The Collective(57)

“Call Luke.” I say it without thinking. My phone dials his number, and he answers before I have time to think better of it, the warmth of his voice lassoing me back.

“You’re a mind reader,” he says. “Grady and I were just talking about you.”

Jim Grady. His police consultant. My nerves roil again. I take a breath, deep into my lungs, then let it out slowly. It’s what Joan used to call a cleansing breath, and it works, somewhat. The world around me shifts back into focus, and when I speak, I sound normal and relaxed. “Actually, I butt-dialed you.”

“Then I guess your butt is a mind reader.”

I force out a laugh. Make myself ask it, because if I were innocent in the matter, it’s what I would ask. “Anything new about Harris Blanchard?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. I was just telling Grady how much I admire you.”

“Okay, what do you want?”

“I’m not kidding. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about everything you’ve been through as a parent. It would have killed most people. But you’re still here. You’ve survived.”

“That’s debatable.”

“I mean it, Cam. I don’t think I’ve ever told you this. You’re the toughest person I know.”

The GPS tells me to turn left on the next street, and as I do it, I feel myself smiling. “I survive,” I tell Luke, “because I have a friend who’s worth living for.”

“Aw.”

“Not kidding,” I tell him. “You and Nora had better take care of yourselves. Roll yourselves up in Bubble Wrap or something—”

“Hey, where are you?”

“Huh?”

“I just heard your GPS,” he says. “You’re not doing another Bachelor thing, are you? It’s not even Monday.”

I take another cleansing breath, recite the script 0001 sent me. “I’m actually going to a grief-counseling group I saw an announcement for online,” I tell him. “Rest assured, no Final Roses will be served.”

“I’ll let you go, Cam,” he says. “See you soon.”

After I hang up, I think about him and Nora coming to visit in just four days. I wonder if he’ll notice anything different about me and, if he does, what lies I can tell to keep him from learning what that thing is. I’ve never lied to Luke before. I don’t know if I’ll be able.


I ARRIVE AT Beth Shalom Cemetery at 8:20, then drive twice around the block before finally parking my car directly across the street from the cemetery’s entrance at 8:28.

There’s a large vacant lot here, with a sign that reads, FUTURE HOME OF FOX GLENN ASSISTED CARE FACILITY. I hope that when the place is built, all the windows face in the other direction.

There are very few cars besides mine along this street—a Tesla and a Porsche, their drivers nowhere in sight. It must be a safe area, people trusting cars like that across from a lonely cemetery this late. There is no crosswalk, but the street isn’t busy. One car passes, then another, and then there’s no one for a long while. I settle in and watch the entrance, sipping some of the bitter, lukewarm coffee from the to-go cup.

Even on such a dark, quiet night, this cemetery seems more welcoming than the one at Brayburn College, I imagine because there’s no imposing gate outside—no gate at all, actually. Just a simple illuminated sign out front—gold letters on a pale marble background.

My second cemetery today. I replay the funeral in my mind. Those two weak speeches, the girls with their sign, Lisette Blanchard sobbing into her husband’s lapel. The flip side of the Martha L. Koch Humanitarian Award ceremony at the Brayburn Club, as though a sparkling curtain had been pulled, revealing something sad and rotting behind it.

What would Luke say if I told him I’d been one of the people to pull back that curtain—that I bought the knife that was found on Blanchard’s body? I want to think he’d still admire me, but I know he would be horrified. Unlike me, Luke Charlebois is not a monster.

I switch off my radio. It’s 8:40 now. I aim my eyes at the cemetery’s entrance.

Five minutes later I see a shifting form moving up the walkway, a shadow playing on the illuminated sign, and then on the path out front. Right on schedule.

He wears a long dark coat and moves quickly. He’s a giant. A freak. My hands ball into fists. This feels like a nightmare—an enormous ghoul emerging from a cemetery, flying straight at me.

But when he steps into the dim light, he’s much smaller than his shadow had led me to believe. It’s not a nightmare. He’s just a man, approximately five nine.

A car passes, and it feels like a screen wipe. I’m back to business now. I can see 0001’s words in my mind: Do not leave your car until you see him exit the cemetery. Act as if you are making a call. . . . DO NOT speak to him until he is crossing the street. I get out of my car. I step into the streetlight and start playing with my phone. I sense him stepping off the curb, but my gaze doesn’t lift until I hear his footsteps jogging across the macadam.

And that’s when I see his face.

“Oh my God,” I whisper. The clean-shaven head, the hollow cheeks, eyes peering out from beneath a low brow, just as they’d glared into his rearview mirror and through my windshield two weeks ago. That purposeful Manhattan stride. That expensive coat. That shiny Porsche, parked up the street, behind the Tesla. It’s his Porsche. I know you. His name escapes my lips. “Dr. Duval.”