Page 24 of Byte

“So, what do you need me to do?” Flint asked when I returned to the living room.

“I need you to go to Gabby’s house and get her a few changes of clothes. She’s going to be here for a few days at least.”

“No problem. Do you have her keys?”

“Yes, but there are some things you need to know first,” I said, and proceeded to fill him in on everything going on with Gabby.

Flint wasn’t gone long, maybe an hour and a half at most. I spent the entire time pacing around the house and trying to find things to keep myself occupied. I knew Flint could handle himself if something happened, but I didn’t want him to have to.

When he walked through the back door carrying two large bags, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Did everything go okay?”

“Yeah, it was fine. Nothing seemed out of place. As I was leaving, a girl named Lauren pulled into the driveway. She said she’d been trying to get in touch with Gabby for a few days and wanted to know where she was.”

“Shit. What did you tell her?”

“I told her Gabby was in Croftridge for the weekend. She wanted to know why and what I was doing at her house. I told her I didn’t know why Gabby was in Croftridge and that I was sent to pick up a few things for her,” he explained. “When I asked who she was, she said she was a friend from school.”

“Yeah, I met her when she came over to Gabby’s house a few days ago to study.”

“She gave me her phone number,” he said.

“She did?”

“Yeah,” Flint chuckled. “She asked if I was seeing anyone. When I said no, she handed me a piece of paper with her phone number on it and told me to call her. Then she winked at me before she got into her car and drove away.”

“Are you going to call her?”

“Hell no,” he laughed. “I could tell from the few minutes I talked to her that she wasn’t my type. She’s too pushy and seemed to lack boundaries.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I got the same feeling from her.”

8

BYTE

Ispent the rest of the weekend taking care of Gabby and searching for information regarding her situation. Despite my efforts, I still had found nothing on the man pretending to be Chad Higgins. I needed a good photo of him or a piece of legit information to use. Hitting a dead end was rare for me, and it was frustrating as hell.

The sound of a door opening upstairs broke me out of my thoughts. Since Gabby was the only person up there, I hurried up the stairs to see what she was doing out of bed.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m feeling better, so I thought I’d go downstairs and get something to eat.”

“Nope. Get back in bed, and I’ll bring you something,” I insisted.

“You’ve been waiting on me hand and foot all weekend.”

“And I’m going to keep doing it for a little while longer. You might be feeling better right now, but you don’t want to overdo it.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she admitted and leaned against the wall.

“Come on, let me help you back to bed, and then I’ll bring you some soup.”

“Thanks, Byte.”

When I returned with a bowl of ramen noodle soup and a sleeve of saltine crackers, I watched in horror as she crumbled the entire package of crackers and dumped them into her soup. “What are you doing?”

“Having soup and crackers.”

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