Page 29 of Faking the Pass
Maybe he could help obscure the ownership of my house for at least a little longer.
For about the hundredth time, I went to pick up my phone then realized it was lifeless. Right.
Back to the laptop where I brought up the website of my cell service provider. I found the page marked devices and figured out how to switch service from the damaged phone to my backup.
Then I shut the laptop and went to my room to dig the phone out of a drawer along with its charger.
As I was coming back out, I ran into Rosie in the hall.
“I’m going to take a bath,” she said. “If that’s okay.”
“Yeah, absolutely. There’s shampoo and stuff in there. Have at it. I’m gonna get this phone powered up and call my brother. He’ll have some ideas for us.”
Us. Well, there wasn’t exactly an ‘us,’ but we were pretty effectively trapped here together, so yeah, we had a common problem.
Rosie nodded weakly and slipped past me to the bathroom where she closed the door behind her.
I was worried about her. She hadn’t even seen all the headlines and invasive photos. I hated to think how much worse she was going to feel once she did.
When my phone had enough juice, I powered it up and discovered I’d missed a call from my mom and a whole bunch of text messages.
The oldest was from Wilder.
He’d sent it yesterday afternoon, informing me that someone would be using my “empty” house for the next few days.
Yeah, thanks for the heads up, bro.
The next one was him apologizing for the unexpected houseguest. He must have sent it after Jessica told him I was planning to come home earlier than expected.
By then he’d realized I must have already discovered the surprise waiting in my bed.
The most recent messages were from Wilder warning me not to try to leave my house—or to let Rosie leave.
They were accompanied by photos of the road out front. As far back as my cottage was tucked and as curvy as my driveway was, Atlantic Avenue wasn’t directly visible from my front door.
The pictures showed a snarl of traffic stretching for at least a half mile in each direction and vehicles parked up and down both sides of the road.
There were even a couple of live trucks from the local TV stations.
Fantastic.We were literally surrounded by land and by sea. There were probably multiple drones overhead as well.
Of all the times to have a fucking dead phone.
If I’d gotten any of these messages earlier, Rosie could have avoided being photographed here.
Then it would still have been a matter of speculation where she might have gone after docking the dinghy at my cottage. Now there was no doubt she was holed up in here.
Wilder answered my call before the first ring finished.
“Hey. You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, if you consider living in a shallow fishbowl surrounded by hungry cats ‘okay.’ What’s the situation?”
“Well it’s not good. You saw the pictures I sent?”
“Yeah. It’s just as bad behind my house. I didn’t know the cove could even hold that many boats.”
“Yeah, I saw the photos of Rosie on your deck,” he said. “Sorry about that by the way—I’m guessing you didn’t get my messages because my son is a terror to all small electronics.”
