Night Owl (The Night Owl Trilogy)

by M. Pierce

  "Matt? Listen, I really want you to come out here. Take a real break, take it easy."

  "I can't leave!" I snapped.

  "Hey, sure you can. You take your time and then come on out here. Uncle's cabin's been empty all spring, and all summer so far. You can—"

  "Stop it!" I shouted, my voice rising hysterically. Nate had to know about Hannah. He was trying to pull me away from her. Fuck, he'd spoken to the reporter. Maybe he spoke to Pam.

  "Buddy, where are you? Are you in your apartment?"

  I rushed to the hotel windows and snapped the curtains shut.

  "Why do you want to know?" I whispered.

  "Matt? I can't understand you, hang on. Let me—"

  I ended the call and flung my phone onto the bed. Fuck, was Nate in Denver? Was he coming to stop me?

  I left the hotel in a cold sweat. I drove into Boulder, watching my rearview mirror carefully and sticking under the speed limit. I held the manila envelope on my lap.

  Please, please, please be there tonight. Time was running out. I could feel it.

  I drove right into one of Colorado's capricious summer storms. Perfect. The wind pushed at my car and the rain pelted against my windows so that I couldn't hear myself think. Fuck, at least it wasn't hail.

  I parked on Pearl Street and tucked the envelope under my hoodie. Memories washed over me as I jogged to the alley where the DYNAMITE sign shone like a beacon. I laughed and paced the narrow backstreet.

  God, I wanted to pat myself on the back. I had a good plan here. My brainstorming paid off. Chrissy was the key. Chrissy liked me. She would take my envelope to Hannah, I knew it.

  The rain stopped and the night air cooled sharply. I hovered around the entrance to the club. I checked my watch. 11:00 p.m. Chrissy was probably inside.

  A beefy looking bouncer emerged.

  "No loitering pal."

  "I'm waiting for a friend."

  "Oh yeah, you got a friend in here? Get in or get lost."

  I had planned to catch Chrissy going into work or leaving, but maybe the bouncer had a point. I could find her inside. Fuck though, I didn't want to see Hannah's sister topless.

  "Okay," I mumbled, patting my pocket.

  Shit. I left my wallet at the hotel. The bouncer glowered at me.

  "Get lost ya bum," he said, advancing.

  I darted up the alley and pressed myself against the brick wall out front. No way, I didn't need another round of assault charges, and I didn't need to be filing them either.

  Hours passed as I waited out front. I jogged sporadically to keep warm. I shivered and sagged against the damp bricks.

  Fucking Colorado with a cold night in August.

  Around 3:00 a.m., a familiar voice jolted me from my stupor.

  "I'll see you tomorrow," Chrissy called, her voice echoing down the alley. "Ha! Pretty sure I won, try harder girl."

  I would have recognized her voice anywhere. It was Hannah's voice, just a touch huskier. Relief rushed through me. Fuck, I wanted to cry. This was it.

  Chrissy stalked out of the alley. She made a beeline for a street lamp.

  "Chrissy!" I shouted. I pulled out the manila envelope and hurried toward her. She turned. A huge grin split my face. "Hey, it's me! Matt!"

  Chrissy was rummaging in her purse. I pushed back my hood. A plume of pepper spray erupted in my face.

  "Fuck!" I cried, twisting away. I clutched my face. The envelope flew from my hands.

  "Fuck you, you douchebag!"

  I heard Chrissy's heels clacking away from me. I gasped for air. My skin was on fire. My nose and eyes and throat burned. When I opened my eyes, the world blurred around me.

  "My envelope," I wheezed.

  I got on my hands and knees and began to feel around on the sidewalk.

  "In the puddle, bro," someone said. I looked toward the voice. I made out a lanky figure holding a phone. Was he filming this?

  My hand splashed onto the sodden envelope.

  CHAPTER 22

  Hannah

  _____

  I STOPPED READING the news about Matt after the pepper spray video went viral.

  It was pulled from YouTube the same weekend it appeared, but by then it was everywhere. One site posted it under the title M. PIERCE TRIES TO SUBMIT MANUSCRIPT TO STRIPPER. Even Fit to Print linked to the video.

