The Herd(64)

She regarded me for a second, then nodded. She got out her earbuds, prepared to seal off the conversation.

“Did you ever call Mom?” I asked.

“Ugh, I completely forgot. I will soon. How’s she doing?”

“Okay.”

We both went back to staring at the woolly world outside.

A few hours into the ride, Hana’s phone rang. She’d been dozing and I watched as she startled, then stared at the screen. I didn’t catch the name, but she answered in a low voice.

She listened, hunched over, piping up with the occasional, “I’m sorry, what?” and “Can you repeat that?” and “Are you sure?” The female voice on the other end of the line was fucking livid, and Hana turned to shoot me a barbed stare before standing and walking off toward the end of the car. It was the shocked, betrayed look a dog aims at you when you’ve pretended to have a treat and then opened your empty fist. My heart plummeted. It was over. As Erin had warned. Hana knew.

I sat there, bathed in that cold, rushing feeling. My teeth began to chatter and I wished there were an escape hatch, somewhere I could run and hide. Finally, Hana returned and sat down carefully, staring straight ahead.

“That was Aurelia,” she said, her voice soft and terrifying. “Katie, please tell me. That you did not tell your publisher. That you’d write a tell-all exposé about Eleanor.”

My jaw was chittering too hard for me to open it and speak. Slowly, slowly, she turned to look at me.

“Tell me it’s not true.”

“I didn’t call it a tell-all exposé,” I said with the voice of a five-year-old. She made me repeat myself and I knew I was fucked.

“Let me get this straight,” she said, lifting her eyebrows. “You told your editor you’d write a book about Eleanor.” I nodded. “And you didn’t ask for permission or come talk to me about it.” Nodded again. “And so you were secretly reporting out this book for a proposal, knowing full well Eleanor hadn’t and probably wouldn’t sign off on it.” I started to protest and she went on: “No, don’t even. Because I also know that you’ve been feeding your agent confidential information, and that—no, listen to me—that is the reason news of her death was leaked. Which fucked up the investigation and has made the NYPD furious. That’s what you’ve done.”

I knew I should apologize, should roll over and show my belly, but defensiveness barreled out first: “Okay, I had nothing to do with the leak. I told my agent everything we discussed was in confidence and she messed up, she let it slip to a coworker, who apparently passed it on. And I one-hundred-percent planned to talk to you—and, and Eleanor, originally—when the time was right. I hadn’t even started a proposal yet. I was just trying to see if I could report this out instead of my other book idea because that didn’t work out. But this was just deep background, and obviously that was before she went missing, and I would never—”

“Just stop!” Hana shot both palms out and I recoiled, like she’d hit me. “Katie, stop. You’re not talking your way out of this. You’re not—actually, you’re doing exactly what you always do, using my connections and then making a mess of them and then trusting that ol’ Hana’s going to be here to clean it up for you.”

My jaw dropped. “What are you talking about? You kept—”

Someone shushed us, fiercely, and we both whipped our chins over to an elderly man across the aisle.

I lowered my voice. “You kept trying to hook me up with your fancy-ass contacts, and you know what? I didn’t take a single meeting. I didn’t take you up on a single goddamn thing, because I knew you would do this, you’d lord it over me and continue to tell yourself and everyone else that I can’t do shit without you, that I’m this useless little kid who can’t take care of herself—”

“Can you? I mean, look at yourself. You get all this money to write this amazing book, and what do you do? You throw it away. And what do you mean that other idea ‘didn’t work out’?”

“It’s not—I wasn’t trying to—”

“And anyway, my God, I am so sorry for trying to help you. For trying to get you into the Herd when there are hundreds of women dying to get in.” This was disorienting, this was churning around in a dangerous riptide, which way was up, who was this Hana? It wasn’t like my sister to be cruel, to go for the throat.

“Hana, I—”

“You ride on my coattails and then you’re shocked, shocked, when shit blows up in your face. Well, guess what, this bomb managed to take a bunch of us out with it too. I hope you’re happy, Katie. Even I can’t swoop in and fix this.”

“I ride on your coattails?” I tapped furiously at my collarbone. “I force you to deal with the real shit? Answer me this: Who the fuck moved to Michigan when Mom got her diagnosis?” I sat up straighter. “Who ran off to California with Dad and left her ten-year-old sister behind the second shit got tough? You think you’re the one who has to deal with real problems? You know what, fuck you. I know I’m supposed to be grateful that you deigned to let me into your life at Harvard, just like you’ve deigned to help get me into the Herd. But guess what: Mikki and Eleanor liked me too. They wanted to be my friends and you hated that.” I leaned my face close to hers. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but I’m not just your fuckup, piece-of-shit little sister. I’m a real person, and honestly? People seem to like me better than you.”