Reputation(51)
“That’s true. But sometimes getting a general location is a good clue. Did your friend tell you that?”
“Not necessarily.”
Her combativeness surprises me. Sienna is typically the one who doesn’t want to make waves. I glance at Aurora, but she’s glaring as though the conversation irritates her.
I stand, sensing that I’m not going to get anything else from them. “Thanks for talking, girls. If you ever want to open up about Greg—about anything—I’m a sounding board. Seriously.”
The girls turn in relief, and their separate doors slam mere seconds after I’ve released them. I stand in the silent hall once more, the tips of my fingers tingling. I go over what they’ve just told me. Did Sienna just show her hand? Is she trying to push me away from searching the IP because it’ll lead me to Raina? Does this explain why Raina seemed so upset by Greg’s death? What could this say about the murderer?
I clomp downstairs and find my laptop on the kitchen table. It doesn’t take me long to pull up the hack database and find Greg’s e-mails to Lolita. I grab a pad of paper and write down the e-mail’s IP, a garbled mess of numbers and dots. I tap the next e-mail. It has the same IP—which seems like a good sign. It probably means Lolita—Raina?—wrote to Greg from a home computer instead of a cell phone, which would make it harder to track a location.
I navigate to an IP lookup database, my heart hammering. If I remember correctly, Raina lives in the dorms—where a lot of other kids live, too, so even if I do get an IP, it won’t be a direct lead to her. Still, it could prove Greg’s mistress was a student.
The results appear. I hinge forward, squinting at the screen. In broad font are about ten lines of text, starting with the continental location of the IP and narrowing all the way down to its specific longitude and latitude. My gaze fixes on the line that reads Zip Code. I have to blink a few times before it sinks in. This isn’t Aldrich University’s zip code, though. It’s Blue Hill’s. Ours.
But that makes no sense. I get that Greg’s e-mails would come from here, probably his own computer in his study—and when I check, the IP is a different blend of numbers, though it still comes up as being a computer in Blue Hill.
Except Lolita doesn’t seem like someone who lives around here—at least not an adult. Her writing is ebullient but hesitant, submissive and almost filial. It’s the writing of a young person who idolizes an older man. Not in the words Lolita uses—her vocabulary can be impressive, like how, in one of her last e-mails to Greg, she says, The only thing that keeps me going through my quotidian day are my thoughts of you. I’m so, SO sorry. Please don’t shut me out. But she’s needy. Self-conscious. Ashamed. Whoever wrote this knows what she’s doing is wrong.
Something catches in my mind. I click to the link Sienna sent me on the day of Greg’s funeral. It leads to a Wattpad page listing all the stories Sienna has posted. Last night, I read the first one, a gloomy tale about an aimless girl who works in a diner. I spot it right away—that word again. Quotidian.
Is it a coincidence?
A crack opens in my brain. On a hunch, I click back to Wattpad again. Sienna has also misspelled the word lose as loose . . . in the same way Lolita has in an e-mail. Again, this could all be happenstance. Except . . .
My heart stills. I think over everything the girls said upstairs. On shaking legs, I rise back up and walk to the landing. “Girls?” I call out. “Come down here!”
I hear the creaks above me. Their steps seem tentative, maybe even afraid. And eventually, when Sienna calls out, “What’s wrong?” I hear the edge in her voice. She doesn’t need to ask—she already knows what I’ve figured out.
19
KIT
MONDAY, MAY 1, 2017
There are a few reporters hanging out on the circle, waiting for me to return to my father’s house after work. I duck my head and run past all of them, slipping inside the door before they can snap a photo. It’s quiet inside when I step into the foyer, but I can tell the place isn’t empty. There’s kinetic energy within the walls, a vibe that puts me on edge. I drop my keys on the table by the door and slip off my shoes. “Hello?” I call out. No answer. “Hello?” I call again.
The hair on the back of my neck prickles. A terrifying notion crosses my mind: The killer is back. Maybe he’s lurking around a corner, ready to take me, too.
When I turn into the kitchen, I stop short, my heart leaping into my throat. Willa sits at the island, her head in her hands. My girls are at the table, staring at me numbly. Sienna’s face is blotchy. Aurora’s skin has gone sickly pale. My gaze swings from Willa to them again, and then it hits me. She talked to them. Unbelievable.
I drop my purse angrily on the floor. “I asked you for one thing. You can’t even do that for me?”
Willa holds up her hands. “Wait. I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want to. But . . .” She looks goadingly at Sienna and Aurora. “Tell her what you told me.”
I glance at my daughters, but it’s as though a curtain has been thrown over my eyes. I don’t want to see them like this—sobbing, secretive, guilty? Maybe I’m not ready for whatever this is. Maybe it’s far worse than petty complaints about me being a shitty mother lately.