Poisonous

by Allison Brennan

  A sharp, burning pain spread through his chest. He was having a heart attack.

  Except he heard a loud noise. A gunshot. And saw the gun. And then he recognized the shooter.

  Suddenly Travis had answers to all his questions about what happened to Ivy, except for one.

  Why?

  * * *

  Max was glad David was quiet driving to the Fairstein house. She hadn’t had enough sleep or enough coffee and was, frankly, in a crabby mood. And she shouldn’t be. They’d made progress on the Ivy Lake case in less than three days, had the support of local law enforcement (to a degree) and already had more information than the police had started with. Narrowing down Ivy’s time of death was huge. Max knew that even though Grace didn’t make a big deal about it yesterday, she had been very interested in the information.

  David pulled up to the Fairsteins’ house and cut off the engine. “I’ll wait here,” he said.

  “Fine,” she snapped, then hesitated before getting out of the car. “Look, I’m sorry about last night. Not about disagreeing with you, but about arguing. I might not understand, but I care about you. I know the situation with Brittney and Emma is tough.”

  “You want to fix something that you can’t fix,” David said.

  “I just want everyone to listen to me and do what I say because I’m usually right.”

  He almost smiled. “I’m okay, Max.”

  “Good. I’m going to take the car tonight and visit Nick, then tomorrow morning I have a meeting with Justin Brock.”

  “He agreed?”

  “He’s thinking about it, but I’m not giving him the chance to say no. I pushed last night, and I won.”

  “You usually do.”

  “I wish that were true.”

  She walked up to the house and knocked. A full minute later, Pilar Fairstein answered the door. Already dressed and ready for the day, she didn’t look happy that Max was there but still let her in.

  “I made some coffee,” she said, “but Bailey doesn’t have much time. She leaves for school at seven thirty. She was up early to get ready. In fact, I heard her before dawn. Bringing up this whole affair is troubling for her, I don’t think she slept at all.”

  Pilar led Max down the hall into the kitchen. Max admired the vast, open space—two ovens, a six-burner stove, a large chopping block adjoining the center island. The view outside was of the swimming pool and a lawn that appeared to roll all the way to the bay.

  “I love kitchens,” Max said. “I took cooking classes when I got out of college and had my apartment kitchen remodeled. This is amazing.”

  “My grandmother was a wonderful cook; I learned everything from her. It’s one of the few things that relaxes me.”

  Bailey Fairstein walked in wearing a Catholic school uniform, no makeup, her long blond hair braided down her back. She was almost as tall as Max, with a fine bone structure and porcelain skin. Her eyes were sad and wary.

  “My mother told me you wanted to talk about Ivy—about before she died, what she was like,” Bailey said, preempting Max. “I’m not sure what you want to know.”

  Pilar poured Max a cup of coffee and asked how she liked it. After she put it on the counter, she poured another cup, added a liberal amount of milk, and handed it to her daughter. “Bailey, I’m going to let you talk with Ms. Revere alone. But you don’t have to answer any questions that make you uncomfortable, you know that, right?”

  “Yes, Mom.” She smiled thinly. “You can stay if you want.”

  “If you’d like, but I suspect you won’t couch the truth if I’m not here.”

  “I don’t want to upset you, Mom.”

  Pilar squeezed her daughter’s hands and left.

  Bailey sat down at the counter opposite Max. “My mom cried last night. She doesn’t want me to know, and she doesn’t cry like other people. She’s very quiet about it. But her eyes were red when she woke up. I hate upsetting her. She worries about me, and she misses my dad.”

  “I appreciate you talking to me. I know you have to go to school, so I’ll get right to the point. I work on cold cases. My cases are different than traditional investigations because much of what I do the police can’t—because of time or rules or money. I’m trying hard to understand who Ivy was and who might have wanted to hurt her. I read the Brock lawsuit, though I didn’t know at the time that you were the unnamed witness. Your mother told me yesterday.”

