by Andrea Bartz
“Eleanor is fine,” she said again. “And we feel even better knowing you’re helping look for her.”
“Of course. Daniel, Mikki, Cameron—everyone’s eager to do whatever we can.” I waited for them to jump in about Cameron, how he was down here helping out, but they didn’t take the bait. I ran into Cameron today was almost out of my throat when I realized it would be strange to say I was poking around Eleanor’s personal effects on my own, for reasons mysterious even to me. “It’s really too bad Daniel wasn’t home Monday night, right?” Surely he hadn’t told them about his, er, extracurricular activities?
“Horrible. Some luck, spending the night in your office that night, of all nights.” Gary seemed grateful for the change of subject. “But you know Daniel. A workaholic, just like our Eleanor.”
I pulled at the toe of my sock. “Did Daniel say anything else?”
“Oh, the detectives had just left and so he kinda filled us in,” he replied. “Have you seen him today? I’m worried about him.”
“No, but I called him this morning. He was back at work.”
“See? What’d I tell ya. A workaholic.”
“It’s true,” I said. More silence. All these people, normally so skilled in the art of conversation, fumbling around for the right thing to say. “Well, I’m sure he’ll keep you posted, but I just wanted to check in. Call me if you need anything, okay? I’m happy to be your eyes and ears down here.”
“Thanks so much, sweetheart,” Karen said, and Gary echoed her. “We’ll do that.”
Work consumed the afternoon, a welcome distraction from my own maudlin imagination, an endless reel that made my stomach wrench: Eleanor locked in a basement, Eleanor chained up in a fallout shelter, Eleanor bound in the back of a speeding truck. I played Whac-A-Mole with journalists seeking updates and had about forty ninety-second-long calls with Stephanie in India, the reception ducking and weaving like Cosmo when I try to get him into his carrier. She was trying to move up her flight, but holiday bookings left her with few options. She was fine with leaving Aurelia, the head member relations coordinator, in charge until her return.
Finally I slammed my laptop closed and tossed my phone onto the rug. Eleanor’s bookshelf … I kept seeing it, the rainbow of spines, colors and words, matte and glossy. The royal-blue hardcover with the gold and silver lettering. I pictured myself pulling it out, flipping through. Her fingerprints on the pages smudging under mine.
The idea bloomed in my skull as if someone else had whispered it to me. My lips popped open, mouthed the words, “Oh my God.”
I lunged for my phone, Googled two words and two numbers. The split second between hitting Enter and seeing my results fattened and stretched, and then words swamped the screen. The ones at the top told me everything I needed to know.
Of course. Of course. It was so obvious I let out a little laughing scream. I brought my hand to my forehead, alarmed by how stupid I’d been.
I wasn’t sure whom to call first, so I sent a group text to Katie and Mikki: “Guys, I think I know where Eleanor is.”
CHAPTER 12
Katie
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 11:40 A.M.
I dropped my phone, theatrically, like a mime demonstrating shock. It slid off my knee and clattered to the floor, bounced once before settling.
Mikki looked alarmed: “Everything okay?”
I grabbed it and reread the text: So it seems Eleanor’s out of commission, hmm?
“What is it?” Mikki prompted again.
My fingers and jaw had gone cold, as if someone had propped open the door to the rooftop above us. I looked into her eyes and decided it was safe to share.
“Please don’t tell Hana,” I said, “or anyone, okay? But I’ve been—I was thinking about pitching an article about the Herd, a business profile timed to the Fort Greene location opening.” A ham-fisted lie, but it’d do. “And I reached out to the guy who filed that stupid discrimination suit earlier this year, since I thought it was relevant—talking to the people who basically show why the Herd needs to exist, right?”
Mikki nodded.
“We didn’t even end up talking—he flaked on our interview. But he just sent me this.” I handed her my phone and she gasped.
“How does he know this?”
I shook my head. “He could just mean that she wasn’t at the event last night—‘family emergency’—and she hasn’t been on social or anything since then. He’s probably mildly obsessed with her.”
“Do you think he’s a stalker?”
