2 The Dante Connection (17 page)

He lifted one hand and carefully wiped a single tear from my cheek. “I’m okay now. I don’t know if I would’ve survived another day if Vinnie hadn’t come and gotten me out.”

“How did he know to get you?”

“Vin and I have a system. If I don’t check in with him at certain times, he knows something is wrong. If I don’t check in with another method, he knows that there is a serious problem. He knew where I was going and when I didn’t contact him, he came to extract me.”

“How did he do that? I assume Kubanov’s place to be extremely secure.”

“Oh, it was. Fortunately Vinnie is as badass as he looks. He has a lot of connections that even I don’t want to know about. He used those guys to create a lot of chaos in Kubanov’s complex. It sounded like a war zone. There were explosions everywhere and I really thought the house was going to come down on top of me.” He huffed a soft laugh. “It was like a movie. With dust falling everywhere, shooting coming from above, the door to the room I was in blasted inward and flew past me. Through that smoke and dust Vinnie came walking in as if he was coming over for tea.”

“Did he say something insensitive?” I was sure he would have. That was Vinnie’s way of relieving tension.

“He did. He asked me if I was going to lie around all day while he was doing all the hard work.” A genuine smile removed some of the pain in his eyes. “He carried me out of there while shooting from the hip with an assault rifle. The guy is a regular Rambo. I honestly don’t remember the first week after that. The rest of the last four months have been two corrective surgeries to my leg and hand, and lots of physiotherapy. Now you know it all.”

The way he said it was with the kind of finality to indicate the end of this conversation. Possibly the end of any conversation regarding this topic. I respected that and therefore didn’t ask him about Rambo.

“Thank you for trusting me with this.” I realised the significance of him sharing this with me.

“Jenny, I trust you with my life. I didn’t tell you about this before because I hoped that I was wrong. That my suspicions about Kubanov wanting revenge were wrong. I didn’t want you to know a single thing about Kubanov that could put you in danger.”

“Again with the over-protectiveness.” I sat up straight and squeezed his hand once. “We’ll get them. I will figure out the code, we will find whoever is helping Kubanov with these emails and bomb. We will stop him from hurting us.”

Chapter FIFTEEN

I woke up clutching the remnants of a dream. My subconscious had tried to push through the connection it had made, but wakefulness obscured it yet again. I banged my head back into the pillow and sighed into my dark bedroom.

It had taken me a long time to fall asleep after Colin’s big revelation. He had seemed awkward after that and soon retired to his room. Working hadn’t helped me unwind and neither had a soak in the tub. My mind had been consumed with thoughts of what Colin had suffered through. I didn’t know if I would have come out of it as relatively unscathed as he. Apart from the physical scars, his irrational anger with Manny and his rage towards Kubanov, he appeared to have dealt with that situation rather well. Considering.

I got out of bed wondering if my observations of Colin’s mental well-being were accurate or not. Only time would tell. As it was, I had not once seen him act in any manner that would alert me to severe damage to his psyche. The only difference I had observed in him was that he came across more protective of me than before. Under the circumstances I deemed it understandable, even justified.

When it came to reading nonverbal cues, I trusted my judgement unconditionally. It was this judgement that I relied on while psychoanalysing the man sleeping in the other room in my apartment. Because of the hour and my house guest I moved quietly to the kitchen and winced when the coffee machine sounded louder than usual as it started spitting out an Indian blend coffee.

“It’s half past four, Jenny. Don’t you ever keep normal hours?” Colin’s voice startled me out of my thoughts. I swung around and stared at him. His hair was mussed, but his eyes were alert. He walked into the kitchen wearing his usual striped pyjama bottoms and white vest. I had never gotten into the habit of wearing a bathrobe and apparently neither had he. It might be something I should consider. He stopped a few feet from me and gave me an inquiring look. “Jenny?”

“Oh. Yes.” I felt colour creeping up my neck. My mind was wandering so much that I forgot to reply. “Sorry I woke you. I had a dream that gave me the clue to the code.”

“Fantastic.” His eyes widened and he stepped closer. “What is it? What does the code say?”

“I don’t know. I forgot the dream as soon as I woke up.”

He laughed softly. “I hate when that happens. So why didn’t you go back to sleep?”

I stifled a yawn and took my coffee. “Can’t sleep. Do you want coffee?”

“I’ll make it, thanks. Are you going to work now?” He moved around me and took a mug from the cupboard. “What are you going to work on?”

