The Herd(24)

They stared at me, two kids begging their mom to make it all okay. Eleanor wouldn’t miss this for the world. But…but Eleanor had to be okay. I took a deep breath and pulled myself together, an inward sweep.

“I’m sure Eleanor’s fine,” I said, my voice a tick lower. It was what everyone wanted—reassurance it’d all work out somehow. “But you’re right. We can’t make the announcement until we know where she is.”

Joanna Chen was calling me again. She wouldn’t be happy.

“Okay. I need to cancel the interview. And recall the press release, which is scheduled to go out in twenty minutes. And make an announcement to everyone who came out tonight. Oh, lord.” A headache materialized, a little spear behind my right eyeball.

“Can we help?” Mikki asked, and Katie nodded eagerly.

Ugh, if only. “Thanks, but I’ve got this. Maybe you guys could see if the events coordinator heard from her. It’s the bald guy in a suit.” They marched off and I followed. In the dining room, Joanna looked annoyed, and I snapped into professional mode.

I delivered the bad news to her first, apologizing profusely as the blood drained from her face. Then I was a squirrel paralyzed in the middle of the street as I jerked toward my laptop to recall the press release and the podium to disappoint the jumpy masses here. Finally I took off for the front of the room, fumbling with the microphone until Ted came to the rescue, and blurted it out, my composure fraying: “Eleanor sincerely apologizes but due to a family emergency, we’re postponing this evening’s announcement. A press alert will not be issued at eight p.m., but I promise to keep you personally apprised once we have more information.” Confusion and annoyance ruffled through the crowd. Mikki and Katie were watching me from the corner of the room, their faces a dead giveaway that something was wrong. I smiled. “Again, we’re so sorry, but we have the space until ten so please enjoy the food and drinks until then. Thank you.”

I bolted for the elevators, bleating apologies at those who tried to stop me, and skidded into the conference room I’d reserved for Eleanor and Joanna’s interview. Ignoring my jolting phone, I tapped away at my laptop, until—7:58, with two whole minutes to spare, I sat back. The press release wouldn’t be sent out.

I glanced at my phone. “Ted and events manager know nothing,” Mikki had texted. “Still no word from E?”

I was beginning to text her back when another message came through, this one from Eleanor’s husband: “Just got home. Eleanor’s not here.”

Shit. I rubbed a knuckle against the bridge of my nose, tears for the first time prickling my eyes. If she wasn’t home…where the hell was she?

I started to reply, then saw he was typing again. His text appeared and I had to read it several times before it had meaning.

My insides turned to ice and my hands began to shake.

Daniel said: “Something’s wrong. She hasn’t been home at all.”





CHAPTER 7





Katie


TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 7:55 P.M.

At first I’d thought everyone was overreacting, the way they did with the Gleam Room graffiti: imagining menace in something childish and at least a little hilarious. But now that we’d collated our data points—Eleanor’s cryptic texts, her missed beauty appointment, the fact that no one, not even her husband, had heard from her—I was beginning to worry too. This wasn’t like Eleanor. She allayed stress, never caused it. She’d seemed normal at Mocktails last night, hadn’t she? Relaxed and charming as ever.

I’d almost skipped Mocktails—I’d almost headed home in defeat. My stomach clenched at the memory now…had I somehow endangered Eleanor, summoned one of her haters back into her life? Monday afternoon, I was alone in a booth at a diner in my neighborhood, one with cracked, greasy menus and cracked, greasy tabletops and pots of bad coffee burbling behind the counter. I’d chosen it because I wanted to meet my interview subject in public, for obvious reasons, but that meant choosing somewhere I knew no Herder would see me.

But Carl Berkowski, the surprisingly affable-seeming man who’d led the charge behind Berkowski v. The Herd, Inc. (and who was almost certainly a member of the Antiherd), hadn’t shown. Around 3:30, I’d checked my phone for the fourth time in as many minutes; after a half hour of waiting and no response to emails and texts, I decided to throw in the towel.

This was supposed to be my first real interview since Erin had talked her way into my living room, since I’d blurted out Eleanor’s name like I was screaming a password, Open Sesame, a way out of the mess I’d made. I was relieved to pour my efforts into something other than Infopocalypse, but Hana’s out-of-left-field warning to not even think about writing about the Herd…it had me shook.

But I couldn’t stop now. I’d promised Erin a progress report by midweek, once the Herd’s big announcement was splashed across front pages all over the world, wide web and otherwise. I’d figured I’d have some yarns to show her by then, some interesting backstory and colorful characters. Like this men’s rights dude, Carl. Of course his name was Carl.

But Carl had stood me up, freed up my Monday. I’d slapped down my laptop’s screen and signaled for the check. I got on the C train daydreaming about the Herd’s airy beauty. My second Monday Mocktails was spectacular; the bartender was from the Elm Grove, known for their creative use of tinctures and fermented teas and drinking vinegars, and at one point I’d looked out at the crowd, all these cool women being kind to one another, and I thought: No wonder you wish you could be a part of this, Carl.