The Herd (ARC)

by Andrea Bartz

  When, during sophomore year, Ted mentioned he was meeting Cameron in town for a party, we persuaded Eleanor it was a good idea for us to go with him. Mainly I just wanted to see Cameron in the flesh, this mythical older man, Eleanor’s capital-F first. We’d trekked to Allston-Brighton in our cutest outfits, prepared to dazzle, but Cameron had been there with his then-girlfriend, almost theatrically ignoring us.

  But the party itself was epic: slick tables set up for beer pong and flip cup and something called chandelier, an ice luge, different music in different rooms, shots we swallowed with teenage abandon. That night, Mikki had gone home with a hot musician who, she later told us, played her a violin concerto at five in the morning. (“It was beautiful but so loud,” she recounted.) I’d fallen asleep on a sofa at the tail end of the house party, and Ted and Eleanor had decided to leave me behind. I’d woken to Cameron gently shaking my shoulder, and I can still remember the sheepishness, the sharp hangover, the little moon of spit where the pillow met the corner of my lips. I’d left with a quiet crush on Cameron, one I never mentioned to the gang.

  In the ensuing years at Harvard, we almost never saw Cameron after that; Ted sometimes mentioned him, how he had his own apartment in Salem now, how he was doing fine. Then, senior year, we’d all returned from our exciting summers—internships in New York and Los Angeles, Mikki’s eight-week design intensive in Milan—and Eleanor had announced that she and Cameron were dating again. They’d reconnected while she was living at home, she said. There was still a lot of passion there. That was probably when Cameron peaked, before the cascade of bad turns that landed him in rehab.

  And Ted—well, Ted had turned and triumphantly marched off to the beat of his own drum. He’d filled out, now with thick, hairy arms and a thick, hairy beard, and discovered he had a knack for making, anything from a custom liquor cabinet to a custom video game to twenty-four tiny custom mechanisms that stretched to simulate breathing—a local artist had hired him to insert them in dolls that looked like sleeping babies, dolls the man placed around Boston to get a rise out of unsuspecting people. It sounded very avant-garde to me at the time.

  But still, there was also something about Ted I didn’t like. Or didn’t get, maybe. He was doing pretty well now, kicking around NYC. Far and away the more successful of the two brothers.

  I should call Ted. Had the cops contacted him already? Or maybe they weren’t concerned at all. Maybe they figured Eleanor was a newlywed entrepreneur with a failing marriage and an Atlas-esque sphere of pressure pushing down on her, and she’d be back in a few days once she’d sorted things out. Is that what I’d assume, if the AWOL woman were a stranger and not my best friend?

  With a sigh, I pushed Cosmo away and rolled off the side of the couch. I grabbed my phone and triaged the texts, emails, and missed calls from journalists and friends. Their excitement shot out of the screen, like the little bubbles that hit your nose from a full glass of Champagne. These people had no idea that everything was wrong, bad, scary, nonsensical. Several articles used the same photo of Eleanor, Mikki, and me from the last Herd announcement. It was a favorite of Eleanor’s—we all looked good. Sometimes it struck me, though, how convenient it was for Eleanor to have a non-white face in her inner circle. A deep prickle of insecurity, a question of whether on some level, perhaps subconsciously, Eleanor had been strategic in befriending me, practiced as she was at curating her appearance.…

  Then Mikki’s name appeared. I took a deep breath and answered it.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m freaking out. Aren’t you?”

  “Obviously.” I sighed. “The stuff about her wanting to see other people—it’s weird she didn’t mention it.” Sure, she’d stopped discussing her sex life in lurid detail once she and Daniel got serious, but this was … big.

  “Yeah. Guess she’s good at keeping secrets.”

  “I guess.” Aren’t we all, Mikki?

  “Do they think it has to do with the vandalism?” she said. “That was practically a threat.”

  “I don’t know. I mentioned it to the detectives on the way out.” The stolen phone too. Eleanor hadn’t wanted anyone to know about it—not even Mikki.

  “Right. They seemed so eager to help.” She sighed. “What do you think, Hana? What happened?”