“No idea. In my research, I didn’t see a restraining order or anything.” I flipped the phone’s volume button on and off. “Did anyone mention him to the cops? Like, as a possible enemy? He has—bad blood, certainly.”
“Motive.” Mikki frowned. “I don’t think anyone did. The lawsuit went nowhere. But you should probably let that detective know.” She reached for her bag. “Do you still have her card?”
I left Ratliff a voicemail, then texted Carl back: “What do you mean?” No response.
And not much time to worry about it, because around noon, Fatima arrived. I scurried to the front desk, where her jaw was shuddering from the continued cold snap; it felt appropriate somehow, the outside providing that same teeth-chattering discomfort I felt whenever I thought of Eleanor’s absence. Again, I pushed down the anxiety like someone sitting on an overstuffed suitcase to zip it: I can solve this.
I settled Fatima into a corner sofa and set my laptop on the cushion between us. The whole thing felt a bit like sorcery: Fatima typed an IP address into my browser and entered the router info Ted had provided, and then the screen flooded with ugly raw data.
Fatima gestured with a flourish: “This is it. It’s way less than I thought there’d be. Apparently it only has the history going back to …” She squinted at the screen. “The thirteenth. What is that, Friday?”
“Yeah, Friday night. They just reset the router.” I frowned, remembering. “There were only three of us here that night, and Eleanor was the last one using it.”
She scrolled, clicked, then pointed. “That’s her, then. I’ll pull it into its own file.”
“You’re a wizard.”
“I prefer goddess.” She handed the laptop back over. “I gotta bounce, but I should have those Click profiles for you soon.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and nodded toward my screen. “Hope you find something helpful in there. And, you know. I’m praying for your friend.” I thanked her and waved, the kind words reigniting the alarm I’d been suppressing.
I looked back at the words and numbers swimming across my screen. Eleanor. AKA IP address 95.246.174.28. On Friday night, before we left to drink Prosecco, Eleanor was on Gmail for a few minutes. I almost dismissed this, then remembered that I’d seen the email client on her work computer: Outlook, her domain @theherd.com. I, for one, had no record of a Gmail account belonging to Eleanor.
She was back in the office on Saturday, the last warmish day before the cold descended, while Hana and I were out looking at window displays and arguing over whether or not I’d sell secrets like some shady back-alley salesman. Eleanor had read the Times, clicked around on The Gaze, looked at Twitter, and somehow spent just three minutes on an inordinate number of views of White Plains, New York, in Google Maps. She passed a few minutes online banking at HSBC, which I almost disregarded—but wait, she banked with Chase.
I was pulling out my folder with printouts of her bank statements when Detective Ratliff called. I told her about my sudden, creepy text from Carl, carefully repeating the line about my surreptitious article research. She asked for a screenshot and my copy of the court filing.
I tugged at my earlobe. “If you question him, then he’ll know she’s really missing, right?”
“I can’t imagine we’ll tell him. Right now we think it’s best to not release any information to the public. But we’ll follow up on this and get in touch with Mr.… Berkowski if we feel it necessary.”
“Okay. Thanks
for your time.” Why does thank you so often throw on a suit and stand in for fuck you?
I hung up and wandered over to the snack bar. I ordered an artichoke hummus platter, then gazed at the beige mush and realized I had never been less hungry. As I pushed cucumbers around on my plate, I looked again at the Chase bank statements. There were an awful lot of ATM withdrawals, come to think of it. Not easy to spot—they were at different locations, round numbers with the fee tacked on, $123.50 from a Duane Reade in Hell’s Kitchen and $182 from a restaurant in DUMBO. Three or four times a week, another wad of cash withdrawn—and of course, Eleanor was a cashless Millennial, whipping out cards or paying for a round with her phone. Why was she squirreling away wads of bills?
“Katie.”
I jumped and my head shot up. Aurelia, the glossy-haired member relations coordinator, was standing over me, her hands stuffed into her pockets.
“Aurelia. Hi.” I closed the file folder, all casual.
“There’s a detective here. Ratliff.” She jerked her head toward the front desk. “She’s going to look through Eleanor’s office. She said we can watch as long as we don’t touch anything. Hana …” She shrugged. “She suggested I have you there. What with your investigative journalist instincts and everything.”
