Last Light (3 page)

But who did, and why?

I remembered when I first heard about
Night Owl.
Pam got wind of the e-book in late January. Just weeks after appearing, it was viral. Half a thousand reviews on Amazon. Pirated copies all over the web. The text posted on forums, blogs, Facebook.

And
my
name was in it, Matt’s name, the whole story.

I sat up late that night reading the book, by turns horrified and aroused. And livid.

I called Matt in the early morning. I was shaking, shouting into my cell. “How could you put it online? How could you publish that book without asking me?”

“What?” he said. “What book, what fucking book? Where?” Panic bled into his voice.
My God,
I realized then,
he has no idea.

“Hannah?” Nate waved a hand before my eyes.

“Huh? Sorry. Uh, the book. It’s … just so disturbing. So embarrassing.”

“I can only imagine.” Nate was suddenly upbeat, talking hurriedly. “The audacity. It’s absolute filth. Dragging my brother’s name through the mud, and yours. You know, it follows the whole episode in Geneva with alarming accuracy. Matt had a local friend there, at a farm up the road. Could be her. Who knows what he told people when he was in that frame of mind? Whoever it is, they know about my house, my family, our—”

“Excuse me? Could be … who?”

“The woman at the farm. She could be the author.” Nate nodded. “Someone close to him, definitely. His psychiatrist? That’s almost too sick to consider, but who knows? People are so depraved, so desperate for money. They’ll take advantage of anyone, Hannah. Predators.”

Nate took my shoulder and steered me toward the house.

“Don’t worry, though,” he went on. “I’ve invited Shapiro. Ah, George Shapiro. Have I mentioned him? I’m sure Matt did. The family—”

“Lawyer,” I said. My voice shrank with dread. “The family lawyer.”

“Yes, that’s right. It’s libel, that book. Defamation … whatever they call it. Shapiro is prepared to bury the author. I know you’ll talk to him.” Nate squeezed my shoulder. “Yours is the strongest case. Never mind the expense, this is important. For you, for Matt’s legacy.”

We were stalled at the front door. Nate held me by both shoulders and gazed earnestly at me, confident in my compliance. What could I say?
Actually, Nate, Matt wrote
Night Owl.
He’s been chilling at our friend’s cabin, pretending to be dead. Sorry about that.

Fuck.

I gathered a breath and opened my mouth.
Say something! Stop this ridiculous manhunt for “the author.” For Matt.
“I—Nate, it’s so soon after Matt’s passing—”

The front door swung open.

The odor of potpourri and seasonal candles hit me.

“This must be the infamous little bird,” said a voice thick with cynicism.

I looked up, and up, at the tall figure standing in the doorway. We had never met, but he was unmistakable.

The middle brother.

Seth Sky.

Chapter 4

MATT

I sprinted up the cellar steps and rushed to my phone. I quickly checked the caller’s number. It wasn’t Hannah.

“Hello?” I let out a shaking breath. “Hello?”

Nothing. And yet I knew someone was there, sentience in the silence on the line.

“Please, don’t hang up,” I said. “I told you, you’re not in trouble. Talk to me.” I began to pace. “Come on. Icarus on fire, right? Clever name. I’m glad you called.”

I waited then, because I had said enough. I even smiled. Life is stranger than fiction.

“So, you’re alive,” said a voice. It was a female voice, smooth and cultured.

I paused in front of the fireplace. As I watched, a castle of cinders collapsed.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re alive,” she said.

You’re alive.
The words should have worried me, but I felt safe in my fortress in the forest. Far from the world. As good as dead. I laughed and roamed around the couch.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“I met you, but you wouldn’t remember. It was at the book signing in Denver. You had your face in your hands. Of course, I had this carefully prepared speech.” She chuckled. “And you … you didn’t even look at me. You looked pretty pathetic, Sky.”

Pathetic?
What the hell? I opened my mouth to snap, then shut it.

“Are you recording this call?”

“No,” she said, “but I doubt you believe me.”

“Mm, you’re right about that. And let me just say—if you are recording it, if you make a move with your crazy theory about who I am, I
will
come after you. I don’t care who you are. I have the resources to find out, and I’ll come after you with all my family’s formidable power, so don’t fuck with me. Understand? Don’t fuck with me.”

“And here I thought I wasn’t in trouble.” She chuckled again.