  “I have no idea. I just know she had big plans for this week, this month—next year, clearly. She and I have a postmortem scheduled for first thing tomorrow morning, for God’s sake.” Postmortem: I’d always called it that, a chance to dissect and learn from the previous day’s event or campaign launch. This was the first time it sounded morbid.

  “I know.” We were both quiet for a moment. “Have you tried to reach Stephanie?”

  God, Eleanor’s number two had left Saturday to do yoga on a beach in India—she hadn’t even crossed my mind. “Not yet. She said she’d only have Wi-Fi a few hours a day. She’ll probably see the articles and think Eleanor really did have a family emergency.”

  “Right, okay,” Mikki said. “And has Titan reached out to you?”

  “Yeah, they’re in my inbox somewhere. I’m going to keep them in the dark, obviously. Buy some time.” I figured we had a decent shot at keeping Eleanor’s AWOL status under wraps if she showed up in the next few hours. Which she had to. She had to.

  “You’ve got it under control?”

  “I’ll handle it. The press release nightmare too.” I felt a flare of annoyance: How nice it must be for Mikki, for everyone, to sit back and trust that I’d take care of it. Mikki had this blinky obliviousness that automatically absolved her of responsibility. It made people want to take care of her. This was not something we had in common. And Katie, too, could just plow through life like a toddler, glancing wondrously at messes she’d made in her determined scramble to get ahead …

  Speaking of messes: “Have you talked to Ted?” I asked.

  “No. He texted all of us, did you see that? I’m sure he’s worried.”

  “Maybe he’ll have some ideas of how to find her. They’re still close.” I’d always found Eleanor and Ted’s continued friendship a little confounding—he was sweet, sure, but what did they have in common other than some shared playground memories? But that meant I didn’t have a clear inventory of what she told him, the personal baubles that passed between them. “I’m going to call him.”

  “Okay.” A few charged seconds and I could feel us both listening, waiting, wondering if the other would say it. My pulse rushed up into my ears, faster and faster, a runaway train bumping over the tracks.

  But she didn’t mention it.

  “I’ll keep you posted,” I said finally, and hung up.

  I tried Ted, left a pleading voicemail. Exhaustion hit me suddenly, like a weighted blanket tossed over me. But when I finally slid into bed, my mind whirred. Twice I took my phone off airplane mode, but Ted hadn’t replied. I took an inventory of my latest interactions with Eleanor: a text at 12:54, just “okay.” An email last night at 7:02: I’d had some last-minute questions on the logistics of the acquisition, and she’d answered in her usual calm manner.

  Inspired, I emailed Mikki and Katie and asked them to provide the same info in a shared document—when they’d last seen and heard from Eleanor. Mikki had gotten texts from Eleanor at 10:42 a.m. and 3:03 p.m. today. Katie had left Eleanor at Mocktails at 6:28 p.m. (“per Lyft receipt”). Mocktails ended at 7.

  Someone was calling me, a number that wasn’t in my contacts, and it took me a full two rings to realize it was Ted.

  “Thanks for calling me back.”

  “No prob. Did you find Eleanor?”

  “No, she’s still missing. Katie, Mikki, and I went over to her apartment, but she wasn’t there either. We talked to some detectives—they might try to contact you too.”

  “Huh.” He thought this over. “I sent her a bunch of texts after I left Hielo, but she hasn’t responded. Do they think something happened to her?”

  “We’re not sure.” I took a
deep breath, in and out. “They asked about exes. Have you heard from Cameron?”

  “Cameron? He wouldn’t know anything. Him and Eleanor don’t really keep in touch.”

  “When did you talk to him last?”

  “Let’s see … I was home for Thanksgiving and we haven’t talked since then.”

  “Is he living there, still?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How did he seem?” Still clean? I almost blurted out.

  Ted chuckled uncomfortably. “He seemed normal. Hana, what’s Cam got to do with any of this? I’m sure he doesn’t even know Eleanor’s missing yet. No one really does, right?”

  “You’re right. The cops asked about exes and I’m just … I wish I knew who to talk to.” I mashed a hand against my eye. “I’m so worried. The night of a big, important event—it’s an especially terrible time to disappear.”

  “Is there ever a good time?”

