Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 53764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 269(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 269(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
What she knew about technology wasn't anything to write home about. She knew nothing about computers or the intricacies of how they worked. All she knew were the basics, things she had learned in high school such as PowerPoint and Excel.
But she did know several things about cell phones. Probably only enough to get her into trouble, but the small amount of knowledge she had was all she had to work with at the moment.
Obviously, she knew the smart phone he'd given her had Internet access. She knew that when it was in the apartment, it picked up the wifi in the building. When she took it outside, it picked up the signal from the cellular carrier. And damn lucky for her, it was the same cellular carrier where she'd purchased her pay-as-you-go phone.
She was positive there was a SIM card in her old phone because she'd taken it out once when she thought her phone had gotten damp. She was fairly certain that most smart phones came with SIM cards--but not all of them. She knew that the smart phone itself was the little computer that allowed access to the Internet, much as a Tablet did but on a tinier scale. The SIM card was the little doohickey that allowed the phone to make calls.
So what she was planning was simple in theory, but dangerous because that's where her knowledge became completely sketchy. She thought that if there was a SIM card in the smart phone, she could just switch them, and then carry her original phone with her when she left the building--thereby, leaving his tracking device in her bedroom. That way, if he phoned or sent her a text, she could answer and respond--and he'd never know she wasn't in the penthouse.
What she wasn't sure of were a couple of things. Well, many things but she didn't need to borrow more trouble. She had no idea what kind of application or software Marco was using to track her. She couldn't see an icon on the smart phone that indicated a simple application to track a missing phone. But that made sense, because if he was tracking her on the down-low, he wouldn't want it to be openly visible to her. So, she had no idea what kind of system he was using, and even if she had known, that's where her knowledge dried up.
So that came to the other big problem. If she managed to switch the SIM cards, would the missing component disable the tracking device and thereby alert him to a problem immediately? Or would it, as she was hoping, continue tracking the phone at the apartment, never knowing the phone had been separated from the SIM card?
She'd probably never know the answers without asking Marco, which obviously, she wasn't prepared to do. At least not yet. And none of this would even be possible if she hadn't watched her cousin 'jailbreak' a smart phone about a year ago so he could use the phone on a different carrier. He had assured her it was perfectly legal, as he'd bought the wildly popular phone for full price at the cellular store. Yeah. If only he'd bought liability insurance instead.
She steadied her nerves and took out a nail file and paperclip from her purse and set them aside.
She got everything else ready to leave the apartment, herself included, because if she was successful, the very second she had the SIM cards switched, she was walking out the door.
Ten minutes later, she had the answer she'd hoped for about the SIM card in the smart phone and she had the SIM cards switched. Of course, she still didn't know if he would or wouldn't know she'd left the building, but she was willing to take that chance.
She already debated the best place to leave her smart phone and her first inclination was to hide it--but then she immediately blew off that idea because if it was being tracked, he'd know where to find it anyway. And if he did come home and come in search of her, her story would be she'd forgotten it. Of course that would only work if he hadn't tried to contact her while she was out. Either way, she was going to have to take a chance. She walked from the bathroom, and as she didn't know if she was being watched, she casually walked to her bed and began fluffing the pillows and putting the magazine on the bedside table. She dropped the phone back on the bed where he had originally thrown it and then headed out to find the public library.
****
Natalie was determined to get back as quickly as she could--if she'd disabled the tracking device, which she absolutely hadn't wanted to do and which she herself didn't know, he would be pissed, that was for sure. She had a moment of high nervousness sitting in the library after the first thirty minutes had passed. The information on the Internet was all over the place about the cell phones. The technology was changing so rapidly that any of a number of things would have been available to him. She finished reading as quickly as she could, glancing up continuously from the table where she had her back against the wall--to the entrance of the library.