I frowned.

Okay, the stranger had a point.

“You’re not in trouble,” I said. “Look, let’s start again. Hello.”

“Hello.”

I perched on the arm of the couch. “Have you got a name?”

“Melanie.”

“Anything to go with that?”

“Yeah. Like most humans, I have a last name. Should I give it to the strange man threatening me with his family’s … formidable power?” She wanted to giggle again; I heard the humor simmering in her voice. She was laughing at me. She found me comical and pathetic.

“Fine,” I snapped. “Do whatever the fuck you want.”

“Fine. My last name is vanden Dries.” She pronounced it
Dreese.
“It’s Dutch. It means ‘of the shore.’ I’m telling you that as a good-faith gesture, Sky. Let’s not—”

“Stop calling me Sky.”

“Then what do I call you?”

“You don’t call me anything.” I smiled and ran a hand through my hair.
There.
I’d regained control. “Melanie vanden Dries. Melanie of the Shore. Sounds good.”

“Yeah, I like it.”

“Convenient. Okay, Melanie vanden Dries, let’s get to the point. Why did you turn my forum post into an e-book?”

“I never said I did.” Now Melanie was on the defensive. The humor faded from her voice.
Good girl,
I thought—
you ought to take this seriously.

“Assuming you did. Why would you?”

“Fine. Assuming I turned your forum post into an e-book, which would make me insane, I might have done it because … the story deserved to be shared.”

“Deserved to be shared?” I laughed. “You
are
insane. Have you heard of this thing called copyright infringement? You are selling
my
story,
my
words. How much have you made?”

Melanie went quiet.

Her answer could condemn her.

Meanwhile, I said nothing to condemn myself—but I was guilty. I wrote
Night Owl
and I posted it on an Internet forum. Worse, I told Hannah I had no idea how the story “leaked online.”
Someone must have hacked my e-mail,
I said.
I e-mail all my writing to myself, for backup.

Hannah believed me.

And why wouldn’t she believe me? Who could imagine that I, so obsessed with privacy that I faked my own death, would write that intimate and honest novel and throw it on the Internet for the world to see?

But that is exactly what I did.

I yanked open the sliding door and strode barefoot onto the deck. Winter air swirled around me. The snow quickly numbed my feet.

I lifted the cell.

“You are insane,” I repeated, this time in a softer voice. “So am I. You know I am. What I’m doing—it’s insane. Icarus on fire? I get it, Melanie. You’re flying too close to the sun, but I’m not going to be the one who burns you. I’m right up there with you. Now be honest with me, please. I just want to understand…”

I began to shiver. Gooseflesh rose along my arms, and my teeth chattered.

After a long gap, Melanie said, “Ten thousand. I’ve made about ten thousand dollars. I’m selling it cheap. Do you want the money? It’s yours. I don’t care.”

“Ten grand? I don’t want your lunch money, Mel. Thanks, though. Keep it.”

“Then what do you want? Do you want me to take it down? It’s all over the Internet.”

I hugged myself, pinching the TracFone between my jaw and shoulder. The absolute silence rang in my ears.

What do you want? Do you want me to take it down?

I hesitated, as if I were considering.

“No,” I said. “Quite the opposite.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Keep selling the book. That’s all.”

“But why?”

I smirked. “Why should I explain myself to you?”

“I … I dunno.”

“I’m sure you don’t, Melanie. Maybe you published my story to make some cash, or”—she butted in to disagree, but I talked right over her—“maybe you published it on a whim, because you wanted to share what doesn’t belong to you. People like you act without thinking, but don’t for one moment imagine that I am so simple.”

Melanie made a small, hurt sound.

“All you need to know,” I continued, “is that I wanted
Night Owl
to go viral, and you helped that happen. Don’t try to understand, just keep selling the book. You’re making decent money, right? Good for you. Keep it all.”

“It’s not about the money,” she mumbled.

“I don’t care what it’s about.” I didn’t. I had accomplished my goal—contacted the stranger who published
Night Owl,
urged her to continue selling the book—and now I wanted to go. “Look, I’m running out of minutes.”

“Prepaid cell?” Melanie giggled suddenly, and I narrowed my eyes. How old was she? The giggle was girlish, but she spoke with an adult’s poise.

“Well … yeah,” I said.

