Authors: Tom Dolby
S
omehow, this felt appropriate,” Nick said. He was sitting on a bench near one of the chess tables outside the Chess and Checkers House in Central Park as Phoebe approached.
“You couldn’t have picked a place that wasn’t freezing?” Phoebe said, giving him an anguished grin. It was late in the afternoon, and the Chess and Checkers House was closed. He handed his scarf to Phoebe, who wrapped it around her neck. In an attempt to warm up, she stomped her shoes against the ground as they sat on the ice-cold bench.
Nick gave her a big bear hug, but it didn’t seem to help. “Sorry,” he said, slightly embarrassed at not having realized how cold it would be inside the park. “We can keep walking.”
Phoebe gave him a kiss on his ear. “Hey, it was a valiant effort. I feel like I haven’t been inside the park in weeks.”
They looked around. The wisteria, so lush in the summer, had gone dormant. No one was playing chess. Nick remembered back to that night several months ago when they had been challenged to decode the address of the Society’s town house, and how new and exciting it had all seemed: the perks, the thrill of membership, the doors that would open for them. And that second Society event had almost seemed like a second date between Phoebe and him. He thought back to how he had imagined she would never like him, and how they were both so happy when they had finally gotten together over Thanksgiving. Now they started walking together out of the park.
“How’s your grandfather?” Phoebe asked.
Nick shrugged in frustration. “I didn’t stay,” he said. “The paramedics said he had a massive blockage. To be honest, I was sick of all the family drama.”
Phoebe touched his shoulder as they walked. “But don’t you—I mean, don’t you care about what happens to him? I mean, he is still your grandfather.”
Nick shook his head bitterly. “Yeah, I guess I care, in that way that I’m supposed to care. But do I really care? No. What they’ve done is inexcusable. He may not be in charge of the Society anymore, but I still hold him responsible, along with my dad and everyone else. And why he had to have a stroke during the funeral, I have no idea. He certainly succeeded in taking people’s attention away from the real event.”
Nick kicked the muddy leaves on the ground as they walked.
“You don’t think he faked it for that reason, do you?” Phoebe asked.
Nick smiled grimly. “No. He’s a bastard, but I don’t think he’s able to spontaneously give himself a stroke. Anyway, he’s in the hospital now, recovering.”
“I’m sorry,” Phoebe said.
Nick shrugged again. “I really don’t think about him the way I know you’re supposed to feel about family.”
Nick wondered, as they walked, if these feelings would ever change. His family had betrayed him. First they had covered up their involvement in the Society. Next they orchestrated the deaths of two people Nick knew. He had been blocking it out during most of the past two weeks. And then Patch had come into the fold, had been instantly declared a member of the Society after he had infiltrated the retreat. Nick was happy that their rift was starting to heal, but it had brought up a host of other issues. Would Patch ever forgive him for shutting him out during those months? And would Patch accept the truth Nick now knew, the secret his father had told him the morning after Patch’s initiation?
Nick had decided, for now, that that conversation had happened to a different Nick Bell, that he and Patch were good, that there were no rifts to be mended, no awkward subjects to be broached.
“Are you doing okay?” Phoebe asked.
He realized he hadn’t said anything in several minutes, had been staring at the ground as they walked. He appreciated how Phoebe would, most of the time, leave him alone to his thoughts when she knew he needed it.
“I’m so angry at all of them,” Nick said. “I mean, how can we be part of this when we know everything that they’ve done? And now, with my family, I can already sense it. If we tell them we want out, they’re going to deflect it: it’s going to be all about my grandfather and his health. ‘Don’t bother us now, Nick, not when your grandfather’s health is at risk. Stop worrying about petty things, Nick.’ As if our friends dying is somehow petty.”
“Maybe going to them isn’t the answer,” Phoebe said.
“So what can we do?”
Phoebe paused. “Boycott the mandatory meetings? Not just us, but the five of us—you and me and Lauren and Patch and Thad. That’s a third of our class. It would drive the point home, don’t you think?”
At that moment, Nick’s phone started buzzing. Phoebe motioned to him to answer it, and he picked it up, even though it was not a number he recognized.
“Your grandfather would like to see you,” a male voice said.
“Who is this?” Nick asked.
“It would be in your best interest to visit him at the hospital. The other family members are gone.” Whoever was calling didn’t want to identify himself.
“Why should I visit him?”
“He knows about your wishes. He wants to help you.”
The line clicked off.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Nick said. “We’re being summoned—well, officially, I’m being summoned—to go see my grandfather at the hospital because he ‘knows about our wishes.’ Whatever that means.”
Phoebe shook her head. “Do you really think you should go?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “Would you go with me?” He thought back to that moment in the fall when he and Phoebe had promised to look out for each other.
Phoebe paused, and for an instant he thought she might turn the other way, catch a cab downtown, never speak to him again.
She nodded slowly, taking his hand. “Let’s go.”
L
ike most people, Nick hated hospitals. They creeped him out, and New York-Presbyterian was no exception. Not only was it a hospital, but its lobby’s architecture was like a Gothic cathedral, with vaulted ceilings and dark wooden plaques on the walls and even a little chapel near the entrance where people could pray for their loved ones’ speedy recovery.
All in all, it was not a fun place to spend an evening.
Nick and Phoebe took the elevator to the intensive care unit. He was grateful that Phoebe had wanted to accompany him on this trip.
The word was that Palmer’s condition had stabilized, though his doctors were keeping him under close observation. Visiting hours were officially over, but Palmer had left word at the desk that Nick was to be let up.
Outside Palmer Bell’s room, one of the Guardians was standing watch in a dark suit. He nodded to Nick and Phoebe as they entered, though Nick ignored the brutish guard.
