Set Me Free (A Fugitive #2)(52)

"How does it work, Elliot?" Jaeda practically snapped as she crossed her arms.

"Well, it must fit into..." His eyes grew wide as he spun back to the computer. Yanking out the mysterious flash drive, he examined the edges more closely. Finally his mouth lifted with a small smile.

"Zachy-boy, you got some tweezers?"

Without a word, Zach stepped back into the kitchen, wrenching open the first aid kit and pulling out a pair of tweezers.

Everyone held their breath as Elliot gently lifted the chip from his fingertip and fed it into a tiny slot on the end of the memory stick.

"Cross your fingers, people." He let out a breath as he sat down in the chair and slotted the flash drive into the computer with a slight reverence.





Chapter 28





ZACH





It felt like an eternity before the icon for an exterior flash drive finally popped onto the screen.

"There it is!" Jaeda pointed at the screen as she jumped onto her tiptoes.

"Yeah, I see it Jae." Elliot double-clicked the icon. The computer screen flickered, made a whirring sound and then went dead. "What? No!" Elliot tapped the side of the screen. "Don't die on me. Oh man, please say I haven't wiped the hard drive," he groaned. He was just reaching to restart the computer when it burped with a musical sounding beep and a wheel started spinning on the screen.

Elliot drew his hands back, his eyes wide as he watched the screen turn white and then flicker to life.

The desktop reappeared just how it had been before.

"Where's the icon gone?" Alex leaned down, searching the screen for the flash drive again.

"Hang on. I wonder..." Elliot moved the cursor over one of the files and doubled clicked. "Damn it."

"What?" Jaeda nudged Elliot's shoulder.

"I was hoping that maybe this flash drive was somehow overriding the encryptions on his files, but this one seems...to...." Elliot squinted at the screen, his nose wrinkling. "Unless I try..." Elliot pressed a few keys and a black window with a flashing cursor appeared on the screen. He typed in a sequence of numbers and letters that no one else seemed to understand, bringing up lines of garbled text. It came down in chunks and then the flashing cursor appeared again.

He typed in Lulu!9602.

INCORRECT PASSWORD flashed on the screen.

"Okay, bummer, I thought he might have used the same password. Help me out, Lulu-girl."

She breathed out a chuckle, shaking her head. "I'm not sure, maybe Lulu and Eddy. That was my mom's nickname. Or—"

Elliot tried several combinations and failed.

"Why'd they call you Lucy?" Alex interrupted. "Any special meaning? Do you have a middle name that goes with it?"

"No." She shook her head. "No middle name. I think they just liked Lucy. Dad used to laugh at Mom because she loved that TV show, I Love Lucy, and he accused her of naming their only child after a 1950s sitcom."

Elliot's head tipped to the side. His fingers skimmed over the keys, typing in: ilovelucy

An explosion of text appeared below the words and the box disappeared.

"No way." Elliot chuckled. "I'm in!" He raised his hands. "I love Lucy!" He shouted, clicking at folders on the desktop, revealing lines of neatly labeled files and jpegs.

"No, I love Lucy." Zach pressed his nose into the side of her face as he whispered the words, following them up with a kiss. She absentmindedly grinned, her eyes fixated on the screen.

"Try that one." Alex pointed to a file.

Elliot followed the reporter's instructions, opening up file after file until they stumbled across a gold mine of information under a folder marked TenWil.

"Holy crap," Zach whispered as they all read the meticulous notes on the main page.

The PDF of Jack Tate's testimony didn't miss a detail. He had been suspecting William Tenner for a few months and decided to secretly track his movements, his finances and go back through his reports. The file contained photographic evidence of bribery and corruption, falsified investigative reports and money laundering. Recognizing a couple of names, Zach scrambled for the files on the table.

"Here's more evidence." He lifted the statements up to his uncle. "See that charity, that must be a cover for the gang work referred to in paragraph...seven?" His fingers scanned over the computer screen. "See there."

Alex took the file from Zach's hand, pulling over a chair and finally sitting down next to Elliot. For the next two hours, they worked through documents and files, opening all the evidence Jake Tate had spent months meticulously collecting.

"This is amazing. Your dad's a total legend. We've got enough here to bury Tenner. There's no way he can hide this stuff anymore." Alex jumped from his seat. "I gotta move on this." Pulling the files together, he started shoving them into the bag. "Elliot, you want to join me?"

"Where are you going?"

"I'm heading to the Chronicle. I want to talk to my boss about the best way of exposing this. It'd be great to have you there to walk him through the files and tell him how you worked your magic on that laptop."

"Okay." Elliot nodded, his chest puffing out as he gently closed the laptop and stood.