The man shouted after her. “Miss? Are you okay?”
There had never been a time in all her years on earth when she’d felt such visceral pain. It was as if the loss was physical, her heart torn in half, beyond repair. The beat itself seemed irregular, and Kate thought she might be going into shock. When she reached her car, she slid behind the wheel and closed the door as sobs wracked her body.
The man was wrong. Someone had found Ian. Taken him to their home and given him a blanket. Warmed him up and called him a cab. He was probably on his way home to her right now. He would walk through the door and say, “Gotcha, Katie Long Legs! Boy, did that suck.”
It’s twenty-two degrees outside, and even colder in the water. If he was okay, he would have called.
The crowd had dissipated and traffic was moving freely by the time she felt capable of driving. Numb, Kate put the car in gear and shivered uncontrollably all the way home. When she entered her apartment, she looked around expectantly, praying desperately that she’d find Ian on the couch with his laptop and a cup of coffee.
Silence greeted her.
She sat on the couch, rocking back and forth, running her hands up and down her arms because she couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t get warm. She turned on the TV. Channel 5 was covering the story, and just before nine the newscaster announced that a body had been recovered and the victim identified as thirty-two-year-old Ian Merrick.
His last name is Bradshaw. It’s not him!
But Kate knew it was him. She ran to the bathroom where she emptied the paltry contents of her stomach, the bitter taste of bile coating her mouth. She flushed and wiped her face with the back of her hand.
For as much as she’d worried about the things Ian was involved in and those who might want to find him, she’d never once worried about the one thing she should have: that he was not actually a superhero and was no less mortal than she or anyone else. In Kate’s mind, Ian was invincible. Larger than life. To lose him in something as ordinary as a car accident was perhaps the most unexpected blow of all. Feeling hollow and empty, she laid her head on the floor and wished she could disappear. Just wither up and float away.
But floating made her think of water, and it was then she realized that the reason Ian hadn’t called and the app said Offline was because his phone had likely been carried away by the current of the cold and muddy Mississippi River.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
After sitting on the floor of the bathroom for an indeterminable amount of time, Kate called her mom. She needed Diane’s comfort more than anything, but she knew the minute she made the call everything would become real.
“Ian’s dead,” she said when her mother answered. She was crying so hard she wasn’t sure Diane could understand her.
But she must have, because Diane choked back a gasp and said, “Ian? What happened? Were you with him? Are you okay?”
Kate interrupted her, the words tumbling out in one long sentence. “Mom, I don’t know anything other than someone hit him and it was icy and his car went over the embankment into the river and I need you to come right now please please come okay?”
“Honey, listen to me. I’m going to hang up and call the airline. Is there someone who can stay with you until I arrive?”
She hadn’t contacted any of her friends because she knew the last name of Merrick would not tie Ian back to her, so there was no reason to start making calls quite yet. Although she barely remembered doing it, she had called Helena and was overjoyed when she got her voice mail. Kate had marshaled her strength and managed to leave a message about being sick and asked Helena to take over until she felt better.
“I don’t want anyone but you,” Kate said.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
When Kate hung up, she reached for the phone Ian had given her. She had been waiting for it to ring. Surely someone would call her, would deliver the news personally. It wasn’t fair that she’d had to drive by the aftermath, see it on the news.
But no one would know to call her because she was not linked to Ian in any way.
He’d made sure of that.
Even if his phone had been recovered, which was doubtful, it probably wouldn’t work. Had someone from the FBI field office identified Ian? Had they heard about the crash and recognized his vehicle? Would they know how to contact his mother? Ian said she’d remarried, but Kate didn’t know her current last name or if she still lived in Amarillo. She didn’t know what to do, where to start. Maybe she should go to the police. Tell them who she was and what she knew? She thought of Ian’s body lying in a drawer somewhere, alone and so cold. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the image remained.
He preferred texting over calling and rarely used voice mail. But Kate had saved one of the few messages he’d left her, and she hit the button to listen to it.
“Hey, sweetness. Just left my place. I’ve been thinking about you all day. Be there soon. Love you.”
She listened to it over and over and cried for the next hour.
In the bedroom she found one of his sweatshirts in the hamper and pulled it out. She put it on over her shirt and tucked her face down under the neckline, breathing in the smell of him. It was the wrong thing to do and only brought on a round of fresh sobbing because Kate would never smell him again.
Never feel his arms around her.
Never kiss his lips.
Never see his smile.
Never hear him call her sweetness.
She spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening lying on Ian’s side of the bed, her head on his pillow, hating how cold the sheets felt without him in them. Though it only made her cry, she listened to his voice mail repeatedly. When she got up to go to the bathroom, she passed her closet where many of his clothes hung. In the bathroom, she looked at his things on the counter: his toothbrush, his razor, his cologne.
No one would come for his possessions. They were hers to keep, and she’d never get rid of them because they were all she had left.
Diane Watts arrived at 8:15 p.m. She had elected to drive because by the time she waited for the next available flight, sat through a layover in Chicago, and landed in Minneapolis, driving would get her there sooner with the added bonus of not having to worry about delays or cancelations.
