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.