by Andrea Bartz
DATE DUE: 12/31/19
JINNY HURST
ELEANOR WALSH
HANA BRADLEY
MIKKI DANZIGER
Then strings of numbers—a payment amount, network cost, and account number. I looked up at Daniel, frowning.
“It’s about ten thousand dollars,” he said. “In Bitcoin. I think it’s blackmail Eleanor was paying anonymously.”
I gasped. “Where did this come from?”
“It was in our mailbox.” He swept his hand toward the front door. “I hadn’t checked it in a week, with everything going on. But then I went back through our bank statements. There were withdrawals, odd numbers from our different accounts, adding up to about ten thousand dollars a quarter. Going back a year.”
“Jeez.” I frowned. “Did you look at the postmark?”
“Yeah, it was sent Wednesday. From Nashville, of all places.”
Wednesday—after she went missing. The sender believed Eleanor was still around and able to pay.
I held the paper aloft. “Could this be why Eleanor was trying to get away? If she couldn’t go to the police, I guess that’d be a reason to try and disappear. Although, I don’t know. Forty thousand dollars a year is a lot of money, but not something she couldn’t keep up with.”
“Hana, what’s this about?”
I ignored him, reread it again.
“My first instinct was to call the police. Have them dust for fingerprints, investigate the cryptocurrency account.” He swallowed. “But my second, stronger instinct was to talk to you first. Because I don’t know what this means.” He pointed at the sheet quavering in my hand. “I don’t know what Eleanor did.”
I took a deep breath. The image of her flashed in front of me: eyes closed, nose flour-white, a wide, black smear along her collar. A few sharp sobs juddered out, and I sniffed. “I don’t understand either, Daniel,” I said. “Eleanor didn’t do anything.”
“Who’s Jinny Hurst?”
I shook my head, tears slipping from my eyes.
“I looked her up, Hana.” He was breathing deeply, as if fighting down the impulse to take a swing. “I know who she is. So what the fuck is her name doing on this list, with Eleanor? With you?”
“I don’t know her!” I wiped at my cheeks. “I only met her once. Right before she disappeared. We bought drugs from her one time—she was a dealer. I don’t even remember who had her number. I only saw her the one time.”
We sat together for a beat, the only sound the distant hum of traffic, car horns and rumbling trucks, their drivers barreling through today like any other day. Suddenly Daniel snatched the sheet from me. “Then what the fuck is this?”
“I don’t know! I have no idea.” My eyes filled with tears. “Here’s what happened: Right before graduation, the three of us were hanging out at Eleanor’s apartment one night. That Friday. The date on the sheet.” I flicked my chin toward the paper. “Eleanor had … she’d tried mushrooms at a party the weekend before, and Mikki and I admitted we’d never done it. It was just this stupid idea—safe space, a bonding moment or whatever. Eleanor had gotten this woman’s number at the party, so we had her pop over and we bought some stuff off her.” I sniffed, wiped my nose. “But she went missing that night. They never found her. We were pretty freaked out when we saw it on the news a couple days later, but of course we had no idea what happened to her … and we weren’t going to be like, ‘Hi, we met her while breaking the law.’ Nothing happened. I haven’t thought about it in years. But none of us had anything to do with that.”
Daniel kept shaking his head. “I can’t … why would somebody send this? And why would she pay it?”
“I don’t know. If you Googled Jinny, I’m sure you saw she’s from Tennessee, originally—where the postmark’s from. The only thing I can think is … Was there something else Eleanor never told us?”
Daniel’s lips shook like he was either trying to speak or trying not to cry. Probably both. “We should tell the police. Right? This has gotta be our best lead.”
“It sure seems like it. God, this is wild.” I took the sheet and reread it. “I just wanna make sure …” I hesitated and my eyes filled with tears again.
“What is it?”
A little laugh. “Ugh, always the PR girl. So, Eleanor’s a public figure. I don’t want to see her name dragged through the mud—for your sake, not to mention Karen and Gary. Oh God. She couldn’t have had anything to do with this woman’s disappearance, right?”