Kate had known when to expect her because her mother had called on the hour to check up on her. Kate had calmed down enough to tell Diane what she knew about Ian’s death, giving her the information in bits and pieces.
“He should have never taken that car out,” Kate had cried during one of her mother’s calls. “I don’t know why he didn’t do it earlier like he’d planned.”
Maybe he’d gotten caught up in his work and had been running behind. Maybe he’d noticed the declining road conditions and was on his way to her place to park the Shelby in her lot overnight instead of driving it back to the storage facility. Kate would never know the reasons behind Ian’s decision.
Now that her mother was with her, Kate broke down completely. Diane held her as she cried, and when Kate grew quiet, she wrapped her in a blanket and rubbed her back. She made a steaming pot of tea, and she made the calls Kate hadn’t been able to—to Kate’s friends, to Kate’s board of directors, and to Helena to explain what had really happened.
Her dad called, but for some reason his soothing words made her cry harder, so Diane took the phone out of Kate’s hand and said they’d try again in a little while. Chad and Kristin called, and her brother’s sentiments were heartfelt and supportive. Kristin had broken down and cried with Kate.
“Do you know anything about a funeral service?” Diane asked gently.
“I don’t know anything. I don’t know who to call. I don’t know if anyone’s contacted his mother.”
“Maybe there’ll be something online. Let’s not worry about it tonight. We can look for it tomorrow.”
Kate needed the closure of Ian’s funeral. She desperately wanted to say her good-byes and know he had a final resting place, even if that place was
in Texas.
At midnight, Kate’s mother put her to bed, assuring Kate that she’d be fine on the couch. When the door closed, Kate automatically rolled to her left side, but she had to turn onto her back because the absence of Ian’s arms around her, his back pressed up against her, was more than she could handle.
She cried.
She listened to his voice mail message again.
She lay awake for hours.
Eventually she slept.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Kate woke with a headache and eyes so swollen she could barely see. Her mother coaxed her into the shower.
“You’ll feel better,” Diane said, laying out warm, comfortable clothes on the bed for Kate.
Kate wouldn’t feel better because she missed Ian with every ounce of her being and a shower could not possibly put a dent in her grief. But she went into the bathroom and turned on the water, and when she undressed the first thing that caught her eye was the mark Ian had left on her breast. It had faded considerably since Saturday night, and she placed her palm flat on it. Soon there would be nothing left of it or of him. She stepped under the warm spray and cried, and when she was done she dressed and joined her mother in the living room because there was nothing else for her to do.
Her mother had made coffee, and Kate sat down on the couch and accepted the cup Diane handed her. “Paige called this morning to see how you were doing. She said she thought Ian’s last name was Smith, not Merrick. Your dad and I did too.”
“Actually, it’s Bradshaw.” Kate was too emotionally exhausted to provide the details surrounding Ian’s real name. “I’ll explain later.”
Diane looked confused, but she didn’t press her daughter for more information.
Kate booted up her laptop, which still ran slowly even after Ian had added more memory. She googled Ian Merrick, but the search returned only his website. Kate clicked on it, but there had been no change in content. She took a deep breath and googled “Ian Merrick Amarillo Texas death notice.” If the search came back empty again, she’d try Ian Bradshaw. If she still couldn’t find anything, she’d go to the police and ask them to put her in touch with whoever had identified Ian’s body. They might not give her the information, but she would try.
But the search wasn’t empty this time.
When Kate clicked on the link, it took her to the death notice section of the online edition of the Amarillo Globe-News.
Merrick, Ian, 32, self-employed, died Monday. The body will be cremated. No services are planned.
Diane tried to comfort her, but Kate was inconsolable. She clung to her mother, soaking her shirt with her tears. Diane dug a Xanax out of her purse. Her oral surgeon had prescribed it to help her relax before dental surgery, but she’d found she hadn’t needed it.
She put one of the pills in Kate’s mouth, held a glass of water to her lips, and said, “Swallow.” Then she helped her daughter back into bed where Kate remained, asleep, for the next six hours.
The first thing Kate did when she woke up was ask for another pill.
“They only gave me two, and I think we should hold on to the last one for now,” Diane said.
Kate didn’t agree. She’d found the effects of the Xanax highly preferable to being awake.
“Did you eat anything yesterday?” Diane asked.
“No.”
“You have to eat, Kate. I can heat up some soup or go out and pick up something.”
“You decide. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Diane heated up some soup and managed to get a little of it into Kate. She’d convinced her to try a cracker when someone knocked on the door. Kate looked up quickly, her heart soaring.
But Ian wouldn’t have knocked.
And Ian was also dead.
Diane had observed Kate’s hopeful expression and looked worriedly at her. “I’ll answer it.”
Kate thought it might be one of her friends, but when Diane opened the door, she heard a man’s voice and caught only fragments of the conversation.
When Diane returned to the couch, she said, “You have a new neighbor. He moved in right down the hall. He seemed very nice. He left a card and said you should stop by sometime and introduce yourself.” Diane set the card on the coffee table, but Kate ignored it.
