The Herd (ARC)

by Andrea Bartz

  “Why?” Mikki’s eyes narrowed.

  “Because the same message was spray-painted on the walls in the San Francisco Herd and the Fort Greene worksite. Eleanor had photos of all three on her phone, and someone sent those photos to The Gaze. She didn’t want news getting out ahead of the Titan acquisition, so I made the whole thing go away.”

  “The same message was at the other sites? And you kept that out of the news?” I stretched my eyebrows up and my mouth down, impressed. “Even I didn’t know you’re that good of a publicist.”

  She leaned forward onto all fours and stared under the bed. “Thing is, her new phone, the one she got to replace the stolen one—they said the texts and emails we got on Tuesday came from it, and that it was used to send that I’m-in-Mexico email a few days later.”

  We nodded.

  “And tonight, I said something to Cameron about how Eleanor’s lock screen was a photo of her and her husband. Which was true for ninety-nine percent of the last year—I wasn’t thinking about her new phone. But when she got it a couple weeks ago, she made it one of the new Gleam backgrounds.”

  I glanced at Mikki to see if this was making more sense to her. Had Hana lost her mind? “Yeah, so?”

  “So I said something about the background photo with Daniel, and there was this split-second where Cameron was confused. Like, ‘No, that’s not right.’ ” She stood and fluffed the pillows, checked under the unmade duvet. “Which could mean he had her latest phone. It’s just a hunch. Could be nothing.”

  “We should slow down.” Mikki wrapped her arms around her waist. “Maybe he just didn’t know what picture she’d set as her background.”

  Near his dresser, Hana froze. “I don’t want to be right either. But him being in New York, showing up on Eleanor hate sites—it doesn’t look good.” She went back to thumbing through socks. “Help me, would you? It could be anywhere.”

  On leaden legs, I approached the closet and pushed aside the sliding door. It was a damn mess, a bachelor stereotype: shirts clinging to bent wire hangers, piles of jeans toppling on the top shelf, a casserole of clothes and shoes along the floor.

  “Why would he hide it here?” I asked, using one sneaker to nose through the jumble. “Why wouldn’t he just destroy it?”

  “No idea.” Hana was on her knees, her cheek near the floor as she peered beneath the bureau. “I just feel like there’s something here. Mikki …” She looked up. “He didn’t take you in here? You hooked up in the living room, right?”

  “Wait, what?” I turned so suddenly my elbow crashed into a bunch of empty hangers; they jangled as I tried to pat them into stillness.

  Mikki nodded miserably, still frozen by the door. “But Cameron would never …”

  I crossed to Hana and pressed a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve gotta stop. This is weird.” It wasn’t like Hana to be so oblivious, so unable to read the room. She stood and groped around in his bookshelf, not looking at me. “Hana.”

  She whipped around and her eyes were shiny with tears. “It … it has to be here …”

  I pulled her into me, one hand on her back and the other on her skull. She let out a hiccuppy gasp and hugged me back.

  “Jinny’s mom,” Mikki said quietly. She cleared her throat and said it louder: “Jinny’s mom.”

  Who’s Jinny? Hana pulled away, staring at the floor next to my feet.

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Mikki said, her voice tiny and tense. “Celia Hurst. We have to tell the cops, they have to look into her, she—”

  “This isn’t about Jinny.” Hana turned to look at her. “It’s about Cameron. I know you don’t want it to be him, but it fits. And maybe, I don’t know, maybe Ted was helping him or something, but it wasn’t this random woman from Appalachia.”

  “What’s going on?” I looked back and forth between them, my pulse quickening.

  Hana stared at Mikki, her expression equal parts warning and terror. “Mikki, no.”

  Mikki gazed back, their eyes locked for what felt like hours, years, and then Mikki turned to me: “This is all our fault.”

  Hana’s knees buckled and she sank to the floor. A ripping sensation in my chest: What had she … could she … ? I kneeled next to her. “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. Just tell me what happened.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. My heart beat wildly, a scared creature in a jar. I wanted to hit Pause, stop before I learned whatever awful thing I couldn’t unhear. Snow drummed against the window; the lights flickered once, threatening to go out.

