“You see what I’m saying? Do you understand?”
“There’s a video?”
“There’s always a video.”
I glance back down at the screen, read the rest of the comment: To those of you who wrote us after seeing the video: Thank you, dear friends, for all your support. But this is a deeply disturbed woman. Please DON’T HATE HER. We DON’T. We forgive her, and you should too.
“‘We forgive her,’” I whisper.
“Do you understand, Cam?”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t understand anything in the world. Nothing makes sense. Nothing is fair. I haven’t understood anything since he killed her.
“Excuse me?”
It’s an older woman in a camel hair coat, and she seems to have appeared out of nowhere. She places a light hand on my shoulder, and my first thought is that she’s a Protect and Serve fan, wanting Luke’s autograph. “I won’t take up too much of your time.” She says it to me, though. Not Luke. “I know you’ve had a rough night.”
Condensation rushes from my nose. I glance at Luke, who is shaking his head. Then back at the woman. There’s something about her I know, but I can’t figure out what that thing is. “You’re a reporter,” I try. “I’ve seen you on TV.”
Luke hails a cab, steps back as it screeches to the curb. “We were just leaving,” he says.
“I’m not a reporter.” The woman clasps my wrist and stands very close to me, as though we’re not strangers at all but confidantes, in on the same secret. Her eyes are blue, and startlingly bright. I do know you. Where do I know you from? She takes my gloveless hand and presses something into it. A business card.
“It’s a group,” the woman says. “For people like us.”
“People like us?”
“I know who you are.” She is still holding my hand and grasps it tighter, her skin cool and dry. “I know how you feel.”
She leaves. As I slip into the cab, she hurries to the end of the street, her silver hair catching the glow of the streetlight. In a flash, I understand who she is and why she looked familiar to me. She’s one of the two women from the Brayburn Club—the ones whispering, like snakes.
I settle into the back seat and open my hand and stare at the business card: black, with one word written at the center in elegant white letters. No address. No phone number, email, or website. Just that one strange word: Niobe.
“WHAT DID THAT reporter give you?” says Luke once we are in the cab, speeding downtown through the empty streets toward an all-night diner on Greenwich that he knows of.
“She’s not a reporter.”
“Really?”
I don’t tell him where I’ve seen her before. I’m not sure why. I’ve only spent seconds with this woman, but I feel strange about those seconds, as though they’re something to be guarded. “She said she wasn’t.”
I almost don’t want to hand him the card, but I see he’s noticed it and so I do.
He looks at me. “What is this?”
It’s a group. For people like us. “I have no idea.”
“Niobe,” he says. “From Greek mythology.”
“I . . . guess? I’m not much of a Greek mythology fan.”
He nods slowly. “Weird.” He hands the card back to me, his gaze fixed on the cab’s TV screen, footage of colorfully dressed dancers in some Broadway show, spinning, then leaping, the grins never leaving their glitter-painted faces.