  Bailey nodded. “She told me about your conversation. She didn’t want me talking to you—she thinks that it’ll make me sad or depressed, because I was really torn up after Heather killed herself. But I have nothing to hide. I regret everything I did, and I wish I’d stopped Ivy. I wish I’d known how to stop her.”

  “It took courage to admit your part in Ivy’s plans,” Max said.

  “I didn’t see it at the time … but Ivy was mean. Like, deep-down mean.”

  “I want to understand her. Maybe then I can figure out what was going on in her life the week she died.”

  “I don’t even understand her.” Bailey paused, then added, “We’d been best friends for a long time, ever since she moved to Corte Madera. Ivy wasn’t always that way … she could also be nice and fun. She had a rough time when she first moved here—her parents getting a divorce, her mother remarrying, leaving her friends in Seattle, all that stuff. We were in the same class and played soccer together and became friends. She used to actually listen to me. It really wasn’t until eighth grade that she changed.”

  “What happened then?”

  Bailey looked down at her entwined hands, her long delicate fingers twisting around each other until the knuckles were white. “It’s going to sound really stupid.”

  “It doesn’t matter how it sounds. If you think that it was important to Ivy, I want to know.”

  “Ivy moved here in the middle of fourth grade. She was real quiet. She didn’t like her new family or stepdad and was mad at her mom for making them leave Seattle. But she was mostly scared.”

  “About?”

  “I don’t know—looking back, I think it was coming to a new school in the middle of the year. Not having friends. This is a small town, really. We all know one another. But I started school in the middle of the year, back in first grade, so I kind of remembered how it felt. So I was nice to her, and she was nice back. We became inseparable.”

  She looked back down at her hands before talking. “There was another girl we hung out with, Rachel Beyers. The three of us—we did everything together. But when there’s three, it doesn’t always work out. Like there’d be a fight, and one of us would take sides, and then we’d say and do mean things, then a day later make up. It seems so silly now, and I don’t remember most of what we argued about. Stupid things, probably. Then everything would be good … until the next disagreement.

  “In eighth grade, Ivy and Rachel had a huge fight. Rachel accused Ivy of cheating in a game—some dumb online game—and Ivy said she didn’t. Rachel didn’t believe her. They didn’t talk, and then Rachel started hanging out with a group who didn’t like Ivy for whatever reason. You know how girls are—cliquey. Rachel is the type of girl who is always popular no matter what. I think more things happened between her and Ivy because Rachel completely shunned her, and then everyone else shunned her, too. Near the end of eighth grade, Rachel spread a rumor that Ivy liked this guy, Rick Colangelo.”

  “That name is familiar.” Max had seen it somewhere.

  “He was Travis Whitman’s best friend until Rick moved—and that was Ivy’s fault. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Anyway, Ivy had a crush on him, it was true, but when you’re thirteen you don’t want anyone to know. Rachel let it out, then told Ivy that Rick wanted to go to the graduation dance with her. So Ivy asked him—and he said he was already going with Heather.”

  “Heather Brock.”

  “Rachel had already known, but she’d wanted to humiliate Ivy for whatever it was that Ivy had done to her. And it worked. After that, Ivy changed. Her image m
eant everything to her.”

  Just like her mother.

  “What happened to Rachel?” Max asked.

  “She went to Branson, a private college prep school. She plays volleyball and softball and has probably never thought twice about Ivy—or me—since she left. So that left Heather. Ivy hated her so much, even though none of it was Heather’s fault. By the time Ivy posted that awful video, I don’t think she even remembered why she hated Heather.”

  “It seems that a lot of people were angry and upset with Ivy and what she posted on the Internet—their secrets, photos. Embarrassing them like Rachel did to her.”

  “Not really.”

  Max leaned forward. “I don’t understand.”

  “I guess some people were upset, but everyone knew that Ivy would post anything on her blog. The picture with Heather and Christopher in, um, you know … well, more people ‘liked’ that picture than any other picture Ivy posted. I think … well, I guess, Ivy thought the more people who liked her photos, the more popular she was. I mean hundreds of people clicked ‘like.’ It kind of egged her on, you know?”

