Haunted by the Past (Original)

Chapter 26

Bringing our order of egg sandwiches and coffee to Eli's table by the window, I found he had pulled out his laptop and already had his head buried in it.

"No, it's cool. It's not like we needed someone to keep watch," I remarked sarcastically as I plopped the tray down. The coffee only splashed a little.

"I can do both at once," he frowned as he picked up his coffee and wiped the bottom of the cup onto a napkin so that the hot liquid wouldn't drip onto him or, even worse, his precious laptop. Bringing the cup up to his lips tenderly, he took a small sip. "Well that's revolting."

"What did you expect for rest stop coffee?" I laughed.

He put down his cup and reached his hand out towards me, "Give me your phone."

"Please," I glared at him.

"Please," his voice dripped with annoyance.

"I'm going to pretend that was even remotely sincere," I sighed and pulled my phone out of my pocket, tossing it onto the table.

My phone may have slid across the surface a little, hitting into his coffee just a touch. A tinsy, bitsy splash of coffee may have occurred. Eli narrowed his eyes at me like he was trying to decide if I had intentionally done it. Newsflash, I didn't, but how cool would it have been if it was intentional?

"So your car is going to head west, our phones south, while we head east back to New York City?" I questioned.

"Actually, we're going to head north, until we hit Erie, then re-enter the state via Jamestown," he corrected.

"We're not going to back to the City?"

"We're going to use the opportunity while everyone's distracted to go to St. Catherine's and get that report," he announced proudly.

"Oh. Right," overwhelming dread suddenly flooded my system. As much as I wanted to confirm once and for all whether Brodie was actually dead or not, returning to Raven Hill was still the last thing I wanted to do.

"In and out nice and quick," he clarified. "It'll be like we didn't even go into Raven Hill at all."

"Good, let's keep it that way," I filled my mouth with my egg sandwich. It's tastelessness did nothing to appease my anxiety. Glancing up, I watched Eli as he fiddled with the settings on my phone. "I thought you turned off the location services. Won't turning that back on be suspicious?"

"There's other ways to trace a phone without having the location services on, especially if you have the resources the FBI has," he explained. "There will be a virus on the phone so if anyone other than me tries to plug into their machine, it'll wipe everything it touches."

"Won't their techs be expecting that?" I pointed out. "I don't think they're that naïve."

Eli looked up and grinned at me devilishly, "You underestimate me. Of course, I know they'll expect it. It'll be buried deep with a few weaker viruses on the surface."

I paused mid-bite, "You mean fakes to give the techs the illusion of having cleaned the phone."

"And then when they think they've won," his grin only got wider. "Boom."

"I'm so glad I'm on your good side," I mumbled.

He shrugged and pulled out a phone from his backpack. It was similar to mine, just with yet another camera on the back. Oh, it was next year's model. Who the hell needs that many cameras?

"What about you-know-who?" I asked inquisitively. "Wouldn't I be effectively ghosting him? I'm sure he won't appreciate that."

"While anyone trying to locate your number will be given the coordinates for your old phone, all communication will be sent to your new phone. He won't even know you have changed phones," he assured me. "But I don't know if you should be giving him the satisfaction of answering."