  “I guess.” One night earlier, and we’d be alarmed she left just before the announcement. One day later, and we’d be shocked she vanished on the heels of her exciting news.

  A beat. “I’m sure Eleanor’s fine, Hana. She’s a smart girl. And very private. If she had to get away for a minute, she may not want us to know the reason.”

  Woman, I thought. She’s a smart woman.

  “You know, everyone says that: She’s so private, she’s so guarded, look at her running a lifestyle blog but hardly ever sharing anything about her own life.” I stood and crossed to the kitchen, fumbled in the cabinet for a water glass. “People think they’re opposite poles: You can be all TMI and post a million no-makeup selfies, or you can be like Eleanor and only post about your professional life. But it’s not any different. Eleanor doesn’t have more secrets than the woman who posts four hundred times a day. She just invests less time in hiding them.”

  A long silence. “I like that she’s private,” he said, because he didn’t get it, not at all. “She just does cool shit and lets her work speak for itself.”

  “That’s one way to think of it.” I took a sip of water. “Anyway, I’m gonna call your brother.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  I dialed anew, listening to the rings without much hope. After a few, a cheerful robot lady told me that this user has a voicemail that has not been set up yet, goodbye.

  I was out of things to do and that meant I had to face it again: Eleanor missing, Eleanor gone without a trace, Eleanor most likely, most rationally, most reasonably dead in a ditch somewhere, because why else wouldn’t she have contacted us? Cosmo stood and leapt off the bed, annoyed by my shaking breaths.

  I was about to switch off my phone when Mikki texted: “I’ve been thinking about this a lot.”

  No. No. No. No.

  I tensed my shoulders, squinted my eyes, bracing as her second text came through.

  She wrote: “I think we need to tell them.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Katie

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 9:30 P.M.

  Eleanor. I kept going over the last time I’d seen her the night before. I’d just drained my mocktail, a purply thing called the Botanist, and I was eager to get home and jot down some details from my experience: the music, the energy, the member I’d met who was the first nonbinary model to grace the cover of Vogue. A general loveliness I wanted to capture. I’d glanced over at Eleanor and debated grabbing her arm to say good night, but she’d been Eleanoring hard, working the room, and so I’d slipped into the elevator and told myself I’d see her in the morning.

  But I hadn’t seen her since then—what if I never would? There was still a small part of me clinging to the idea that she had, inexplicably, skipped town. But Eleanor’s career was everything; she wouldn’t destroy it. And her friends were a close second, and leaving would be a betrayal of sorts, with all of us panicking in her wake. But no, I had to believe that that was the case, because the alternatives were awful: kidnapped, taken, drugged, maybe hurt, possibly even …

  I leaned back against my pillows. My phone was still on my lap, headphones tossed on top. My call with Erin had been almost an out-of-body experience. Though sworn to secrecy, she was thrilled. (“Agent-client privilege,” she kept saying, as if that were a real thing.) She was trying to hide it, trying to make sympathetic noises and ask appropriately kind questions, but I could sense it. I was freaking out on the phone, attempting to keep my voice steady, but in an odd, horrible way, her excitement had been the tiniest bit infectious. I was worried sick but also thrumming, like an amp that’s just been switched on, emitting a hollow buzz.

  Perhaps because now I could do something, I could help. The cops were unimpressed, unenthused, unmotivated: Now that they knew Eleanor and her husband weren’t monogamous, they likely thought she’d absconded voluntarily. Adrenaline shot through my limbs, and with it a desire to figure it out, to know, to pound at the door or the wall or the muscly chest of whomever knew the truth: What happened to Eleanor?

  Ted. He was the low-hanging fruit, as Eleanor had said, presciently. We’d chatted earlier tonight at the presentation—him smiling as he untangled cords and unpacked equipment—but only for a minute before Hana had texted in a tizzy. He’d given me his card on Friday, as we were leaving the Herd, and now I found it in a heap of receipts on my desk:

  “You spelled ‘defy’ wrong,” I’d announced in the elevator, because saying mean shit is my love language.

  “It stands for Do It For You. Like, in contrast to DIY. It made sense at the time.” He’d probably been forced to explain it hundreds of times, but still he smiled easily. He had these luminous gray eyes, beaming out under wide brown eyebrows—

  Focus, Katie.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Katie.”