  I didn't talk to Chrissy about it. Really, there was nothing to say.

  With July behind me, I knew I had to focus on making some sort of life without Matt. Until then, I half hoped and half feared he would force himself back into my life, but that was a dream. He could never make it right.

  I scrolled through my pictures of Matt and wondered who the hell he was. A beautiful man. A stranger. A liar. A global bestseller. An author I had admired for years.

  Had I ever really held him in my arms? Did I dream our time together? Like a ghost, he slipped away from me.

  With a new phone number, I only got calls from my family.

  My new inbox was empty except for emails from Pam.

  According to mom, Matt's nighttime drives past the house stopped.

  I wondered what had been in the envelope Matt tried to give Chrissy. I watched the video as many times as I could stand it. I have to admit, it did look like a manuscript.

  Whatever it was, it sat in a puddle for over a minute while Matt reeled and groped around on the sidewalk. It was probably ruined.

  And Matt...

  My beautiful lover on his hands and knees, with no one to help him. His intentions were probably ruined, too.

  We were finally, truly over.

  At work, I blazed through the tasks Pam gave me. I never wanted downtime. I worked through my lunch break and brought work home. When my eyes ached from too much reading, I hit the gym and ran on the treadmill until I wanted to collapse.

  And that's what I did. I went home, collapsed, woke up, and headed to work.

  The hollowness inside of me didn't shrink. It expanded until it seemed to press at the limits of my being. I became less than a shell of myself. I was a fine limning—a suggestion of Hannah Catalano.

  One day, I thought, I wouldn't even be that.

  I understood how people fall apart.

  I understood how dangerous it is to let someone become your whole life, and how powerless we are to prevent it. Never deny me, Matt once said. As if I had a choice.

  Pam plopped a manuscript onto my desk at the end of August.

  It was rare for Pam to hand me anything; usually I picked through the slush pile myself or found the day's work waiting on my desk.

  I slid out the manuscript.

  THE SURROGATE, no author.

  "What's this?"

  "A manuscript," she said dryly.

  Ugh. No Mercy Pam. Yes, I could see that it was a manuscript.

  "Right," I said. "So... I'll give it a read?"

  "That's the idea." Pam lingered. "Oh, it's... by a local lady. She has this marvelous habit of not putting her name on her manuscripts."

  Pam leaned over and scribbled JANE DOE on the top page.

  I stared at her in disbelief. Holy fuck, was Pam actually letting me read a manuscript by one of her authors? This was a far cry from the slush pile. This was real agent work.

  "Pam, I—"

  She held up a hand.

  "Don't imagine your opinion is vital here. Just read the manuscript. I need confirmation of what I already know to be true."

  Pam breezed out.

  Okay. Confirmation... of what she already knew to be true. That sounded bogus. I flipped the title page aside.

  One of two things had to be happening here. Either Pam wanted to bump me up to the next level of work (and didn't know how to be nice about it), or Pam actually needed a second opinion on this manuscript (and didn't know how to be nice about it).

  Either way, I would view this as a test and not let my head explode.

  Two hours later, I was still reading the manuscript. My other paperwork was shoved aside. I slouc
hed in my chair and propped my feet on the desk. And I was definitely not reading at work-pace. I was reading at pleasure-pace, lost in the story.

  The Surrogate told the story of a future Earth where, for the right price, people could escape life's pain. Exams, divorce, jail time, dental work, messy breakups, anything—no one had to live through it, thanks to The Isaac Project.

  The project began as a medical breakthrough in palliative care, and it ended as the most revolutionary venture since the World Wide Web. A client simply downloaded his consciousness into a sleeping cell and uploaded the consciousness of a surrogate, a professional who lived in his body for the duration of the pain. Once the assignment was complete, the client returned to his body and carried on with a pain-free life.

  Really, the novel told the story of one particular surrogate—a jaded workaholic who'd spent more time in the bodies of others than in his own eighty-year-old body. The surrogate had no personal life to speak of. He was hollow.

  That is, until one job changed everything.

