The Last Night (The Last Series Book 2)

by Harvey Church

  Within minutes, he was back on the road, and less than fifteen minutes after that, he once again stopped across the street from Python and Golden Eagle’s bungalow.

  Walking across the street and letting himself through the rusted, loud gate, Ethan watched the front door draw open as he approached. Golden Eagle stood there, a smile on her face and an apron around her waist. The apron had an original Nintendo game controller design on it.

  “The cookies are ready,” she said, stepping back to welcome Ethan inside her home. “But I suppose you already know what they taste like, huh?”

  Frowning, Ethan noticed Python in the beanbag living room, waving his arms before bringing his hands together in a begging sign of prayer. Turning his attention back to the pink-haired young woman with the dark eye make-up, Ethan allowed a fake but guilty grin. “They were delicious, Golden Eagle.”

  “Thank you.” She closed the door, spun away and flashed Python her middle finger, the one with the skull ring that caught the ambient light like a diamond. “I’m having my bath. You boys better behave.” She stopped at the entrance to the hallway that led to the bedrooms. “Remember, Ethan Vernon, I know where you live.”

  “Hopefully to make a cookie delivery,” he said, chuckling at his own lightheartedness but realizing he was overwhelmed with anxiety and fear and hope and impatience, all at once. Golden Eagle didn’t return Ethan’s easy gesture, she simply disappeared into the hall.

  Python waved him to one of the beanbags. Ethan would have preferred the arcade-themed basement for this chat, the stools at a Coca-Cola-themed bar. But he sat where he was told, sinking into the beanbag and wondering how he was going to get out of it once it came time to leave.

  To get the conversation started, Ethan produced the five thousand in twenties and fifties.

  “So,” Python started without counting the cash, “I broke into your phone while you were out. But it’s not your phone, is it, Ethan?”

  Ethan started to ask how he knew that, but Python cut him off.

  “I’m a hacker, remember? I know everything.”

  “Of course you do.” Was this kid really a genius? He couldn’t be, not when he called himself Python.

  The young man chuckled and waved at him like he’d missed something obvious. “Actually, the phone has an interesting application installed on its root directory.” He lifted the phone and showed Ethan the lock screen before pointing at the Emergency link in the right corner. “On a regular iPhone, the emergency call button has a capitalized E. Here, it’s not. That’s how I identified it as Pry-Jack, a phantom app that operates on an unlocked iPhone in a way that’s meant to look exactly like the phone in regular operation.”

  Ethan frowned, pointing at the screen. “So that’s not her real lock screen?”

  Smirking, Python shook his head. He double-tapped the circular button and the fake, Pry-Jack lock screen was minimized.

  Ethan focused a little closer. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  “With Pry-Jack, the user typically disables the home button. So to get past this fake lock screen, you have to input the user-selected passcode just like you would with a regular phone.” He winked. “Or you can bypass the code with a backdoor password, which I happen to know because this very app is one of the reasons I got into programming in the first place. Once I bypassed the lock code, I re-enabled the home button so that you can operate the phone the way you want.”

  Ethan wondered how young this kid really was. Hadn’t Chantal said he went to school with her? There was no way he was a Saint Xavier student, no way he’d learned these tricks at school.

  “What’s interesting is that Pry-Jack, which was incredibly advanced for its time way back in oh-nine, gives the impression that the user is interacting with the phone itself. You have access to folders and original apps, just like you would if you were navigating the regular phone. But with this app, you can tweak each of those items.” He winked again. “That’s how I knew it wasn’t your phone; because if it was, you’d have known about the Pry-Jack installation.”

  Ethan felt his heart racing, his mouth turning instantly dry. In fact, his stomach tightened too, and if he had indeed indulged in one of those delicious-smelling cookies, he’d have likely brought it up by now. “Python, do you mind dumbing all of that down for me? For instance, why would you use an app like this? A phantom app, as you called it?”