  Max hadn’t thought of the situation from that perspective, but it made sense as soon as Bailey said it.

  She was about to ask another question when Bailey continued. “The more scandalous the photos, the better, and Ivy kept looking for things to post. She said if people didn’t want the attention, all they had to do was screw around in private. And it wasn’t just, you know, sex … it was anything. Like when Missy and Kyle were smoking pot on the beach … someone told Ivy about it, and she practically ran down there and took a photo. Sometimes she didn’t even need a photo. She saw Missy and Doug lip-locked under the bleachers when Missy was supposed to be all hot and heavy with Kyle, but Ivy’s phone was dead so she just posted an update about it later that night. She was actually pretty strict about that—she had to see it herself or someone had to send her a photo. And people did—Ivy didn’t take the first picture of Christopher and Heather.” Bailey took a deep breath. “That was me. I gave it to her.” Her voice cracked. “I wish I could have a do-over. I was just so angry when Christopher dumped me … I really liked him. And he wasn’t nice about it. I … I wouldn’t do something he wanted and he just said if I didn’t, he knew girls who did.”

  “What about the video?”

  Bailey shook her head. “I didn’t know about the video then—I was so mad at Ivy about posting the photo after I told her I changed my mind, I didn’t talk to her for weeks. And then she posted the video and Heather killed herself and I felt so awful, so guilty. That’s why I went to the Brocks in the first place. I know I can’t bring Heather back, but they needed to know the truth.”

  “One thing I noticed reading the police statements and reviewing social media is that Ivy never really talked about herself.”

  Bailey thought about that a minute. “I guess that’s strange, huh. Ivy was very private.”

  “She had a boyfriend who broke up with her a few weeks before she was killed. But Ivy never talked about the breakup on her blog.”

  “She did—subtweets.”

  From how David had explained it earlier, Max was vaguely aware of the practice but she didn’t quite understand it. She must have looked confused, because Bailey explained, “It’s when you’re talking about something or someone without mentioning their name, but everyone knows who you’re talking about. Ivy was so mad at Travis. I stopped going on social media after Heather, and transferred schools … but people talk all the time. Right before I left for San Diego, I heard about the photo of him smoking pot. I was stunned, because Travis is a jerk, but he’s one of these ‘my body is my temple’ athletes. It’s all he cares about. If you told me he took steroids, I’d believe it. But pot? Not his style. But … I didn’t doubt the photo. I don’t know who gave it to her or if she took it herself. Then I heard Travis claimed it was fake.”

  “And Ivy didn’t post anything else fake?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “So you could say that Ivy saw her social media presence as a popularity measure.”

  “Yeah—yeah, I guess that’s what it was.”

  Max pulled her iPad out of her purse and flipped to a page where she’d typed the names of everyone Ivy had humiliated in the three months leading up to her murder—at least the names David and her staff had identified from the archived pages. Rick Colangelo was on the list. Now she remembered—Ivy had posted something about him being bisexual.

  “You said that Rick Colangelo was Travis’s best friend?”

  “Yes. What did Ivy say about him? I’m serious that I didn’t follow anything she wrote. I don’t use social media anymore.”

  “She outed him.”

  “Rick—he’s gay?”

  “She claimed he was bisexual.”

  Bailey looked stricken. “I didn’t know. I guess … I don’t think anyone knew that. I’d always seen him with girls. He dated a girl from my school.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want people to know. Maybe he was unsure himself.”

  “Travis—oh, God, I’ll bet Travis said something to her, and Travis totally egged her on when he didn’t like someone. But that wouldn’t be right because he and Rick were tight.”

  “Where’s Rick now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Max made a note to find out everything about Rick Colangelo. And to talk again to Travis Whitman. If Ivy outed Travis’s best friend, it would give both Rick and Travis a motive.

