Steve hunched over his computer monitor. "OK, angelbaby let's track you down." fingers flying over they keyboard Steve, an experienced hacker, sent out two sniffer programs to track her down. One went after her credit card bills, another her calling card. "This is too easy." he almost laughed.
"Step two." He called her phone and put in the code to her answering machine. With a strange smile on his lips he listened to the messages. There were many, so he knew she wasn't around. In one of them her friend squealed something about not believing she's touring with the Backstreet Boys. "Bingo." whispered Steve in a cold voice. Probably balling all of those little boys, he thought. The idea excited and angered him. Hanging up the phone he dialed her number. "I know where you are angelbaby, did you think you could lose me so easy? You don't really want to be there with those boys do you? You want to be here, with your man. I'll give you a chance. Come home now. Or I come and find you."
++++++++++++++++
The next few days went by in a blur of shows and traveling. With four shows in a row without a day off, the boys' scheduling was grueling and they had little time to work on writing. After the final show before their day off, Howie came back onto the bus and plopped down onto his bunk, totally exhausted.
"You ok?" Rachel asked, concerned.
"Yeah sweetheart, I'm just bushed. I think I'm going to go take a shower and turn in early," he sighed heavily. "Can I talk you into curling up with me for a while? We've had so little time together the past few days," he asked, flashing her a tired smile. "I'd really like to just stretch out curled up next to you."
"I think that could be arranged," she responded. "You go ahead and get your shower. I'll finish up this bit and then I need to call the apartment and check my messages and I'll be done. I haven't check my machine in days - it's probably full," she groaned. She watched as Howie rose from his bunk and stripped his shirt off as he headed towards the back. He must have felt her eyes on him because he turned and winked playfully at her.
"Want to join me?" he smirked.
"Don't tempt me," she giggled. "We'd never make it out. Maybe next time," she offered as she finished up the paragraph she was working on and began to shut down her laptop. Grabbing a pen, she hit the speaker phone and dialed her number. "You have 8 new messages," the machine chimed into her ear. Eight? Maybe they were short ones at least. There was one from Bev, wanting to know how the book was coming and when could she get a sneak peek at a chapter. Then there was one from her best friend who'd heard from Bev that she was out touring with the boys, and how could she not tell her? Could she hook her up with AJ? Rachel laughed to herself. Next was her parents, then Bev again, followed by a couple miscellaneous calls from sales people.
Howie stepped from the shower and dried off quickly, wrapping the towel around his waist and stepping out back to the bunks. He heard Rachel fiddling around in the kitchen and listening to her messages on the speaker phone. Next thing he knew, he heard the sound of breaking glass. Startled, he ran into the front of the bus. "Rach? You ok?" he asked, then saw her starring at the phone, a petrified look on her face as she and he listened to the voice coming over the speaker.
"Oh no," she murmured, and slid to the floor, looking totally flabbergasted.
"What is it? Who was that?" Howie asked, confused.
Rachel tried to pull herself together. She tried to convince herself that it had been an auditory hallucination, that Howie finding the scar had set off. But she knew better. She knew Steve and his hacker abilities. What to do? She looked up into Howie's caring, warm, worried eyes and wanted to cry. Then she looked down at the broken glass on the floor.
"Oh... clumsy me... I'll clean it up."
"Rachel, what the hell is it? You look like you just saw a ghost."
I wish, though Rachel, as she picked up the glass, her mind racing, trying to decide what to say, what to do. She knew what Steve was capable of. She knew Steve wouldn't hesitate to hurt Howie to get back at her. He had once landed some poor schmuck in the hospital that had just said hello to her at a bar. One of the shards of glass sliced her finger, and blood welled out and dripped onto the floor, just bringing the memory of Steve's brutality into shaper focus.
"You're hurt." Howie raced forward and helped her up, and guided her to sit of the sofa. "Let me get a washcloth. I'll finish cleaning the glass."
Howie tenderly wiped the blood away from her finger and wrapped it in cloth. Then he finished getting the glass. As she watched him it
became painfully clear what Rachel must do. She had to leave. She couldn't put Howie or any of her new friends into the path of that
madman.
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