved some things under the bed. She didn't want to explain why she'd been going through her own luggage. A short while later, she opened the door and Paul came into the room.
"Hey, honey," Paul said. "You okay? You didn't eat breakfast or anything."
"I'm fine," she replied. "Just a little shaken up after that--that horrible man yesterday. I'm not going crazy or anything."
"You sure? Because I could have sworn I heard you talking to yourself just before I knocked." He put his arms around her and kissed her neck lightly. Hammer suppressed her male instinct to break away from him, silently resenting how weak she felt in her body.
"Well--" she thought silently for a minute. "I was considering how I'd start writing about it. A journal or something. It seems like such a close call and--I don't know. I feel like I have to do it somehow."
"Well you do that," he replied. Paul's lips moved a bit further down the neck that had, until yesterday, been his girlfriend's neck. Hammer shuddered involuntarily.
"Paul," she said, trying to stop him from making her feel so--tingly-- "I don't want to be a moodkiller or anything, but can we..."