  She showed the list to Bailey. “Did any of these people have lasting or serious repercussions from Ivy’s postings?”

  Bailey frowned. “I don’t feel comfortable doing this. I know what you’re asking: would any of these people have killed Ivy?”

  “The police have a theory,” Max said. “They think that whoever killed Ivy didn’t plan on killing her. That they met up with her to scare or threaten her, and in the heat of the moment killed her. A crime of passion, I suppose some would call it. Anger. Spontaneous. The police don’t have solid evidence tying any of their key suspects to the crime scene.”

  Bailey reluctantly looked at the list of names. There were dozens, a rather intimidating list. Max watched Bailey’s reaction as she scanned the names. She went from pale to white. “I … I never realized how many people she hurt. We hurt.”

  Pilar walked into the kitchen and cleared her throat. “Honey, you’re going to be late if you don’t leave now.”

  Bailey handed the iPad back to Max. “I’m a senior and can’t wait for high school to be over. I have no friends anymore, at least no one I trust. Some people avoid me because I was friends with Ivy. Some people come up to me with the latest gossip, to see what I’ll do or say. Most everyone is superficial, secretly thrilled that another person has been exposed for being a slut or a pothead or a cheater or whatever. As if the fall of one person makes them somehow better, higher up on some invisible ladder. After Heather, I hated myself. It’d be a lie to say it was easy, because there were days I didn’t want to go to school, I didn’t even want to get out of bed. Then I thought about my dad.” She closed her eyes and didn’t say anything for a minute. When she opened them, they were moist. “I don’t remember much about him. A few things—but I was six when he died and even before then he was deployed for months at a time. But when he was home, he would take me fishing. We would sit at this lake near base for hours and I would just be so happy that he was safe. And he would talk to me about his childhood, how his grandpa took him fishing because his dad was always too busy with work. And he said, and I’ll never forget, that even though he’s gone a lot, he’s always thinking about me and my mom. And the first weekend after he gets back, we’d always go fishing. Because he said it was while fishing that he learned how to be a good friend, a son, a grandson, a husband. He said the solitude of fishing made him a better human being.

  “I hated myself because I had disappointed my mother, but mostly, because I didn’t live up to my dad’s expectations. He told me
many times that courage was the most important thing. Courage, because it wasn’t always easy to do the right thing. It took courage to say goodbye every time he left. Courage to go to school and make friends. And my dad … he was the most courageous person I knew. Mom tells me stories…” Bailey’s voice drifted away as her eyes locked on Pilar. “Anyway, I thought of him looking down at me and being disappointed, and I couldn’t live with that. So I got out of bed and went to school, and I still do it even when I want to hide. Because I’m not going to let my dad down, and my mom needs me.

  “There’s only one person on this list who you didn’t mention who might have had a reason to go after Ivy. Sarah Thomsen. She’s a year older than us. Someone told Ivy that Sarah had cheated on her SAT test. Ivy ran with it, and Sarah—who’d been accepted into early admission at Stanford—was then denied admittance. They rescinded their acceptance. She was the valedictorian, but the school decided to take that away. Sarah lost it. She went after Ivy big time … she also claimed that she hadn’t cheated. She appealed the decision. She ended up being valedictorian because the school couldn’t prove she cheated, but Stanford still refused to admit her. I don’t know where she ended up going—but I know she blamed Ivy.”

  “Who gave Ivy the information?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think it was true?”

  Bailey hesitated, then shook her head. “I really don’t know, but if I had to guess, I would say no. Sarah was always the smartest girl in school. Honors society. AP classes. If you told me Christopher or Travis cheated? Yeah, I’d believe it. But why would Sarah cheat?”

  “Sometimes, smart people panic, and fear a poor test score would hurt them. Or they don’t do well on standardized tests.”

  “I get that, and maybe that’s what happened—Ivy was certain it was true. She didn’t outright say it, but implied that she witnessed the cheating. I didn’t know Sarah well—she was a year older than me.”