He just kept shaking his head. He let out a horsey noise and dropped his brow into his hands.
“Do you want me to talk to Mikki?” I said.
He stood and walked out of the room. For a confused second, I thought he was ending the conversation, but then I heard the rush of liquid against glass and he reappeared with two waters.
“Hana, I’d give anything to know who killed her. This could help.”
“I would too.” I grabbed a glass. “But you said this came after she disappeared, yes? I know it’s upsetting, but … that means whoever sent this has no idea Eleanor’s gone.”
He sat and looked away, his chin trembling. “I don’t know, Hana. I can’t think straight.”
“How about this: I’ll ask Mikki if this means anything to her—maybe she knows something I don’t.” I set my glass down and leaned forward. “We’ll get through this, Daniel. I know how much you love Eleanor, and you know I feel the same way.”
He balled his hands against his eyes and nodded. “If she did something … bad, I don’t wanna know. I don’t want to live out the rest of my life thinking that about her.”
“Okay. Okay. Let’s just … get through today. They’re gonna make an announcement soon, and I think the best thing to do is just batten down the hatches. Okay?” I sat up and spoke softly: “You know to just hang up if journalists get your number, right? And you should close all your curtains. They might set up out front.”
“I know. I’m not talking to anyone. I learned that a week ago when I basically had a gag order until they checked out my alibi.”
“So they did clear you.”
“Yeah, they talked to … the woman I was with. From Click. And I showed them the messages.” He looked away. “Talk about fucked-up timing.”
It popped out before I could think it through: “Well, unless Eleanor knew you were going to be gone that night.”
He rubbed his forehead. “And had chosen it as her night to fuck off to Mexico? Yeah, the cops mentioned that too. But the big announcement at Hielo. She seemed so excited. I don’t know.”
Your wife, I thought, was extremely skilled at keeping things from you. From all of us.
“Have the cops told you anything new?”
His eyes vaulted up and to the left. “Not a lot,” he admitted. “Last night they said it probably happened Monday night, based on what she was wearing.”
So after Mocktails. “At the Herd, then?”
“Yeah. They aren’t sure where in the building, though. There wasn’t enough … enough blood on the roof for it to have been there, so she was probably moved.” He cleared his throat, his voice shooting out in a loud clap. “If whoever did it couldn’t get her out, it was his best option because of the cold: no smell. The problem is that nobody knew the Herd was a crime scene—the entire office, I mean, the whole floor—so it’s all been compromised. The janitor’s been through a bunch of times since then, so finding clues or whatever is unlikely.”
“Shit.” I frowned. “Are they going to test for DNA?”
“I don’t know. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. They want to search here again.” His voice cracked.
Jesus. They could be over any minute.
“If you’re okay, I think I’ll get going.” I pulled my coat on. Daniel didn’t move, his jaw resting in his palm, his eyes staring into the distance. “Let me know if you need anything. Memorial service, dealing with journalists—you name it. And obviously, don’t talk to anyone.” I finished zipping my coat and pau
sed. “Basically, don’t trust anyone.”
I blinked into the late-morning sun and descended the subway steps. As I rumbled home, my brain hazed in and out of coherence. I kept picturing the slash I’d seen on Eleanor’s throat, a casual diagonal, like a finger mindlessly dragged across a fogged-up window. The murder weapon—no one had said anything about the murder weapon. My mind kept returning to the little knife she kept in her office. The only sharp object I could think of when I mentally wandered through the Herd.
I cried for a bit, my chest seizing with a fresh wave of horror. The other people in the subway car, two teenagers and an elderly woman, averted their eyes. Then another break in the fog: Those freaking surveillance cameras. Useless thanks to the router reset. Could someone from the internet provider try to recover the data? No, it wasn’t a technician from the company who came—it was Ted.
Ted.
The subway squealed to a stop; the doors clanged open and people trotted in and out.
Ted, who watched his beautiful best friend, the literal girl next door, date his brother and then go on to fame and fortune while he continued splitting a house in Bay Ridge with three roommates.
