by Andrea Bartz
I managed a bland smile. “Will I need to come back in?”
“Not sure yet. Will you be available?”
I sighed. “I’m flying home on the twenty-third. For Christmas.”
“That should be fine, as long as you remain accessible.”
Didn’t realize I needed your permission, I wanted to say. Instead: “Just let me know how I can be helpful.”
* * *
—
Katie was asleep in the waiting room, cheek in palm, elbow on an armrest. I felt a crackle of annoyance that Mikki had left her here. But it was late and I probably wouldn’t have waited for anyone other than my sister either. I woke her and we blurrily figured out that her subway wasn’t running; I was about to order her her own Lyft when she asked if she could stay with me.
At home I set her up on the couch, carrying pillows out from the linen closet even as she crashed her head onto the decorative moleskin cushions there. I collapsed into bed, my door left open a crack, as always, for Cosmo. I was asleep within minutes and then woke, swimming only halfway toward the surface, from pressure on the bed. Not Cosmo—Katie climbed in next to me, then curled away. We’re not a touchy family; we hug hello and goodbye and say “I love you” when we think of it, always with a wide globe of personal space. I was almost nervous as I reached out and rubbed her back. Without turning, she curled an arm across her chest and touched my fingers near her side, held them there and then gave a little pat. I rolled away then and together, we fell asleep.
* * *
—
I woke and lay in bed for a moment with my eyes closed. Then it all came rushing in, like someone had turned on a cold tap: Katie next to me, Ratliff in the station, and, with a dizzying lurch, Eleanor, Eleanor frozen like a venison steak, Eleanor’s neck with its rimy crust of blood.
My stomach seized and I rolled over, clutching it, wishing wildly I could back up into my dreamland, where none of this was reality. A few feet away, Katie snored softly. Trying not to disturb the covers, I slid my legs out and padded down the hall.
I was just squeezing toothpaste onto my brush when, in the mirror, something moved behind me. I jumped and whirled around: Katie was thumping down the hall, holding my phone out in front of her.
“Daniel keeps calling you,” she announced, her brows knitted.
I set the toothbrush on the sink and took the phone from her. “Thanks,” I said, pushing the door closed. She didn’t move, her eyebrows now reaching for the sky, so I basically shut the door in her face.
“Hana?!” he yelped, before I could hear a single ring.
I kept my voice low, pictured Katie with her ear pressed against the door. “What’s up?”
“Get here now,” he said. “I don’t—I don’t know what to do.”
“Are you in danger? Should I call 911?”
“No police. You don’t want police.” He sounded terrified, unhinged.
“I don’t want police?”
“It’s about—Hana, it’s about what happened in 2010.”
It hit me like a force, like a fire hose, shot at all of me all at once. My ears rang and I clutched the side of the bathtub. How on earth did he know? What had he found?
“Listen to me very carefully.” I curled away from the door, my voice just above a whisper and so cold, so bloodless, it scared even me. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t contact anyone else. No one else. Do you understand?”
Another gaping silence and the air itself seemed to lean in.
“Get here,” Daniel said, and then he was gone.
CHAPTER 15
Katie
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 8:10 A.M.
Hana flung the door open and stood centered in the frame. The sconce lights on either side of her mirror glowed behind her so she was silhouetted, an outline of Athena preparing for battle.
“I have to go,” she announced.
I was lingering in the hall, all casual. As if my ear hadn’t been one with the door a second earlier.
“What’d Daniel say?”
“I’m heading over there now.”
“Why, what’d he say?”
She sighed and her shoulders slumped. “He’s freaking out. Threatening to kill himself.” I waited, and she went on: “I guess he started drinking and didn’t go to sleep all night, and now he’s, like, out of his mind and consumed by grief. I don’t actually think he’s going to try anything, but he’s freaking out.”
“So it’s a cry for help?”
“Sure sounded like it.”
“But why did he call you?”