  Mikki tiptoed over and sat near us. “We knew this woman, Jinny,” she began, “and she used to sell us drugs. She went missing nine years ago, after she came up here with us. To Beverly. To the Walshes’.”

  And they told me, taking turns, words spilling out like wine. I pictured it as they spoke: Jinny’s flail on the slippery pool tiles, blood seeping into the chlorinated water. Gary—a developer, a boss, commanding by definition—calmly instructing them to pack their things and leave.

  They finished speaking and the silence hovered like low-hanging clouds. Finally, I shook my head. “And nobody tried to argue? No one called 911?”

  “Eleanor told us everything would be fine, and we believed her.” Mikki raised her eyebrows. “She’s very convincing.”

  “So you just returned to school like nothing had happened?”

  Hana shrugged. “It was horrible. We saw Jinny’s picture on the news and everything, and all the awful pleas from her mother for anyone with information to step forward. But somehow … everyone assumed she’d just run away. And we were all so busy getting ready for finals. I know that sounds … unthinkable, but it’s true.”

  Another long silence. Mikki flicked away a tear.

  “Did you feel guilty?” I asked.

  “Of course we did,” Hana snapped. “We felt terrible. But what could we do? Life goes on. Life got good. We got great jobs, Gleam took off …” She shook her head. “And for eight years, there was nothing. And then I got the first blackmail letter.” She finally finished, recounting what had really happened when she’d rushed to Daniel’s apartment on Saturday. How she’d taken Eleanor’s final blackmail letter home with her and watched it burn to ash, the December 31 deadline at the bottom blazing white and then crumbling into gray.

  I crossed my arms. “Isn’t there a paper trail? Connecting you to the blackmail?”

  Mikki shook her head. “We all got Bitcoin accounts. It was surprisingly easy.”

  “Jesus.” I rubbed my brow. “But now Eleanor is about to miss a payment.”

  Hana nodded. “I don’t know what’ll happen on the first, but it can’t be good.”

  Something clicked, one of life’s minor mysteries: This was why, after graduation, Hana had dropped everything and moved to L.A. Like Eleanor, like Dad, she’d tried to run.

  Mikki cleared her throat. “Cameron told me something. Right when—after we hooked up. You know how guys get. All vulnerable.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “He said he knew about Jinny. All these years. From Gary. I don’t know why or how, but he did.”

  “Jesus,” Hana said.

  “But I don’t think he’d tell me that if he was the one blackmailing us.” She wiped a tear, smearing it across her cheek. “I told him I didn’t want to talk about it. But he said that last year, he started sort of obsessing over Jinny’s mom. She’s still looking for her daughter, which is incredibly sad. And she’s not doing all that well, she’s struggled with addiction; maybe that made Cameron see her as a kindred spirit.”

  Hana’s eyes widened and Mikki looked at her. “He didn’t contact her or anything. I don’t even think he talked to Ted about it. But I guess at Christmas last year, Cameron cornered Eleanor and told her he thought she should come clean. For Jinny’s mom’s sake. And she was like, ‘Fuck no, and if you say a word to anyone, I’ll turn on you so fast. I’ll say you were entirely responsible for Jinny’s death, and people will believe me.’ ”

  “Ele
anor said that? She threatened Cameron?” I shook my head, amazed.

  Hana rubbed her temples. “I believe it. She could be … ruthless. It’s part of her brand.”

  Mikki nodded. “And then this year, around Thanksgiving, apparently Eleanor told her family about the Herd buyout, and word got around to the Corrigans. And Cameron’s first thought—it sounds so noble, I don’t know if he’s full of shit, but this is what he told me—his first thought was, ‘If Eleanor’s about to become filthy rich, she has to set up a fund in Jinny’s name.’ Somehow help the family that’d fallen apart after we took her away.” When Mikki looked up tears varnished her eyes, but her voice remained steady. “That’s as far as he got when you came by.”

  “So you had no idea he was in New York the night Eleanor … went missing?” Killed, murdered, stabbed to death—words I couldn’t utter right now. She shook her head.

