Descent (Black Heart Romance presents Heaven & Hell)

having a girl, and that’s that.”
I shake my head at him and go back to my sketch. Eli needs flowers to make his area prettier,
maybe a bossy little bee friend named Isabelle.
I’m engrossed in my sketching, but I can’t help noticing when I see Calvin reach into his interior
suit pocket and pull out a phone.
It wouldn’t be alarming… except his phone is sitting on the seat between his legs.
He has two phones?
Why would he have two phones? It doesn’t make sense that it would be a work phone. He has
been doing work—or saying he is—on his regular phone, and to be honest, it doesn’t seem like
Calvin has such a buzzing social life that he requires one. He has friendships for when he needs them,
but it doesn’t seem like his need to be social extends very far beyond that.
Covertly, I watch him. He’s not on it for long. He waits for the phone to power on before sending
a message. He waits for a response, and then sends another. Once he’s finished, he tucks the phone
away in his pocket and resumes whatever he was doing on his main phone.
I could pretend I didn’t notice—he probably didn’t expect me to, given I was otherwise
occupied—but curiosity compels me, and he did say he wanted honesty from me.
“Was that a second phone?”
He glances over at me, surprised I’m paying attention. “Yes,” he answers simply.
“Is it a work phone?”
“Not precisely.” When I just frown at him skeptically, he offers more of an explanation. “It’s a
burner phone. When I communicate with certain people who don’t want their cellular activities to be
traced, we communicate on burners. I had to wait until we were back in the city though, because even
a burner can be traced by approximate location, and since we were out of town today, it would be
very easy to deduce I sent the message.”
My frown deepens. “Are you doing something illegal?”
“Constantly.”
My eyes widen. “What?”
He cracks a smile at my panic. “I have a kidnapped fiancée, don’t I?”
I roll my eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant. Why do you have to communicate on a burner
phone if you’re not doing anything sketchy?”
“I’m doing something very sketchy, that’s why the details won’t be communicated over a phone
at all. Don’t worry about it,” he says, nodding at the notebook he clearly wants me to shift my
attention back to. “I’m smart enough not to get caught.”