“They wanted me, Kate. Not you. The fact that they hadn’t made any direct threats yet meant they were probably planning to use you to draw me out, to force me to react in some way. And I would have. I’d have done anything they asked if it meant they’d leave you out of this. Even so, there’s no way I would leave you unprotected. Your new neighbor, Don Murray, is an FBI agent who works out of the Minneapolis field office. So does the man who follows you to and from work every day, and the two men who keep an eye on your street and the food pantry.”
Kate sat in stunned silence. How had she gone from running a nonprofit organization to being under FBI surveillance? She could not wrap her brain around it no matter how hard she tried. It was simply too surreal.
“We had to act fast,” Ian said, “before they could put whatever they were planning into motion. We got lucky because we didn’t have to wait long for another storm.”
“How were you able to convince the police, the media?”
Phillip answered her. “Ian abandoned the car on the side of the road. The streets were fairly empty because of the road conditions, and it didn’t take much to stage a collision that pushed the Shelby over the embankment. We called 911 ourselves and reported a car in the river. No one would have survived something like that, not in a vehicle without airbags and not in freezing-cold water. Then we leaked to the media that a body had been recovered and identified. The FBI claimed jurisdiction, and the only information we shared was what we wanted to make public.”
“There was a death notice,” Kate said.
Ian’s expression remained blank, but his features hardened and Kate detected a slight clenching of his jaw. “I wrote it.”
“After you found out about Ian’s death, did you google Ian Merrick on your laptop?” Phillip asked.
“Yes. I did a general search and then a more specific one. That’s how I found the death notice.”
“What about Ian Bradshaw?”
“Not on my laptop. I googled him once on my special phone after Ian said I wouldn’t be able to find him, but that’s it.”
Phillip nodded and seemed happy with her answer.
“What if I had? Would that have ruined everything? Why leave such an important thing to chance?”
“It wouldn’t have ruined anything, Kate,” Ian said softly. “Phillip just wants to know what we’re dealing with so we can do some long-term planning.”
“Within an hour of the crash, we blew Ian’s cover ourselves,” Phillip said. “We made sure the name Ian Merrick, and the news of his death, was all over the forum. We made sure they knew he was working with the FBI.”
“Did they buy it?” Kate asked. “After everything you did, did they believe you?”
“Anytime a hacker with any notoriety dies, there’s immediate suspicion that it’s a hoax and a call to arms for any hacker within a ten-mile radius to help verify the information,” Phillip said. “It’s the oldest trick in the book, and the only way it would work was if your reaction was genuine.”
Kate didn’t know what to say. They’d started following the steps of their carefully laid out plan before she’d even known there was a problem.
“Do I still have a backdoor?” she asked.
“Yes. That’s why Ian had to contact you the way he did. And even then it was quite risky. I wanted him to hold off a little longer before he reached out, but he said he couldn’t wait. Did anyone ever approach you, Kate? Ask you anything that might have seemed strange?”
“No.”
“Do you remember seeing anyone who looked out of place?”
“When I went to Ian’s apartment the morning after he didn’t come home, there was a guy near the bank of intercoms. He was young, midtwenties probably. It was hard to tell for sure because he had his hood up. I remember thinking at the time that he seemed to be watching me, but I thought it was because I looked upset. I was trying not to cry, and I didn’t want him to see, so I turned away. Then when I went to the storage facility I learned that someone had been there asking about when the FBI had come for the Escalade. Some young guy wearing a dark hoodie.”
“You went to the storage facility?” Phillip said.
“Yes. After I got Ian’s message on my dating account I got nervous and wanted to do some investigating of my own. See if anyone had shown up there and asked questions.”
Kate told them how she was able to get the storage facility employee to share the information. “But that’s it. I don’t remember seeing anyone else.”
Susan walked into the room and announced that dinner would be ready soon. Kate had no appetite, but Susan was kind so Kate smiled and gave her a slight nod.
“We’ll have to handle your move from Minneapolis a bit differently than Ian had planned,” Phillip said.
Kate looked away. They’d assumed she would go along with their plan for moving forward now that they’d brought her into the fold, but all she could think was no.
Because now that she’d recovered slightly from the initial shock, other thoughts had started to materialize.
Emotions were starting to bubble their way to the surface.
What Ian had done was not on the same level as hacking her credit card and computer or walking in on her in the bathtub.
He had let her think he was dead, which was the worst kind of hell you could put anyone through, and she was not done processing it.
Philip was too focused on what would happen next to notice Kate’s reaction. But Ian—a man who missed nothing—sure had. She could feel the weight of his stare, and as soon as she looked up, he locked eyes with her, comprehending.
“I need some time alone with Kate,” Ian said.
“Of course,” Phillip said. “I’ll call down when dinner is ready.”
A small guesthouse sat behind the main property. Ian carried Kate’s bag as they made their way along the flagstone path, neither of them speaking. Once they were inside, there was no mistaking the fact that the space belonged to Ian. The main room had a couch and a coffee table on which sat a laptop computer and an empty coffee mug. His tennis shoes were on the floor, and his favorite MIT sweatshirt, the one that was faded red and soft and that Kate had sometimes worn, was lying across the arm of the couch.
