The Herd(95)

Other nights, I had stress dreams about officers in SWAT gear busting into Hana’s apartment, slipping handcuffs around her wrists and ushering her out into the night. I’d kept mum about the Jinny stuff, now pinned entirely on Eleanor, Mikki, and Cameron—but someone would crack, Cameron would talk while he awaited trial as a cooperating witness, right? Hana’s arrest felt nightmarishly inevitable. But she didn’t mention it or seem especially worried. Finally I asked her point-blank, and she insisted she was safe.

“But I hope they find Jinny,” she said seriously, smoothing my hair. “This has been hanging over me for so long and now that it’s over, I realize what an idiot I was for not dealing with it sooner.”

“Are you going to tell them about Gary and Karen?” I asked.

She held my gaze, then looked askance. “You don’t understand how important they are to me. And to Mikki. And to Cameron.”

I nodded and vowed to never ask about it again.

It seemed Mikki’s gamble had worked: She claimed that she had, rather improbably, committed involuntary manslaughter not once but twice, and that twice her buddy Cameron had made the whole thing go away. In lieu of Mikki’s mug shot, a beautiful headshot from the Herd’s website accompanied the story in newspapers, online, and on the nightly news. It was how she liked to think of herself looking: chin set, hair a wild blond mane, freckles blaring, sapphire eyes staring directly into the camera with a lioness’s intensity.



* * *



—

My literary agent, Erin, emailed when the news about Eleanor and Mikki broke and asked if we could talk sometime in the New Year. I’d figured out what I’d tell her and felt surprisingly Zen about the whole thing. Then Gary and Karen surprised me by emailing me their exclusive blessing to write Eleanor’s biography, or perhaps to write their story (We don’t know how these things work but a woman from Hachette keeps leaving voicemails), as long as they had final approval. Which meant, I presumed, no mention of Jinny or Mikki or maybe even Cameron.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, my phone rang. I don’t normally pick up calls from unknown numbers, but this was a local landline, and curiosity got the better of me.

A recording clunked on: “This call will be monitored and recorded. You have a collect call from…Mikki Danziger.” Hearing her voice made me jump. “…an inmate at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. If you would like to accept this collect call, please press one.”

I was a human whirlwind, somehow whipping out a digital recorder, accepting the call, and putting her on speakerphone all in one scrambling swoop.

“Mikki?”

A rush of static. “Katie? Is that you?”

“Oh my God. Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you. Thanks for picking up.”

I sat there, staring at the phone. Was this real? “The blisters on my fingers and ears from the frostbite are finally healing—thanks for asking.”

“I’m sorry. I am. For everything.”

“Are you?”

“I am.” Her voice trembled. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. And how awful I feel. I’m not a bad person, Katie, and I want to make it up to you and Hana and, and everyone. That’s why…that’s why I’m here.” The emphasis was subtle, too subtle for the recording to catch, but I heard it: I’m locked up alone, without Hana, without the Walshes, without the guilty people I could’ve implicated. I’m taking the fall.

“I don’t know what to say, Mikki.” Thank you wasn’t right. Something crested and plunged in me, this unbearable sadness.

“I wish I could say more. But—but I won’t. And I’m sorry. And I have a question.”

“What’s that?”

Sine waves of static as she breathed in and out. “There’s another woman here, she was a sex worker who shot and killed her pimp—and a journalist is talking to her about her life story, she’s gonna do, like, an as-told-to memoir. With both their names on it.”

I frowned. “Okay.”

“And I’ve had all these requests from journalists, which I’m ignoring. But I thought maybe you’d want us to do one together. Since you’re the only one I’d trust with it. And I know you still want to write a book.”

In Cold Blood popped into my head—my very own true-crime thriller. Only I was a character, I was the one with a blow to the skull at the climax. Before I could stop it, my brain started spitting out lines of description, the way I’d describe the scene as I awoke on the fire escape, shaking like a jackhammer. The instant flow was at once intriguing and sickening.

“I don’t know, Mikki. That’s a—that’s a crazy thing to ask.”

“I couldn’t make any money from it, obviously. But just think about it, okay?” she said. “Talk to your agent. It’d be…cathartic for me. And good for you. It’s the least I could do.”

“It really is,” I replied, but the snap was out of my voice. An automated voice told me to load more time onto the call, and I hung up, blinking into my cold, dark room.



* * *



—

That evening, I arrived at Hana’s a little after six, carrying a cake I’d made from a mix and nearly dropping it as I squatted to scratch Cosmo’s ears. Hana had replaced the usual bell on his collar with a little disco ball, and I told him he looked very festive.