Page 46 of Love at First Rep

“Well, I mean, in a sense, uh, everything?”

Garrett’s jaw dropped. “Say what now?”

Riley took a deep breath. “I can access everything. Well, almost everything. I haven’t, for the record. In fact, I’ve actually bolstered the firewalls because they were crap, but I can still get in.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Garrett muttered, wiping a hand down his face. “Okay, so you can access all the employees?”

Riley paused, his eyes darting between his computer and Garrett. “Allegedly.”

Garrett hid his amusement. “Okay, let’s start with Jay Wilson.”

“On it. I can access every desktop but the captain’s. It’s somehow on a different server than everyone else,” Riley said as he clicked and typed, bringing up Jay’s entire desktop. “I always like to start with web search history.”

“I found an odd string of transactions and payments, so I’m hoping we can get to the bottom of it.”

“What’s odd about them?” Riley asked as he opened Jay’s history.

“They were all to individuals rather than businesses, and I haven’t gotten a chance to look into them yet. Maybe they’re his buyers or something.”

Riley turned to Garrett, lowering his voice even though Josh probably couldn’t hear them over the clanging of pots and pans from the kitchen. “You said this isn’t not about Josh. How’s it connected?”

“This doesn’t leave this room. Don’t even tell Josh, if you can help it, until we find out a little more.”

Riley nodded seriously, even though his dumbass Batman mask lessened the gravity of the situation.

“The drug his parents worked on. It’s out in the world causing havoc and I’m trying to find out who’s behind it all. According to Rafe’s intel, there’s someone within the Cherrywood PD involved in the smuggling.”

“Shit,” Riley whispered. “Okay, let’s check out this Jay guy.” He began scrolling through the search history. Everything was work-related except for a bubble shooter game he played as often as he worked.

“How about searching his files for the word Anaviqa?”

Riley completed the search, netting zero results.

“Okay, let’s check his email,” Garrett prodded. “See if there’s anything suspicious around February 18, the date when one of the payments hit his account.”

After a bit of scrolling, Riley hit pay dirt. He opened one of the email threads from that date that had the subject line Interested in product from someone named Javier, a name matching one of the odd payments Garrett had discovered in Jay’s finances.

Best purchase I’ve ever made. Thanks for the goods, Jay. Let me know if you ever get more you’d be willing to part with. Thanks again!

“Huh, keep scrolling through the thread. Maybe they give away more info,” Garrett instructed.

The email before that discussed a meeting point for their exchange but didn’t give any more details about the purchase itself, but the next one looked promising.

I’m interested, but can I see it in person first? I want to make sure it’s legit. We can meet somewhere public.

Garrett’s excitement increased as Riley continued to scroll, but it fell hard when they reached the bottom of the thread.

Hi, Jay! I’m interested in the first edition Blastoise card you posted about. Is it still available? Do you have any other Pokémon cards you want to sell?

“Fucking hell,” Garrett sighed. “Who knew that douchebag was into Pokémon?”

“I guess Javier does,” Riley said with faux seriousness.

Garrett ran his hand through his hair in frustration. He could have sworn a payment for seven thousand dollars in Jay’s account would have led to something more… criminal. Freaking trading cards.

“Okay, let’s move on to McHugh.”

“I can access his database, but I can’t see any files on his computer that aren’t in the shared drive. Maybe you can steal them, if you get a chance.”