Page 14 of Beast

“First thing, I don’t see how he’d know you were with me.Second, my phone is on a secure, scrambled network.No one is hacking or tracing it.”

“Oh, wow.”She looked impressed.

“Restrooms are that way.”I pointed to a sign hanging from the ceiling.We worked our way to the back of the store, and I made note of the position of the phone counter and the women’s section.We reached the restrooms and I let go of Piper’s hand and watched her disappear into the ladies’ room.

Pulling my phone out, I glanced around to make sure no one was close before calling Shadow.“Anyone trace that last call to her phone?”I didn’t waste time on niceties.

“No.But they’ve been trying to ping it since.Did you make sure it was out of commission?”

“Yeah.”A picture of the mangled mess I’d tossed in the garbage flashed through my mind.“Melted that SIM card thing too.”

“Good.I’m trying to run a backward trace on the pings, but they’re encoded.It’s going to take a bit of time.”

“We’re in New Mexico, should have a new phone for her shortly.When we do, I’ll give you a shout for those contacts.”

“Sounds good.I’d suggest she just put absolutely necessary ones in for now.Friends she isn’t going to call right away, we can deal with later.Might be an idea to make this one a burner.Get rid of it when you get here.”

“Good plan.”

“And, Beast, if you can, get a second cheap phone and let me program it to her old number.Put it on a truck or whatever you can manage that is heading in the opposite direction from you.Hopefully the assholes will pick up on it and waste time chasing off in the wrong direction.”

I chuckled.“You’re a devious fucker, Shadow.I’ll do that.You manage to find anything out about this Drake asshole?”

“Negative.Just that he’s the heir to a mafia don and has managed to stay out of jail so far.”

“Typical.They let the underlings take the rap if something goes sideways.No hint as to why he’d put a hit out on Piper?”

“Nothing.No mention of her on the dark web at all.Strange.Usually there would be something, if only details of the hit contract.”

“Huh.”I looked up as I heard the door to the restroom open.“Be in touch soon.”I ended the call.

“Who was that?”Piper watched me put my phone back in my pocket.

“Shadow.Just letting him know we’d have a new phone for you soon.He suggests getting a burner, just put in numbers absolutely necessary for now.We can get you a permanent phone with your friends and family in it once we’re safely back in Georgia.”

“I suppose that makes sense.Since you have the super secure one maybe we use yours for everything, and just put your number and my father’s in there in case we get separated for some reason?”

“That makes a lot of sense.”I appreciated that she was taking this threat seriously.“Let’s go get the phone, and you can pick out some clothes and stuff.”

We ended up with a cheap Android phone, and some girly stuff that I didn’t look at too closely.My pants were tight enough, what with the semi hard-on she inspired just by being near me without adding to the problem.

Back outside, I handed the new phone to Piper and stuffed the rest of the items into the saddlebags.If we kept this up, I’d have to buy bigger ones.I wasn’t used to having a passenger on a road trip.“Hang onto that.We’ll pull off up the road a bit and call Shadow to set it up.”

“Why not do it now?”Piper frowned.

“Because there’s a lot of networks in a town, and we don’t want to chance any of them hooking into your phone before we get it secured.If we’re out on the road, less chance a hacker will stumble across it.”I held out my hand and she gave me the phone back.I plugged it into the battery pack I kept handy and put them both into the other saddlebag.“We also need to charge it.”

“Right.”Piper rolled her eyes.“I knew that.”

I pulled up a map on my phone.“There’s a pullout about twenty miles up the road.We can stop there, have something to eat and get your phone set up.”

“How much longer will it take us to get to… where is it we’re going?I know it’s in Georgia but I’m not sure where.”

“It’s a little town south of Atlanta.It will take us a couple more days to get there.We stop for meals and sleep.”I didn’t mention the fact that I was enjoying our alone time, and didn’t want to rush back to the club and have it end.

“How long does it usually take you?When you’re on your own?”

“Normally, it takes me about 30 hours riding, coast to coast, but I don’t want to push it this time.So, a day and a half.Two at the most.I just grab takeout to gobble down and cat nap when I feel tired.”

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