Ted, one of a very few non-members who had easy access to the Herd. To Eleanor’s office, to the knife on her shelf. I pinched the bridge of my nose. I’d always thought of Ted as sort of uncomplicated and hapless, the one guy who’d do anything for Eleanor. His devotion to her had bordered on unnerving, but in a way, I’d almost envied it—wondered, privately, what it must be like to have a man worship you like that. No way he could’ve … ?
At home, I checked my email and had only a few, which meant the news about Eleanor hadn’t hit the papers yet. Way out in India, Stephanie relayed that she was still trying to catch a flight back; the coming storm made rebookings a nightmare. I pictured her on the beach in Goa, coconut in hand, wondering if the Herd was hers for the taking when she got back. Aurelia had emailed to relay that, per the ongoing investigation, the Herd would be closed until further notice (“through the end of the year at minimum”) and could I please disseminate this news? Not even one day, one day, to mourn the loss of my best friend, her supervisor. The thought of writing a media alert, one carefully crafted and bristling with low-stakes bad news, made me want to sink to the floor and stay there until January.
In the living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows, snowflakes bopped in the breeze. The impending “snurricane.” Those who weren’t traveling for the holidays would be treated to a white Christmas. The rest of us were screwed.
I was still poking away at the press release, willing my brain to focus, when my video intercom shrieked. Two figures, standing shoulder to shoulder and towering over the sweet nameless doorman.
“Ms. Bradley, you have two … guests?”
“Who is it?”
A beat. “They say they’re detectives.”
I glanced around—the apartment was still a mess, my coat and umbrella slung on the floor, sheets and pillows on the sofa where I’d set up Katie for the night. My pulse picked up its tempo, but I couldn’t say no, couldn’t send them away without arousing suspicion.
“Send them up,” I replied.
“Ms. Bradley, how are you?” Ratliff called as I opened the door. Behind her Herrera was stout and tense, like a closed fist.
I shook their hands, then murmured, “Thank you for coming,” like a host at a dinner party. What?
“We know you were at the precinct until quite late last night,” Ratliff said. “But time is of the essence, so now that you’ve had a little time to process, we hoped to go over everything again.”
“Of course.” They followed me into the living room and hovered as I moved the pillow and duvet from the sofa to the hallway. I felt their eyes on me, watching, judging.
“Didn’t realize you had guests,” Herrera remarked.
“Just my sister. She stayed here last night.” It was a little odd she hadn’t checked in, come to think of it—earlier, she’d been very interested in my trip to Daniel’s. “Can I get you two anything?”
“No thanks.” Ratliff pulled a notebook from a pocket and opened it with a flick. “So as you know, we were just in the process of closing the investigation. Based on the email you and your friends had gotten.”
I nodded. “It looked like Eleanor had left town. Moved to Mexico. But now it seems pretty clear someone staged that to, to throw us off their trail or whatever. Whoever sent those texts and emails from her account is the obvious smoking gun, no?”
Ratliff’s face revealed nothing. Her eyes could be catlike, intelligent but expressionless. “We’ve determined those texts and emails were sent from Ms. Walsh’s phone,” she said. “From the vicinity of her apartment.”
I frowned. “You’re sure they were from her brand-new phone? Not the stolen one? ’Cause if someone just logged into her iCloud from the old one …”
“The new one. Purchased the week before.”
“Okay.” I watched Cosmo amble into the room and sit, his tail swishing. “Well, if it was the vicinity of her apartment, it was also the vicinity of the Herd. They’re within a few blocks of each other.”
“That’s correct. Unfortunately, we’ve only narrowed it down to a cell tower’s range. Location services were turned off.”
Herrera leaned forward. “You’re sure you haven’t seen her new phone anywhere?”
“What, just lying around? No. Obviously the killer took it with him.” I opened my palms. “So either he stuck around the neighborhood the next morning, or he made it look like he did. Even I know how to use VPNs.”
Ratliff made a note. “Backing up, can you tell us exactly what you were doing the evening of Monday, December sixteenth?”
I felt a prickle of fear. “I was here. Getting everything ready for the announcement. Sometimes I have trouble focusing at the Herd, so I went home midday.”