  The surrogate was uploaded into the body of a wealthy executive. His assignment was to confront his client's wife with his affair and desire for divorce.

  Except the surrogate couldn't do it.

  He looked through his client's eyes, saw his wife, and...

  ...Knew that he wouldn't hurt this woman for any price. Never before had the pain of his clients—cowards and escapists, all of them—contained such wonder as she possessed.

  This beauty would haunt him.

  I flew into Pam's office.

  "This—" I blinked and cleared my throat, lowering the pages I was brandishing.

  Pam was giving me a death glare.

  "Hi Hannah, thank you for knocking."

  "Sorry, I—"

  "Go on." Pam sat back in her chair and sighed, gesturing with her pen. "Let's hear it, since you can't seem to contain your zeal."

  I smoothed my skirt and took a breath. I was stunned. Damn, I had just barged into Pamela Wing's office like I owned the place. That wasn't what shocked me, though.

  For the first time in nearly two months, I had forgotten my misery.

  I had forgotten my hollowness.

  I needed more of this story.

  "This is..."

  "As ever, Hannah, your eloquence astounds."

  "It's very partial," I stammered.

  "Keenly observed. The author assures me she has another twenty pages on the way."

  "I'd like to read them. If that's alright with you." I gazed out the window. If I met Pam's eyes, she would see my desperation. "The... protagonist. It seems obvious he'll hijack the body of his client, you know? And..."

  I could feel Pam's eyes on me.

  "And that's an interesting quandary. So much is unstated here." I swallowed. "The cultural commentary on our attitude toward pain and escape. And consumerism. The Thoreau epigraph about desperation is pretty perfect, too. This feels really relevant. I mean, people do lead lives of quiet desperation, until something or someone comes along and—"

  I clamped my mouth shut.

  Fuck. Okay, how did this become me spilling my guts to my boss?

  Pam raised a brow. She looked curious, not deadly.

  "I think you're right," she conceded. "It's relevant. We'll talk more about it when we've read the next pages."

  I turned to go, pausing outside my door.

  "Ms. Wing?"

  "Hm?"

  I lifted the manuscript.

  "You don't really represent speculative fiction, do you?"

  "No, but I make exceptions for my established authors."

  Established authors.

  So it was true; Pam was letting me read something remotely important.

  For the first time since Matt and I parted ways, I imagined how it would feel to be a partner with Pam and Laura. That was my dream. At least, it was the old Hannah's dream.

  "It's not without flaws," I said after a beat. "Mostly small conceptual oversights that need explanation. But it's..."

  I glanced at the manuscript. Did my subjective opinion mean anything here?

  "Ms. Wing, it's the most compelling thing I've read all year."

  Chunks of The Surrogate arrived on a weekly basis throughout September. I read them like a junky getting my fix. I'd never really liked science fiction, but The Surrogate didn't read like science fiction. It was a love story.

  Just as I'd anticipated, the surrogate pursued his client's wife, but not in the body of her husband. Not initially. He contrived reasons to meet with her in his own aged body and in the bodies of other clients. He met her as a man, a woman, a child...

  He loved her through every face of love. To her, the faces must have seemed like facades, but one continuous truth joined them.

  Finally, the surrogate schemed his way back into the husband's body.

  My eyes raced across the page. God, where was this going? Body theft was a crime punishable by death, and anyway, what was the surrogate thinking? Did he plan to seduce the woman from her husband's body? She didn't even know him!

  The scene was getting insane. The surrogate was about to go to bed with the woman he loved, and he was pretending to be her husband. It was impossibly wrong, and yet I wanted it to happen. Later he could explain, later, but now—

  "Hannah Catalano?"

  Someone was standing in my doorway. The air went out of my lungs. That voice, that tall frame. I yanked my feet off the desk and nearly tipped over in my office chair.

  Oh my god, it was—

  Not Matt.

  But it was!

  It was Matt plus a few years and black hair and a friendly smile.

  The man advanced, his hand thrust toward me. He was dressed in a stylish dark suit. I stumbled to my feet and shook his hand.

  "Yes, hi," I said.

