The Herd(78)

“Are they gonna put out an APB?” I demanded. Using the cop-show term gave me a little thrill. “Because he’s looking shady as shit.”

“I don’t think so. She said she can’t immediately put a red flag on someone, quote, ‘driving away in their own car.’?”

“Well, great. We all saw how concerned they were about Eleanor, quote, ‘leaving of her own accord.’?” I crossed my arms and Mikki snorted.

Hana stared into the distance for a second, then sprung up and marched down the hall. Mikki and I followed and found Hana in Cameron’s bedroom rifling around under the mattress, running her fingers against the box spring and then crouching to look under the bed.

“Uh, what the fuck are you doing?” Mikki asked.

“Looking for Eleanor’s phone.”

“What?” Mikki took a few stumbling steps back.

Hana sat back on her haunches. “Her phone went missing a few weeks ago. The same morning that graffiti appeared. They think whoever stole it had something to do with the spray-painting.”

“Why?” Mikki’s eyes narrowed.

“Because the same message was spray-painted on the walls in the San Francisco Herd and the Fort Greene worksite. Eleanor had photos of all three on her phone, and someone sent those photos to The Gaze. She didn’t want news getting out ahead of the Titan acquisition, so I made the whole thing go away.”

“The same message was at the other sites? And you kept that out of the news?” I stretched my eyebrows up and my mouth down, impressed. “Even I didn’t know you’re that good of a publicist.”

She leaned forward onto all fours and stared under the bed. “Thing is, her new phone, the one she got to replace the stolen one—they said the texts and emails we got on Tuesday came from it, and that it was used to send that I’m-in-Mexico email a few days later.”

We nodded.

“And tonight, I said something to Cameron about how Eleanor’s lock screen was a photo of her and her husband. Which was true for ninety-nine percent of the last year—I wasn’t thinking about her new phone. But when she got it a couple weeks ago, she made it one of the new Gleam backgrounds.”

I glanced at Mikki to see if this was making more sense to her. Had Hana lost her mind? “Yeah, so?”

“So I said something about the background photo with Daniel, and there was this split-second where Cameron was confused. Like, ‘No, that’s not right.’?” She stood and fluffed the pillows, checked under the unmade duvet. “Which could mean he had her latest phone. It’s just a hunch. Could be nothing.”

“We should slow down.” Mikki wrapped her arms around her waist. “Maybe he just didn’t know what picture she’d set as her background.”

Near his dresser, Hana froze. “I don’t want to be right either. But him being in New York, showing up on Eleanor hate sites—it doesn’t look good.” She went back to thumbing through socks. “Help me, would you? It could be anywhere.”

On leaden legs, I approached the closet and pushed aside the sliding door. It was a damn mess, a bachelor stereotype: shirts clinging to bent wire hangers, piles of jeans toppling on the top shelf, a casserole of clothes and shoes along the floor.

“Why would he hide it here?” I asked, using one sneaker to nose through the jumble. “Why wouldn’t he just destroy it?”

“No idea.” Hana was on her knees, her cheek near the floor as she peered beneath the bureau. “I just feel like there’s something here. Mikki…” She looked up. “He didn’t take you in here? You hooked up in the living room, right?”

“Wait, what?” I turned so suddenly my elbow crashed into a bunch of empty hangers; they jangled as I tried to pat them into stillness.

Mikki nodded miserably, still frozen by the door. “But Cameron would never…”

I crossed to Hana and pressed a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve gotta stop. This is weird.” It wasn’t like Hana to be so oblivious, so unable to read the room. She stood and groped around in his bookshelf, not looking at me. “Hana.”

She whipped around and her eyes were shiny with tears. “It…it has to be here…”

I pulled her into me, one hand on her back and the other on her skull. She let out a hiccuppy gasp and hugged me back.

“Jinny’s mom,” Mikki said quietly. She cleared her throat and said it louder: “Jinny’s mom.”

Who’s Jinny? Hana pulled away, staring at the floor next to my feet.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Mikki said, her voice tiny and tense. “Celia Hurst. We have to tell the cops, they have to look into her, she—”

“This isn’t about Jinny.” Hana turned to look at her. “It’s about Cameron. I know you don’t want it to be him, but it fits. And maybe, I don’t know, maybe Ted was helping him or something, but it wasn’t this random woman from Appalachia.”

“What’s going on?” I looked back and forth between them, my pulse quickening.

Hana stared at Mikki, her expression equal parts warning and terror. “Mikki, no.”

Mikki gazed back, their eyes locked for what felt like hours, years, and then Mikki turned to me: “This is all our fault.”