Heart-Shaped Hack(67)

“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.”