The Collective(78)

“Take a breath, Luke. Please.”

Penelope starts to laugh, and I want to pull the trigger.

“Your email. You told me to come right up. Were you high? You said it was life-and-death.”

My own heart is racing now. They hacked my email. “Where are you?”

“In your house. I drove up as soon as I could.”

“How did you—”

“Your friend from The Bachelor Reddit let me in.”

“What?”

“Wendy. You want to talk to her? She’s right here. She’s been trying to calm me down, but she was scared too.”

I open my mouth, but my voice is gone.

Luke says, “Are you there?”

I force myself to speak, to sound calm. “Sure, I’ll talk to Wendy.”

Penelope nods at me. “Good move,” she says quietly.

A voice pours into my ear, full of saccharine concern, that sick fuck. That fake Wendy Osterberg. “Are you okay, honey? I was so worried when I got your email. Thank God, you’re all right.”

“Don’t hurt him. Please don’t—”

“Yeah, Camille. Don’t worry. We’re right here waiting for you, and we care about you. Luke, honey. You okay? Hope you don’t mind, Camille. I gave him some of the orange juice in your refrigerator. His sugar drops when he gets panicky, but you already knew that about him, right?”

I can’t speak. I stare at Penelope. The pistol now clutched in her hand. I don’t drink orange juice. I don’t ever buy it.

“Hurry back, okay?” says the voice in my ear. “See you soon. Drive safely, please.”

She ends the call.

“Drop the gun,” Penelope says. “Or we will kill your friend.”

I do. She follows me out of Unicorn River and we hike back out together, her gun at my back.


THEY PUT MULTIPLE chips on my car. That’s the one, pointless thought that runs through my mind throughout the short drive home, and again as Penelope opens the door to my car and marches me into my house, the barrel of the gun now pressed between my shoulder blades. I suppose it’s because it’s easier than thinking of anything else. I wonder how many chips. And how much each of them cost.

Once we’re in the kitchen, Penelope shuts the door and locks it. “She’s here!” she calls out.

And then I hear another voice, Wendy’s voice, in the living room. “About time,” she says. She is on the couch next to Luke, who sits motionless, his head lolling against his chest.

“No . . .” I whisper.

She rolls her eyes. “He’s alive,” she says. “I only gave him enough orange juice to knock him out for a bit.”

Penelope laughs.

I stare at Wendy. She’s wearing baggy jeans. A sweater with candy canes all over it. Her eyes are granite behind her clear-framed glasses. “You’re Triple-Oh-One.”

“Yes,” she says. “But Penelope’s a close second. When we were on the Kimball thing, for instance, she was the one texting the burner.”

“I thought you were my friend.”

“I’m not.”

“Then why . . .”

“I wanted to see what you are capable of, Camille,” she says quietly. “I certainly found out.”

My eyes go to Luke, his breathing hard. Raspy. “He . . . he has a heart condition. The drug you gave him.”

“He’s fine. I’m a doctor.”

She stands up, and I see it glimmering in her hand. A long hunting knife.

“Don’t hurt him,” I tell her. “Please. I don’t want—”

“You don’t want your daughter’s heart to stop again? Is that what you were going to say?”

“No, I—”

“What do you think it meant, Camille, when you swore on Emily’s memory?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did you think it was some pinkie swear? A sorority oath? Well, it wasn’t. I hate that shit. I like things that are tangible. Real. And Luke’s heart—which you told me all about during the night we weren’t supposed to be talking—well, that’s about as close to Emily’s memory as you’re going to get.”

“I’m . . . I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt him. I won’t ever go against the collective again. I swear.”

“I don’t believe you. But you know what? If I did, it wouldn’t matter.”

Penelope laughs again. “She doesn’t get it,” she says. “It’s so strange. She has no idea.”

Wendy looks at her. “I told you.”

Sweat pours down the back of my neck. It’s hard to breathe. “What are you talking about?”

Wendy sighs. “You murdered my daughter, Camille,” she says. “You’ve been a target from day one.

My mouth goes dry. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Joan Lowell. Your therapist. She was my only living child.”

I’m frozen, unable to speak, my thoughts racing back to that night at Camp Acacia. Wendy’s face in the moonlight. The first and only time I noticed the resemblance.

“I saw that tape of you at the Brayburn Club,” she says, “that grief and rage, so similar to my own. The original plan had been to kill you, but in spite of all that, I had lost a daughter too. I knew your pain. I thought, Maybe, at the very least, I can help her first.”