The Collective(76)

And I’d replied, “What do you mean?”

“Triple-Oh-One made a big mistake, introducing you and me.”

My phone’s GPS interrupts my thoughts, telling me to take a right on Dove Street, which I do. It’s a wide street, lined with tidy ranch houses that look as though they were all dropped there at the same time, probably at the turn of the century. Wendy’s house is a pale pink, with neatly trimmed azalea bushes lining the front entrance.

I park my car on the street, and as I make my way to the front door, I notice that there’s only one car parked in the driveway—a red Honda Civic. Wendy’s silver Camry is nowhere in sight, and she never mentioned a Honda Civic. Just the Camry and the Mercedes she tinkers with and never takes out . . . Don’t jump to conclusions, I tell myself, though I’m afraid to even think about what conclusions I’m jumping to. I press the doorbell—a screeching buzz that makes me jump back. I’d expected something more melodic.

I hear a deep voice say, “Just a minute,” and then the door opens and a tall black man with horn-rimmed glasses, chinos, and a yellow polo shirt stands there, eying me warily. “Carl Osterberg?” I say, because he does look like an accountant.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry. I guess . . . I didn’t expect you to be here.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Camille,” I tell him. “I’m . . . um . . . a friend of Wendy’s. From her Bachelor Reddit?”

“Wait. You’re the one who called?”

“Yes.” I let out some breath. “Is Wendy around? I think I might have left something—”

“What’s your deal?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why would you make a call like that? Why would you say you left something in her car?”

“Because I did.”

He stares at me for a long time. And then finally he speaks. “Wendy’s dead.”

“What . . . no.” My knees buckle. He catches me gently by the arm, and I feel woozy, my head light. “No, that couldn’t . . . It couldn’t have happened. Please.” Tears spill down my cheeks. “Please tell me this is a joke, or . . . or a mistake or . . .”

“It’s not.”

“I don’t believe you. You’re just trying to get rid of me. If she died, then where are the police? Where are the other cars? Why are you alone? How can you be so calm?”

He opens the door slightly, and I can see into his house—a neat, well-lit living room, a row of pictures on a fireplace mantel, family pictures. Vacation and school photos, all combinations of the same three people. And as he speaks, my gaze rests on the big one at the center: Carl in a suit, a curly-haired black woman in a wedding dress posing next to him. “I’m alone because my wife, Wendy, died six months ago,” he says. “And she never watched The Bachelor.”





Twenty-Two


Wendy Osterberg—the real Wendy Osterberg—died of an apparent suicide. According to her husband, Carl, from whom she was briefly separated but never actually divorced, it was sadly in character for Wendy to jump from the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge at three thirty in the morning. “She never was the same since our son died,” he explained. “But in those last few months, she really went off the deep end. One night, she had a lot to drink and started rambling about some plot to kill this kid we used to know years ago—a classmate of our son’s who was mean to him. Crazy, paranoid stuff. She was going to find the kid and warn him about the plot because two wrongs don’t make a right and it’s the worst sin to kill a child, even an evil one. . . . I couldn’t get her to calm down. Next day, she was fine, said she didn’t even remember saying any of it. . . .”

As he spoke, I remembered the woman I knew as Wendy, the spark of joy in her eyes as she told me what happened to the boy who had raped Tyler. He flung himself off a bridge six months ago. Imagine that.

“Imagine that,” I whisper.

I’m back in Mount Shady now, driving through the center of town, past Analog and the community center, past Brilliance Jewelry Store, where Matt used to buy most of my birthday presents, and the ice cream shop, Sprinkles, where we held Emily’s sixth-birthday party. It all looks fake to me—like an old-fashioned movie set, a plywood false front I could have pushed over years ago.

I reach Mountain, the street that leads up to my home, and as I turn on it, I think about how many different turns I could have made in life—staying in New York rather than moving here, especially. Mount Shady is a lovely town, but it’s also homogenous and boring, and boredom dulls your ability to make the right decisions. Boredom creeps up on you slowly, wraps its tendrils around you and tugs at you in such a subtle yet constant way, you’ll do anything to escape it. You’ll behave recklessly and stupidly. You’ll trust the wrong people, with disastrous results. Emily would still be alive if we’d stayed in New York. Matt and I would still be married—or at the very least, divorced for far less tragic reasons. I wouldn’t even know what the dark web is, let alone A?layan Kaya. And I wouldn’t be pulling into my driveway, grabbing my biggest spade out of the garden shed, roaring a mile up a mountain road, and parking at a trailhead on a freezing early February afternoon—all to dig up a gun I once tried to kill myself with, so I can protect myself from a group of murderers who have been stalking me for days.