Last Light (25 page)

“I wish.” I sighed.

Nate coaxed me into a conversation about my job, and my dream and despair of becoming Pam’s partner. It felt good, discussing it, and Nate was sympathetic and optimistic.

I dragged out the zoo visit as long as possible.
I just want to see the snakes,
I said, and then,
I really want to see the elephants.

The truth? I didn’t want to talk about the lawsuit.

Owen fell asleep in Nate’s arms, and when that happened, I knew it was time to go. We walked back to Nate’s rental car. He arranged Owen on the backseat and we sat up front.

“Too warm?” Nate said. “Not warm enough?”

“I’m fine. Go on. Tell me about the thing.”

“We’ve had a sort of breakthrough, Hannah. I think you’ll be interested.” Nate kept his voice low; Owen was sound asleep. “You know we planned to subpoena the publisher’s name after we filed the lawsuit, yes?”

I nodded.

“And then
Night Owl
was taken offline. The distributors should still have records. But”—Nate held up a finger and smiled—“Shapiro enlisted a tech guy to do some digging for us.” Nate opened the glove compartment and withdrew several papers. “He searched the IP addresses associated with
Night Owl,
with the site where we believe it was originally posted and other sites that have duplicated or reviewed the book. The same IPs kept coming up.”

“Nate, this jargon is lost on me.”

“Bear with me. Our anonymous publisher is not Internet savvy. They did nothing to disguise the IP address, no proxy server, no domain privacy.” Nate grinned like a boy detective. “Our tech guy followed the browsing history for the most prevalent IPs, and one stood out. The same IP is associated with this e-mail address”—he pointed to a page—“which is associated with a domain, which happens to be a blog, and which just
happened
to rave about
Night Owl
and advertises it. The same IP regularly searches the book, checks the book’s ratings, et cetera. It’s almost a certainty, Hannah. This is our girl.

Girl?
I let out a tremulous breath. Nate passed the papers to me.

The first page showed a jumble of text, strings of numbers and ICANN data, none of which made sense to me.

The second page was a printout of the blog melaniereads.com. There was a black-and-white banner image with a few male torsos and the words
Melanie Reads
in pink. The subheading read:
Recipes, reviews of sexy books, dance stuff, and everything else Mel loves!

I skimmed the
Night Owl
review. It raved about the hot sex and “unputdownable” nature of the book. I sighed.

“I hate to tell you this, Nate, but reviews like this are all over the Internet.”

“Yes, but
not
by users who also have accounts at the Mystic Tavern, the site where—”

“I know, I know.”

“And not by users who check the book’s rank on the bestseller list dozens of times a day, Hannah. This is the one.”

I shuffled to the next page and stopped. This is the one.
Who
is the one? I stared at the printout of Melanie’s profile. “Impossible,” I whispered.

“She looks so young, I know.”

I began to laugh. The sound was hysterical and unstoppable. Melanie. Alexis Stromgard. Matt’s “private driver” stared at me from the page. There was her unmistakable hair, the short red waves surrounding her face. She grinned at me like she’d grinned at Matt while I watched from the bedroom window.

“Hannah?”

My laughter rose and rose, and then it stopped. I felt nauseous.

“She’s just … so young,” I stammered. No—what did this mean? It couldn’t be a coincidence. The girl who published
Night Owl
couldn’t work as a private driver for hire on Craigslist and just happen to be working for Matt.

Matt lied to me. Again.

Matt knew who she was and he lied to me.

All this time, he knew who put
Night Owl
online. While I dodged Shapiro and Nate and Aaron Snow. While I lied for him, he lied to me.

Questions swarmed my mind. I covered my mouth and pressed my forehead against the car window. Tears threatened, stinging in my eyes.

“Hannah, please. Talk to me.” Nate touched my shoulder. He always touched my shoulder, my elbow, somewhere chaste and safe. After a moment, his hand slid to the middle of my back. “I shouldn’t have brought this up. It makes you miserable. God, I’m so insensitive.”

Nate loosened the papers from my hand and shoved them back in the glove box.

“I’m fine,” I mumbled.

“No, you aren’t. I can’t imagine how horrible it’s been for you—this book circulating—after everything that happened. Forget this, please. Look at me.”

I swiped my coat sleeve across my face and turned to Nate. I almost started to cry again when I saw his worried gaze.

