Influenced

by Eva Robinson

  If she’d spent her adult years more like Hannah, things would’ve turned out better. Hannah didn’t need attention like a drug.

  The papers had published the news of Peter’s death. And within moments, TOI.com and her little subreddit were feasting on this latest development like hungry piranhas. It didn’t take them long to make the connection.

  Did you see that he and Rowan are both involved in this teen center thing?

  Is she going to confess to murder on Instagram? This is insane. We all saw this coming, didn’t we?

  Today, when she’d been sitting in a café in Harvard Square, someone had stolen her laptop when she wasn’t looking. And what if they’d already downloaded her emails before she’d changed the password? What if they’d read the draft of her book?

  They might know everything.

  The text messages popping up on her screen worried her more than her commenters did.

  You expose my secrets, and I’ll expose yours.

  Not if she told the truth herself. Then she wouldn’t be living in fear anymore. They’d have nothing to hold over her, and the invasive ivy would be gone from her skull.

  Did Marc ever google her name and see what they wrote about her? Maybe that was why he’d stopped texting her. Maybe the vines had grown in his mind too, transforming the memories of her from beloved to rotten.

  But the real question was, who the hell had her laptop?

  Because hadn’t Peter told her his laptop had been stolen? The night he died, he’d definitely mentioned it. And now hers had been taken. Dimly, under her electrifying coke high, she wondered if Peter and Arabella and she were all being targeted by the same person. The image of Arabella’s grey, rotting face blazed in her thoughts, and then morphed into her own face.

  She was going to confess everything—every last sordid detail. First, she'd tell her followers, then Reddit would know, and TOI.com. Then she’d go to the police. And she’d have her own mind back again.

  Her phone buzzed again. She opened the text, swallowing hard.

  I have your laptop. I have ALL your secrets. If you're planning to talk, I'll publish all of this. Your haters will eat it up. Then you die.

  Her hands shook, and she deleted the message. The police would keep her safe.

  When the Uber pulled up at Stella’s house, Rowan thanked the driver and stepped out. In the driveway, she cast a glance over her shoulder. She was supposed to meet them out back; her heels crunched over the gravel as she walked through the darkness. The hair rose on her nape with the certainty that someone was watching her from the shadows. Tonight, there were no lanterns lit in the garden.

  Shivering, she crossed to the stairs. As she climbed them, she smoothed her dress, looking down at herself. What was she wearing? A dress that used to be white. A pale yellow stain spilled down the front, and she had no idea what it was. She didn’t remember getting dressed. What a mess she is. Vile. Someone needs to put that pig out of her misery. Her friends are dead, but she’s the rotting, festering corpse.

  When she reached the deck, she found Hannah sitting by herself. For the first time, it struck Rowan how much Hannah had changed. In fact, she was dressed just like Rowan. Or, at least, how Rowan dressed when she wasn’t a total wreck. Hannah’s hair had been cut to a chin-length bob, curled and shiny in the moonlight. She wore a glamorous black dress, and her makeup was perfection. Her gold bracelet glinted in the moonlight.

  “You look nice,” said Rowan. “You look like me.”

  Hannah rose and started chewing her thumbnail. “I’m freaking out. The police came to my house today. They think I’m guilty of something.”

  “We all are, aren’t we?”

  Hannah went still. “I wasn’t there when you made the decision about Peter. And now they think I’m guilty. And if you start telling everyone what happened, we could all get in trouble. But me especially. They’ve decided I’m guilty, apparently, because of the rumors about Tom’s death. And something about Arabella’s laptop.”

  “But Daniel was right at the time. Dragging him down to the pond was the dumbest thing ever. And the truth was, I was doing it to try to avoid all the criticism I knew I’d get, but I can’t avoid it. And now I can hear their voices…”

  “What are you talking about? Rowan, you need to cut down on the drugs. I need you to listen to me. The police think I stole Arabella’s computer. And they’re suggesting that I murdered Tom all those years ago. If you know anything about Arabella or Peter that you’re not telling me, you have to come clean. Because I don’t want to go to jail for something I didn’t do.”

