Authors: Tom Dolby
T
wenty minutes after the meeting at the museum ended, Phoebe and Nick were headed east on the Long Island Expressway toward the beach. The weekend had finally arrived, and they could focus on Palmer’s challenge from the previous Sunday. Nick was driving his old beat-up Jeep Cherokee that he parked at a garage on 106th Street with the rest of his family’s cars. The garage’s location amused Phoebe; it was right on the edge of where the Upper East Side turned into Harlem, and yet the Bells parked their cars there for one simple reason: the prices were cheaper. Garage rates in Manhattan were notoriously exorbitant, and parking their cars twenty blocks away had never struck them as an inconvenience.
As they left the city behind them, Phoebe was pretty sure they were breaking some kind of New York State law about driving without an adult present, but Nick didn’t seem to care. It was more important that they figure out Palmer’s riddle. Besides, Nick looked older than his age, he was a savvy driver, and he even had an illegal radar detector so he knew to slow down when cops were nearby.
“I feel like we should have done this five days ago,” Phoebe said as Nick passed several cars. “We should have driven out the day your grandfather told us about it.”
Nick shook his head. “It wouldn’t have made sense. We had the first day of school coming up. And then everything happened with you and Lauren and Thad.”
Phoebe gave a half smile. “Well, at least the way you drive, we’ll be there before midnight.” She sat back in her seat. For the first time in weeks, it felt like they were on the right track. Phoebe had also noticed a lightness in Nick’s step as they were walking to the garage. It was the happiest she’d seen him since the day that they had officially started dating.
Nick picked up a soda and Phoebe opened it for him so he could keep his eyes on the road. After taking a gulp of root beer, he reached over to stroke her knee. “It’s sort of an adventure, right? I mean, no one knows we took the car, no one knows we’re going to the house.”
“I like it,” Phoebe said. “We should do it more often.”
“Under better circumstances,” Nick said.
They were silent for a few minutes, and Phoebe watched the sea of red taillights ahead of them. She thought she might doze off, she was so exhausted, but she fought to keep her eyes open.
“This is going to sound weird,” Nick said, “but do you think we would have ever met if it wasn’t for the Society?”
“You tell me.”
“I think we would have. I noticed you, that first day, when I handed you the flyer.”
Phoebe laughed. “Yeah, right! Amidst the ten thousand other people you were inviting to your party.”
“Do you think we would have met if we didn’t go to the same school?”
“I think so,” Phoebe said.
“Why’s that?”
Phoebe took a deep breath. “Because I believe things happen for a reason. That certain things are, I don’t know, not necessarily predetermined, but if they’re meant to be, they’re meant to be.”
“So would you say the same for the Society?”
Phoebe looked out the window. Was it meant to be? If she could do it over again, would she have wished for none of it to happen? Or was it somehow part of a bigger picture?
“I don’t know,” she said. “We might feel completely trapped right now, but I think there’s going to be a reason for all of this.”
“You’ve certainly become very Zen about it,” Nick said.
“Maybe it’s just getting off the island,” Phoebe said. “Getting away, especially with no one knowing where we are. Did you ever think about that? What if we turned around and started driving west, out of New York, across the country? Just got the hell out of here? Couldn’t we leave all this behind?”
Nick frowned. “What about the others? And can you imagine leaving our lives here? Besides, what would we do? How would we live? I can’t just—I can’t just leave everything I’ve ever known behind me.” He gripped the steering wheel tightly.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Phoebe said.
He softened a bit. “No, it’s not that at all—you’re so damn smart. You’re the only person in my life who would ever even suggest that option. And it’s, like, by bringing it up, even if we never do it, just knowing that it’s there, that you thought it—it makes me feel like . . . I don’t know. It’s just cool.”
Phoebe smiled. Nick had a habit, when he was bordering on something profound, of backing away from it. Tonight she didn’t want to push him.
His face grew serious. “Anyway, we should think about what my grandfather said. Are you worried at all?”
“What I want to understand,” Phoebe said, “is why would he decide to help us? Why would he go behind your father’s back?”
Nick kept his eyes focused on the highway as he answered. “My grandfather and my father haven’t always gotten along. They hide it well, especially in front of strangers, but they’ve disagreed bitterly about a lot of things over the years. When he was a member in his early years, my father tried to rebel against the Society himself. And I think there’s something in my grandfather—it’s almost like regret. Why, I don’t exactly know.”
Phoebe nodded.
“All I know,” Nick said, “is that I don’t want my life to be like that.”
“If your grandfather doesn’t believe in rebelling against the Society, why is he trying to help you do it?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I’m not going to turn down the chance to make this right, to get us and the others out. I don’t know if we have any other option. We can’t work against them. We can’t skip the meetings. The police wouldn’t believe us, because we have no evidence. The only way to get out of it is to be officially released.”
“Has anyone ever done that?” Phoebe asked. “They don’t exactly seem keen on letting anyone out.”
“It’s not a question I want to pose to my father, not after what we saw on the island. I think we need to figure out this Palmer thing first.”
