Read Online Alpha in a Fur Coat by Sloane Meyers - Free Book Online Page A

men, but moments later he appeared from the back room.
    “Did Jimmy finally show up with those beers? I swear Jimmy you’re getting on my last nerves these days.”
    Ralph stopped talking abruptly when he saw that the newcomer wasn’t Jimmy at all. His expression went from jovial to wary when he saw Grant.
    “Mr. Ray,” he said cautiously. “What are you doing around these parts?”
    “You know this guy?” one of the men behind the counter asked, letting out a long puff of cigar soke.
    “Call me Grant, please,” Grant said. “And yes, I know Ralph. We worked together.”
    “Yeah,” Ralph said. “Grant’s the one who got Curtis off when they tried to stick that murder on him last year. I don’t like lawyers, but Grant’s alright. What are you doing out here, though? Is someone else in trouble?”
    “Well, yeah. You could say I’m in trouble,” Grant said. “I need some photos printed. As soon as possible.”
    Ralph raised an eyebrow. “Normally I don’t work for anyone outside the neighborhood.”
    “I know,” Grant said. “But I really need your help. I’ll pay full price. I’m not asking for any kind of special deal. I just need to get this done.”
    There was a long pause as Ralph looked Grant up and down. “Alright. I’ll print them for you. But only because of how you helped Curtis out. And you’re paying full price.”
    Grant nodded and reached in his pocket to pull out the portable data drive that held all the document photos. “Here you go. Thanks buddy.”
    Ralph took the drive and stuck it into an old computer sitting on the counter. Blue light from the computer screen filled the smoky room as the computer roared to life, and Ralph’s eyes moved right to left rapidly as he scanned the files on the disk.
    “Which ones do you want printed, brother?” Ralph asked, looking up at Grant.
    “All of them.”
    “All of them? There are hundreds of photos on here. It’s gonna cost you as much as house to print all of those,” Ralph said, looking Grant up and down again, as if wondering how much money lawyers made, exactly.
    “I don’t care, Ralph. Whatever it costs, I’ll pay. Just print them all.”
    Ralph shrugged and nodded, then pulled the data drive out of the computer. “Alright. If that’s what you want. It might take slightly more than an hour, though. That’s a lot of photos to print.”
    Grant nodded. “Just do your best to get them done as quickly as possible.”
    Ralph nodded again, then gestured toward a ratty old armchair. “Make yourself comfortable. You want a whiskey?”
    “No thanks, I need to do some work. But I’ll take a coke, if you have one?”
    Ralph reached underneath the counter, where he must have had some sort of mini-refrigerator. He tossed a coke over to Grant, who caught it and went to sit in the armchair. Ralph disappeared into the back room again, and the rest of the men ignored Grant. That was fine by Grant. He wanted to work on cracking the code from the documents Storm had stolen from the mayor’s office. He pulled out his tablet and lost himself in his work, even forgetting that he was sitting in a smoky shop in the middle of a not-so-safe neighborhood.
    Sixty minutes flew by, and Grant was beginning to get frustrated. But just about the time he was getting ready to hurl his tablet across the room, he noticed a pattern in the encrypted text that he hadn’t seen before.
    “This might be it,” he said aloud to himself. He entered the potential code rules as guidelines, and ordered his computer to translate one of the documents. His heart kept pounding faster and faster as he waited to see if the resulting translation would make sense. Moments later, words started unscrambling on his screen right before his eyes.
    He had done it! He’d cracked the code.
    “Yup, I’ve still got it,” Grant proudly said to himself, wishing there was someone there to brag to who would actually care. He glanced at the time. It was well after midnight by this