Naomi stares out the window as the train rushes out of New York City the next morning. Her view rapidly shifts from towering glass skyscrapers and high-rise apartment blocks to brick buildings, chain-linked fences, and housing developments, some more unkempt than others. In less than an hour, all she sees are trees. Some still hold onto summer, green leaves hanging proud, while others have started to turn shades of orange, red, and yellow.
Sprawling estates and colonial-style mansions peek through the wooded area to her right as a wide expanse of the Hudson River reveals itself to her left. It still surprises her how stunning the landscape is, with its mountain-lined riverbanks painted in the early shades of fall. But even they do little to quell her mounting anxiety. She’s almost home.
She rolls her sleeves, heat creeping up on her, as the mountains close in.You’re here now, the wind seems to whisper.No turning back.
Naomi closes her MacBook once the train starts to slow toward its last stop, wishing she’d been more productive on the journey. She wanted to draft a new article about the Harlow investigation, but instead spent most of the time typing and deleting, typing and deleting.
Was Harlow Hayes’ Infamous VMAs Fall Tied to Death of Jade Dutton? Former Dancer Thinks So…
Did Harlow Hayes Strangle Jade Dutton to Death?
Usually, she’s able to come up with a snappy headline, covering tons of information in a small number of words, but nothing is clicking today. It’s all fog.
The train jolts to a halt as it reaches its final destination, Poughkeepsie, New York. The city is part of the Hudson River Valley region, midway between the core of the New York metropolitan area and the state capital of Albany. Founded in the seventeenth century by the Dutch, Poughkeepsie was a major hub during the Revolutionary War, and more recently became known for being voted as Forbes’ “Eighteenth Most Miserable City to Live In,” citing long commute times, bad weather, and crime as some of the reasons. Naomi has her own reasons, though.
She grabs her weekend bag and the gift for her cousin before shuffling down the aisle. A cool breeze hits her as she steps off the platform, greeting her with the smell of train fumes and chicken wings from the bar next door. She makes her way toward the taxi rank and hops into the first cab, directing the driver to her Aunt Mary’s house about fifteen minutes away.
The view from the taxi presents a similar juxtaposition as the one from the train, but the small-town version. One second, they’re whizzing past a brightly colored sign for an apple orchard, and the next they’re passing a dilapidated house and abandoned barn. Then they pass the immaculately groomed grounds of Vassar College, followed by a grotty townhouse complex, like the one Naomi grew up in.
When she first moved to New York and told Joel and her other colleagues she was from upstate, their reactions usually included an “Aww, how nice” or “That must’ve been a great place to grow up,” as if their first thought was of a quaint little town where everyone waltzed around in their Sunday best. Pumpkin patches and ice cream shops. Candy-apple-red covered bridges and fresh air. But the air around where Naomi was from wasn’t fresh. It was full of cigarette smoke and the lingering scent of weed. And her painted front door was peeling and faded.
Naomi counts two more dilapidated houses as they drive, chest tightening with each sight, before a road lined with sprawling mansions on acres of land is closely followed by a decaying shopping mall, most shop fronts boarded up. Only the dollar store and nail salon are left.
A man takes a swig from a paper-bagged bottle, looking at two young girls walking past him in their crop tops and short shorts, despite the cool weather. The taller girl glances back at the man, while the other laughs, blissfully unaware of her surroundings. Naomi smirks, despite her concern; that was her and her sister once: Naomi, always on alert; Faye, living in a dreamworld.
Her phone vibrates in her hand, bringing her back to reality.
“Hey Joel,” she says, worried he’ll ask for a status update when her mind is so all over the place.
“Just wanted to check in and see how it’s going—any updates?”
Her brain swirls with everything she’s learned, realizing she hasn’t updated him in a couple of days, hoping instead to simply present him with a hard-hitting article. She launches into everything, from the different theories circulating online to the eerie themes in Harlow’s music and the alleged Easter eggs.
“Some are through social media, but others are in her music videos and her lyrics and even album artwork. Most hint at future songs, music videos, tour dates, that kind of thing, but I bet there are more that fans haven’t even picked up on. Maybe even hints about her personal life, like how serial killers leave clues…”
“Hah,” he laughs, before she can tell him about the latest developments following her meeting with Bobby and Trevor. “Reminds me of The Beatles all over again.”
“The Beatles?” Naomi frowns, caught off-guard by his seemingly random connection.
“Yeah, not the serial killer part, but fan conspiracies surrounding album art and lyrics and other things. Back in the day, when I was a staff writer for a music mag, I did an article all about Easter eggs in music and learned some cool shit. Did you know the first musician to do it—that I know of, at least—was Bach?” Joel laughs.
“The composer?”
“Yep, he essentially wrote his name in musical notes. Since then, loads of artists have done similar things to what you’re talking about. My niece, who’s around your age, is always telling me about Taylor Swift Easter eggs, but in my era the fascination was all about The Beatles. You ever hear about the ‘Paul is dead’ theory, about how fans think McCartney died and the other members slipped hints about it into their work?”
“What? No!” Naomi laughs, but her interested smile drops as she thinks of her mom, who loved The Beatles.
Lucy Barnes loved the band so much that she gave both Naomi and Faye middle names referencing her favorite songs: Jude for Naomi, Prudence for Faye. Naomi can almost hear her mother’s raspy vocals as she pictures her on stage, ethereal bell sleeves flowing, hair fanned out, as she covered “Hey Jude” and “Dear Prudence,” giving her girls—whichever one it was for—a wink as she sang. At Lucy’s funeral, Faye returned the favor by singing a beautiful acoustic rendition of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” changing the song’s second-person pronouns to the collective first person. She looked at Naomi reassuringly the entire time, singing “picture us” and “we drift” and “our head in the clouds,” as if to tell her they’d be fine. They still had each other.
“So is that your angle for the next piece, then? Harlow’s ‘killer’ lyrics?” Joel asks, interrupting her thoughts.
Naomi shoves the memory aside and clears her throat. “Oh no, maybe a follow-up eventually, after I find a few more meaningful ones, but I actually have something much better…”
Naomi quickly gives Joel the rundown about everything she learned from Leo, Bobby, and Trevor, including the possibility Jade was strangled, and how she’s meeting with Jade’s sister later, before she tries to sneak into Colton’s funeral tomorrow.
“Fuck me, look at you go,” he says proudly. “Would be great if we could include a comment from the sister in the article, that would be a real hit piece.”
“For sure.”