Nick’s grandfather was conscious, but his movements and speech patterns were slow. It felt so strange to see the handsome older man lying in a bed, powerless.
“How are you doing, sir?” Nick asked. “You remember Phoebe, right?”
“Mmmmpph,” Palmer grumbled.
“Is there anything we can do for you? Do you need anything?” Nick knew he was asking more out of reflex than anything else, as he knew all his grandfather’s needs were taken care of.
Palmer cleared his throat and began speaking slowly. “I’m glad you came. I do need you to do something for me.”
“Of course, anything.” Nick realized that he was being polite to his grandfather out of tradition and habit, not out of any genuine sense of respect.
There was a pause, as if Palmer were collecting his thoughts. Nick heard Phoebe shifting awkwardly as she stood beside him.
“Your father won’t understand this, your brothers won’t understand this. I will not tell them about it, and I suggest you don’t, either.”
Nick nodded.
“I don’t know how much longer I’m going to last. And I know you want to get out.”
Nick looked at Palmer, then at Phoebe. “What do you mean, sir?”
“I know you want out of the Society. It has been obvious from the first week. Your actions last month on the island made it very clear.”
“Well, I—I mean—” Nick stammered. He didn’t know what to say. “Why—why would you say this?”
“Nicholas, I want you to live the life that you want to lead, not one that has been set up for you by your family. I have seen—I have seen how destructive that can be. How much can be ruined when families tell their children how to live.”
Nick nodded. “What about my friends?”
“If you do this one task for me, you and your friends will never hear from the Society again.”
Nick paused. This was a major breakthrough, the chance to gain freedom from this group that had terrorized them over the past several months.
“What is the task?”
Palmer chuckled, and then started coughing. When it subsided, he spoke again. “Now just telling you—that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose so.” Nick looked glumly back at Phoebe, as she shrugged.
Another day, another riddle. It seemed as if that was what their life was amounting to these days. Nick heard Phoebe sigh.
Palmer clutched Nick’s hand. His grandfather’s fingers felt dry and brittle in his own.
“Son, you must go to the beach. You’ll find everything you need at the beach. At both beaches.”
“I’m not sure I understand. What’s at the beach?”
“All the treasures are buried in the sand. You remember the beach: the sand castles, all the shells, the jellyfish, the pieces of driftwood you would bring back to the house. You and your brothers used to spend all day on the beach.”
Nick scowled. His grandfather was playing them like puppets. “And you want us to go there because . . .”
“You must go to the beach, you must go down below. Below the surface of things.”
“Sir, I don’t understand. Which beach? The house in Southampton?”
“You need the key first. You need to find the key.”
“Where do we find the key?”
“Both beaches.”
Nick looked at him, confused. What did he mean? Southampton had several beaches: Cooper’s, Fowler, all the others. Not to mention the rest of the beaches in the Hamptons, all the way east to Montauk.
A nurse knocked on the door. “I’m sorry to cut this visit short, but Mr. Bell needs to take his medication.”
“Wait!” Nick said to his grandfather. “You’ve got to tell us more than this.”
“You have enough,” Palmer said. “Nicholas, you may not realize this, but you have always had everything you need.”
A
s they went down in the elevator, Phoebe didn’t know what to make of Palmer’s request. Would he really grant them an exit from the Society? As the group’s Chairman Emeritus, did he have the power to do this? Phoebe was skeptical. She had been burned by the elder Bells before—namely, Nick’s father, who had some of her paintings taken out of her gallery show last year—and so she was hesitant to trust the old man. More importantly, she knew that Parker Bell and Palmer Bell were responsible for Jared’s and Alejandro’s deaths. Why would Palmer go against his son’s organization, a group he had spent so many years leading?
“Are you really sure this makes sense?” Phoebe asked Nick. “I mean, it could be a trap, right?”
Nick shook his head. “I don’t really know.”
“He seemed remarkably lucid,” Phoebe said. “I thought he had suffered all sorts of brain damage.”
“He did, supposedly,” Nick said. “That’s what’s so confusing about this. I can’t tell if he’s faking it, or if he really is out of it and he’s just spouting nonsense.”
“It’s another riddle. It almost sounds like a treasure hunt. But once again, we don’t know what the treasure actually is. What was that about things being buried in the sand?”
The elevator doors opened. Phoebe nudged Nick in the ribs, motioning down the hall with a nod. They needed to stay quiet. At the lobby entrance was Gigi, Nick’s mother, with a packed monogrammed tote bag. Phoebe had acknowledged Gigi earlier that day at the service, but hadn’t said hello to her.
“Phoebe, darling!” Gigi said, as if the two of them were meeting at a cocktail party instead of a hospital lobby that smelled vaguely of disinfectant. “It is so sweet of you two to visit Palmer. I’m sure it meant so much to him. I’m just bringing him some fresh clothing—those nurses are such Nazis, but I think they’ll let me in. How did he seem?”
Nick paused, as if he wasn’t sure quite how much to say. “Better than I thought. But a little bit strange. I think maybe it’s that thing where people have a stroke and they start reminiscing about the past.”
Nick clearly didn’t want to tell his mother about the conversation. Gigi was an Elder of the Society and took very seriously her role as the wife of the Chairman.
His mother sighed. “Sweetie, you can’t pay any attention to him. They’ve got him on so much medication. You know how it is.” She looked down at the bag. “I’d better bring this up to him.” She gave Phoebe an air kiss. “Nice to see you, darling.”
Nick pushed his way out of the hospital into the cold night air. The two of them started walking west.
“What should we do?” Nick asked.
“We have to call a meeting, just among the five of us,” Phoebe said. “It’s going to take more than you and me to figure all this out.”