  Hannah is like a better version of her, now. Prettier. More successful. More put together. “But people said you pushed him.”

  Hannah’s eyes flashed. “Of course I didn’t push him. I was upset, yes. I wanted him to like me, but he was in love with you. Everyone was in love with you. And Tom was devastated. You were flaunting your new relationship right in front of him. He was heartbroken. So he drowned his sorrows in drugs and alcohol.”

  “I was eighteen,” Rowan shot back. “I didn’t care about anything.”

  “You cared if you got attention. And I think not much has changed now, because if someone pays attention to me, you leap into his lap. Your entire sense of self is dependent on other people thinking you’re beautiful. And that’s why you’re falling apart now, because on the internet, beautiful people are a dime a dozen, and no one cares anymore.”

  The words were like a punch to her gut. What happens when her looks wither, and all that’s left is the rot inside? Anger flared. “Oh, really! If I’m such a sad case then why have you started dressing exactly like me?”

  “Because I like how you look. But that’s not enough to feel good, because you don’t have any faith in your own ability to do things. You’re a damsel in distress—can’t make a cocktail. Can’t cook. Can’t write captions on your own. And now you think confessing everything will work out well, because somebody’s always swooped in to fix things. You’re going to cry on Instagram, and someone will fix everything that’s wrong.”

  “Why are you being so mean?”

  “Why am I being mean? You just accused me of murdering Tom!”

  Slowly, the puzzle pieces were sliding together in her mind. She’d been thinking that people tended to die around her—but it was Hannah, wasn’t it? Hannah had been there when Tom died. “People said you pushed him. And you said the police were questioning you about Arabella’s laptop. Now my laptop is gone. And Peter’s had been stolen, too. You didn’t like Peter, did you?”

  Hannah stepped closer. “Rowan, I need you to pull yourself together. I need you to think clearly and help me to figure this out.”

  Look at Rowan, unable to pull herself together. She’s going to snap. She’s going to push Hannah right off that deck. She’s a disease. “Shut up!” Rowan snapped. “Shut up. I’m going to find a way to shut you up for good.”

  She was talking to the voices, but Hannah took a step back from her, eyes wide.

  “Oh, calm down,” Rowan said. “Not you. I was talking to them.” She was getting confused again.

  “Who?”

  “Listen, Hannah. I’m done messing around. You have to tell me everything. Tell me what happened with Tom. Tell me why the police think you’re connected to Arabella’s death. Have you been sending me these threatening texts? Did you steal my laptop?”

  “I’m not telling you anything. You’re not even remotely reliable right now. You’re just going to post everything online.”

  “Come here.” She sidled up to Hannah and wrapped an arm around her. “We’re sisters now, right? We’re Saltonstall and Oakes sisters.” Her voice dripped with bitterness. “But sisters tell each other their secrets. Now, smile for the camera. I’m about to make you famous.”

  Thirty-Six

  Michael clicked his pen—sixteen times—while he waited impatiently for Ciara to get off the phone. Her phone call ended with a terse “Fine,” and then a slam of the rece
iver.

  “Easy,” said Michael.

  “The lieutenant says no, we can’t follow Hannah. He doesn’t want to expend the extra manpower at this point.”

  “Of course he said that.”

  “And the break room is out of coffee, and it feels like someone is jabbing a knife into my skull.”

  “Well, I just got off the phone with the coroner. She has Peter’s results. And I think I have an idea how he died.”

  She turned to him, wide-eyed. “Thallium?”

  “No. He tested positive for benzodiazepine. Roofies. Which means it’s possible he wasn’t the only one knocked out.”

  She nodded. “Is that what killed him? Overdose?”

  Michael shook his head. “She didn’t think so. But we know from his medical records that he had a severe nut allergy. If someone wanted him dead, as he was passing out from the roofies, they’d only need him to ingest a small amount of peanut powder. Anaphylaxis wouldn’t have shown up clearly in the autopsy after he’d been in the pond for a few days. It would explain why his stomach contents were empty, even though he’d eaten the brownies.”