“How could you do something like that to me?” Kate said as soon as Ian shut the door and turned around. Her face crumpled as she started to cry. “You promised you wouldn’t leave without telling me, but you did it anyway!”
“I couldn’t tell you. If they saw you looking like your world had ended, they’d leave you alone. But if they spotted you walking down the street just once, laughing, wearing a smile, it would only draw them in closer, and I wouldn’t have been able to protect you. If I thought I could have done it any other way, I would have.”
“You left me behind,” she said.
“Would you have come? If I told you we had to leave immediately, no good-byes, no time to submit your resignation, no preparation, would you have done it? Lived on the run? How long would it have been before someone decided to start watching your family, Kate? All those texts I got, all that time I spent on my computer the day I discovered they’d hacked you? I was trying to come up with another way to pull this off, and I couldn’t. They found my weakness and named their price. I paid it, but I paid it on my terms.”
“I paid too,” she cried, “and it would have been easier to bear if I’d known about it. Because of you, I experienced the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. How can we be a team if only one of us knows what’s going on?”
Tears rolled down Kate’s face. Ian led her to the couch and held her as she cried. He waited until her tears had tapered off and she’d gone limp in his arms.
Stroking her head tenderly, he began to speak. “Leaving you behind was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I did it because I thought it was the only way to solve the problem permanently. Phillip made me promise that I’d wait until things died down and it was safe to contact you. In the meantime, I made those agents tel
l me about every single observation they made. I knew all about your tears and your shell-shocked expression, and it killed me.”
Kate’s mind was racing and her thoughts were jumbled. She was torn between the comfort his arms provided and the turmoil his actions had caused. His phone rang, and Kate lifted her head off his chest.
“That’ll be Phillip,” Ian said. “He’s the only one besides you who has this number.” He reached out and wiped away her tears. “We don’t have to go up there if you’d rather not.”
“You still have the same phone?”
He nodded.
“I left you a message on your birthday.”
“I know. I listen to it every day so I can hear your voice, and every single time I think about what I did to you and wonder if it was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I know you paid, but I wouldn’t have asked it of you if I didn’t think you were strong enough to handle it. I’m so sorry, Kate. I’m sorry for the pain I caused you. I’m sorry for what you went through. I’m sorry for all of it.”
During dinner, everyone tried to pretend there was nothing out of the ordinary about the circumstances that had brought the four of them together. Susan fretted over her and Ian, offering more salmon, more rice and vegetables, even though they’d yet to finish what was already on their plates. For the first time, Kate noticed how thin Ian looked. She’d dropped at least ten pounds herself and appeared worn and drawn, as if she’d recently suffered an illness and hadn’t fully recovered.
“Our home is open to you for as long as you’d like to stay,” Phillip said.
“I’d like to leave tomorrow, please,” Kate replied. As much as she hated the thought of being separated from Ian again, he’d raised the stakes and she needed time to contemplate what a future with him would truly be like.
The sound of silverware clinking seemed especially loud in the silence that followed, and neither Ian nor Kate even pretended to eat much after that. When the meal was over, Kate thanked Susan and Ian announced they were going to turn in early.
“It’s been a very long day I’m sure,” Susan said. “Please let me know if there’s anything you need.”
“Thank you,” Kate said. “I’m sure I’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.”
Once they’d returned to the guesthouse, Ian gave Kate one of his T-shirts to sleep in and they got ready for bed. They had to take turns because the tiny bathroom barely had enough room for one. Looking at Ian’s toothbrush in the holder and his razor made Kate think of the identical items that were still sitting on her own bathroom counter. The equally small bedroom contained a queen-size bed and a nightstand. Ian stripped down to his underwear, pulled back the covers, and lay down next to Kate.
“I know you’re upset with me, and you have every right to be, but I really want to hold you.”
“I want to hold you too,” she said. Regardless of how hurt and betrayed she felt, she couldn’t help but think of the dark days after Ian’s death when she’d mourned the loss of him. How she’d cried when she thought of never being able to touch him again. How she would have given anything to feel his arms around her.
Ian was here.
Not dead and cold, but warm and alive and holding her in his arms.
It was pitch-black in the small room. Kate couldn’t see Ian, but she could feel him—his strong arms around her; his bare chest underneath her; his legs entwined with hers. He kissed the top of her head, lips lingering in her hair.
“Is this where you’ve been the whole time?” Kate asked.
“Yes. Whenever I’m between apartments I always end up here. I’m the only one who really uses the guesthouse, and over the years it’s become a second home to me. Phillip and Susan are like family to me.” It made Kate happy to know that Ian wasn’t quite so alone in the world, but except for one brief mention of Phillip, Ian had never talked about the Corcorans.
He began to stroke her head and her body relaxed. “I missed you so much,” he said. “I missed talking to you. I missed walking to dinner with you and hearing about your day.”
