They took turns showering, Paige dragging hers out as long as she could. When she got dressed and joined him it was close to nine o'clock.
"Breakfast?"
She was tempted to say yes, if for no other reason than to stall, but she shook her head no and Nathan nodded. Neither of them felt like eating. Nathan sat on the edge of the bed, he had collected all the charged disposable phones and had placed them along with his cell phone on top of the laptop bag on the nightstand.
"Ready?"
She nodded, not trusting her voice and sat down next to him.
He picked up his phone and dialed the number from the paper. The first ring hadn't even finished before it was picked up.
"You idiot," the woman's voice practically screamed over the phone. "You called me from your own phone? Did you think I told you to get the others just for the hell of it?"
"I..I...uh."
Nathan was too stunned by the anger in the woman's voice to respond. On the other end of the phone he could hear the woman talking to someone else. "I knew this was a horrible idea."
"Should I call you back on one of the others?" He asked quickly, afraid she might hang up.
"No. If someone is tracking, then they already have a lock on this number now. You are going to have to be a lot smarter, a lot more careful. When you get off this call, that phone does not go with you. I am putting an awful lot on the line here and don't intend to get killed by your stupidity. Now listen carefully this is what you are going to do."
Nathan listened intently. Her words echoed in his head. She was angry, but she was also scared. He had no clue what was happening, but the woman on the other end definitely felt her life could be in extreme danger. And if hers was, then certainly so were theirs, which just helped cement the feelings he had since first seeing the website last night.
When the woman finished talking she didn't ask if he had gotten all the information, didn't ask if he needed it repeated or if he had any questions, the line simply went dead.
Nathan sat there for a moment looking at the phone.
"So?" Paige asked after a minute.
He stood up and looked around the room.
"Grab what you need or want. I have a feeling we won't be coming back here."
She wanted to ask him questions, but she knew he likely wouldn't have the answers she was looking for.
He watched her as she rose from the bed and went over to her two suitcases. She opened them both and looked at the clothing. She pulled out her Harvard sweatshirt and nothing else. She grabbed her purse, moved her hand up to her chest and placed it against the cross and then turned to Nathan.
"I'm ready."
He dropped is phone on the bed and then deposited the disposable phones into his laptop bag and did a quick look around the room before nodding.
"Okay let's go."
"Where to?"
He walked over to her and took her hand.
"Back to the library."
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
"Wake up," Cameron said as he nudged Linda away from his shoulder.
She blinked her eyes and smiled when she saw Cameron next to her. She reached out to him, but stopped when she realized she was sitting in the car. She knew she was no longer dreaming.
"What time is it?" she asked, noticing how bright the day had gotten. It had still been dark at five when she'd woken Cameron to take over the watch.
"A little after nine. Jimmy just reported that he intercepted a call. They are going back to the school. Whoever they are talking to is paranoid as well and she told him to ditch his phone. So we need to be on top of our game."
"Did he get a recording of the call? Can he tell who it is or where it came from?"
Cameron looked across the street, watching each car.
"He said it was a poor connection. It was a female voice, but he couldn't tell who it was. He said he'd run it through some of his programs and see if he could clean it up. He traced the signal but the call hadn't been long enough to get an exact position, just a general location. The signal disappeared after the call ended. So whoever it was either disabled the battery or or broke it."
"Where was it coming from?"
"Just over the bridge, Jamestown."
"Do you think it was Julie?"
He turned and looked at her, his expression blank.
"What makes you think that?"
"Well, I don't know. Things go wrong with Paige and then she grabs Jason and runs. Seems too much to be coincidence, doesn't it?
"Honestly," he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't know. I can't see her risking anything for Paige. I just assumed that she saw my distraction with this situation as an opportune time to make a run for it. She is well aware of how I would view her desertion and I would think her sole focus would be on putting as much distance between us as possible. I am still annoyed I didn't see her actions coming. She will rue the day she ever stepped out of line."