“Directly home?” she said.
“Yes. I had lunch here.” I swallowed. “I was in all night.”
“And the front desk could confirm that? I saw they have CCTV.”
“I think so. Actually, wait.” I shook my head. “If I was coming from the subway, I’d take the side entrance. Gets me inside faster when it’s super cold. But they’d have footage of me leaving the next morning.”
They had me repeat some things I’d already shared: How I knew Eleanor, my role at the Herd, how Eleanor had seemed these last few months, what I thought about Daniel. The last one was the hardest: How does anyone feel when their spectacular best friend partners with someone who is … fine? He was fine, inoffensive and sweet, appropriately head-over-heels for Eleanor (I’d thought), and good in all the checklist ways a best friend watches closely: He respected her independence, wasn’t intimidated by her success, made a passable effort to be chummy with her friends, check, check, check. He wasn’t as incredible as Eleanor, but then again, who was? He had an unglamorous yet stable job as a hospital administrator and vague interests in running and nice foodie restaurants and CrossFit. Right now he was on my Nice list for calling me instead of the detectives upon finding that blackmail note. Today’s one-on-one conversation was the longest Daniel and I had ever had, I realized. Hopefully he hadn’t mentioned it to the cops.
“He always seemed like a great guy,” I wrapped up. “Eleanor was really ready to meet someone—she even set a deadline and said she was going to manifest a partner by whatever date. And then they seemed happy together. Our gang is kind of a … girls’ club, we don’t often bring our partners around when we’re together, but he’s, you know. Good people.”
Ratliff glanced down at her notepad. “Okay. Let’s talk about anyone you think might have had a problem with Ms. Walsh, a grudge against her.”
Involuntarily, my eyes flicked onto my coat, with the blackmail note shoved deep in a pocket. Picturing it shot my chest with coldness, fresh as mint. Had someone from Jinny’s family gotten it in their head that Eleanor was responsible for Jinny’s death? But of course I couldn�
�t bring it up.
“The graffiti,” I said. “I mentioned it again last night. Someone broke into all the Herd sites, spray-painted profanities on the wall, and later stole her phone. I’m sure you have this somewhere.”
“We’re still looking into that,” Herrera said.
“Well, thank you.” I sighed and looked around the room. “Who else? She has internet trolls saying terrible things to her all the time, of course. I think there are even dedicated message boards. But nothing lately, no stalkers or threats or anything.” Except the blackmail letter, which was a kind of threat, I supposed. “I’m also curious if the Titan acquisition will go through with Eleanor gone. I’m not really clear on who was supposed to benefit from it, other than Eleanor. I forget her lawyer’s name, but Aurelia—she’s sort of the number three, I know you talked to her—she should be able to connect you.”
“That’s very helpful. Thanks.”
“Anyone else?” Herrera prompted.
“The one thing is—” I faltered, fell silent.
“What is it?” He leaned forward.
I sighed. “I don’t even think it’s worth bringing up.”
“Sometimes the tiniest details or even intuitions turn out to be helpful,” Ratliff said.
“Okay. It’s probably nothing, but … her friend Ted, his name’s probably come up, right? Ted Corrigan.” I swallowed; suddenly my heart was thrashing around in my rib cage like a baby bird. “I just keep thinking about how much access he had to the Herd. More than any other man I can think of. He was Eleanor’s go-to handyman-slash-IT-guy, so he was in here maybe a few times a month. After hours.”
I scratched at my eyebrow. “He came in a few days before she went missing to reset the router. And I guess they now think that’s what kicked the new cameras offline. Which seems like a big coincidence, right?”
“Are you saying you think he shut down the cameras in anticipation of attacking her?” Herrera set a fist on his hip.
“No, that’s—now that you say it, that’s ridiculous. I know Ted; he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” I shrugged. “I was just thinking … I don’t know, he always seemed to carry a torch for her. And you know how in the news, you’re always hearing about these guys who go berserk after a woman romantically rejects them? I just … I wonder if she rebuffed him at some point.”