“I missed those things too,” she said and tears flooded her eyes.
“Kate,” he said when her tears overflowed and trickled onto his skin. He adjusted their position so they were lying on their sides facing each other and wiped her tears away. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t cry.” He kissed her, and his lips were warm, gentle, fleeting.
But she couldn’t hold back the tears even if she’d wanted to. “Tonight at dinner I was thinking that no one loses someone and then gets them back like this. When someone dies, it’s all you wish for, but it never actually happens. Except that it did. You will never know what that feels like, but I do.”
“I know.” He was holding her tightly, but she wanted more, wanted him to squeeze her like he had on the plane. She wanted to know this was real. This time, it was Kate who brushed her lips against his.
He responded with a kiss of his own, raising his hand to the back of her head to hold her in place, deepening it. She didn’t want him to stop kissing her. He would if she asked him to, but she didn’t.
Their breathing grew ragged as they crushed their mouths together. He moved his hand to her backside and cupped it, pulling her closer until she was pressed tightly up against him. She could feel how much he wanted her, and she needed to make a decision about what would happen next.
She didn’t want to talk or cry or think.
She wanted to feel.
“Kate?” His voice trembled with need.
“Yes.”
He peeled off her T-shirt, slid his fingers under the elastic of her underwear, and dragged them down her legs. Starting at her neck, his fingers moved softly over her collarbone to the slope of her breast, his hands lingering as if he was learning the contours of her body for the first time again. When he closed his mouth around her nipple, she moaned.
His hand drifted lower, skimming over her belly and coming to rest between her legs. She took off his underwear, and he opened her legs enough to enter her. As soon as he did, Kate closed hers around him, holding him tight. They moved together, their movements frantic, desperate, and she cried out his name because it felt so good.
Maybe she shouldn’t have wanted to do this. Maybe she should have told him no. There were decisions to be made, and Kate still had some long, hard thinking to do. But she had missed him desperately, and right then he was what she needed.
He groaned, and Kate knew this wasn’t going to take long for either one of them. Already she could feel the sensations building, and she moved faster, chasing them. She caught up to them and found her much-needed release a minute or two later, and he must have been right there with her because he groaned again, longer and louder this time, and then shuddered and shook inside her as he came.
After, he held her tight, and their heated skin warmed Kate from the outside in, reaching a place that had not been warm since she lost him.
“I love you,” he said.
“You hurt me,” she whispered.
“I didn’t want to.”
They slept facing each other that night, Kate’s head nestled under Ian’s chin, arms around each other, a tangle of legs. Shortly before sunrise, she got up to go to the bathroom, and when she climbed back into bed, he stirred and pulled her back into his arms, holding her as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Breakfast was marginally less awkward than dinner had been the night before. Kate attributed this to Susan and Phillip’s easygoing nature and the ten hours of solid, restorative sleep she’d had. They’d gone to bed so early that Kate had awakened feeling, if not back to normal, at least well rested and a bit calmer.
When they were done eating, Susan declined Kate’s offer to help clear the table. “Relax. Have some more coffee,” she said, placing a carafe halfway between her and Phillip. “I’ll get the rest when I return. Ian is going to drive me to the garden center. Now that it’s getting warmer, I’m looking forward to getti
ng my plants organized.”
“I’ll grab my keys,” Ian said. He bent down and kissed Kate’s forehead. “Back in a little bit.”
“The pilot can take you home later this morning,” Phillip said. “We’ll need to leave in about an hour.”
“That’ll be fine. Thank you.”
Phillip poured Kate some more coffee.
“Did Ian ask you to talk to me?” His departure had seemed a bit too convenient.
“Yes,” Phillip said, looking sheepish. “I’m not here to argue on his behalf. That’s between you and him. But maybe I can help you understand where he’s coming from.”
“How long have you known Ian?”
“Since he was twenty.”
“How did you meet him?”
“I arrested him.”
Kate choked on her sip of coffee. “You arrested him?”
“I had to. He’d hacked the Pentagon, and he hadn’t tried to hide it all that well. I knocked on the door of his dorm room, flashed my badge, and led him away in handcuffs.”
“I don’t know why I’m surprised. That sounds exactly like him.”
Phillip chuckled. “I could tell right away he wasn’t a bad kid. He’s brilliant, but he didn’t have a lot of impulse control back then.”
Kate smiled. “Sometimes he still doesn’t.”
“I scared him pretty good that day. Then I gave him a choice. He could show us how he’d done it and tell us what we needed to do to make sure it never happened again, or he could go to prison. He opted not to go to prison of course, and we were blown away by what he could do. When he was younger he liked showing off just to make sure we hadn’t forgotten what he was capable of, but now I think his involvement gives him a sense of purpose. Pride even. He won’t work for us although we’ve tried countless times to recruit him. But he’s continued to work with us long after he paid for his transgression, and I hope he never stops. He’s gone places we couldn’t get to on our own. Places where the stakes were high and there was considerable risk.”
“And you know about the money he…?”