Raven's Peak by Lincoln Cole

said.
    “Still,” she replied, “I assumed there would be something listed about him if he could afford a place like this. But, no, there was nothing.”
    Haatim was silent, staring at the table.
    “What?” Abigail asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’re hiding something. Is it about your father?”
    He hesitated.
    “You hesitated,” she said. “Tell me. I’m not going to ask again.”
    “The thing is, my father and I have different last names and—”
    He was interrupted by the buzzing of a cellphone on vibrate. Abigail slipped a phone out of her pocket and glanced at it. She read the name on the front and then looked at him.
    “I have to take this. Keep deleting.”
    “I will,” he said.
    “No funny stuff.”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied.
    She stood and disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Haatim waited a few seconds and then tiptoed across the floor. He pressed his ear against the wood and listened.
    “No, but it’s almost taken care of,” he heard her say, voice muffled by the thick door. “Just some personal business, and I’ll be on the road in an hour or two at the most. Yeah, Frieda, I got it: Raven’s Peak, I know. No, I won’t. I gave you my word, didn’t I?”
    There was a moment of silence. Haatim leaned closer, straining to hear.
    “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. Look, Frieda, I have to go. I’m in the middle of something, but I promise I’ll be on the road heading out of town in just a short while.”
    Haatim tiptoed back to the counter only seconds before the bathroom door opened. He sat down next to his laptop and typed, pretending to ignore her. Abigail walked back to the other side of the counter, sliding her phone away and frowning.
    “Almost done?” she asked.
    “Almost,” he said. “Just one last group of photos to delete.”
    “All right,” she said, checking her watch. “I’m in kind of a hurry.”
    “OK,” he said, scratching at his arm.
    He heard a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the table. He sensed her tensing up and froze, slowly turning to look at her.
    “What?” he asked.
    “Uh oh,” she said.
    “Uh oh?” he echoed.
    “Let me see your arm.”
    Haatim held it up. She turned it to get a clear view of the cut, shaking her head.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “When did you get this?”
    “A few days ago,” he said. “I think. Just a scratch, but it just hasn’t closed.”
    “It isn’t a normal scrape.”
    “Then what is it?”
    She hesitated. “Something else.”
    “Then what does it mean?” he asked.
    “It means,” she explained. “That things just got a lot more complicated.”

Chapter 4
    “Complicated how?” Haatim asked. The intensity on Abigail’s face had just gone up dramatically. Anything that unsettled her, he realized, was definitely not good for him.
    “I need to get you out of here right now,” she said. “I was wrong. They didn’t just want you for the pictures.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “They’ll be back,” she said.
    “The people in the alley?”
    “Yes,” she said. “Probably with more this time. We need to get moving.”
    “I thought you said I wasn’t worth anything to them without the pictures.”
    “I didn’t think you were,” she said. “Turns out, you’re worth a whole hell of a lot.”
    “What aren’t you telling me?”
    “A lot,” she said. “But right now, I don’t have time to explain. Are you done deleting? We need to go.”
    She stood up and slipped a revolver out of her belt. She slipped open the chamber, making sure it was loaded.
    “Yeah,” he said. He closed the laptop. “Everything is deleted.”
    “Good,” she replied. She flipped his laptop over and slammed the grip of her gun into the battery component, smashing it. The case cracked and he could see the shattered components inside
    “Hey!” he said.
    She ignored him and kept pounding, destroying everything down to small