Hana tipped her head back, closed her eyes. “My thoughts exactly. God, I don’t need this.”
She pushed past me, down the hallway, and I called after her: “Doesn’t he have any other friends?”
“Not that many, honestly.” She made it to her bedroom and threw open the closet. “He got out of a ten-year relationship right before he met Eleanor. At the wedding he had one guy, a friend from high school, as his best man, but that’s it.” She hooked on a bra, stepped into a pair of underwear.
“So why not call that dude?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s unavailable. Maybe Daniel doesn’t want to talk to someone who barely knew Eleanor.” She yanked a turtleneck over her head.
“Did he try calling Mikki too? I’m just trying to understand why—”
“Katie.” Hana stared at me for a second before unfolding her jeans with a flick. She had tears in her eyes, and a spear of guilt went through me. “I don’t know what you want me to say. He just called me, repeatedly, begging me to come over.”
She turned away and yanked her curls into a bun. She looped the elastic, then whisked her knuckles across her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said. Then: “Let me know if you need anything.”
Tossing things into her purse, she pretended not to hear me.
The slam of the front door seemed extra-loud and final, somehow, like the clang of a gavel or the bang of a book’s heavy back cover. I leaned against the kitchen island, statue-still, until Cosmo padded over and rubbed against the hem of my pajama pants.
I dropped to my knees to scoop him up, and as I did something rushed up through me, something sharp and bright, and then it hit my throat and came out as a moan. I hugged Cosmo to my chest and he hung limply as my head and hands filled with crackly static and my heart beat so fast I thought it’d burst, juddering as if it wanted to shoot out from my chest. I gasped with the wild, unself-conscious panic of a toddler mid-meltdown.
Finally I found my breath again, blinked hard until the static lifted. “Eleanor,” I murmured, dropping my nose to the top of Cosmo’s head. He twisted his neck, blinked at me. “Poor Eleanor.” Cosmo wriggled free and sauntered off toward the hallway. I managed to leave Mom a voicemail, my voice quavering as I asked her to call me back.
I stacked the pillows I’d left on the sofa and attempted to fold the fluffy duvet. In the doorway, Cosmo watched me with his grasshopper-green eyes. As I headed for the bathroom, I paused outside Hana’s bedroom, and my eyes fell on the scrap of paper on her bureau. The note she’d mentioned, the numbers scribbled on top. It definitely hadn’t been on Eleanor’s big desk as Daniel unlocked the drawer below.
Another memory, an echo of dialogue that I’d tucked away for later: Tuesday night, while the three of us were still panicking in the hallway of a tapas restaurant, Mikki had said, Who has Daniel’s number? and Hana had raised her hand and dialed confidently. Why did Hana even have him in her contacts? A thought like a whisper: What else are you lying about, Hana?
I showered, torturing myself with a mental montage of beautiful, sparkling Eleanor and all the smiles she’d never shoot out. As shampoo foamed against my scalp I realized a suspect had been taking shape underneath it, a heady suspicion I could investigate on my own. Quickly,
a plan stitched itself together in my mind. It was steadying, giving the grief and desperate exasperation something to cling to, like handrails in a shower stall.
Outside, the air was a little warmer, the sky silvery and swollen—probably around freezing, but it was a relief after all those stark, icy-blue days. I checked the weather forecast and groaned: a “wintry mix” was headed our way, and headlines despaired over the probable upending of holiday travel plans.
For now, at least, our Monday flight was still on time. I pictured the three of us in Kalamazoo, eating off the nice china in Mom’s dining room. It’d be an especially awful meal: Hana creepily pretending everything was fine, me scrabbling at my mounting anxiety, Mom complaining about what bad company we were being while subtly, expertly excoriating all of Hana’s life choices. If Mom didn’t call me back soon, she’d probably hear about Eleanor’s death on the news.
