Free 3 The Braque Connection by Estelle Ryan Page A

others.”
    No sooner had Colin turned to the glass doors and gestured with a nod than everyone got up and hurried across the team room. Manny entered the code in the keypad to open the doors and came through first. He pulled closer the third chair in my viewing room, placing it on my other side. For once he didn’t need reminding to keep at least fifty centimetres between us. Francine pressed a button to keep the doors open, preventing my room from feeling crowded. She stayed close to the door, Vinnie next to her.
    “Have you got something for us, Doc?”
    “Emails.”
    “What emails?” Colin kept his attention on me. “Who sent you emails?”
    “I did.” I turned to my desk, control over the internal turmoil returning to me in increments. “At some point during our abduction, I must have managed to get a hold of a device with internet connection and send myself a few emails.”
    “And you remember this?” Manny moved so close I felt his body heat against my arm. “Does this mean you remember more? Do you remember who took you?”
    Too sensitive to stimuli and no longer willing to be an altruistic friend, I leaned away, my shoulder touching Colin. “Move back. Please.”
    “But you’re touching him .” Manny’s lip curled in disgust and he shook his head. With a glare at Colin, he pushed his chair away. “Talk, missy.”
    I brought my email inbox up on one of the large monitors in front of us. “I don’t know how or where I was able to send emails, but I did.”
    “To which email account?” The disbelief in Francine’s voice caught my attention. “I checked all your accounts while you were away, hoping to catch something that might help us find you guys.”
    It took me a moment to answer. “I don’t know why I’m feeling apologetic. I really shouldn’t. I have a right to my privacy.”
    “Jenny?”
    I caught myself crossing my arms and immediately lowered them. “I lost my privacy when all of you entered my life. After the last fiasco and all the hacking, I knew I had zero privacy online. None of my observations, analyses, article outlines were private thoughts anymore. I need my privacy. I need to have something that belongs only to me.”
    “So you opened a private email account.” Francine’s smile held pride. “Good for you, girl. I had no idea.”
    I knew this was high praise. Francine was far superior to anyone, including me, in acquiring hidden data and information online. I didn’t feel complimented. It was rather resentment at my need for subterfuge to maintain minimal privacy which dominated my emotions. I pushed it back, focussing on the case.
    “The effects of being drugged are clear in my emails. Most of this doesn’t make sense. If I had the context within which I had written these emails, it would be much easier to interpret.”
    “Just show us, Doc.”
    I opened the first email. “This was sent on Thursday evening twelve minutes past eleven.”
    An image filled the monitors. Two large shapes separated by a dark gap were badly out of focus. The photo was dark, any images beyond the blurred shapes impossible to identify.
    “I have no idea what this is supposed to be. The second email is more telling, but still nonsensical.” I clicked and the next email opened. “I sent this email on Friday afternoon at twenty past five. There are only these words: ‘hypertrophic’, ‘hexahedron’, ‘ Homme a la’ , ‘halo die’.”
    “You were creating quite the rhyme there, Doc.”
    “Not a rhyme. An alliteration. Without the context it is difficult to interpret my reasoning for any of these words.”
    “What do you think it means?” Francine moved closer, staring at the monitor.
    “I don’t know,” I said. I hated speculating. “‘Hypertrophic’ usually refers to an abnormal enlargement or excessive growth. It could be of an organ, it could be scarring that is red and raised above the skin.”
    “Maybe you described one of the kidnappers.”
    “I really don’t