The Herd(33)

I was about to switch off my phone when Mikki texted: “I’ve been thinking about this a lot.”

No. No. No. No.

I tensed my shoulders, squinted my eyes, bracing as her second text came through.

She wrote: “I think we need to tell them.”





CHAPTER 10





Katie


TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 9:30 P.M.

Eleanor. I kept going over the last time I’d seen her the night before. I’d just drained my mocktail, a purply thing called the Botanist, and I was eager to get home and jot down some details from my experience: the music, the energy, the member I’d met who was the first nonbinary model to grace the cover of Vogue. A general loveliness I wanted to capture. I’d glanced over at Eleanor and debated grabbing her arm to say good night, but she’d been Eleanoring hard, working the room, and so I’d slipped into the elevator and told myself I’d see her in the morning.

But I hadn’t seen her since then—what if I never would? There was still a small part of me clinging to the idea that she had, inexplicably, skipped town. But Eleanor’s career was everything; she wouldn’t destroy it. And her friends were a close second, and leaving would be a betrayal of sorts, with all of us panicking in her wake. But no, I had to believe that that was the case, because the alternatives were awful: kidnapped, taken, drugged, maybe hurt, possibly even…

I leaned back against my pillows. My phone was still on my lap, headphones tossed on top. My call with Erin had been almost an out-of-body experience. Though sworn to secrecy, she was thrilled. (Agent-client privilege, she kept saying, as if that were a real thing.) She was trying to hide it, trying to make sympathetic noises and ask appropriately kind questions, but I could sense it. I was freaking out on the phone, attempting to keep my voice steady, but in an odd, horrible way, her excitement had been the tiniest bit infectious. I was worried sick but also thrumming, like an amp that’s just been switched on, emitting a hollow buzz.

Perhaps because now I could do something, I could help. The cops were unimpressed, unenthused, unmotivated: Now that they knew Eleanor and her husband weren’t monogamous, they likely thought she’d absconded voluntarily. Adrenaline shot through my limbs, and with it a desire to figure it out, to know, to pound at the door or the wall or the muscly chest of whomever knew the truth: What happened to Eleanor?

Ted. He was the low-hanging fruit, as Eleanor had said, presciently. We’d chatted earlier tonight at the presentation—him smiling as he untangled cords and unpacked equipment—but only for a minute before Hana had texted in a tizzy. He’d given me his card on Friday, as we were leaving the Herd, and now I found it in a heap of receipts on my desk:





You spelled “defy” wrong, I’d announced in the elevator, because saying mean shit is my love language.

It stands for Do It For You. Like, in contrast to DIY. It made sense at the time. He’d probably been forced to explain it hundreds of times, but still he smiled easily. He had these luminous gray eyes, beaming out under wide brown eyebrows—

Focus, Katie.

“Hello?”

“It’s Katie.”

“Any updates on Eleanor?”

“No, nothing.”

“I don’t know why anyone thinks I know anything.” He sounded defensive. “Hana called me too. I’m as worried and clueless as you guys are.”

“They asked about exes. I had no idea you’re Cameron’s brother.”

“Yeah.” There was a flatness in his voice. Finally: “You know him?”

“No, we never crossed paths. And after they split, Eleanor barely mentioned him. Do you know why they broke up?”

“Which time?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Well, first time she was leaving for Harvard.” He sort of chuckled. “Second time, she was moving to New York. I don’t know the details, but you can connect the dots.”

“You didn’t know anything about their relationship? Aren’t you two good friends?”

“Eleanor and me? Yeah, for sure.” He cleared his throat. “But she didn’t talk to me about dating. Especially not about dating my brother. And Cameron and me, we’ve never been close. Anyway, I don’t think the two of them have talked in years. Not for any bad reason, just ’cause they grew apart or whatever. He’s up in Beverly.”

“Huh.” I centered my voice between agreement and skepticism and then waited, but he stayed silent. “When did you see her last?”

“When I came in to reset the router. And met you. Friday, right?” I assented. “I was supposed to do an audio check at Hielo tonight and then—well, obviously.”

“Do you know when you last heard from her? Email or text or anything?”

“Hang on.” A little fumbling. “Eleanor texted me around noon. I was confirming when I should be at the restaurant, and she just sent a thumbs-up.”

“And before that? The last time she said anything substantive?”

“Let me check.”

It wasn’t unusual for Eleanor to be terse in messages—with great power comes great ability to send one-word texts and dumb acronyms and emails that lack any sign of proofreading (or, at times, of coherence whatsoever).