The Herd(39)

“No. She’s always put her career first—she wouldn’t run away because of a broken heart. And anyway, Daniel claims it was her idea.”

“Yeah. Well, it worries me because Eleanor’s got enemies.” He pointed at the wall and I wasn’t sure what he was referring to—the fireplace? The stockings hung by the chimney with care? “She comes up all the time in the news. She’s a public figure.”

The TV, mounted on the exposed brick. “Do strangers who hate her count as enemies?”

“You know what I mean.”

“So you think someone did something to her?”

“Dunno. Could also mean she had to get away.”

“What makes you think that, though? I can’t see her running away from all the good stuff she has going for her.”

“I didn’t tell the cops.” He brought his hands to his jaw, ran a knuckle over his mouth. “When they called? But she called me out of the blue, maybe three months ago.” He folded his fingers under his chin. “She asked if I knew anyone who could forge a passport. I don’t know what she had in mind, but I keep thinking about it. Why would she be messing with that kind of shit?”

My mouth gaped open, an oval of shock. “Why didn’t you tell the cops? It could help them. And who did you send her to?”

The look he shot me stung like a whip. “I didn’t tell them ’cause I don’t need them thinking I’m a perp. I told Eleanor I don’t know anyone. I’m not part of some vast criminal network, you know.”

I felt embarrassed, then indignant—Eleanor’s no idiot, and she’d thought Cameron could help. “Sorry. I’m just so shocked to hear that. I think of Eleanor as, you know, an upstanding, law-abiding citizen.”

“Most of the time,” he muttered.

I turned to him sharply—no, he must just mean the fake passport. I shook my head. “Have you talked to Gary and Karen?”

“Sure. I checked in with them. They gave me the idea to come down.” He turned on Eleanor’s father’s thick Boston accent: “?‘You let me know if you think we should get in the cah and head down theh.’?”

Eleanor’s parents had been in Mikki’s and my lives fairly regularly during college, taking us out to dinner near campus or having us all up for the weekend. Though I didn’t know the details, I had the impression Gary and Karen were like surrogate parents to Ted and Cameron too. They were almost comically nice, the kind of people who send a thank-you card for your thank-you gift. I thought of them and felt a surge of warmth and pity—Gary, a baseball cap–wearing real-estate developer and community magnate with a bald head and loads of energy, and Karen, a retired nurse with her crisp slacks and silver bob. Being with them was always soothing, my first true glimpse into how an unsplintered family could feel. They, too, must be praying she’d run off on her own and was safe and fine. It was a strange thing to hope for.

“Cameron, you’ve known Eleanor longer than I have,” I said. “To me, this isn’t like her at all. Has she ever done anything like this?”

“Nah.” He thought, then shrugged. “Actually, I guess her parents would say yes. When she was still in high school, if her parents were pissing her off she’d come stay with me. Or she’d crash with her friends—Mrs. Walsh would call me in a panic. Eleanor was, you know. So young.”

I laugh-scoffed. “I mean, we all were. In high school.”

“But she was especially—you know she skipped two grades, right?”

“She did?” Did I know that? It felt new.

“She skipped seventh and eighth grade,” he said, frowning. “She was two years below Ted, at first. So she was twelve when she started at that Catholic high school.” He cleared his throat. “We didn’t date till her senior year, obviously. When she was sixteen. But I figured you guys knew, at least, even if she didn’t make a big thing of it.”

I tilted my head. “So she’s actually thirty right now?”

“Uh…three years younger than me, so yeah.”

“Huh.” I leaned back. It was a small discrepancy, but a weird one: Why keep this from us all these years? Had Eleanor hid it in the first few years of college and then felt she couldn’t come clean? We all had fake IDs from freshman year on, good ones, so it wouldn’t have been hard to quietly slip that out of her wallet even throughout senior year. But all this time, all these articles about Gleam and the Herd and, well, her, all extolling the accomplishments of a woman of a certain age—our age.

“You think that’s relevant?” he asked.

“No. It’s just weird.” I cracked my knuckles. “I think if something bad happened to Eleanor, we owe it to her to try to help.”

“And that’s what you’re trying to do?”

“I am. Same as you.”

“No one’s demanded ransom, no contact at all?”

I winced. “Nope.”

“Well, the last time I heard from her was when she was asking about a forged ID. Before that, we hadn’t talked since her wedding. Seriously, no one’s suspicious of her husband?”

Had Daniel done something to Eleanor? The thought made my stomach roil; he’d always seemed to dote on her, but his behavior today, business as usual, was nothing if not bizarre. I felt an odd instinct to ask Eleanor what she thought about it, followed by a rinse of despair. “Daniel seems genuinely worried and eager to have her back,” I said. “I’m curious to hear what he’s learned from the cops.”