2 The Dante Connection by Estelle Ryan Page B

front of him. Only now did I notice the mug in his hand. Had he also been suffering from a sleepless night?
    “You seriously thought I would change my mind?” he asked.
    I sat down across from him, placed my mug on a coaster and started unpacking my computer bag. “No. I knew you had made your decision. I did, however, have an irrational moment of hope.”
    He didn’t respond. I paused in my unpacking to look at him. I couldn’t see any sign of offence or hurt, so I continued. I placed my work laptop in front of me, but didn’t open it. I put a notepad in front of the computer and carefully aligned three pens to the right of my laptop. I rested both my hands on top of the laptop and looked at him.
    “Why can’t you sleep?”
    He started to answer, but I stopped him by shaking my head.
    “I can see that you are going to lie. Don’t do that. Not if you want me to trust you again.” As it was, I was far too comfortable with him in my space. Not until this moment had I paid attention to the fact that I was only wearing ankle-length pyjama pants and a snug purple t-shirt. It was not revealing in the least, but it felt normal to sit at my dining room table with Colin at three in morning, both of us dressed in our pyjamas. I didn’t want him to break the trust slowly rebuilding by the lie I saw forming on his face.
    He sighed. “Truth?”
    “Please.”
    “I haven’t slept much in the last four months.”
    “Since you were captured and tortured?”
    “Yes.” He swallowed and looked out of the dark window. “It’s easier when I am awake.”
    “You have bad dreams.”
    He straightened and looked at me with a false smile. We had reached the end of this topic. I could respect that.
    “What are you working on?” he asked.
    I tapped the laptop. “I was going to go over my notes about the burglaries, but now I don’t know if it is such a good idea.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because of that hacker.” My top lip lifted slightly in disgust. “If he has access to my system, then he’ll know what I’m looking at.”
    Suspicious muscle movement on Colin’s face had me narrowing my eyes.
    “What did you do?” I asked.
    His smile held guilt and humour. He nodded at the laptop under my hands. “I took this to Francine last night. She did all kind of magic things to make sure no one will ever hack your computer again.”
    “But she can get in. That is not no one.”
    “True.” He shrugged. “I would rather have her on my side than anyone else.”
    I didn’t know what to say without referring to Francine’s conspiracy theories and her activities that were borderline and sometimes outright illegal. “Is it safe enough to look at my notes?”
    “Yes. She said that not even Kevin Mitnick would get into your computer now.”
    “I don’t know who he is.”
    “Only one of the most notorious hackers in the world.”
    “Oh.” I thought about this. “Could he be a suspect?”
    “Last I heard, he was running a security company and had written some books about hacking. I think our guy has a more personal investment in this case. The point Francine was making was that your computer is extremely difficult to hack now.”
    “Oh. Good.” I opened my laptop and turned it on.
    Colin left the table for a minute and returned with a book from my bookshelves. From the bookmark sticking out, it appeared that he had already read one third of it. He didn’t dog-ear the book nor did he break the spine. I approved of his handling of my books. He settled across from me and started reading. I opened the files that I had saved the day before and stared at it. Nothing new came to me. The hard copy case files were still in my computer bag. I read my notes six times and still that connection didn’t want to come. I leaned back in my chair and sighed.
    “What?” Colin looked up from his book.
    “There is a pattern here that my mind is seeing and I’m just not getting.”
    “You separate yourself from your mind?” He put the book