“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.”