  Python smiled. In the semi-dark of the beanbag living room, those braces made his teeth appear deformed, large, spooky. “Let’s say you want to stop your kid from playing the game apps on your phone. You install Pry-Jack and tweak the actual game apps so that when they are accessed through Pry-Jack, they just don’t work.”

  “It’s like parental control?”

  He shrugged. “That’s how they marketed it, sure. But high school kids, what they’d do is tweak things like the photos folder, so that when their parents access their phone, they’d see pics of grandma and the family pet instead of the gang-bang they participated in over the weekend, or the pound of coke they’d snorted over spring break. Those photos would remain intact in the real folder, but never accessible by parents while Pry-Jack is operational.”

  Ethan nodded at Raleigh’s phone. “Were there any photos in the, um, real folder that didn’t show up through Pry-Jack?”

  Python handed him the phone without giving an answer. Which was an answer all on its own, wasn’t it?

  “Another thing people could do,” Python said, his voice softer now, empathetic even, “is use Pry-Jack to track unwanted access.”

  Unwanted access?

  “Let’s say you don’t want your spouse or kids touching your phone. They say they don’t, but you know they do. So you could have it send a text every time they input the passcode. Hell, you even can have Pry-Jack send a text each time the phantom lock screen is accessed.”

  Ethan swallowed the bile rising up in his throat. Glancing down at the phone in his numb hand, he saw the Emergency link on the faux lock screen, the one with the small E instead of the capitalized one. “So,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I can disable the Pry-Jack app by double-tapping the home button?”

  Python rose to his feet, nodding. “But each time you return to the lock-screen button, Pry-Jack will be activated. To adjust the settings, you actually go to the Settings folder. From there, you can figure it out. Hell, the app was designed and coded by a fourteen-year old, so if a kid can figure it out . . .” He let his words trail off, as if he wished he could retract the statement. “Just go to the Settings folder, you’ll know what to do.”

  Five thousand dollars, and all Python could tell him was that he’d be able to figure it out. Ethan wanted to laugh; he hadn’t even known what a phantom app was until five minutes ago.

  Thanking Python for his time and expertise, Ethan broke a sweat as he struggled out of the beanbag, and then walked to the door. From deeper in the house, Golden Eagle shouted something about a doggy bag, but when Python opened the door to let him out, he said, “You don’t really want those cookies, right? You don’t look so hot, Ethan.”

  The truth was that Ethan felt like he might vomit. It had been a long day, he still had a lot of work to get done at the house for when he finally tracked down Raleigh and brought her home. But more than that, he’d uncovered a new, possibly sinister element to the mystery of his wife’s kidnapping, and it didn’t look good.

  “One last thing, Python,” Ethan said, stepping out onto the small front porch.

  “Sure.”

  “Can you use Pry-Jack to redirect outgoing calls?”

  The kid had to think about it. He ruffled his hair with his hand, creating more of a mess than before. “Well, not exactly.”

  Ethan wasn’t sure if he should be happy or disappointed about that; either way, his shoulders deflated.

  “If you access the phone function, any key you press will dial that number. One is one, two is two and so on. But let’s say you access the Contacts list while Pry-Jack is active.
In that case, the number displayed on the contact screen could be different than the number dialed by the phone. You just adjust that specific contact’s number in the Pry-Jack settings so that, when the user taps on, say, ‘Call Ethan Vernon,’ Pry-Jack makes it look like they’re dialing your phone number, but in the background, it’s actually calling your favorite pizza place.” He shrugged.

  Staring down at the fake lock screen on Raleigh’s phone, Ethan nodded his understanding. As his thumb moved over to the Emergency link, he wondered what number the phone would dial in the background.

  Later, he told himself as he shuddered. Tomorrow. When someone might actually answer.

  Because now he questioned whether Emergency in fact dialed 9-1-1 or some other number, as prescribed by the Pry-Jack settings.

  “Anything else?” Python asked, flashing those braces like he could read Ethan’s mind.

