Another low chuckle from Shane drew Quinn from his thoughts.
“I lost you again, didn’t I?” he teased.
Quinn shook his head and sat up in his chair. God, he needed to get his daydreaming under control. He got way too lost in thought when he was around Shane.
“Sorry about that.” Grabbing his glasses, he slid them back on and blinked a couple of times to get his eyes to focus on the computer screen in front of him. He flipped over from Facebook to the spreadsheet where he’d been making notes about the groups that were harassing the mayor.
“I’ve been going through the various groups, and there are currently two big contenders for angriest when it comes to Mayor Spring. There’s Cincy Safe, which is fighting for more funding for rehab programs and stiffer penalties for drug dealers in the fight against the opiate crisis in the city. They’re angry because the mayor has delayed two separate votes that could have diverted more funds to the cause as well as established a special police task force.”
“Sounds like they’ve got a good reason to be pissed.”
Quinn shrugged. “Possibly. It’s not like I want to defend the guy, but I don’t think the problem is so simple that the mayor throwing more money at it is going to help things, but they’ve decided he’s their target and that’s all there is to it.”
“And the other?”
“Urban Progressives.”
“Don’t know them.”
Quinn wrinkled his nose at the screen. “Small group that believes the city isn’t investing enough in growth, gentrification of some of the other neighborhoods, and new technology to make it more pedestrian friendly. It’s like they want to make Cincy a new Silicon Valley with a hip Portland vibe.”
“Shoreditch.”
Quinn twisted in his seat to look up at Shane. “What? Was that even English?”
“Very English actually. It’s in East London. Lots of interesting pop-up restaurants, art galleries, and parties. Very eclectic and vibrant. The ‘it’ place to be in London.”
“You’ve been to London?”
“A few times. You?”
With a quick shake of his head, Quinn turned back to his computer. He didn’t have the money for exotic travel. Hell, vacation at this point was splurging on a one-day lift ticket for Perfect North Slopes for a little snowboarding with friends.
“Anyway, they’re not happy with the mayor.”
“Enough for hate messages?”
“A few.” He closed his spreadsheet and pulled up another spreadsheet. “I contacted the mayor’s assistant and had her send me all the hate mail he’s received. I also scraped off all the negative comments that I could find on his website and social media pages. I created an algorithm to run comparisons against that data and the two messages that he’d received from the hacker, trying to find some kind of match since people tend to write in a particular style and rhythm that generally can’t be masked. We can’t expect a high correlation since we have such a small sample to start with, but I thought it might give us a few leads.”
“Shit…”
Quinn twisted around quickly, expecting to see Shane looking down at his phone, but he was staring down at him. “What?”
“Where did you learn this? I mean, I didn’t fully understand everything that you said, and I can’t guess at how you did it, but that’s just amazing.”
He grinned under Shane’s praise. “Some of it was in college. A lot of it was just experimenting with coding and programming since I was a kid. And then I’ve learned a lot from Jen in the office. She’s amazing with a computer.”
“Jen? That’s the one that Rowe calls Gidget, right?”
“Yep.”
“Why the hell does he call her that?”
Quinn snorted. “I shouldn’t tell you.” He turned back around, but Shane grabbed the back of the chair and turned it so Quinn was completely facing him.
“Why?”
“They wouldn’t tell me who this Gidget was. I had to watch that stupid TV show from the ’60s. I kept thinking there would be some reference to hacking or computers.”
“But it was in the ’60s…”
“I know!”
“Then why?”
“Rowe finally admitted that he called her Gidget because Jen’s perky personality reminded him of the character. I guess he grew up on reruns of the show or something.”
“That sounds like Rowe.”
“He keeps things interesting.”
Shane grinned at Quinn and leaned closer. “I’ve got another kind of interesting tidbit for you.”
“Oh yeah?” He could be down for Shane’s brand of interesting.
“I finally nailed down where I heard Villefort and Danglars from.”
“Where? I did a search of known people in the mayor’s social circle and came up with nothing.”
“You wouldn’t. It’s The Count of Monte Cristo.”
“What? Who’s that?”
“Seriously?”
Quinn couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “What?”
“The Count of Monte Cristo is a book written by Alexandre Dumas. Same guy who wrote the Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask.”
“I think I saw that movie. Leonardo DiCaprio.”
“You’re killing me.”
Quinn could feel the flush rising in his cheeks but he pressed on. “I like movies, video games, and computers. Never been big on books.”