“Do you seriously”—I sniffled—“think she wrote it?”

“I think she published it. Did she write it? Maybe not. She’s legally liable for distributing it, though—and more so if it’s not her own work. But that doesn’t matter, Hannah.” Nate tilted my chin up. I flinched at the touch. His long, elegant hand was exactly like Matt’s, but his eyes were far kinder. Why didn’t guys like Nate ever fall for me? “The lawsuit, I can see how much it bothers you. If you wanted me to drop it, you only ever had to ask.”

Nate’s words settled on me slowly.

He would drop the lawsuit for me, which Matt and I wanted all along.

“No,” I said. I buckled my seat belt and steadied my breath. “I don’t want you to drop it, Nate. I want you to ruin that girl’s life. And I want a drink.”

*   *   *

Nate was staying in the Chancellor’s Suite at the Hotel Teatro.

“I have a bottle in the room,” he told me, which turned out to be two bottles—Johnnie Walker Quest and Balvenie. (And “the room” turned out to be three rooms—a bedroom, boardroom, and living room—with wood-paneled walls, European furniture, a table for ten, and a limestone fireplace. Damn.)

“Too early for this?” He lifted the Balvenie. “I like to bring something nice when I travel. I’d rather not be at the mercy of wet bars, if you know what I mean.”

Nate seemed altogether comfortable with me in his hotel room, maybe because Owen was present. After Nate carried him up, Owen went straight to the bedroom. I heard the TV.

I checked my watch. “It’s past noon. A good time for a drink.”

“Agreed, Miss Catalano. Single malt or blend?”

I blushed. Scotch whiskey was all Greek to me.

“Whatever you’re having,” I said. I draped my coat over the couch and sat, my fingers fidgeting on the damask fabric.

“Single malt, then. The Quest was a gift.” Nate smiled and poured a small amount of alcohol into two tulip-shaped glasses. “Did you know I have friends in Denver? Old college friends. I’ve had a chance to visit with them this week.” He brought the glass to me and sat near the arm of the couch, putting a few feet between us.

I tried not to frown at the tiny amount of booze. I wanted to get drunk. Seriously drunk. I wanted to turn off my brain and stop picturing Matt and Melanie and wondering what the hell I should do about Matt’s latest lie. Or lies. What else was Matt hiding? Were Melanie and Matt in cahoots, publishing
Night Owl
together? Were they fucking? Had he even sent her away?

I shuddered.

I wanted to shoot my drink, but I glanced at Nate and followed his lead. He gave his glass a swirl, gazed at the film of scotch, and then brought it to his nose and inhaled. I did the same.

Nate lowered the glass, lifted it again, smelled the booze. I sighed and copied him. The second whiff of whiskey was lighter. A complex, peaty aroma filled my nostrils. “Tastes even better,” Nate murmured. I flinched. He was grinning at me.

“Ugh. Nate, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

He chuckled. “I can tell. What do you smell?”

“Wood…” I sniffed at my glass again. “Smoke? A little … fruitiness.”

“Very good. Have a taste.”

We sipped our scotch. The mellow flavor filled my mouth and went down like silk.

“And enjoy the finish,” Nate said. He smiled and leaned into his corner of the couch. He watched me with obvious enjoyment. “This visit with you has been by far my most pleasant in Denver.” When he took another sip, I took another sip.

I didn’t have the guts to tell Nate that I wanted to get drunk off his expensive scotch, but he refilled our glasses twice, and by my third glass I was feeling good. Thoughts of Matt and Melanie drifted off on an amber river. I felt happy and warm in Nate’s company, and he was all good-natured smiles and easy conversation.

Owen wandered out of the bedroom to announce that he was watching
The Crow.
Nate, obviously ignorant of the dark cult classic, said, “Fine, just keep the volume down.”

Nate moved constantly when he spoke. He leaned back with his laughter and motioned as he explained things, his animated body so graceful. I watched him in a daze. Early afternoon turned to midafternoon, and mid to late. We each had a fourth glass of scotch.

That day reminded me vividly of my early days with Matt—when he took me to a restaurant in Boulder, and when he visited my family on the Fourth of July. Matt, like Nate, was a natural gentleman in public. I missed that side of him. He denied me that side of him—any side of him—with his insistence on anonymity, his lies, his obsession with writing.