When they arrived at the Bell family estate two hours later, it looked as if it had been shut down for the winter. All the lights on the property were off and the ground was frozen. After parking on the gravel driveway, Nick opened the front door with his key.
“Home again,” Nick said as they stepped inside. The house was kept at a chilly fifty-five degrees in winter, and Phoebe shivered.
“Ugh, I wish I could just flop into bed,” Phoebe said. “Do you want to start our search tomorrow? For whatever we’re looking for. I guess we really should start now.”
“Oh my God,” Nick said. He stood in the central foyer facing the living room.
“What?” Phoebe asked.
Nick pointed to the space above the fireplace, and Phoebe looked up.
The Jackson Pollock painting, the one Nick had mentioned his mother had purchased at Sotheby’s for ten million dollars, was gone.
N
ick sat with Phoebe in the living room, and they both looked up at the blank space above the fireplace where the Pollock had hung. There was nothing on the mantel, just a few family photos.
“Is this what he wanted us to find?” Nick asked. “This isn’t what I would call finding something.”
“More like the
absence of something,” Phoebe said. “Maybe that’s part of the clue. Maybe we’re supposed to look for what isn’t there.”
“So we’re looking for something that used to be there in the first place? That doesn’t make any sense.” He rubbed his temples. A headache was starting to come on.
“Hey—more importantly: Should we tell your parents about the painting being gone?”
“We don’t have to. The caretaker will see it on Monday morning. Remember, we aren’t even supposed to be here.”
“Nick, they’re going to have police here eventually. They’ll see our fingerprints.”
Nick felt nervous for a moment before he relaxed. “We’ll just say we thought it had been sent out for restoration. My mom is always saying that the frame needs to be cleaned.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Search the place?”
They went through each room of the house, which was no easy feat, considering that it was a six-thousand-square-foot house with eight bedrooms and multiple public rooms. Luckily, because the house was built in the 1920s, it was not enormous in the way of newer houses in the area. Nick had always appreciated that; its size was manageable, and you didn’t need to run through every wing to find someone.
The house was immaculately clean but had that musty smell from windows not having been opened in more than a week. New Year’s Eve would have been the last time his parents were here.
After several hours of searching, however, they hadn’t turned up anything. It didn’t help that they had no idea what they were looking for.
It didn’t help, either, that it was four o’clock in the morning.
They went back to the living room and flopped down on the couches across from each other. “Your grandfather told you, ‘You’ll find everything you need at the beach,’” Phoebe said.
“We have no idea, though, if he was in his right mind.”
“Let’s think about this,” Phoebe said. “The one thing we’ve noticed is that the Pollock is missing. We don’t know if your grandfather moved it, but it’s all we’ve got to go on. So can we assume that this search has something to do with art?”
Nick furrowed his brow. “Maybe.” He stood up and looked at the space above the fireplace where the Pollock had been. He examined the panel, slightly darker, where the painting had been hung. Nothing appeared unusual or out of place. He pushed the panel, to see if anything would happen. Nothing.
Then Nick noticed something strange as his eyes ran over the photographs sitting on the mantel: while there had always been family photographs below the painting, they had now been switched out for specific ones. Every single picture of the Bell family was taken down in Palm Beach, where his grandfather lived during most of the year.
“I feel so stupid,” Nick said, looking at the photographs.
“Why?”
“Remember, he said ‘both beaches.’”
“Yeah, so what does that mean?”
“We’re at the wrong beach.”
It was a snap decision, but he and Phoebe knew that it was the right one. They had to find out what Palmer’s babblings were about. Nick wanted to include the entire group of five, as he felt everyone should be involved. Besides, Palm Beach would be a welcome break from the chilly New York January, as well as from all the Society madness. Making good on his request for them to keep their Saturday clear, Nick called everyone early that morning and told them to meet Phoebe and him at La Guardia Airport for a shuttle flight down to Florida. As far as getting permission, half the group had parents who didn’t care, and the other half would say they were staying over at each other’s houses. Half an hour after Nick invited him, Patch called back: he wanted to bring Lia, as they had made tentative plans and Patch didn’t want to cancel. Nick hadn’t met Lia, but at school the previous day Patch had been going on and on about her to Lauren and Phoebe and him. Nick knew that she worked part-time in a record store in the East Village and went to Stuyvesant High School, but most importantly, Patch was really excited about her. Nick supposed he should have been worried about the secrecy of their mission, but part of him was exhausted from all the hiding. If Lia lived downtown and she wasn’t in the Society, it wouldn’t matter if she knew what was going on. After all, who would she tell?
Before booking six tickets on an inexpensive flight, Nick placed a call to Horatio, his grandfather’s caretaker and butler, who watched over the Palm Beach property and made sure everything was in top condition.
“I’ll need to check with your grandfather, of course,” Horatio had said. “I believe I can reach him at the hospital.”
