Influenced Eva Robinson (polar express read aloud .TXT) 📖

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.”

Ciara snatched her paper off the desk, staring at it. “A freaking cat sweater.”

Thirty-Seven

“Moonlight Sonata” played in the background, the sound coming from the living room. Something about that song scratched at the walls of Hannah’s memory.

But it was hard to hear the music now, because she heard the high-pitched screeching in her mind that meant she was losing control.

Guilt was pulling her under.

“Why did you take a picture of me?” Hannah asked. “I don’t want people to know we came back here. If we’re going to tell the police about dragging Peter to the pond, let’s tell them directly. And let’s get some clarity. I don’t even know what happened.”

Rowan clutched her phone tight. “Maybe I’ll post it. Maybe not. Maybe you should tell me everything now, starting with Tom. Did you push him because he rejected you?”

“No.” When she closed her eyes, Hannah remembered standing next to Tom. She had been on the edge of the bridge, overlooking the Charles. She wasn’t sure why she’d lied at the time and said he’d fallen by accident. She supposed she wanted to put some distance between herself and what had really happened. “Why are we talking about him?”

“I want to know if you’re a killer.”

Hannah opened her eyes again. “We were at the winter formal at the Charles Hotel. Tom was trashed. You were trashed. I was at the dance by myself, since I had no other options. I thought I’d talk to Tom about the books we both liked. I’d spent the week reading all the Herman Hesse I could find and coming up with these brilliant ideas about Gnosticism and Jung… In case you’re wondering, yes, I realize how stupid this sounds at this point. But I was seventeen.

“Anyway, he had no interest in talking to me, because he was watching you the whole night. He didn’t want to talk about Herman Hesse. He wanted the beautiful girl he was in love with. Then he left, kind of stumbled out without even putting on his jacket. So I followed him to see if he was okay.”

“You thought it was your chance to make a move.”

A little blossom of guilt bloomed. She should have called someone for help—his parents, the police. She’d been hoping for a romantic moment. “Yes. Maybe I hoped it was my chance. So I followed him, all through Harvard Square. And I finally caught up with him by the bridge over the Charles. I started telling him all my thoughts about the books I’d read. I was trying to tell him about the book Demian, and he just kept yelling, ‘What are you talking about, Hannah?’ And I thought he would see that I was the one for him. But I wasn’t. Why are we talking about this now?”

Rowan took a step closer, her eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “Because someone is threatening to kill me, and I want to know if it’s you.”

“Of course it’s not me! And I didn’t push Tom. He climbed up on that stone railing, and I climbed up next to him. I told him he didn’t need to be heartbroken, because he could have me. Again, I realize how dumb this sounds now. But he was so drunk, and I did it all so wrong.” The old pain slid through Hannah’s bones. “He’d never been mean to me before. But he just kind of laughed, and he said, ‘I’d rather die than be with you.’ He didn’t fall. He jumped. He was that desperate to get away from me. Well, that’s what I thought for a long time, that it was all about me. But he was also a drunk and impulsive teenager who wasn’t able to think through what he was doing. I definitely could have handled it better. But I didn’t push him. And I didn’t take your laptop, or Arabella’s.”

The secret wasn’t that she pushed him. It was that she was repulsive.

Rowan stared at Hannah, arms folded. Something like guilt shone in her eyes, wet with tears. “And that was it? The only reason the police were focused on you was because of those rumors?”

“That, and someone turned on Arabella’s