  The man's likeness to Matt derailed me. I stood there blinking owlishly at him.

  "Nathaniel Sky. Call me Nate."

  I plunked into my chair.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I gave you a shock."

  Gave me a shock? More like a violent blow to the heart. I was looking at Matt's brother. Memories of Matt went off like fireworks in my brain. My eyes watered. The way Nate was smiling, his graceful carriage, his imposing presence—it was all Matt.

  "Well." He cleared his throat. "I won't take much of your time."

  "S-sorry, I... sorry. Yeah, no, um, sit, please..."

  Wow, English.

  Nate chuckled and tilted his head. The gesture was so Matt that I had to turn away.

  "I've come to ask a favor, Hannah. Can I call you Hannah?"

  I nodded. Safe to say, coherent sentences would not be forthcoming.

  Nate ignored the chair. He moved around my desk and his heavy hand came to rest on my shoulder. Thankfully, the touch was genial and comforting, not one of Matt's touches.

  Matt's touches... demanding, desperate.

  I removed my glasses and rubbed at my eyes. I couldn't believe, after almost three months, how much raw emotion I felt.

  "I didn't come here to bring you pain," Nate said quietly. I ventured a glance at him and he smiled gently. "I've heard so much about you. I wouldn't have come if I had any other option. I need your help. You must know this is about Matt."

  I blinked rapidly.

  "How is he?" I whispered.

  "Not good." Nate shook his head. "Not good, Hannah." He turned and walked to the window, gazing down at the street. I studied his back while I collected my wits. Geez, the gene pool was seriously skewed in the Sky family's favor. Go figure.

  "He's drinking. I don't know how else to put it." Nate's voice was low and full of feeling. "Hannah, he's my brother. He's my little brother..."

  It was weirdly comforting not to be the only person at a loss for words.

  We were both silent for a while, fighting our emotions.

  "What can I do?" I said at last.

  "Maybe nothing. I don't know. I could always pull him back from these ledges. Not this time." A
gain, Nate shook his head. He was so somber; it was like we were talking about a dead man. I shuddered and my heart lurched. How bad was Matt?

  "Where is he? What's happening?"

  Nate turned and met my eyes.

  "I knew you would help," he said. "He told me so much about you. I knew you had to be—" Whatever Nate was going to say, he let it go. A Pam-like efficiency came over him. This, I could see, was far easier for Nate than emotion.

  "Good," he said. Had I agreed to something? "He's staying at our uncle's cabin in Upstate New York. I got you a one-way ticket to the nearest airport and a rental car. Anything can be moved, date-wise, but I don't see why—"

  "Wait, what?"

  Nate produced a folder from his laptop bag and began spreading documents on my desk. He looked earnestly between me and the papers, his dark brows raised.

  "Hm? I've cleared your schedule with Pam, don't worry. She and I have spoken. We all have a common interest here, which is—"

  "Excuse me? Look, I—"

  This had to be a joke. Incredulity was quickly replacing my fear. Matt's brother just sauntered into my office and was now strong-arming me into flying to New York to rescue Matt's alcoholic ass (that was doing god knows what in some random cabin), and oh, before I even agreed to this crackpot plan, he'd talked to my boss and cleared my schedule—

  "...some spending money," Nate was saying, "travel expenses, anything you need above and beyond the car and the ticket. All my contact information is here. I insist you keep the change as I know this is something of an inconvenience."

  I turned my deer-in-headlights look on the envelope Nate was pressing into my hands. Thoughtlessly, I rifled through the bills. Brand new Benjamin Franklins. Okay, I was counting. One thousand, two thousand, three thousand—

  "Five," Nate murmured.

  My head shot up.

  My god, this wasn't for travel expenses. This was a bribe.

  Nate moved toward the doorway, leaving the money in my hands and the travel information on my desk. I was paralyzed with anger. That was fortunate for Nate, because otherwise I would have brained him with my stapler.

  "I'll be in touch," Nate said. "I'm staying in the city for a few days. Call me if you have any questions. Hannah, I knew you would help. The way Matt spoke about you..."