Horatio called Nick back in ten minutes and announced that his grandfather had said that whatever Nick wanted to do was fine. “I was quite surprised, actually, if you don’t mind my being frank. Mr. Bell said, ‘Whatever my grandson wants, you give him.’ We haven’t had this many houseguests since, well, since . . .”
“I know,” Nick said. “Since my grandmother died.”
“You will all stay in the east wing. I’ll make sure that the bedrooms are ready. Three rooms, you said?”
“That should be fine.” Nick figured that he and Phoebe could sleep together, Patch and Lia could share a room, and Lauren and Thad could share another. “Horatio, can you do me a favor?” Nick asked.
“Certainly.”
“If my father happens to call, please don’t mention this visit to him.”
F
lorida!” Lia said. “Are you crazy?”
She and Patch were already in a cab going across town, in the direction of the Midtown Tunnel. Patch had simply told her that he had a surprise, and that she should pack a change of clothing. It was only their second official date, so it was more than a bit unexpected, but Patch appreciated that Lia understood the value of spontaneity. The trip was like a present that had been dropped in their laps, the chance to escape from Manhattan.
“I thought maybe we were going to, I don’t know, the Hamptons or something,” she said. “But Palm Beach? What are we, like, eighty years old? Will it be warm there? I thought it would be freezing where we were going!”
“It’s really nice there,” Patch said as they entered the Midtown Tunnel. “Nick’s grandfather has a pool and everything. It has these stone dolphins that shoot water. It’s kind of fun, in that old rich person sort of way, you know?”
“Well, I didn’t bring a swimsuit,” Lia said. “What are you going to do about that?” She frowned, pushing her black bangs away from her forehead.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure Lauren packed five. Besides, it’s casual. The girls will lend you some clothes.”
She shrugged hesitantly. “Okay, so, what, is this like some kind of preppy ritual or something? Heading south in the winter?”
“Oh, come on,” Patch said. “I’m not that preppy.” He gave her a playful poke in the stomach.
“Whatever, preppy boy. You’re right out of a Brooks Brothers catalog.”
“Hey, no fair!” It actually did surprise Patch—he had thought that with his new haircut and new body, he was shedding the preppy image he had grown up with. Apparently not. “I don’t actually feel like I’m that preppy,” he continued. “I’ve always felt sort of—well, sort of different.”
“How so?”
Patch wasn’t sure he should get into his family history. He glanced at the cabbie in the rearview mirror. It seemed like a strange place to be sharing such intimacies.
“I don’t really have the most traditional family structure,” he said. He explained about growing up with his grandmother, his father’s death, and his mother’s hospitalization.
Lia’s face softened as he told the story of his mother being put away. “And you still don’t know exactly why she was sent there?” she asked.
“She has borderline personality disorder, but it can be quite severe at times. She just doesn’t see the world the way that you or I do. Everything is a danger to her. I’ve never fully understood why she is the way she is.” He didn’t want to explain about seeing the Society’s ankh branded on the back of his mother’s neck last November, or about the picture of her that he had seen the previous night at the display of clippings about the last Dendur Ball. He didn’t want to talk about how he now was questioning her entire history, everything that had happened to her. It was part of what was making the Society thing so confusing, and what made it different for him from the others. The rest of them wanted to get out of the group, whereas Patch had an additional goal: to understand what his mother’s involvement with the group had been. He had tried talking to Genie about it over the past few weeks, but she wouldn’t tell him anything. He knew that the obvious thing would be to go visit his mother at the hospital in Ossining. He had mentioned this to Genie, but she had discouraged the idea. It was so painful for Patch to see his mother in that condition. He hated visiting her, and it was not likely that Esmé would tell him anything. Her memories were so fragmented, like shards of glass.
He had a multitude of reasons for putting it off.
However he went about it, though, he knew that it would be his journey alone.
The cab pulled up at La Guardia, and Patch leaned forward to pay the driver.
Lia took a deep breath. “This should be interesting.”
“Relax,” Patch said. “You’ll like my friends.”
When they got to La Guardia, Phoebe, Lauren, and Thad were waiting by the ticket desk. “Nick is checking on a few things,” Phoebe said.
Patch introduced Lia to everyone. Phoebe and Lauren were incredibly friendly to her, as if they were Patch’s older sisters and Patch was presenting his first girlfriend to them.
“We’ve heard so much about you!” Lauren said as she gave Lia a hug. Patch was momentarily embarrassed that he had told Lauren and the others all about Lia the day before. Patch noticed Lia giving him a slightly uncomfortable glance, but he also sensed that she was grateful the girls were being so friendly. They invited her to come to a coffee place with them to grab some bagels before the flight.
As excited as he was to be with Lia, his mind was now jumping to the clues that Nick had told him about briefly on the phone. He didn’t know what they meant, but he relished the chance to figure it out—and even better if it could help get them out of the Society.
Patch sat down in a waiting area outside of the security screening checkpoint. Lauren joined him with her cup of coffee, a few steps ahead of the others.
He gave her a look that could only mean one thing:
What do you think?
Lauren laughed. “Patch, relax, will you? You did well. She’s adorable.”