Page 63 of Love at First Rep

“Oh shit, is it detective time again?” Josh said excitedly from his spot on the couch. As Garrett walked behind him, he peeked at his laptop screen. Josh was working on a logo design for a dog bakery. Riley and Josh had done a great job with their graphic design business, Jollywood Graphics.

After returning from the gym that morning, Garrett had reached out to Riley to see if he could stop by again on his way to work.

“Yup, we’ll be in the office.”

Garrett paused before he followed Riley. “Is that a bone or a dick?”

Josh turned to his computer screen and grunted. “I haven't finished the other end yet. It will be way less dick-ish by the time I’m done, don’t worry.”

Riley snorted as he led Garrett back to his and Josh’s office. Riley sat at his desk, and Garrett pulled over the chair from Josh’s. He was glad Josh wasn’t in the room for this one.

“So, what do you need?” Riley asked as he stretched his fingers, ready to work.

“I need to gain access to the files on McHugh’s computer that aren’t connected to the database or the shared drive. My gut tells me he’s hiding something. Can you help?”

“The only way to do that would be to physically access his computer. Is he ever away from it?”

“Barely,” Garrett said with a roll of his eyes. “He stays in view of his office throughout the day and when he’s not there, it’s locked and alarmed with a door code for some reason.”

Now that he thought about it, why did McHugh need a code to unlock his office? He added it shortly after he started working there.

“So you need me to hack the alarm?”

Garrett didn’t know how Riley knew how to hack an alarm, and he didn’t want to know.

“It’s probably not worth it,” Garrett said with a sigh. “It’s rare for the main floor to be empty. There’s a night shift and if detectives are working a case, they may be there all night too. I think the safer bet is to cause a diversion so I can sneak onto his computer while everyone is distracted.”

“Do you need me to cause the diversion?”

Garrett smirked. “No, I have another idea for that. I just need a flash drive or something like that so I can move everything over as quickly as possible.”

Riley nodded. “Easy. I can set it up so all you have to do is stick the drive in and open the program on it and it will grab every file he has, even if it’s encrypted. You’ll need to bring it back to me to decrypt it for you, though.”

“Perfect. How long will it take you to create that program on a portable drive?”

Riley’s eyes darted back and forth, guilt on his face. Garrett narrowed his eyes at him.

“I may or may not have already created it for something else.” He paused. “Allegedly.”

Garrett snorted. At this point, he didn’t care what Riley did in his spare time. Riley never went after anyone innocent, and that was good enough for Garrett.

“Say no more.”

Riley opened one of the drawers of his desk and rummaged for a moment before pulling out what looked like a black brick.

“I’ll put it on a portable hard drive for you, in case you need more storage than a flash drive can handle. It will only take me a few minutes to move my program onto it.”

Riley plugged in the drive and focused on his screen. Even though Garrett needed this favor, he couldn’t miss the opportunity to tease Riley.

“Uh, aren’t you forgetting something?” Garrett asked.

Confusion filled Riley’s face before he rolled his eyes and went back in the drawer for his Batman mask, slipping it on over his head.

He muttered, “Asshole,” then got to work.

Garrett couldn’t help the giggle that escaped him.

Now that he’d taken care of phase one of his plan, he could move on to phase two.