  Hana wound her hands together. “I saw him the next day.” Mikki and I uttered shocked, guttural noises. “The day after Eleanor disappeared, I mean. Wednesday. I went over to Eleanor’s apartment—I told myself it was just to look for clues, but I was looking for blackmail notes, anything that would tie us to Jinny. I hoped she’d been smart enough to destroy them, but I had to check.”

  I watched her cry, feeling my impression of her shifting like tectonic plates inside my skull. I’d flitted through the week with nothing but a passing, What’s Hana hiding? This—this was a Mr. Hyde side I never wanted to meet.

  “And Cameron showed up at Eleanor’s apartment,” she went on, her voice small. “I let him inside. He said he’d just gotten into town and I … I’m an idiot, I believed him. He said he was there to help, but I thought he’d come to beat up Daniel or something—he was surprised when Daniel wasn’t home. But maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe he was trying to … I don’t know, remove some evidence or something.”

  “Let’s back this up,” I said. The facts were poking out at odd angles, a tent frame I couldn’t snap into shape. “We know Cameron was in town on Monday. The night Eleanor was killed. And he was still there on Wednesday, when you saw him at Eleanor’s apartment.”

  Hana looked up. “Maybe when Eleanor finally scheduled the big announcement about Titan, he decided to drive down to see her. Make his final plea.”

  “But you really think he would hurt her?” Mikki rocked forward, snuffling. “Maybe we’re looking at this wrong. Maybe—maybe he did reach out to Jinny’s mom, maybe he said something that made her want to confront Eleanor. Maybe he learned she was gonna try to hurt Eleanor, and he came down to protect her.”

  “Hello?” Ted’s voice boomed down the hall.

  We froze and stared at one another, like naughty pets caught red-handed.

  “Cameron?” Ted appeared in the doorway and I blushed at the sight of him.

  “Ted, hi!” Hana swept us all into the hallway, casual and smooth. “We were just about to head back over to the Walshes’.”

  “Is Cameron here?” Ted craned his neck to look behind us.

  I spotted an opening: “No, he said he was gonna go looking for you. Have you heard from him?”

  Hana had nonchalantly led us back to the doorway. Ted shook his head.

  “I texted him earlier, right after—when I got back from Mr. and Mrs. Walsh’s.” His ears reddened. Right after we’d been walked in on mid-hookup, right after he’d called me selfish and I’d told him to leave. “Cam didn’t reply, but I was down in the basement with the game on so I don’t know if it went through. I just came upstairs to get a beer and saw that his car was gone, but all his lights were on. I figured he went out and I was just gonna shut ’em off.”

  “And then you saw all our coats here,” Mikki finished.

  He was looking at his phone, Hana had said, right before you rang the doorbell. “What’d you say to Cameron?” I asked. “When you texted?”

  He shrunk a bit, frowned. “Nothing important. Hey, so where’s Cameron? And what are you guys still doing here?”

  “What’d you say in your text?” I squared my chin at him. “Was it about me?”

  “What? No.”

  I took a step forward. “Were you in a rush to tell him what a bitch I am? For trying to write about Eleanor?” I knew it wasn’t the case, wasn’t in character for him at all, but I could see how uncomfortable I was making him. That mounting eagerness to set the record straight. “How her death is basically my fault?”

  “No! Jesus! You think I think that?” He shook his head. “I asked him about that old photo of Eleanor. Okay? Like, ‘Hey, have you been posting this online?’ I thought it was kind of a shitty thing to do when she hated that photo. I don’t even know if he saw it—he didn’t reply.”

  Of course. Cameron had received that text and put two and two together, spotted the walls closing in.

  I can’t imagine what face we were all making, but his glance shot between us. “What, what is it?”

  “We’re heading back to the Walshes’,” I said, before anyone could break in. We think your brother’s a killer was not a conversation I felt prepped for; Mikki seemed reticent to accept it as a possibility, and typically Hana was conscientious to a fault … but tonight we were all loose cannons. “Why don’t you keep trying Cameron? It’s coming down hard out there—he really shouldn’t be driving.”

  Ted continued to frown, but he nodded as we gathered our things. He flicked off the lights and walked outside with us, then hooked toward the main house with an awkward wave. The snow felt heavy on my cheeks and eyelashes and the crown of my head, like small, cold loogies. Everything still felt very wrong. Where was Cameron?