  “Any updates on Eleanor?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “I don’t know why anyone thinks I know anything.” He sounded defensive. “Hana called me too. I’m as worried and clueless as you guys are.”

  “They asked about exes. I had no idea you’re Cameron’s brother.”

  “Yeah.” There was a flatness in his voice. Finally: “You know him?”

  “No, we never crossed paths. And after they split, Eleanor barely mentioned him. Do you know why they broke up?”

  “Which time?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  “Well, first time she was leaving for Harvard.” He sort of chuckled. “Second time, she was moving to New York. I don’t know the details, but you can connect the dots.”

  “You didn’t know anything about their relationship? Aren’t you two good friends?”

  “Eleanor and me? Yeah, for sure.” He cleared his throat. “But she didn’t talk to me about dating. Especially not about dating my brother. And Cameron and me, we’ve never been close. Anyway, I don’t think the two of them have talked in years. Not for any bad reason, just ’cause they grew apart or whatever. He’s up in Beverly.”

  “Huh.” I centered my voice between agreement and skepticism and then waited, but he stayed silent. “When did you see her last?”

  “When I came in to reset the router. And met you. Friday, right?” I assented. “I was supposed to do an audio check at Hielo tonight and then—well, obviously.”

  “Do you know when you last heard from her? Email or text or anything?”

  “Hang on.” A little fumbling. “Eleanor texted me around noon. I was confirming when I should be at the restaurant, and she just sent a thumbs-up.”

  “And before that? The last time she said anything substantive?”

  “Let me check.”

  It wasn’t unusual for Eleanor to be terse in messages—with great power comes great ability to send one-word texts and dumb acronyms and emails that lack any sign of proofreading (or, at times, of coherence whatsoever).

  “I asked her about AV needs yesterday and she sent a couple sentences back. I’ll forward it to you—what’s your email?”

  I supplied it, then gave an awkward laugh. “So I guess yo
u didn’t hang on to my business card as carefully as I did yours.”

  “Nah, I know exactly where it is. Actually”—he chuckled self-consciously—“I was gonna hit you up and see if you wanted to get a drink sometime. But now … yeah.” I understood: Now that Eleanor was missing, now that we were mid-crisis, it seemed obscene to plan a first date. Still, something in me sat up like a meerkat at the news he’d planned to ask me out.

  “I got the forward,” I announced. “I should let you go.”

  “If I can help with anything, lemme know,” he replied. “I’m good with tech shit, so maybe I can help.”

  “Thanks. I worked as a tech reporter, so I’m no Luddite, but I might take you up on that.”

  I pulled my laptop cord from my bag and stooped to plug it in behind my nightstand. I spotted the flash of purple Post-its and set them on the table. In the light, there was definitely something legible in relief, and I grabbed a pencil, shaded carefully. In Eleanor’s wild loops was what appeared to be gibberish:

  ACA 1010 CUU ESEGYM

  Was it a code? Google was no help. I took a photo of the shaded note, cranked up the contrast, and printed it out, followed by my snapshots of Eleanor’s bank statements, then slid everything into a folder.

  Keep going, Katie, keep going. I quickly checked her social feeds: Eleanor hadn’t posted to Facebook in a few days, and she hadn’t liked anyone else’s photos or updates since yesterday morning. Her last personal update—about as personal as she got on Instagram—was of a rubber plant drinking in the sunlight, a slash of snow visible on the window behind it. She’d captioned it “Calm before the storm,” likely because it went up on Monday at 8:18 am, before the start of a bustling week.

  It rose through me without warning: a plume of anxiety, neon and strong. Eleanor could be dead. My chest tightened and I felt a swoop of dizziness, but I gripped the sides of my desk and fought it. Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus.

  I returned to my email and saw that Hana was gathering data on our latest contact with Eleanor. No one had seen her, it seemed, since last night’s Mocktails, and everyone was pretty sure they’d left before her. I squinted, again scanning my memories for anything unusual as the crowd clinked glasses and admired the Elm Grove’s pretty floral-patterned trays and napkins. Normal, normal, normal.