Free The Detective by Elicia Hyder

 
    He seemed to relax a bit.
    The truth was, Dennis wasn’t a bad guy. He’d hacked the computer at the hospital and erased the debts of cancer patients. I’m not saying I would’ve let him go—a crime is a crime and it’s my job to enforce the law—but there’s a big difference between Dennis and whoever shot Carissa Withers.
    He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “Give me enough time and I can get into the Pentagon.” He looked around cautiously. “What do you need?”
    Man, he must really want to watch some zombies.
    I held up my hand again. “That’s not necessary.” I handed him the flyer for Daycon. “I’m curious about something like this.”
    He laughed and didn’t even accept the flier. “Shit, man. Daycon has holes in it like swiss cheese. My niece could get through their shit and she’s seven.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. You can get through their net with a decent SDR and a—”
    I cut him off. “A what?”
    “SDR,” he said again. “Software-defined radio. It lets you intercept and monitor transmissions from shit like Daycon’s systems.”
    “How easy is it to get ahold of?” I asked.
    He shrugged. “You got an eBay account?”
    God, I love it when I’m right.
    “So, if they had video surveillance inside the home?” I asked, leading him with my tone.
    He laughed and winked a light brown eye at me. “If they’ve got inside surveillance, then pray they’ve got hot chicks and those cameras turned toward the showers, dude.”
    By the end of the day, I was more certain than ever that a hacker was responsible for, or at least involved in, the robberies. All of the video footage that Reese was able to pull had clear footage of the safes. So, whoever it was knew the contents of each safe that was hit. I was also willing to bet that whoever Justin Sider was had watched the mayor use his handy-dandy password notebook to access his accounts.  
    Before I could leave for the day, there was one more order of business I had to tend to. I picked up the phone in my office and dialed our IT department.
    “Ramon?” I asked through the intercom.
    “Yeah?”
    “Can you do me a favor?”
    There was a beat of silence. “Sure, Nate. What’s up?”
    “Can you find a way to buy, download, stream, or whatever all the episodes for last few months of The Walking Dead?” I asked.
    “Um…” There was more silence on his end of the phone. “Sure, I guess.”
    “Great.” I stood up at my desk. “Make sure it gets sent over to the jail. They are expecting it. Tell them it’s for inmate Dennis Morgan, from me.”
    “Uh, OK.”
    “Thanks, Ramon,” I said. “Have a good weekend.”
    “You too, Detective.”
    I pressed a few buttons to forward my calls to voicemail, then shut down my computer. It was time to head home for the weekend… Home to my girlfriend.

TEN

    PERHAPS I SHOULD’VE felt the disruption in the atmosphere when I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment complex, but I didn’t sense how off the universe was until I opened my front door and was hit in the face by the scent of pine cleaner and lemon dusting crap. I almost backed quietly out and ran for the hills without a word, but Shannon appeared from the kitchen as soon as I walked in.
    She clapped her hands together with glee. “You’re home!”
    Things were sparkling. I didn’t like it. This wasn’t home. This was a trap. A domestic trap. I shoved my keys into my pocket and looked around suspiciously like toxic gases might start flooding from the vents. “What did you do?”
    “I just straightened up a bit,” she said as she sashayed toward me.
    I unzipped my coat. “I… um… it looks—”
    She cut me off by grabbing the lapel of my jacket. “Leave the coat on,” she said. “We’ve got to get going.”
    “Get going where?” I asked.
    “Your parents’.”  
    “Excuse me?”
    She giggled and leaned into me. “We’re having dinner at your parents’ house tonight instead of tomorrow.”
    Surely,