The Herd(42)

I grabbed it and reread the text: So it seems Eleanor’s out of commission, hmm?

“What is it?” Mikki prompted again.

My fingers and jaw had gone cold, as if someone had propped open the door to the rooftop above us. I looked into her eyes and decided it was safe to share.

“Please don’t tell Hana,” I said, “or anyone, okay? But I’ve been—I was thinking about pitching an article about the Herd, a business profile timed to the Fort Greene location opening.” A ham-fisted lie, but it’d do. “And I reached out to the guy who filed that stupid discrimination suit earlier this year, since I thought it was relevant—talking to the people who basically show why the Herd needs to exist, right?”

Mikki nodded.

“We didn’t even end up talking—he flaked on our interview. But he just sent me this.” I handed her my phone and she gasped.

“How does he know this?”

I shook my head. “He could just mean that she wasn’t at the event last night—‘family emergency’—and she hasn’t been on social or anything since then. He’s probably mildly obsessed with her.”

“Do you think he’s a stalker?”

“No idea. In my research, I didn’t see a restraining order or anything.” I flipped the phone’s volume button on and off. “Did anyone mention him to the cops? Like, as a possible enemy? He has—bad blood, certainly.”

“Motive.” Mikki frowned. “I don’t think anyone did. The lawsuit went nowhere. But you should probably let that detective know.” She reached for her bag. “Do you still have her card?”

I left Ratliff a voicemail, then texted Carl back: “What do you mean?” No response.

And not much time to worry about it, because around noon, Fatima arrived. I scurried to the front desk, where her jaw was shuddering from the continued cold snap; it felt appropriate somehow, the outside providing that same teeth-chattering discomfort I felt whenever I thought of Eleanor’s absence. Again, I pushed down the anxiety like someone sitting on an overstuffed suitcase to zip it: I can solve this.

I settled Fatima into a corner sofa and set my laptop on the cushion between us. The whole thing felt a bit like sorcery: Fatima typed an IP address into my browser and entered the router info Ted had provided, and then the screen flooded with ugly raw data.

Fatima gestured with a flourish: “This is it. It’s way less than I thought there’d be. Apparently it only has the history going back to…” She squinted at the screen. “The thirteenth. What is that, Friday?”

“Yeah, Friday night. They just reset the router.” I frowned, remembering. “There were only three of us here that night, and Eleanor was the last one using it.”

She scrolled, clicked, then pointed. “That’s her, then. I’ll pull it into its own file.”

“You’re a wizard.”

“I prefer ‘goddess.’?” She handed the laptop back over. “I gotta bounce, but I should have those Click profiles for you soon.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and nodded toward my screen. “Hope you find something helpful in there. And, you know. I’m praying for your friend.” I thanked her and waved, the kind words reigniting the alarm I’d been suppressing.

I looked back at the words and numbers swimming across my screen. Eleanor. AKA IP address 95.246.174.28. On Friday night, before we left to drink Prosecco, Eleanor was on Gmail for a few minutes. I almost dismissed this, then remembered that I’d seen the email client on her work computer: Outlook, her domain @theherd.com. I, for one, had no record of a Gmail account belonging to Eleanor.

She was back in the office on Saturday, the last warmish day before the cold descended, while Hana and I were out looking at window displays and arguing over whether or not I’d sell secrets like some shady back-alley salesman. Eleanor had read the Times, clicked around on The Gaze, looked at Twitter, and somehow spent just three minutes on an inordinate number of views of White Plains, New York, in Google Maps. She passed a few minutes online banking at HSBC, which I almost disregarded—but wait, she banked with Chase.

I was pulling out my folder with printouts of her bank statements when Detective Ratliff called. I told her about my sudden, creepy text from Carl, carefully repeating the line about my surreptitious article research. She asked for a screenshot and my copy of the court filing.

I tugged at my earlobe. “If you question him, then he’ll know she’s really missing, right?”

“I can’t imagine we’ll tell him. Right now we think it’s best to not release any information to the public. But we’ll follow up on this and get in touch with Mr….Berkowski if we feel it necessary.”

“Okay. Thanks for your time.” Why does thank you so often throw on a suit and stand in for fuck you?

I hung up and wandered over to the snack bar. I ordered an artichoke hummus platter, then gazed at the beige mush and realized I had never been less hungry. As I pushed cucumbers around on my plate, I looked again at the Chase bank statements. There were an awful lot of ATM withdrawals, come to think of it. Not easy to spot—they were at different locations, round numbers with the fee tacked on, $123.50 from a Duane Reade in Hell’s Kitchen and $182 from a restaurant in DUMBO. Three or four times a week, another wad of cash withdrawn—and of course, Eleanor was a cashless Millennial, whipping out cards or paying for a round with her phone. Why was she squirreling away wads of bills?