  “Yeah,” Ethan said. Holding out his hand, he made a gimme motion with his fingers. “I changed my mind about those cookies.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ethan couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was the sugar rush from Golden Eagle’s grab bag of cookies because, by eleven-thirty, he snapped the sheets away and headed downstairs where he’d purposely left Raleigh’s old phone next to his on the kitchen counter. They looked like siblings; her older yet pristine phone next to Ethan’s cracked-corner, younger brother version.

  Grabbing a paperclip, Ethan opened the SIM card slots on both devices. Raleigh’s phone service had been discontinued over five years ago, probably by ParkerPharma once they realized the phone was no longer in one of their employee’s possession. As a result, the SIM card in her phone was now useless, so he removed it and placed it in the drawer with all of the other abandoned things he’d collected.

  The SIM card in Ethan’s phone, however, was still active. Removing it from his phone, he slipped it into the now-vacant slot on Raleigh’s phone. The switch essentially brought Raleigh’s old phone back to life, and rendered Ethan’s new phone useless.

  Now that Ethan had a connection between Raleigh’s phone and his wireless provider’s cellular network, the phone’s battery would work a little harder. In fact, once the phone was “live,” Ethan saw that the charge had dropped to eighteen percent (it had been at twenty percent when he’d gone to bed). But that quick drop didn’t scare him off.

  I’m close to finding you, Raleigh. I’m so close.

  Bypassing the Pry-Jack application, he accessed Raleigh’s actual photo folder. He’d been afraid of what he might discover in this folder, nervous that maybe she’d found herself a lover and the folder would be full of pictures of the two of them. Ethan didn’t know why his mind had wandered to that worst-case scenario, but then again, his wife had been missing for seven and a half years, leaving him to think of horrible things, many of them worse than Raleigh finding someone else to love. After all, in a time when an ambulance had been dispatched and nobody admitted to it ever leaving the EMS yard, anything was possible, wasn’t it?

  Judging from the thumbnails on the screen, Raleigh’s photo folder only contained the types of photos you’d expect from a loyal, hard-working wife. There weren’t many, just thirty-six in total, which itself seemed odd, but Ethan started at the top of the screen and worked his way through. The early ones were images from a hike they’d taken in Highland Park one weekend, followed by a stroll through Ravinia Park. They’d had something of a picnic that day, eating hot dogs from a street vendor and sitting on the outdoor stage where summer concerts took place.

  There were other photos, a couple of candid shots of Ethan working on the Corolla, his hand black with grease and dirt, or around the house with his handyman shorts and tool belt. In one photo, Ethan was clearly a little drunk on wine, reclined so far back in a leather recliner at his mother-in-law’s that it looked like he was pretending to be driving a race car with a wine glass in his hand. He couldn’t remember the specifics of that particular day, but not because he’d been drunk. It was more because the playful smirk on his lips, the merlot-rosy cheeks, and the lazy slouch had been commonplace for them as a couple. They worked hard, they loved hard, and they relaxed well on the weekend.

  A version of me who’s been dead. No, not dead; hibernating for when you’re back, Raleigh.

  While Ethan couldn’t say it had happened that specific night, Raleigh would often snuggle up with him in a chair, a hammock (her mother had one in the yard by the pool), sofa, wherever, and ask him, “What are you thinking, mi todo?” Usually closer to the end of the night on a happy Friday or Saturday, an hour or so before his eyes became too heavy to keep open and the wine had been drunk and his breathing slowed. She’d always refer to him as her everything in Spanish.

  It was her code word for saying she wanted to make love.

  Shaking his head at the generic memory, Ethan exited the photo folder and took a deep breath. He scrolled back to the main screen and pressed the screen-lock button. When the Pry-Jack’s fake lock-screen appeared, he let his thumb hover over Emergency with a small “E” for a brief moment before holding his breath and allowing it to fall onto it.

  The image changed, and the message indicated that a call was in progress. The number being dialed didn’t display. All Ethan could see was that the phone was “Dialing . . . Emergency.”

  Just like it had that night, seven and a half years ago.

  And then, after two seconds or so, the text changed to: “Call FAILED.”

