His chummy way

Noah felt his anger rising towards Olivia and he clenched his phone so tightly that the sides were digging in his hand, as he imagined the evilness that was residing in Olivia's heart. He knew she was a bit crazy but he convinced himself that she did it out of a certain sense of love. But he never imagined that her feelings were toxic enough to want to help the man who almost killed him. For what purpose? For what reason? All because it seemed like she couldn't have him. By doing this she put herself and her family at risk and it didn't exactly increase her odds with him. So, Noah really couldn't understand what she had taken this risk for? What did Harold have on her that was serious or important enough for her to risk going to jail for him? It couldn't all be because of him since she would have a better chance to get to him by giving up Harold and getting into his favour. A chance which she fully discarded by the choice she had made.

Now that Noah had heard this, it wasn't too hard to figure out what had caused Harold's initially unexplainable choice to stop in the middle of his escape. It had all been due to Olivia's message, warning Harold of their fast approach and intended trap at the safe house. Regardless of Olivia's motive, her message had caused a ripple in their plans as it was apparently all that Harold needed to hear in order to divert from his own plan. The only fortunate side to this all, was that Harold was overconfident, to a point where it became careless arrogance.

Noah thanked Anthony for the information and told him to keep up the good work. Finally he could stop clenching the phone as hard as he had during his conversation. It became apparent just how hard he had been holding the phone, when he put it away after hanging up on his call with Anthony. This is when he looked down and saw the reddened stripes on his palms from where the phone had been. He was rubbing the marks away, when the shadow came with a rapport of his own, provided to him by his supervisor.

His supervisor would be coming down to the police station himself shortly, to get some of that inside information that the officers couldn't give to the two of them. The reason for this was because the shadow couldn't provide his credentials without giving his identity away and Noah, although a very powerful man, had no legal power in matters like this. So, both of them needed to make use of the powerful connections they had, to get the information they needed. In this case, that person happened to be the same for both of them.

Fortunately for both of them, the shadow's supervisor had already placed a request when he found out Harold had been arrested in the first place. His request had of course been granted but he had not yet been able to read the report himself until this morning. So, when the shadow called him for assistance at the police station, he gave her a different kind of help instead in the form of a copy of Harold's file, which included his testimony and that of the person who had called him in along with any notes from the officers on site.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A few hours ago, in the middle of a high speed escape~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harold was still on the run. He wasn't familiar with the country he was running away to and he could not afford Noah and his hoard of friends to catch up to him. So, in order to prevent himself from losing his lead, Harold though it would be a smart idea to buy a map at the nearest gas station, which had been quite a few miles off from where he was when he read Olivia's message. Hoping that the map could help him find a new hiding place until things would die down a bit.

Normally he would use his phone to look for a place online but the problem with that is, that once they knew that the signal belonged to him, it would make it that much easier for anyone to find him. Especially with a man like Noah behind him, who possessed plenty of tech savvy gadgets and he had the skills and team to make more. If he had managed to kill Noah and Steve, things wouldn't have been so worrisome but now that he knew that Noah had survived, he didn't want to risk it. He tried to seem unsuspicious but what Harold didn't know was, that usually when people try to act unsuspiciously, they end up looking suspicious instead. This same was the case with Harold, who instead of just buying the map and using the marks on the road to figure out the rest, decided to ask the person behind the register all kinds of questions.

He was asking him if there were any 'fun places to visit' and if there were any good hotels nearby where he could pay for a room with cash. If there would be hotels or motels that would accept a guest without ID, since he had 'happened to forget his' and didn't discover it until now. By pretending he was a tourist, who got lost on his way and was looking for some help and recommendations, Harold figured the person behind the counter wouldn't get suspicious of the things he was trying to inform about in order to change his escape plans. By laughing and joking away, and slipping in his questions one by one, he tried to become pleasant but forgettable. He wanted to blend in with the crowd so to speak. So that if someone came asking the man if he had visited this station, he wouldn't even be able to remember seeing Harold's face. But apparently, Harold's chummy way and strange questions, triggered the cashier into doing the opposite of what Harold had wanted.