“The code.” I left him at the coffee machine and turned on my computer. Sitting down, I stared at the monitor as the computer booted up. My dream connection was lingering just beneath the surface of my consciousness. I knew that only the smallest trigger was needed to bring it blasting into my mind. The key was to find that trigger, so I did what usually worked. I closed my eyes and gave myself over to Mozart’s Violin Concerto in B-flat major.

I opened my eyes and tried to calm my racing heart. A glance at the clock on my computer screen told me that I had been in my head for the last two hours. I realised that I was hugging myself tightly and still rocking. I dropped my arms and straightened in my chair.

“Have you got it?” Colin had moved a wingback chair from the reading area and was sitting a few feet from the dining room table, reading one of my books. I didn’t know why he felt compelled to be closer to me. The chair hadn’t been that far away. It should not have been moved. That thought made me drop my eyes to the wooden floor. Colin laughed and put the book upside down on his leg. “I didn’t drag the chair here, Jenny. I carried it. So? Have you got the key to the code?”

“I think so. Maybe. Could be.”

After getting gloves from the kitchen, I paged through the book, carefully studying each page. Only when I reached the last page did I pay attention to Colin’s impatient breathing and movements.

“Please tell me what’s going on in that head of yours. The suspense is killing me.”

I looked at him. He was leaning forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees, anticipation evident on his face. I lifted the book. “In the whole book only one word is underlined. The first letter twice.”

He got up and sat on the dining chair next to me. “Show me.”

I turned towards him and opened the book on page seventy-five. I angled it towards him and pointed to the centre of the page. “‘For’. That is the word that is lightly underlined. Look here. The ‘f’ is underlined twice.”

“And that means?” He drew out the last word on an inquiring monotone.

“That there is a relationship between the ‘f’ and the code. What else was strange in this book?”

He thought about it. “The daffodil. I looked through the book while you were Mozarting and couldn’t see anything else. I did notice the underlined ‘for’, but didn’t make much of it.”

“Firstly, Mozart is not a verb.” I shuddered and then scowled when Colin smiled. “It’s wrong, so very wrong, to use a name as a verb. You’re distracting me with things like that. Since the daffodil and ‘for’ are the only anomalies in an otherwise flawless collector’s piece, there is significance.”

“What significance?”

“I have a theory, so bear with me. There is something crude about this code. Just like Francine’s hacker this is sophisticated and it is not. The sophistication comes from the code, but the crudeness from hiding it.”

“You think there is a code in the code?”

“Yes, and the way it is hidden comes across as desperate and amateur.” Which made it all the more frustrating that I could not break this code. It was time to simplify our attempts. “We tried the letters and words from those numbers to no avail. I’m thinking that the ‘for’ is the key to the code.”

“I consider myself quite an intelligent person, but I can’t see how ‘for’ could be the key.”

“Not the preposition. Four as a number.”

“Of course. You’re a genius.”

“This is true,” I said and picked up my notepad. It took us an hour to work through two of my ideas. Neither resulted in anything coherent. It only led us to words that could never form meaningful sentences. This code might have been crude, but it was not very easy to decipher.

“What if we try numerology?” Colin pushed his hands through his hair. Already it had been messy from sleep. Now it was standing in all directions. It took us another hour to work through his suggestions that included calculations using the Indian and Chaldean systems. We added and subtracted. I was losing patience when Colin suggested one more alternative.

“Let’s add four and subtract one.”

“Why one?”

“There was one daffodil in the book.” He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. I nodded. It was worth the try. By the third word, my eyes widened and my heart rate increased. By the time we got all twenty words, I was constantly shifting in my chair.

“So?” Colin leaned closer to look at my notepad.

“This is it. This is the sentence that was hidden by the code.” I pointed at the words filling two lines on my notepad. “‘This sweet child mine, told her end was nigh, should not have had to face her life in a run’.”

“What does that mean?”

“It is a rhyme. A sad rhyme.”

“Four lines of a notably simplistic poem. But what does it mean?” he asked again.

“If we take the words at face value, then I would dare to say that this man’s child was diagnosed with something terminal when she was small. The tense makes me think that she is dead.”

“Well, it certainly fit in with the sadness of Dante’s book and Rossetti’s painting.”

I turned to Colin. “Does Kubanov have a child? Did he have a child that died from cancer or some other terminal disease?”

“Not that I know of. None of the background on him has ever revealed any children.” He leaned back in his chair. “Doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have any though. Or had.”