Nate’s voice broke into my reverie.

“Being with you reminds me of Matt,” he said.

I looked up into Nate’s face.

“That’s funny. Being with you reminds me of him, too. I was just thinking of him.”

“Were you?” Nate tilted his head. Black hair flopped across his brow and his dark eyes roamed my face. “About what in particular?”

“About how he loved to write,” I said. “How he loved to write more than anything.”

“He loved you, Hannah. He loved
you
more than anything. Don’t you know that?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t know that.”

“You must know that, though. He loved you. Are you falling out of love with him now that he’s gone? You can’t do that.” Nate touched my arm. “You can’t be angry with him for leaving. He’s the golden boy, you see? We always forgive him.”

Forgive him?

The cold finger of presentiment ran up my spine.

“You know,” I whispered.

Nate held my gaze without flinching.

“You know. You
know…”
I searched Nate’s face for confirmation of the fact—but his calm stare
was
confirmation. My world tilted on its little axis.

Confusion struggled over Nate’s expression, and then he said very softly, “I’m my brother’s keeper, Hannah.”

I staggered off the couch and fell. Nate moved to help me, but I scrambled away from his hands. “Don’t touch me!” I said. “You knew. All this time. You knew he was alive. You lied to your own parents. You—”

“They’re not my parents,” he murmured.

I gripped the arm of the couch and pulled myself to my feet. I had the sense of falling, as if the world were rushing past at great speed.

Could this be?

Nate’s tearful eyes before the memorial, his offer of his portion of Matt’s inheritance, even his showing up in Denver to watch over me—it was all part of an elaborate act.

“Oh, my God.” I covered my mouth.

“Steady now, Hannah.”

“Why couldn’t I know? Why couldn’t you tell me? Why couldn’t he tell me?”

“This was the way he wanted it.” Nate hesitated. Even now, he was reluctant to betray Matt. “It had to be believable, down to the last detail. But Matt needed money to live on. My job was simply to … ensure that you received his inheritance.”

Nate’s
job.

The word pierced me.

Nate … so generous, so good, so thoughtful … was only doing Matt’s bidding when he offered me Matt’s money. And Matt was only ensuring he retained control over his money. Matt planned all this without telling me, letting me believe we were the closest of coconspirators.

But I was not instrumental in Matt’s plan. I was incidental to it. A footnote.

I stumbled away from Nate and clutched my purse.

“Have you talked to him?” I said.

“No. We’ve had no means of communication.” Nate wrung his hands. “Can you tell me how he is, please? Hannah, I’ve had no idea. It wasn’t until I called you last month and you said you were at the cabin … that I knew things had gone as planned.”

I yanked on my coat and headed for the door.

“No! I’m not going to tell you how he is. You can both go to hell. I feel so ridiculous, Nate. What was the point of this?”

Nate dragged a hand through his hair. He looked flustered, less dignified than I’d ever seen him. “Hannah—”

I went out before he could answer, and I slammed the door behind me.

Chapter 34

MATT

Hannah didn’t show on Friday. Our light—the last light of day—came and went. I called her prepaid cell and got no answer. I waited for her at the end of the drive.

I called again and again, though finally I got a grip and put my phone in my pocket.

After all, what if someone else had her cell? What if someone was visiting the condo?

As I walked back to the cabin, I envisioned Hannah’s car in a ditch. I envisioned her at St. Luke’s with postconcussive syndrome. I envisioned Seth returning to terrorize her.

Fuck.

“Where are you, bird?” I said into the silence of the cabin.

I’d sent Melanie away, as usual. She was going on four weeks in my service, and before she left for her motel that weekend I gave her a fourth envelope of three thousand dollars.

Maybe that explained why Mel kept coming back—not out of loyalty or interest, but because twelve thousand bucks in four weeks is damn good earnings.

I decided that Hannah was merely late and I resolved to wait for her. My panic waxed and waned as the hours passed.
Hannah is fine. Hannah is in trouble. Hannah is busy. Hannah is lying in a ditch. Hannah is out with friends. Hannah is in the hospital.

I ran Google searches for Denver accidents, car crashes between Denver and the mountains, Hannah Catalano. I tried her cell a few more times. I swore and paced.