"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.
"You guys want to come too?"
Zach looked to Lucy who hadn't said a word in the last two hours. She glanced his way and shook her head. "It's a lot to take in, you know?"
"Yeah." Zach rubbed her back. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I...I will be, I just need to clear my head. I want to stay here. Actually no, I want to go for a run."
Everyone paused, their eyes slowly traveling to her.
"Not run away." She rolled her eyes. "A run. As in to clear my head. I will come back." She gave them all an emphatic look.
"Do you want me to come with you?"
"No." She squeezed Zach's arm. "I just need to process this. Running helps me do that. We'll talk when I get back, okay?"
He couldn't help feeling deflated as she brushed past him and headed for the stairs. Leaning against the back of the chair, he glanced toward Elliot.
"You coming, man?" His friend flicked the bangs out of his eyes. Zach wanted to. Finding all this stuff on Tenner was thrilling. They had him now. He was pumped up and couldn't wait for this to all come out, but he was worried about Lucy. She didn't seem excited at all and he didn't want to go flouncing off to San Francisco for the afternoon. He wanted to be there when she returned.
"Nah, you know what, I'm gonna stick around. Keep me posted though, okay?"
"Definitely."
"Jae?"