  Frowning, Ethan hit the Emergency link once again. The same message displayed, followed a few seconds later by Call FAILED.

  On his third attempt, he lifted the phone to his ear and listened, just in case someone had picked up or declined the call—the time was approaching midnight on a Monday, after all.

  But there was no indication that anyone had picked up.

  With his heart racing, Ethan placed the phone on the counter and wiped his clammy palms along the thighs of his flannel pajama pants.

  He thought back to what Python had said about how the Pry-Jack app worked, how you could customize how each function behaved.

  But how?

  The Settings folder.

  Accessing the right folder, Ethan scrolled down to the Pry-Jack app and clicked on the name. He noticed the different areas that had been “hijacked” by Pry-Jack; each applicable folder either had a green check mark or a red Pry-Jack logo next to it.

  The Emergency Call link was one of areas with the Pry-Jack logo.

  Ethan clicked on the setting and was rewarded with two options. The first was 911. The second was 18005551977.

  “Jeez,” he said, the word escaping as a hiss. He left his stool and found a piece of paper and a pen in a nearby drawer. Returning to the phone, he wrote down the toll-free number.

  Next, he grabbed the cordless phone next the refrigerator.

  He walked back to where he’d left the handwritten phone number.

  And then he dialed.

  An automated female voice answered before the line could even ring.

  “This toll-free number is currently unassigned. If you are the owner of this line, please contact PowerTeleCom to activate your number.” The voice repeated the command in Spanish before Ethan finally disconnected, realizing once he placed the phone on the counter that he’d scribbled the name of the phone company.

  Grabbing Raleigh’s phone, he noticed that the draining battery had a small sliver of red left at the far-left of the icon. Also, a warning window had popped up to tell him that the phone had less than 10% battery remaining.

  Cursing, he powered Raleigh’s phone off.

  With the telephone company—PowerTeleCom—bouncing around inside his head, Ethan knew he wouldn’t have much focus left to get more investigative work done tonight. He pushed away from the counter, leaving the phones seated neatly next to each other before heading upstairs. If sleep had been difficult earlier, it would surely be impossible now.

  He’d opened a new door. He felt like he was getting closer and
closer to bringing his wife home.

  He didn’t know what to make of the fact that the emergency call he’d placed that night, seven and a half years ago, hadn’t been intercepted at all. He’d always thought it had been, believed it had been part of some sinister plan to kidnap his wife.

  Instead, that call had been purposely redirected courtesy of the Pry-Jack app.

  Now Ethan needed to find out who had been the one to install that intrusive app on Raleigh’s phone in the first place.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Tuesday morning, after getting some renovation work done in the formal living room, Ethan decided to go out and locate a charger for Raleigh’s old phone. A quick search online told him that most stores carried all types of older, after-market chargers. It hadn’t been as big a deal as he’d initially thought.

  While commuting to the nearest Wal-Mart, Ethan hit a bit of traffic. Moments later, he heard the sirens. First the fire engine, and then the ambulance’s chilling wail. Catching himself gripping the steering wheel to the point that the flesh of his knuckles turned white and threatened to rip open, he thought back to that morning after Paul Hyatt and his two coconspirators had taken his wife away in their ambulance.

  He’d searched frantically for his car keys that night. They were hard to miss, a large mess of keys for every door in his life that needed opening. The hunt through the kitchen had resulted in the various drawers being pulled open and sifted through, where much of the mess had spilled onto the floor—envelopes from the bill drawer, forks and spoons and knives from the utensil drawer, sandwich bags from the brown-bag accessories drawer. He’d even searched the refrigerator—just the week before, he’d placed a box of cereal in there by accident with the milk going onto the dry goods shelf in the pantry, so anything was possible.

  But he’d found nothing.

  The keys—both his set and Raleigh’s—were nowhere in the house. She’d obviously put them in her purse after running errands the night before, and he remembered being angry with her for not leaving them out, because now he was stranded. He’d been so lost in his narrow-sightedness that it took him another fifteen minutes to figure out a solution: call a cab.