The Herd(35)
My heart raced as I scanned through the usual profile words (running, CrossFit, travel, foodie…). I was desperate for any clue, anything that would point me to Eleanor, panicked at the thought that just as we were reconnecting, I could lose her for good. My hands went cold when I got to the end:
You should message me if: You’re patient, chill, and okay with the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing, lol. My wife (MoreFracturedLight) is the most incredible partner in the world and we’re making this up as we go along.
I had never before clicked a link with such ferocity. MoreFracturedLight’s profile was less complete than Daniel’s, with only one image of her from behind, wearing a floral dress somewhere sunny—but that dark ripply hair, the hourglass frame, this was definitely her. Anonymous enough that no one could prove it, though. She’d filled out just one section, the most barebones of profiles:
Self-summary: Exploring my options in a newly open relationship. I write back rarely; patience, please.
I whimpered aloud; here I thought I’d found a lead, but it was just another dead end. A sudden electronic chirrup made me jump—I had a new message on Click, from a headless figure showing off his decent abs over some low-slung sweatpants in a dirty bathroom mirror: “So your the mysterious type lol.” God. A woman needs neither photos nor words to attract creepers here—just a female designation. I sent both Daniel’s and Eleanor’s profiles to my printer and listened to it screeching away, the sheets skittering onto the floor as the machine spat them past the tray. I stapled them and slipped them in the folder.
My phone buzzed on my bed.
“Calling you in 20.” Fatima, finally responding to the text I’d sent from my car ride home. A little space opened up in my chest.
I’d first met Fatima when I was on-staff at Rocket (moment of silence), when the scrappy tech website not only existed but even had the funds to bring people in for workshops. Fatima had led a brief master class on “digital investigation techniques,” and she was fabulous and fierce, with her blue-green hair and shit-kicking boots. The next day I’d invited her to coffee, and over lattes she revealed that she’s a fairly talented hacker-for-hire. We hadn’t talked in years, but I felt galvanized by her quick reply.
And she had taught her student well; while awaiting her call, I combed through some criminal databases, moving quickly to keep ahead of the hysteria smoldering in my chest. Nothing for Eleanor; a DUI for Daniel in June 2002, which put him in…college, if my calculations were correct. Neither one showed up in sex-offender registries, thank God. I checked a police report database: nothing for Daniel, but in October, Eleanor had reported her passport and wallet stolen. I couldn’t see the details of the incident report, but it didn’t ID it as a mugging or break-in—just a theft. To the printer with all of it.
Most of Eleanor’s hits in the public-record database were unsurprising: trademarking Gleam and the Herd, that kind of thing. But my search resurfaced court records I’d been looking at just days ago to track down the angry Antiherd mob who’d brought a suit against the Herd. I shivered; in just twenty-four hours, Carl Berkowski had gone from an annoying potential source to something much more sinister. A potential abductor?
My phone exploded with sound; I jumped so high, I practically bonked my head on the ceiling.
“Fatima?”
“?’Sup.” It was a statement, not a question.
My voice shook as I skidded past our normal pleasantries. “Look, I can’t really explain, but I’m going through some shit and I need you to look into something for me. And it has to be secret.”
“Like everything I do. What’s up?”
“A friend of mine just went missing,” I said, “tonight. I’m trying to find her.”
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry. But, okay, I’m here to help.”
I quickly brought her up to speed. “I feel like looking at their inboxes would tell me a lot. I know that’s not…entirely legal.”
“What are their email addresses?” Fatima prompted. Her lack of hesitation steeled me. I shared them and she was quiet for a minute. “Nope, two-step verification on both. Not gonna happen.”
If only hacking were as easy as it looked on TV: Hack into location services, hack into police records, hack into anything as if cyberwalls and VPNs and security measures were little white baby gates to be snapped open or stepped over.
“What about browsing history?” I asked.
“Do you have her Wi-Fi info?”
“At her apartment? No.” An idea blossomed: “Is there a way to see what she was doing at the Herd?”
“Just her? Hmm. If you were physically there, I could have you log into the router. Problem is, it’d include data on everyone’s devices.”
“I could narrow it down by time—she’s usually the last person there.”
“Ooh, that’s all I need. Might take some guesswork to get into the router, though.”
I smiled. “I can ask the guy who set it up.” I jotted down her instructions and set a time for her to come by the Herd.
“Anything else you want me to look into between now and then?”
I rested my chin in my hand. “Eleanor and her husband both have Click profiles,” I announced. “I’d like to see their messages. I’m trying to figure out who Eleanor was seeing, and who Daniel was with last night.”