My Life In Code

9. No, You're Not Rockstars And You're Not Trashing The Room

Chapter 9

No, You're Not Rockstars And You're Not Trashing The Room

"So we've got people stalking us?" Ben asked from the backseat as we drove back to Klagenfurt. 

"Yes," I answered.  My mind was still reeling about who the man could be.  And the guy taking pictures of us?  Yeah, didn't know about him either. 

"But this has happened before, right?  You know a way to get them off our tail, huh?" Drew said, sounding like Ben.  They both sounded worried...something that I didn't know that I could hear in their voices.  They were always happy and crazy.  This was a new side of them.

"Yeah, and that led to Callie being kidnapped for almost a week," Max said.  He looked over at me and reached for my hand.  He held it in my lap and I put my other on top of his.  He squeezed it slightly and I smiled at him.

"Let's just hope that they don't know too much," I said, looking at the two guys in the backseat. 

"But that didn't help you last time, did it?" Drew said with an eyebrow raised.

I sighed, shaking my head.  "No, it didn't."

Unlike the ride to Lake Toplitz, the one back to Klagenfurt was...completely silent.  Max kept his hand in mine on my lap, but my attention was occupied somewhere else. 

I couldn't stop looking at the photograph we found in the box.  My eyes never left the smiling faces of the couple.  The way he held her, the look of pure love in both of their eyes...it was absolutely beautiful.

My mind started wandering as to what happened to the couple.  Did the man make it out of the war?  Or did he die?  Did they get married, have babies, and grow old together?  Were they still alive today?  All of these questions I wanted to know, but I would have to wait until we were in our hotel room to know the answers.

It was sooner than I expected when we got to our hotel.  I hadn't even looked up from the photograph until Max lifted my hand and I felt him kiss the back of it. 

"We're here," he said.

I lifted my eyes to his and smiled.  "Okay," I said. 

He raised an eyebrow.  "You okay?" he asked.  "You've been awfully quiet."

I nodded, looking back at the picture before tucking it back into my bag.  "I'm fine.  Let's just get up to the room so we can call Dad and Brielle.  They're expecting a call from us to hear about what we found."

After we checked it - with Drew's help, since he was apparently fluent in German - we headed up to our suite.  Ben and Drew were pretty excited, seeing as we were staying in the most expensive one. 

To say the least, the guys were freaking out when we walked in.  Yeah, it was more or less your typical upper class suite: elegant wallpaper, marble floors, high ceilings, claw-foot bathtubs, and golden fixtures.  It wasn't anything I hadn't seen before.

"This place is huge!" Drew called from the third bedroom down the long hallway.  "And I'm totally calling this room!"

Max had already taken our suitcases and put them into the room that we were going to be sharing.  We were just going to let Ben and Drew fight over which one they got.

I rolled one of the smaller suitcases into the sitting room.  It was one of the hard cases and it didn't contain clothes.  Instead, it had one of our touch computer screens and a wireless keyboard.  I carefully pulled it out of the case and set it up on the old, elegantly carved desk between two huge windows.  After I let it start up, I touched the icon for the video chat and waited for Dad or Brielle to get on.