We fell into silence, but it didn’t last for long. Distinct noises coming from my front door alerted me that someone was unlocking it. This time I didn’t get annoyed when Vinnie stepped in, carrying two grocery bags. His head was down and it looked as if he was attempting stealth. It simultaneously interested and amused me to watch the large man carefully close the front door, turn around and take a few silent steps before he noticed us at the dining room table.

“Motherf… Do you guys never sleep? I thought I was going to surprise you two with breakfast in bed.” The corners of his mouth were turned down and he stomped to the kitchen. “I’ll never get to do something fun for you.”

“Morning, Vinnie.” I stood up and gave in to the need to stretch my muscles. I locked my fingers and stretched my arms above my head as high as I could. The pull in my back muscles was welcome and I rolled my head to loosen my tight neck muscles. I lowered my arms to find both men staring at me. The significance of my lack of inhibition felt like a punch to my usual shields of distrust and social distance.

“Go have a shower and put on some clothes, Jen-girl. Breakfast will be ready in twenty minutes.” Vinnie pulled a pan from a drawer and put it unnecessarily hard on the stovetop.

“That sounds like a good idea. Gives me more time to think about the rhyme.”

“What rhyme?” Vinnie turned to us and I left it to Colin to explain our discoveries of this morning.

I cut my usual shower time short when a realisation dawned on me. I rushed out of my bedroom twelve minutes later to find Francine in the kitchen arguing with Vinnie about adding some extra spices to the eggs. I ignored them and went straight for my computer.

“What’s up, Jenny?” Colin looked up from where he was watching some weekend morning television show. The fake happiness in the presenters’ voices grated on my nerves.

“Please turn that off. I have to think.” Immediate silence followed my sharp request. I sat down in front of my computer and opened my email.

“Jenny, what’s going on?” Colin was next to me, his voice controlled, concerned.

“So far the hacker and the bomber have been consistent in their behaviour. Working with that theory, it would follow that after another delivery there will be another bomb.”

Francine and Vinnie had stopped arguing and were moving closer to the table. There wasn’t a new email in my inbox. It didn’t make sense.

“Why doesn’t it make sense?” Colin asked. I had verbalised my thoughts.

“After the painting was delivered, I received an email that led us to the bomb in La Fleur Galerie. I haven’t received anything yet. Why not?”

Everyone made sounds of frustration, but no one offered a hypothesis. Colin sat down next to me and stared at my computer screen. Vinnie turned back to the kitchen with a grumble. He returned with placemats and cutlery, gave it to Francine and nodded to the table. She started setting the table, forcing me to move my computer to the far side of the table. “Maybe he’ll send the email a bit later.”

I exhaled loudly through my nose and shook my head. Something was wrong, a piece of information was missing.

As Francine set the table I realised that I had been rude. “Um, hello, Francine. How are you?”

Francine looked up from where she was putting cutlery on a napkin. Her smile was genuine. “Hello, Genevieve. I’m well, thanks. How are you?”

“Frustrated.” Since Francine considered me her friend, I took the liberty to forgo expected niceties and be completely honest. “I wish I had more information, more data.”

She sat down at the placing she had just set and left the rest to Vinnie. Her focus was on me. It was another thing that I liked about her. “Oh god, I know. I also wish that frigging hacker would log on to one of his websites so that I can find him. That should take us at least one step closer to finding the bomber guy sending emails and ultimately, Kubanov.”

I studied her for a moment. She didn’t seem to mind and quietly sat as I narrowed my eyes at her. She looked much better this morning. The swelling in her face was all but gone and she had managed to hide most of the bruises with clever make-up. The only time she looked anything but absolutely stunning was when her face had pulled in anger at not being able to locate the hacker yet. My mind processed that and other bits of information.

“How did you find Colin?” I asked. Next to me Colin’s breathing changed and he leaned slightly forward.

“I looked for Vinnie. He’s not as good as covering his tracks as Colin.”

“Hey,” Vinnie said loudly as he put the salt shaker on the table a bit more forcefully than needed. “I’m plenty good at covering my tracks.”

“Maybe in the ways that you can think of.” Francine winked at me. The muscle movement around her eyes and mouth warned me that she was about to say something that would irritate him. “I tracked you through the Italian Mama.”

Vinnie stiffened and his nostrils flared. “The cooking blog? You tracked me through a fucking cooking blog?”

“A cooking blog that you have been visiting at least twelve times a day every day for the last eighteen months.” The corners of her mouth were twitching. She was having fun. “Granted, you use proxy servers to make it look as if you logged in from all over the globe, but you always follow the same path on the blog.”