  “The brownies could have been contaminated,” said Ciara.

  “Or the punch. Maybe everyone drank the same thing, and it only killed one of them.”

  “So who wanted him dead?” Ciara muttered to herself. “We’ve been looking at Hannah, but does she really have a coherent motive? Jealousy? He was too close to Rowan?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve been following up with the high school where Hannah worked. If Arabella was poisoned the morning of May second, that was the same day Hannah quit her job. Everyone seems to remember this outburst or breakdown or whatever it was. That means she was at work that morning. I confirmed it with the head of special ed and a few other people in her department.”

  “But she quit,” said Ciara. “She left early that day.”

  Michael shrugged. “True. And the William James building isn’t far from Woodhurst High School, so it might not take long.”

  Ciara turned back to the surveillance video. “The laptop was turned on in her neighborhood. And she has a dubious history, and a Red Sox cap.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Michael. “The single person in the Boston area with a Red Sox cap.” He really needed to tone down his sarcasm.

  “Not sure I like your tone.”

  “Sorry. Even I have one, and I’ve literally never watched a baseball game. You might be one of twelve people in New England without one. It’s like saying, ‘She was wearing a Green Monster T-shirt.’”

  She stared at him like he’d just sprouted a new head. “What’s a green monster? What are you even talking about?”

  Michael studied her. “You can list three hundred facts off the top of your head about Puritan cemeteries and executions, but you’ve never noticed the Green Monster T-shirts?”

  She frowned. “Is it a cartoon thing? I don’t watch cartoons.”

  “It’s the name your people have for the giant green wall at Fenway.”

  “It’s a wall. They have a name for a wall? Okay. I don’t really understand sports, and I particularly don’t understand why a sports-related wall would be worth celebrating with T-shirts and its own celebrity status. But yes, I concede that many people have the hats. It’s just the video…”

  Michael nodded at the screen. She was stuck on it—and he of all people knew what it was like to be stuck on something. “You need to stop staring at the video. You’re not getting anything else out of that bloody video. I think we need to interview them all again. Stella, Daniel, Rowan, Hannah—just keep interviewing them until one of them gives something away, until we catch an inconsistency. If someone gets nervous enough, they’ll slip up and try to save themselves.”

  “True. You’re right. But they’ve just all got this ‘I was too drunk’ story. Any inconsistencies can be explained away by alcohol. ‘Maybe I did say that, but like I said, it’s all hazy.’”

  “Stella says she was sober.”

  Ciara went quiet at the mention of Stella. In fact, now that he thought about it, she’d been oddly silent at the interview with her too.

  “Ciara? You okay?” said Michael.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Stella just… reminds me of someone I know. It kept throwing me during the interview.” Ciara turned away from him and rewound the video again, stopping at a still of the woman in the cap. “I know you said to stop looking at it, but I just want to take a screen grab. I want to look more closely at the sweater.”

  “You need to ease up on the coffee.”

  “If I don’t drink it constantly, I get headaches.”

  “That’s a really bad situation.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “There’s something we’re not getting, and I won’t be able to stop thinking about it, because if we don’t figure this out soon, we’ll find another dead academic. And we still have no idea what the hell is happening. I hate being confused.”

  “I’ll make you another cup in a bit. I know where Quezada keeps a hidden stash.”

  “I love you.” He caught her cheeks flaming red. “I mean, for getting me coffee. Not actually.”

  Michael watched as she opened the still image of the Red Sox woman and magnified it. She grabbed a pad of paper and a pencil and started to sketch the logo on the sweater.

  “What are you doing?” asked Michael.

  “Following my instincts. It’s blurry, but with the two gaping eye sockets, the narrow skull chin…”

  “Are you really sure they’re ‘gaping eye sockets’? You do have a tendency to be morbid.”

  She paused and frowned at the image. There was something above the skull shape…

  “Hang on…” She looked from the image to Michael. “I missed it before. But with the picture blown up, I can see it now.” She pointed at the blocky, pixelated image. Above the cartoon head, the pixels formed something like faint triangles.

