What the fuck…My heart hammered with every second I watched, switching between rage, devastation, and a sense of powerlessness.
But you’re not powerless, I thought, blood boiling. Icoulddo something. I could take back control.You can put an end to this. Right now.
I grabbed my keys and slammed the door behind me, ready to do what I should’ve done long before.
*
I tried to calm myself as I drove through the city streets, trying to focus.Three things you can hear. Three things you can see. But all I could see was red.
Chapter 33
Naomi searches “Harlow Hayes and the Beatles” to see if Harlow ever made any references about them specifically or the Paul theory over the years, aside from paying homage on her album cover and the possible lyrics about Billy Shears.
A slew of results load, showing everything from videos of Harlow covering their songs to fan edits to news articles. The first headline, dated from last year, reads, “Harlow Hayes Rescues Two Pups and Names Them after Beatles Members.”
Lennon and Ringo, Naomi shakes her head. It had been in front of her face the entire time. She just didn’t know what she was looking for.
The next reference she finds is from an “unofficial Beatles podcast” that Harlow appeared on, where she mentioned her love for Paul McCartney and how he was a major influence on her latest album,Legacy.
The podcast only has ten episodes, so Naomi puts it on double speed and listens for anything else that might be important, but there isn’t much else. However, one of the episodes prior to the one where Harlow guest-starred goes into depth on the “Paul is dead” theory. So while Harlow never mentions the theory herself, she made an indirect reference by simply being on the show and by saying he influenced her latest album.
Naomi plays back the line, analyzing exactly what Harlow says and how she says it, and realizes she’s referring to being influenced by the way the Beatles left Easter eggs about Paul in their albums.
She stares at the back cover ofLegacyagain, where Harlow’s standing with the red jacket, looking down, in the dead strawberry field. Chills run down Naomi’s arms when she remembers that Faye is potentially another victim in all this.
Could Harlow looking down symbolize her looking at a grave? Could the red jacket symbolize blood?
Both Joel and the podcast host said fans found hidden messages on the front and back covers of the Beatles albums by holding a mirror up to them. An idea dawns on Naomi. She runs into her bathroom and grabs a mini eye shadow palette that has a mirror on the top. She holds it to the back cover ofLegacyand sees a hyacinth flower appear in the top-left corner of the cover, where the sun rays are parting through the clouds.
She checks the lyric poster to see if the flower exists elsewhere and pauses on “Garden of Bones,” the album’s fifth track. Next to the title is a yellow hyacinth flower, like that used on the cover of the Beatles’Sgt. Pepper’salbum—the yellow hyacinth believed by theorists to form a P to mourn Paul. Her heart is racing. This cannot be a coincidence.
She analyzes the glossy paper, looking for something out of the ordinary. She checks for odd spacing in the lyrics.
Nothing.
She checks for unusual capitalized letters.
Nothing.
But then she notices a familiar name in the songwriting credits—Addia S. Howler.They don’t exist, she recalls the TikToker claiming in their video.Maybe it’s an anagram, who knows.
Naomi grabs a piece of paper and scrawls down the letters in a circle, mixing them up—a strategy Amelia taught her when they went to a quiz night. She first tries to form names, mixing letters in various combinations. It doesn’t take her long to find it.Harlow.
Naomi frowns, not expecting that to be it. But she shrugs and crosses the letters out, seeing she’s left with I-S-E-A-D-D.
A wave of mixed emotions, horror and satisfaction, crashes over her as she cracks it. Addia S. Howler isn’t an anagram for another name. It’s an anagram for a statement. The confirmation she’s been looking for.
Harlow. Is. Dead.
*
Naomi’s hands, her legs—everything is trembling. She gets up and starts pacing, taking deep breaths as if there isn’t enough oxygen in the room. Is this some twisted homage to Paul and the Beatles? A joke? A coincidence?
She can’t believe she’s even open to the idea that this could be real. It’s absurd. She only kept watching the imposter video in the first place because she found the idea entertaining. She never imagined it would lead her to these clues, which would actually make her take the theory seriously. That Harlow Hayes is dead, replaced by an imposter.
Naomi walks back to her board and fixates on the note that reads, “DNA wasn’t a match.” She says the words out loud to herself, repeating them in the form of a question. She recalls what Leo said when he told her that DNA doesn’t lie.
DNA is DNA. It doesn’t lie.
