“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…”