“You’re like a spy, living on the run. Do you go out in sunglasses? Did you dye your hair? Get plastic surgery?”

“No, no.” An involuntary smile quirked my lips. I ruffled my hair, which was dirty blond and in need of a cut. Melanie had given me an idea. “Actually, ah … my hair. I dyed it … black.”

“Black?”

“Mm, black. Dark hair runs in the family. It looks good, of course.” I cocked my head. Nate looked sharp with his raven hair. So would I.

“Of course.” Melanie laughed. “Hey … how are you surviving without her?”

“Excuse me?” My smile dropped.

“Hannah. How are you surviving without her?
Night Owl
 … paints a picture of obsession. And I saw her with you, at the book signing. It’s all true, isn’t it? I—”

I closed my TracFone and let myself back inside.

Enough.

I shivered in the warm cabin and turned my phone over and over in my hand. My day was shot for writing, but I didn’t want to write.

I wanted to go into town.

Chapter 5

HANNAH

Seth Sky.

He had Matt’s attractive, angular features—the high cheekbones and expressive mouth. He had Nate’s dark hair, which he wore to his shoulders.

I took his measure in a moment: long hair, leather jacket, sullen smirk aimed at me—plus the “little bird” comment, designed, I felt sure, to let me know he’d read
Night Owl.
Designed to embarrass me.

Yup, Seth fit the wannabe-rocker profile perfectly. Also, the quarter-life-crisis profile. What a chump. If he was trying to make me uncomfortable, he could take a number.

“Seth,” Nate said, “when did you get here?”

“Few minutes ago. You playing chauffeur?”

The brothers embraced. Seth stood a few inches taller than Nate. As he hugged Nate, he locked eyes with me. I raised a brow.

Fucking Sky men with their presumptuous stares.

“Oh, Hannah.” Nate broke from his brother. I smiled sweetly at Nate and angled myself away from Seth. “This is Seth, my brother.”

“Mm.” My eyes slid over Seth. “Nice to meet you.” I hoped my voice, posture, and expression conveyed my real meaning.
Go to hell.

“Yeah, same,” said Seth.

Something in Seth’s voice made me want to look at him, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t gratify him. Still, and I hated to admit it, Seth reminded me of Matt more than Nate ever would. The sneering tone, the lanky frame, and the way I felt his stare glued to me … it was Matt through and through. Also, the asshole demeanor.

“Hannah, can I get your coat?” Nate moved behind me. I hugged myself. All of a sudden, I didn’t want to be seen in my dress.

I wanted layers.

When I prepared for the memorial, I assumed every guest would know about
Night Owl.
Thus, my goal was to look as wholesome and nonslutty as possible. I wore a black dress with lace sleeves, midheel boots, and my hair clipped at the crown of my head.

“Hannah?” Nate touched my shoulder. I lurched away.

“I’m cold. I’ll keep it on.”

“All right. Would you like to have a seat in the study? I can send Shapiro your way.”

“Uh, sure. The study.”

“Off the living room. Thank you, Hannah. This means a lot to me. To us. I know the timing isn’t ideal.” He grimaced. Poor Nate; he was so sincere.

“Ciao, bird,” Seth called as I moved away.

I glanced over my shoulder to see Nate gesturing at Seth, his face like thunder.

Great. I was already a source of contention.

The main hall of Nate’s home bristled with flowers. White lilies, white roses, white orchids. All white. I flinched as a waxen petal brushed my hand.

Valerie, Nate’s wife, greeted me in the kitchen. Her eyes filled with tears as soon as she saw me. “Oh, Hannah,” she said. “Oh, God, darling.”

We hugged, and she dug her long nails into my back.

When I left her, she dried her eyes efficiently and resumed lecturing the caterers.

I found the study and dropped into a leather armchair. One tall window stood behind the desk. Bookshelves covered two walls and Vermeer’s
The Geographer
hung on another.

I got up and closed the study door, then retook my seat.

I slouched in the chair.

I sighed. A moment’s peace.

As I waited for Shapiro, an antique mantel clock ticked off the seconds.

How was I going to handle the lawyer? I wanted to know who published
Night Owl
as much as the next person, but
Night Owl
couldn’t afford a legal level of scrutiny. I couldn’t afford it. Matt especially couldn’t afford it.