By Paths Coincident

Chapter 28

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

"Yeah, yeah. I'm coming," Hardison huffed at the microwave that had been dinging at him for the past 20 minutes. Opening the door, he used a paper towel to remove the item that was offending the machine. Operation Hot Pocket was a go.

Eliot and Parker had gone off comms to grab their own food, leaving him to fulfill his part of their mission. Research, research, research. They had no idea how much work it took for him to ferret out all the information they needed for their parts of the con. They just expected him to have it dripping from his fingertips when next they checked in demanding answers.

Taking a nibble off the corner of his Hot Pocket, Hardison woke up his laptop.

Several minutes later, he had confirmed one thing: he hated small towns. At least this time he wasn't living in one. Black Diamond didn't even possess a news site. Their Facebook page contained information about bylaws and town events, but the news was apparently still paper. Further investigation led him to The Alberta Police Report which gave the bare bones story of the RCMP being called to a hit and run accident on Highway 22, but there was no follow-up information.

Sighing, Hardison set about hacking into the RCMP records.

* * * * *

Black Diamond, Alberta, Canada

Eliot, Parker, and the two girls watched as the door swung shut behind Cassandra Cillian and Mr. Jenkins.

Eliot exchanged a quick glance with Parker. The appearance of two new players dramatically altered the dynamic of their game. They needed to talk, but to jump up and follow the departing pair would be too suspicious. Besides, their order was just arriving, and they were both ravenous.

Parker had ordered a burger topped with peanut butter and bananas. Eliot watched with horrified fascination as she took a huge bite.

"Mmm," Parker mumbled around her mouthful. "Thith ith good! Try thome!" She waved the abomination in his face.

It couldn't possibly be worse than raw rat, Eliot reminded himself, allowing her to feed him the smallest possible bite.

"See?" said Parker, grinning at him with bits of peanut butter on her teeth. "Totally yummy!"

The combination of flavors was . . . interesting. Not nearly as horrible as he had feared. But he would not be adding it to the Brew Pub's menu. Three very excellent fries removed the taste from his palate enough for him to enjoy his own ordinary cheeseburger.

"That was . . . odd," Hilde commented.

It took Eliot a moment to figure out that she wasn't talking about Parker's burger.

"Those two?" Daphne asked, slurping noisily at her soda and obviously following teenage girl code better than Eliot. "Yeah, who just drives into town expecting to buy a horse that's not even for sale?"

"Entitled much?" Parker suggested in between bites.

She was getting much better at interacting with people, utilizing Sophie's training to guide the conversation where she wanted it to go, which was far away from having these two representatives of their victim and their villain make any connection between Cassandra Cillian and James McCoy or Kira O'Brien.

"Oh no!" Daphne shook her head. "That wasn't entitled. I've spent most of my life being an entitled bitch, so I should know."

Hilde twisted her face wryly. "Yeah, Daphne's my special project. She spends days at a time now being almost entirely human, but wow! Three years ago when I met her?" She shuddered.