  Ciara drew them onto her pad of paper, more clearly than what appeared on the screen. Then she drew a neater version—the round head, large, dark eyes, the triangle nose. The two little triangles above the skull—

  “Michael, it’s a cat. It’s a cat sweater. It’s not a skull. Of course I saw it as a skull. Where have I seen a cat sweater recently? This is an oversized sweater with cats all over it. It’s odd.”

  He frowned at the image on her paper, and then a spark of recognition lit in his mind. “Oh! The picture on Hannah’s wall. The father of her child. He was wearing a cat sweater. I remembered thinking it seemed… quirky. Do you think Hannah could be wearing his sweater in that video?”

  “It could be. It’s large, like it was a husband or boyfriend’s shirt. Do you remember his name?”

  “Luke, I think.” He opened his notebook. “Luke Kerr. I wanted to talk to him, actually, since he swung by the night Peter went missing. I wanted to check his story against Hannah’s.”

  Already, Michael was searching his name. “Luke Kerr. Harvard.” He turned to Ciara. “Psychology department. Hang on… He’s in the same department Arabella worked in. He works in the William James building.” His blood started pounding. Finally they were getting somewhere.

  “Maybe he left his sweater behind with Hannah?” said Ciara.

  Michael clicked his pen a few times, then pulled out his phone and started dialing. “If he worked with Arabella, Adam might know him.” He held the phone to his ear.

  Adam picked up after a few rings. “Hello?”

  “Hi. It’s Detective Stewart. No updates yet, I’m afraid. I just wanted to run a name by you to see if you recognized it. Luke Kerr.”

  “Luke Kerr? Yeah, I know him. He was in Arabella’s department.”

  Michael’s pulse started racing. “Did they work closely at all?”

  “Well, she published a paper with him, as the second author. He works with Theo Leigh, the professor of moral psychology. He was on Oprah. They’re both a big deal, I guess, in their world. Which is odd, because it’s not exactly a real sc
ience.”

  Michael cleared his throat. “Right. And what was their relationship like?”

  “Arabella really wanted to impress him. She was very worried about what he thought. I remember because—at that party at Stella’s house, the night Arabella dumped a drink on me? Part of the reason she was so unreasonably angry was because I’d allegedly embarrassed her in front of the brilliant Professor Kerr, and she’d—”

  Every one of Michael’s muscles had gone tense. “Hang on. Luke Kerr was at Stella’s party?” He made eye contact with Ciara, making sure she heard this part of the conversation.

  “Yeah, he was there,” said Adam. “I really didn’t get the impression that he’s the genius everyone thinks he is.”

  “But Hannah wasn’t at the party?”

  “I have no idea who that is.”

  “Okay, I’m… just trying to get a handle on the social picture. How does Luke know Stella or Rowan? Do you know how he ended up at the party?”

  “Yeah. He’s Stella’s boyfriend.”

  Michael frantically scribbled this note alongside the cat cartoon, so Ciara could see. His mind started whirling. This was completely new information. Did Hannah know?

  “Okay. And Arabella and Luke—did their relationship ever change? Any animosity?”

  “She stopped talking about him, I think. At some point. She had some complaints about their research. It was never finished. It was written up, but never submitted. I’m not sure why.”

  “Thank you, Adam.” When Michael hung up, he turned to Ciara.

  She looked ready to jump out of her chair. “Peter’s laptop was turned on near Stella’s house. Across from Fresh Pond.” She closed her eyes. “Stella…” Ciara repeated. She turned back to the monitor and zoomed out the image again. “She’s the same size as Hannah. But Arabella’s laptop was turned on in Hannah’s neighborhood, so what do we make of that?”

  “The laptop was turned on Sunday night at six thirty,” said Michael. “Hannah said that’s when Luke drops off their daughter. Remember? She said that was why she wouldn’t have been on her laptop. So Luke might have dropped the baby off, then turned on the laptop in his car.”