“Now can I have one of those pills?”
“It really is the last one, honey. I’ll give it to you, but there are no more after this.”
“I don’t care.”
Kate wanted oblivion. Kate wanted nothingness. Kate wanted to wake up and find the whole thing had been a bad dream.
Her mother gave her the pill and Kate swallowed it.
She slept.
The next day there was another shower, more soup, and no pills.
“I’m going to wash the sheets,” Diane said.
“No,” Kate said. “Just leave them.” Those were the sheets she’d slept on, made love on, with Ian. She was not ready.
She spent most of her time sitting in the chair by the window, staring out at the gray sky and listening to Ian’s voice mail message. Diane went to the store. She cooked, she cleaned, and she made sure Kate got out of bed.
“I know it’s hard to fathom right now, but you’ll get through this,” Diane said.
“No, I won’t,” Kate replied.
She brushed Kate’s hair out of her eyes and said, “Yes, you will.”
On their fifth night together, Diane opened a bottle of wine and poured them a glass. She built a fire and sat down on the couch next to Kate.
“You told me you didn’t like Ian when you first met him and promised that someday you’d tell me the whole story.”
Kate’s eyes instantly filled with tears. “I can’t, Mom.”
Diane squeezed her hand. “Talking about him will help.”
The only thing that would truly help was Ian walking through the door and calling her sweetness. But her mother was trying so hard, and it was the least Kate could do considering Diane had dropped everything to rush to her side. “Ian was a hacker.”
“I thought he owned a computer security company,” Diane said.
“He did. But mostly he loved to hack into things. He said no one could keep him out if he wanted to get in because he was the best. I didn’t really buy it at first. But after he hacked air traffic control at O’Hare, I started to believe him.”
Diane’s eyes widened. “He hacked air traffic control?”
“I needed time to get to a different gate after my flight got canceled. He fixed everything after I got on the plane.”
Kate took a sip of her wine and found it went down better than she’d expected. “I told you his last name was Smith because when I met him he wouldn’t tell me what it really was. Referring to him as Ian Smith became our little inside joke.”
“You didn’t know his last name?” Diane asked.
She shook her head. “Not right away.” Kate went back to the beginning and told her mom about the donations and how Ian had tracked her to the café by hacking her credit card account. “And then he told me he’d stolen the money he’d donated but thought we could still be friends. I told him I didn’t think so.”
Diane’s shocked expression conveyed how alarming she found this revelation.
Kate took another sip of her wine. It wasn’t as effective as the pills, but it calmed her a little. “He’d stolen it from cyberthieves who shouldn’t have had it in the first place, like some kind of modern day Robin Hood. It was his version of vigilante justice.” Kate explained the cause of Ian’s dad’s suicide, and the reasoning behind Ian’s actions.
Diane took a rather large drink of her wine. Under any other circumstances, Kate knew her mother would have had plenty to say about Ian. But Kate’s grief was too raw, and she wouldn’t have been able to handle hearing anyone say one negative thing about him. Diane kept her thoughts to herself.
“Not only had he hacked my credit card account, he’d hacked my personal computer. That’s why I said I didn’t like him at first. He
was just so cocky and arrogant, and he had no concept of boundaries. But he was charming as hell, and he went to work on winning me over right away.”
“But what about the money he stole?”
“I no longer cared about that. Ian never once made excuses for it. He’d look you in the eye and tell you he was a thief. Said it wasn’t an ethical struggle for him at all. By then I knew he was a good person, and I knew he would never treat me badly. And he didn’t. I fell in love with him so hard, and I never saw it coming.”
Kate took another drink of her wine. Her mother had been right. It did feel good to talk about Ian.
“He didn’t tell me right away, but in addition to his regular clients, he also did some hacking for the government, working with the FBI to fight cybercrime. That’s why he protected his identity so carefully. He didn’t want the hackers he was trying to catch to know who he was or where he lived. He moved around a lot so they wouldn’t find him. He was getting ready to leave Minneapolis, and I was going to go with him. To Charlotte, North Carolina.”
“You were going to move?” Diane said. “What about the food pantry?”
“I was going to resign. I loved Ian and I wanted to be with him.” Kate started crying again.
Diane kissed Kate’s temple and smoothed her hair the way she had when Kate was a little girl.
“He was the one I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with. When people talk about a once-in-a-lifetime love, I thought I knew what they meant. But I didn’t. Ian was the man I didn’t know I needed until I met him. The whole time I was with Stuart, Ian was out there, waiting. And we found each other, but then I lost him.”
“I promise you’ll get through this.”
Kate wiped her eyes. “Right now I’d settle for not feeling quite so much pain.”
“It’s going to take time,” Diane said gently.
Her mother spoke the truth. It’s what Kate would have said to anyone who had suffered a similar loss. “I think I’ll go to bed,” Kate said. “I don’t want any more of my wine.”
She kissed her mother and then went into the bedroom and lay down on Ian’s side of the bed, clutching her phone and listening to his voice mail message as she cried herself to sleep.