A rat in a cage

Noah was thoroughly amused and Max was enjoying the telling of events more than he had initially imagined as well. Somehow something so serious had become laughable and entertaining because of the stupidity of that mother - son pair. "Well apparently he is even more stupid than I thought because although I was only bluffing with the ringtone bit, he never ceases to amaze. He always finds a way to rise to the occasion and make a statement true. Whether it would be in his favour or not. I happened to press the call button the moment I said those words to her, trying to add power to my bluff and figuring there was no harm in trying to call the guy, and the moment that I did I heard his ringtone loud and clear from the hall. Apparently dumb and dumber reside in the same person, because this idiot had indeed left his ringtone on and had come down from his little hiding spot on the second floor, to come listen in on my conversation with his mother. Exposing himself in the process, although there wasn't much to expose with the clear evidence and the even clearer lies."

By now both Noah and the shadow were laughing out loud, holding their sides from Max's great story telling and the level of stupidity shown by a supposed man on the run. Not only did he think he could hide with 'mommy and daddy' but he had done absolutely nothing to hide his presence over there. He took his dog with him and left him out to play in plain sight on the second day of his hiding. He had left his phone on and the ringtone volume up. Not only that, he carried it with him as he walked around the house. The only smart thing he had done so far, was not use it to contact anyone. If he had done that, they would have found him even sooner.

"Once I heard the ringtone and saw his mother's wide eyed look, followed by his fumbling, cursing and dropping the phone, I rushed over and tackled him to the ground before he could escape. I flipped him around to start asking questions but he immediately covered his face with his hands before he said, 'Please don't hit. I'll tell you anything.', like the true cowardly rat that he is. I didn't even need to threaten him to get him to throw his buddy under the bus for his own gain, he offered it up the first chance he got. Like he had been sitting on a juicy secret he was dying to tell. Anyways, he told me that Andrew hadn't gone too far either. In fact, he too thought that a mother's house was a good place to hide." Noah rolled his eyes and the shadow too was quite astonished by the lack of logic in James and Andrew's actions but spared Max the interruption as they expressed their judgement silently. Curious how the rest of the story would go.

"Only he had been slightly smarter by choosing his mother-in-law's house instead of his own mother. Apparently his mother-in-law lives on a farm by the border and he thought that no one would come looking for him over there and that if they did, he would know well enough in time to get himself over the border. It was a small town in terms of population and large in terms of the space that it occupied, including the space between each neighbour. It being as small as it is, any 'strange' car would tend to stand out and cause a list of calls by curious neighbours to one another. One of these neighbours being Andrew's nosy mother."

"According to first idiot, Andrew was planning on leaving his wife and kids at his mother-in-law's place at the first sign of trouble and until things would die down a bit. He was apparently also telling himself and everyone that would hear it, that he didn't even do anything. All he did was sell some information and none of which being company secrets. One of these people being me, when I went over there with rat number one in hand. Of course I called ahead to the local sheriff and had them head over to the house first, since I didn't want to risk him running away and start a whole chasing game with me. No, trapping him like a rat in a cage seemed very fitting considering the circumstances. So, with the cops keeping Andrew in one place, I made my way over. When I came inside, he was sitting on the living room couch, looking angry as two officers watched his every move. He glared at me before spouting his innocence nonsense at me but quickly stopped when he noticed James right behind me."