The Herd(92)

But watching her sleep on this hospital bed, I realized that again, her peaceful face had changed. Overnight, perhaps, or else I hadn’t been paying attention, hadn’t looked at her hard enough. Her skin was still smooth and perfect, but she wasn’t the teenage-ish little sister I’d been projecting onto her.

I couldn’t help it—I smoothed a hand along her hairline, and she stirred.

“I’m so glad you’re awake!”

She looked at me blankly, then around the room, and I listened as the beeping on a monitor ticked up in tempo with her heart.

“It’s okay, Katie. It’s okay.” I patted her shin. “You had a concussion and some frostbite, but you’re okay.”

“You’re okay?”

I smiled. “You saved my life.” She frowned and shook her head in confusion, then gasped and reached for her head. “Ooh, you’ve got a massive contusion there,” I said, for some reason echoing the doctor’s words. “It’s where you were hit.”

“By Mikki.”

“That’s right.”

“Where is she?”

“In a holding cell. She was arrested.” I lifted my shirt to show her the bandage below my bra. “After she gave me this.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Oh, sweetie.” I grabbed her hand. “You were hit on the head, hard, and passed out—they think for at least twenty minutes. And for most of that you were outside without a coat, so your core body temperature was dropping. They said it’s totally normal for you to be confused today.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “But you were in the ambulance.”

“I was.” I took a breath. “I went back to Mikki’s apartment to ask her about something. She told me you’d already left, but in reality you were just passed out and she’d pushed you onto the fire escape—presumably until she could get rid of me.” I brought my other hand to hers, clutched it between my palms. There were bandages on her fingertips where the cold had seeped inside. “But you came to and you got help. It’s incredible, I don’t know how you made it down without killing yourself. But when the neighbors called the ambulance, you made them call the police too. For Mikki.” I shook my head. “If they’d arrived even a few minutes later, I don’t know what would’ve happened. I’d just confronted Mikki and she—she got out—”

“The X-Acto knife! Not a scalpel!”

“Exactly!” We nodded at each other.

Tears welled and I looked away, pretended I was telling someone else’s story. “She just missed puncturing my lung, apparently, and had taken a few steps back like she was trying to figure out what to do now, when the cops arrived. They banged on the door right behind me and I started yelling for help and trying to undo the locks and let them in. The good news is: A woman screaming for help is probable cause to enter a home.”

I was trying to sound cheerful and it of course fell flat. Katie looked horrified. “Why did Mikki do that?”

“There’s a lot we don’t know. But it sounds like she made a full confession. For killing Eleanor.”

She thought about this, then nodded. “How long have we been here?”

“Well, it’s almost seven, so…a while.” I tugged at a curl and looked away. “Mom’s on her way here now. She’s supposed to land around noon.”

“Okay.” She creased her brow. “So it’s Christmas?”

“That’s right. Merry Christmas, Katie.”

“Why did you…” The heart-rate monitor hit the gas again, beep! beep! beep! “Why did you go back to Mikki’s?”

I told her about the cease-and-desist Daniel had uncovered—how Mikki had explained it away, swearing she knew nothing about Cameron, and sent me off into the night still convinced of her innocence. And then I told her about the cell-phone video, which I now knew was from a random dude who worked at a start-up across the street; he’d begun taping the drum line, same as us, and then noticed the lineup of women across from him. He’d had no idea what he’d captured until Eleanor’s death became public earlier this week. (And, with true entrepreneurial initiative, he’d sold the clip to the highest bidder instead of handing it over to the police.)

“It was clear she knew Eleanor’s body was on the roof, so I wanted to know why she was covering for him,” I said. “And she told me she’d gone over to the Herd and helped him hide the body. It was when I told her Cameron was alive and in custody that she snapped.” I sighed. “I didn’t mention that he was unconscious and at death’s door. She must’ve taken that to mean he was going to start talking—the jig was up. She had the blade in her hand—told the cops it was a reflex.”

“How is Cameron?”

“He’s doing well—he’s fully conscious and cooperating with authorities,” I said. “Ratliff called a little while ago and said he’d given a full confession with the hope of a lighter sentence.” It was now obvious that everything Mikki had told me last night—the desperate scramble to hide a body and clean up the evidence—was true. The critical difference, which Ratliff expected cell-phone records to corroborate, was that it’d been Mikki who’d been alone with Eleanor in her last moments, and Cameron who’d swooped in to help.