As would my agent, Erin. This time I’d be ready for her; in fact, I’d get ahead of it. I’d been close to calling the whole thing off: Last week, I couldn’t imagine defying Eleanor’s wishes, telling the world how she’d parachuted out of her perfect-seeming life. Implying judgment, sending the news vultures and TV and podcast crews scuttling after her to Guayabitos, in search of her casa. I couldn’t do that to her. But now? Now I was a snapping hound dog on a leash, more determined than ever. Eleanor deserved justice. On the subway, I emailed Erin, concluding with a promise, a vow, ripped from the parlance of bad action movies: “I’m not going to stop until I find the motherfucker who did this.”
At home, I pulled up my research file on Carl Berkowski, a Known Enemy of Eleanor. I remembered he was an engineer at Hopscotch, a stupid app that lets you check into a business to unlock discounts and freebies there. And I knew from my time as a tech reporter that start-ups expect every goddamn employee to use their product with the fervent devotion of a Scientologist. Bingo: Sixteen minutes ago, Carl had checked in at Ghost Cafe in the Financial District. I skidded off toward the subway, backtracked when I realized I’d left my phone on my desk, and then headed into Manhattan.
It was a packed little coffee shop, people chatting eagerly or gazing wide-eyed at their laptops, as if trying to prove to themselves that the din was energizing, not distracting. I spotted Carl at a table in the back: short brown hair, glasses, sloping chin, gray hoodie. Big Bluetooth headphones like my own. I pulled mine down to rest around my neck, tapped at my phone, and steeled myself, mentally raising a sword in the air and bellowing For Eleanor! Then I took the seat across from him.
He stared over the top of his laptop. “Uhhh…”
“Katie Bradley.” I thrust out a hand. “We were supposed to have a coffee last week? I was hoping we could—”
“What are you doing here?” He leaned in, his eyes shooting around, attracting far more attention than I had.
“I just thought maybe we could have that coffee now.”
“I could report you.”
“For being in a coffee shop?”
“For stalking me.” He slammed his laptop shut. “How did you find me?”
I blinked at him for a moment. Had he literally never considered the practical implications of his employer’s product? Oh, to be a white man in the world. “You checked in on Hopscotch. I just want to talk.”
“Why?”
Eleanor surged back into my brain, thwacking me with grief. “Why’d you stand me up?”
“I stood you up?”
“Yeah, I—I waited, like, a half hour, tried texting and calling, and you never showed.” A note of confusion crept into my voice.
“Oh, that’s rich. Nice try. We said we’d meet at four; when I got out of the Lincoln Tunnel I had a couple confused texts from you, and the diner was empty. I was livid. Really great use of my one day off, so thanks for that.”
“No, we said—” My voice faltered and I got that feeling, hot and cold at once, indignant but also maybe he was right and I’d messed up. Didn’t we have it in writing?
Dramatically, he sighed. “So now you’re following me…why?”
I squared my shoulders. “You texted me about Eleanor last week.”
“That’s right—thanks for sending that detective my way. That made me super eager to text you back.”
“What’d you tell them?”
“Why would I talk to you? I didn’t even have to talk to her.” He crossed his arms. “I hate cops. Second time in two weeks the cops are asking me about Eleanor Walsh.”
I frowned. “Second time?”
“Yeah, after they called about—” He stopped himself, cocked an eyebrow. “I mean, I’m not the only person on the planet who doesn’t like her. You can’t automatically assume that any inconvenience in her perfect life traces back to me.”
I shook my head, still stuck. “What other inconvenience? Why did they contact you before that?” The week before last—that was right when I first set foot in the Herd…“Was it about the graffiti?”
“Graffiti? Do I look like a vandalizer to you?”
Vandal, I corrected him, silently. He smirked—he was enjoying this, having something over me.
Then the penny dropped. “It was about her phone.”
“The allegedly stolen phone, yeah. Which, if she can’t keep track of her shit, that’s not my problem. Where is Eleanor, by the way? Still hiding out from the messes she’s made of her two companies?”