Hana had interacted with Aurelia today, but not me? “Of course.”
Ratliff said hello stoically; I couldn’t tell if she realized we’d talked on the phone less than an hour earlier. She stepped inside Eleanor’s now-unlocked office while the three of us—Mikki, too—clustered in the door. The room, with its rectangle of sun and bursts of happy green, somehow seemed sinister now. The chairs in the corner looked mocking in their emptiness; the spider plants seemed to sag.
It was neat—impeccably so. Eleanor’s broad computer monitor sat on the desk, taunting us. Ratliff snapped on gloves and moved to turn it on, but Mikki mumbled something about how it wouldn’t do anything without a computer hooked up to it; sure enough, the screen blinked to life, then coldly demanded an input.
From then on, it was exactly as excruciating as standing motionless as a TSA employee attempts to repack your bag. I pointed to Eleanor’s small golden trash can and said something about checking it. Ratliff ignored me and fumbled with the pashmina and sweater draped on the coat rack, checking pockets. Then she tugged at the mint-green file cabinet rolled under the desk and thumbed through hanging index folders.
“I know she keeps Herd applications in there,” Aurelia called. “And stuff related to the Fort Greene site.” Ratliff nodded, then pulled out large clear bags and loaded the folders inside.
“Uh, some of those are original documents,” Mikki said. “Permits and stuff.”
“You can have them back once we know they’re not pertinent,” Ratliff replied without looking up. My stomach twisted—the invasion of Eleanor’s personal space felt creepy and wrong. Ratliff was rifling casually, as if the owner wouldn’t be back, as if these were a dead woman’s things. At the shelving units, she picked up the first leather notebook on the stack and flipped through it—empty, I guessed, because she set it back. Same with the three below it.
“Didn’t Eleanor carry around a notebook?” I asked.
“I think she kept it in her purse,” Mikki said, crossing her arms. “We still don’t know what happened to her purse or laptop.”
“That’s what we hoped to find here,” Ratliff cut in. She ran a finger across the glass shelf. “When was the cleaner last here?”
“Monday night,” Aurelia replied. “Probably around five. She couldn’t clean yesterday because it was locked, obviously.”
Ratliff nodded and then leaned forward, inspecting the little knife. “And can anyone tell me about this?”
“I’ve asked her about it before—the handle is so beautiful.” Mikki pressed a hand against the doorframe. “She brought it back from Mexico City at some point. She’s had it for a long time—since she started Gleam, at least.”
Ratliff loaded the blade and its holder into an evidence bag as well. Finally, she fished in the trash can and bagged two tiny receipts (ATM withdrawals? Credit card slips from delis?) and a subway card. She stuck her hands on her knees and stood. “Is there anything else you think I should see here?”
We looked at each other blankly.
“Is there anything else you want to see?” Aurelia finally asked.
Ratliff shook her head. “You have my number if you think of anything.” We bumbled out of the doorway and accompanied her out.
Aurelia floated back to the front desk, and Mikki and I exchanged a look. “What the hell kind of search was that?” I demanded.
“She barely even looked around,” Mikki said. She turned and marched back toward Eleanor’s office. “If she won’t look properly, I will.”
I hurried after her and closed us inside. “Do you know what you’re looking for?”
Mikki was already cross-legged in front of the shelves, yanking at books that lined the bottom two rows. “No idea,” she replied.
The door swung open and Aurelia appeared. Without a word, she plopped down next to Mikki, who was shaking books by the covers so the pages lolled.
“What did she want to talk to you about?” Mikki asked.
I looked around in confusion, but Aurelia answered: “She had questions about the acquisition. Who would benefit, if anyone was against it, that kind of thing. I was pretty useless—I didn’t know about it till this week either.”
Ratliff must have shown up earlier than I’d thought, chatting with Aurelia before conducting her half-assed search. It shook me that Ratliff could’ve walked right by Fatima and me.
“And could you think of anything?” Mikki asked.
“Not really. I wish Hana were here, she knows more than I do. The detective asked for files on all our members. Oh, and everyone working on the Fort Greene site.”
