AllFreeNovel
Share Us
By the time they were served, Jaxon was barely thinking about Eric and his childish demands. They had to head up to Dave’s precinct and meet with his friend who worked in cybercrimes.
Sam Derry.
Or as Shea referred to him: the basement nest-crow.
“He’s not a nest-crow, Shea. And you can’t call him that, anyway. You don’t wear the black,” Dave huffed.
Shea snorted. “Ain’t got to wear the black to know a nest-crow when I see one.”
“He’s got a skill we need, so treat him kindly,” Dave commanded and paused. “Or just pleasantly. Fuck it, Shea, pretend he doesn’t exist, okay?”
They arrived at the station at half-past eleven and made their way down into the basement of the building. It was a cool, drafty, damp place with bad lighting, but tons of storage. And in the midst of all the storage was an office belonging to Sam Derry, the Force’s resident Cyber-Crimes expert/record keeper.
Jaxon, Teagan, and Shea made their way down the back stairs of the station house, blinking rapidly at the change in light when they stepped into the basement.
Derry was seated at his desk, drinking something out of an absolutely enormous styrofoam cup and humming along to some music that was lightly playing out of his desktop speakers.
“Hey, Sam,” Dave greeted him, and he smiled in response, looking surprised when the rest of them walked into view, but he still smiled all the same.
“I didn’t know you’d be bringing others…” Sam muttered. “We only needed the one.”
“I was, but my cousin wanted a tour of the station. Her boyfriend came along,” Dave said, a bit more loudly and jovially than was strictly necessary. He reached out to clap Jaxon rather stiffly on the back before speaking again. “I figured I’d bring them down to visit you for a moment.”
“Hello again, Sam,” Teagan said with a smile. “This is Jaxon. Have you met?”
Jaxon shook his head and extended his hand to Sam. “Don’t think we have, no.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jaxon.” Sam’s hand was clammy, but his handshake was firm, if a bit rushed.
“Are we alone?” Dave whispered to Sam.
“Yes, we’re alone,” Sam said, nodding. “The sarge was down here earlier, looking for something in the records, but he’s gone to lunch now. We’ve got about… thirty minutes tops, I’d say.”
“Wow, will that be enough time for you to get up out of your chair?” Shea laughed.
Sam turned to face her for the first time. “Shea…” he sighed heavily, not addressing her more than that.
“Hey, Sam,” she said, grinning.
Jaxon sensed a bit of a history there, but he wasn’t sure exactly what. Again, Dave had his own life apart from him and Brad, so he had to assume this was part of it.
“He helped me look up information on my landlord,” Shea said, grinning and popping her gum. “Or should I say, he pissed about and got really, really nervous when I hijacked his computer to do it myself?”
“I could have been fired for that,” Sam hissed.
“Wouldn’t that be a shame?” Shea deadpanned. “You’d have to go do real work then. Or go back to school and get your librarian degree.”
“Shea, knock it off,” Dave said. “We haven’t got much time and you can’t waste what little we have acting like a little shit.” He slid a piece of paper across the desk and Sam asked when he looked at it, scanning the words and shaking his head.
“I don’t see a case number, Dave.”
Jaxon’s heart sank a bit before Dave replied. “No case number, just my own curiosity. We got that off of someone’s phone. We need to check who owns the account.”
“Someone’s phone?” Sam asked. “How’d you get anything off of someone else’s phone, Dave?” He sounded very disinterested like he was just making small talk. But Shea answered anyway.
“I hacked it.”
Dave sighed. “She guessed the password.”