Messes? Gleam and the Herd were both turning huge profits and bopping around the top of best-places-to-work roundups. “What’s your problem with her, really?” He started to groan and I barreled over him: “No, I’m serious. What has she done to make you mad?”
“What she did was illegal. Barring a demographic from a public space—that’s some ‘whites-only’ shit.” With every ounce of self-control, I leaned forward and nodded, and he went on: “She’s such a smug little bitch. She gets everything she wants without even trying. And she’s devoted her life to dangling that in everyone’s faces.”
“How so?”
His palms winged upward. “Are you serious? Her blog, her companies—her whole brand is basically: No Boys Allowed.”
I gazed at him. I thought of what I had to say next and sadness billowed in me, threatened to burst out from behind my face. Swallowing, I flipped over the only card I had: “Eleanor’s dead, Carl.”
Three tiny movements, all at once: Shock whipped across his face, he leaned back as if to distance himself from me, and his hand shot to the back of his neck, settling on the overgrown tufts there. “Shit,” he finally said. “Dead how?”
A teakettle-like shriek as the barista steamed milk. “How about this: I’ll tell you something if you tell me something.”
“Oh God.” The eye roll returned.
“How did you find out she was missing? When you texted me last week, I mean?”
“I have my ways.”
“Illicit ways?”
“What, are you going to turn me in to the police for observing that she was supposed to speak at a highly publicized event and…didn’t? Oh right, you already did.” He sneered. “Anyway, my turn. What happened to her?”
“She was killed.” My stomach squeezed and I let it rush out: “Someone slit her throat.” I wanted to watch his reaction but I couldn’t; I felt lightheaded and tipped my head forward.
“Fuck.” He sounded uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.”
I inhaled wetly. “Is that going to end up on the Antiherd? If it does get out, I’ll know it was you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.” I hunched forward again. “I want access to the group.”
“No way. Not gonna happen.” He leaned back. “Look, I’m sorry about your friend, but…if you were friends with Eleanor, why would I help you?”
“Just a second.” I slid my phone out of my bac
k pocket, then turned up the volume.
The voice leaking out of my iPhone was tinny and shrill: “…got out of the Lincoln Tunnel I had a couple confused texts from you, and the diner was empty. I was livid. Really great use of…”
His eyes bugged. “You were recording me?”
I touched the headphones still resting on my neck. “They make great built-in microphones these days. The sad thing is that in real life, unlike in movies, I can’t hit one button and have it play back the most damning sound bite. But I’m sure you remember it. ‘Smug little bitch,’ et cetera.”
He was beside himself. “But…but that’s illegal!”
“It’s not. And you should calm down—people are beginning to stare. Hey, your offices are down here, right? Rebecca Rosenthal?”
At the sound of the CEO’s name, his face turned coral-red, his ears like two plums. “This is stupid,” he announced. “You don’t have the balls.”
“I also have nothing to lose. Unlike you. With your job.” I leaned forward. “I won’t post in the Antiherd. I won’t take screenshots or share anything. I just—”
“So you’re playing kid detective? Just let the grown-ups do their job.”
A fuck-you rose up through me but I bit it back, rearranged my face into a blinky earnestness. “Carl.” I tapped his forearm and he recoiled. “You’re right. I know it’s stupid. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. And I really don’t want the cops to know I’m looking into this on my own. I just want to figure out who…who hurt my friend.” My voice wobbled and again, he reared away from me.
“Twenty-four hours,” he finally said. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours if you delete that audio file right now, in front of me. And then you fuck off forever.”
* * *
—
At home I flung open my laptop and logged into my new, male, fake Facebook account (Fakebook!), and then felt a surge of adrenaline as the notification appeared: You’ve been invited to join the Antiherd. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I started with last Tuesday, the day we reported her missing. Some useless general hate speech, things that turned my stomach, reminded me of the panicked feeling I got while reporting from rallies in Michigan. I crossed to the kitchen and pulled out a seltzer, breathing hard, then forced myself to keep reading.