I pulled at the backs of the framed photos, the one of Mikki, Eleanor, and Hana as big-eyed, thick-banged eighteen-year-olds, plus the one of Daniel and Eleanor vacationing together. Nothing written on the back of either.
“Have either of you been to the construction site?” I said. “Maybe there was a creepy contractor.”
Aurelia shook her head, but Mikki looked up. “I’ve gone a couple times, to sign off on changes with the design,” she said. “But I don’t remember anyone leering or anything. I mean, it’s construction workers. They’re just tired and trying to do their jobs.”
“Eleanor’s really picky about who we work with—I know because I was in charge of getting bids.” Aurelia leaned back on her hands. “The contractors we went with are expensive but super professional. She didn’t want to hire anyone who’d do anything, you know. Below board.”
“Undocumented workers, that kind of thing?” I said.
“Yeah. Or even just cutting corners, forging ahead without the right permits or whatever. She kept saying we wouldn’t survive a scandal. I guess ’cause of the acquisition.”
Mikki flung herself into an armchair. “Speaking of scandals, did they ever figure out who was calling us ugly cunts?”
“The detectives know about it, but no progress, no.”
Suddenly a phone buzzed, and for a brief, wild moment I thought it was Eleanor’s, hidden here in her office, and it would solve everything and prove she was okay. My heart took off, but then I realized the phone was mine, vibrating inside my bag on Eleanor’s desk.
Fatima. “It’s for a story,” I told them, my get-out-of-jail-free card. “I gotta take this.”
But of course, when I called her back a minute later, Fatima didn’t pick up. I texted her and then tried Hana again: It was strange enough being here without Eleanor, and it wasn’t like Hana to blow me off. Where had everyone gone? Suddenly the frustration surged up like nausea and I found my cheeks dripping with tears.
I needed distraction, needed to keep digging. I thought of Ted, who this morning had mentioned meeting for food, and sent him a text: “I’m wrapping here—what’s
your plan?” He suggested a burrito place nearby, and though I couldn’t imagine eating a fucking burrito at the moment, I’d do anything to get out of here, away from Eleanor’s once-perfect and now-rumpled things.
I glared at those I passed in the street, well-dressed and good-looking even under their thick winter layers—lucky bystanders, people who didn’t know or care that Eleanor was someplace she shouldn’t be. That my writing career was fucked, that there was a bloodstain somewhere in Michigan where a Chris-shaped hole had been cut from my chest. I gulped in the frigid air and hurried over to Eighth Avenue.
I spotted Ted through the fogged-up windows and felt my spirits lift. He wore a down vest over a plaid shirt, all mountain man-y. We hugged hello, a little awkwardly, and when he ordered a margarita, I did the same. I sucked at it when it appeared, eager for the softening, the way tequila sanded down the rough edges.
“So how’re you holding up?” he asked. Chips arrived, the oily deep-fried variety, and he plunged one into salsa.
“I’m okay. I’m trying to keep busy—makes me feel like I’m doing something.” I pulled a napkin from the little dispenser.
“I hear that. I just keep getting stuck on … we were all high-fiving over your computer on Friday. A few days ago. Where could she have gone?”
“She didn’t seem like someone with any plans to leave.” I sighed. “How often do you normally see her?”
He shrugged. “Every few weeks. When she needs something at the Herd, usually. I saw her twice last week, with that spray paint in the bathroom.”
“It’s the Gleam Room, Ted,” I said, with mock seriousness, and he raised his palms.
My phone, facedown on the placemat, buzzed a few times in a row, and I flipped it over. Dammit—automated texts from a political campaign. “Sorry. I haven’t heard from Hana all day and it’s kinda freaking me out. It’s not like her.”
“Do you want to try calling her now?”
“No, it’s fine. Sometimes she …” I plonked my elbows on the table. “Sometimes she gets stressed out, and it’s like I’m the only one she can … punish is too strong a word. Take it out on?” I cocked my head. “She uses up a lot of energy trying to seem together. All cheerful and easygoing and all that. But she’s actually so tightly wound, sometimes I worry she’s going to, I don’t know, implode into a little diamond or something.” I squeezed my fists to demonstrate.