  Gary and Karen, at least, were in the kitchen, sliding vegetables and salmon fillets into the oven.

  “Well, there you all are!” Gary said, trying to sound jolly, but his face fell when he saw our expressions. “What is it?”

  I cleared my throat. “Something weird is going on,” I said. “We were over at Cameron’s and he … took off.”

  Karen set down her knife. “He what?”

  “He grabbed his keys and ran out. Really gunned it,” Hana said.

  “In these conditions?” Karen brought a hand to her mouth. “That’s dangerous!”

  “We called Detective Ratliff because we realized some weird things about him. About”—I sucked in a breath—“about what he was doing the night Eleanor died, and why he didn’t tell anyone he was in New York.”

  “You’re kidding,” Gary gasped. Karen moaned and reached for him.

  “Why don’t we all sit down,” Hana said. Rustling and squeaking as everyone yanked back kitchen chairs.

  Again, I felt the instinct to pull back and let Hana do the talking, but instead I walked them through it: The strange posts in the Antiherd. The parking ticket the night of the crime. How he’d just grabbed his car keys and sped off mid-conversation, which was not exactly the behavior of an innocent man. Karen and Gary kept nodding blankly, their eyes dull as the room filled with the smell of root vegetables and fish.

  “Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” Gary said when I’d finished.

  “Does anyone smell burning?” Karen added, pushing her chair out noisily. We watched, stiff as ice sculptures, as she slid the trays out of the oven and swiped her potholder at the smoke. Gary rose and began pulling plates from a cabinet; without speaking, and with all the ease of a bunch of robots, we set the table, spooned things onto serving trays, found our seats again.

  “Let’s say grace,” Gary said, and Hana, Mikki, and I exchanged frantic looks as the Walshes bowed their heads: Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts …

  We passed the pepper. We remarked on the garlicky pistachio breading patted onto the salmon’s side. The Walshes asked about our New Year’s Eve plans and we answered, in turn. The three of us kept catching one another’s glances as our forks clanged against our plates. We were Norman Rockwell’s most fucked-up tableau yet: two healthy, round-faced parents, three beautiful young women, eating off pretty patterned china w
hile the snow throbbed outside.

  Gary half-stood to pour more wine into my goblet and Karen grabbed at the water glass he’d nearly tipped, and I felt a rush of cold, bracing as menthol: Behold these sweet, straitlaced Baby Boomers who’d opened their home to me. Who’d opened their home to Eleanor and her friends, too, and then somehow made it all go away when things fell apart. Did they see Jinny’s face every night? Was the guilt gnawing at them from inside?

  “So, I think we’re gonna head back to New York first thing tomorrow,” Hana said, when we’d all given up pretending to eat, food flaked apart and pushed around our plates. “We’ll connect with the detectives there, and … get out of your hair.”

  One would expect them to insist having us here was no trouble, even out of knee-jerk Catholic guilt. Instead they stared. Our facades were collapsing, solid outsides thawing and crumbling apart from head to toe.

  “Cameron’s a good kid,” Gary announced, and we all turned to him. Mikki started to cry. “He’s a good kid.”

  “Thank you so much for letting us be here,” Hana concluded.

  Karen nodded slowly. “It’s been a long day. I’m going to head to bed. Gary, let’s go.”

  “We’ll take care of cleaning up,” I added, rising to pile dishes.

  Karen stared at me, then nodded. She and Gary shuffled away.

  “What the fuck was that,” Hana hissed, once they were out of earshot.

  “I thought that dinner was never going to end,” I said. “Clearly they cannot handle the idea of Cameron having anything to do with Eleanor’s death.”

  “They’re close—he’s basically their surrogate son.” Mikki turned on the faucet and stuck a plate under the tap. Her tone confused me—was she still defending him? “They really don’t want it to be him.”

  “Here’s what I don’t understand,” I said. “Obviously I barely know Cameron, way less than you two. But if he was driving down to New York to talk to Eleanor, why would he bring a scalpel? Or whatever sharp tool?”