Secret Society (19 page)

P
hoebe was woken the next morning by her mother knocking on her door. “Honey?”

“Mmmph?” Phoebe said, through a yawn. Her head still pounded with the beats from last night's music.

“Lauren is on the phone. She said she couldn't reach you on your cell.”

Maia handed Phoebe the phone. “Hey—what's up?” Phoebe mumbled.

“I can't get in touch with him.”

“What? With who?”

“Alejandro. I don't know where he is. There's no answer at his hotel. I can't reach his parents. This is such a mess!”

“Calm down, he's probably fine,” Phoebe said. “Maybe
he lost his phone or something? Didn't they take him to the hospital?”

“I think, but which hospital? No one would tell us.”

Phoebe sat up in bed. “Nick and I could call all the ones in the area. I mean, it's not like there are that many that he would possibly be at.”

“Would you guys do that?”

“Of course,” Phoebe said. “It's not a problem.”

“And Phoebe?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I come over? I really don't want to be alone.”

 

Within a few hours, Nick and Phoebe had called dozens of hospitals in Manhattan, focusing on ones that were downtown and close to the club. It wasn't an easy task, but they worked quickly, each updating the other on their progress every half hour.

When Nick was done, he took a cab down to Phoebe's house. It was the first time he had been over, and he wondered if he would have to meet her mom. He had put on a navy Brooks Brothers sweater in an attempt to look nice for the occasion, and he hoped that his frayed jeans didn't look too sloppy.

Lauren sat in the corner of Phoebe's bedroom in a beanbag chair, nervously drinking a cup of coffee. Nick arrived
and gave Phoebe a quick peck on the lips.

“I'm done with my list,” he said. “No one of that name or description was admitted in the last twenty-four hours.”

“I don't understand what's going on,” Phoebe said. “Where on earth would he be? A private facility? A family doctor? I can't imagine that his parents wouldn't know about this—do you think we should call them?”

“We can't,” Lauren said. “He told me last night that his parents are already in Argentina for the holiday. I tried their suite at the hotel this morning—they wouldn't give out a forwarding number, and they said they couldn't guarantee that they could get them the message. They have like four different places in Argentina, so who knows where they are?”

“I don't know,” Nick said. “The Callejas are extremely prominent. Maybe he was admitted under a fake name or something. Or maybe he went home and was treated privately.”

“Oh, what, like they loaded him on a plane last night?” Lauren said. “That makes no sense.”

Nick frowned. “I have heard of people being carried away—” He suddenly stopped.

“What do you mean ‘carried away'?” Lauren asked.

“No, I'm sorry, it's a bad example.” He realized he shouldn't have said anything.

“Just tell us what you're talking about,” Phoebe said.

“Okay, look, I'm not saying this is what happened. But
nightclubs that are really druggy are sometimes known to take patrons who are ODing and, instead of calling an ambulance, just grab them and dump them on the street.”

“You mean, leaving them to die? That's ridiculous.” Phoebe clearly didn't want to worry Lauren any more than necessary. “There's no way that could have happened.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but they don't want the liability. If the person is recorded as ODing on the street, then it's not the club's fault. It's crappy, but it happens.”

“But this was a private party last night,” Phoebe said.

“Exactly,” Nick said. “And who do you think was in charge of security?”

“I knew I recognized those guys from somewhere,” Lauren said. “It was the same guys who manned the door at the Society luncheon back in September. One of them was so beefy, he was sort of hard to forget.”

“So what do we do?” Phoebe said. “Should we file a missing persons report?”

“I think we should,” Lauren said. “I'm going to call the police.”

“But what if they want to question us?” Nick asked. He hated to be selfish, but he couldn't afford for the school to learn about his being at the party.

Lauren's phone buzzed. She answered and took the call into the hallway. Phoebe put her head in her hands, groaning. “This is so awful.”

“Just stay calm,” Nick said. “We'll work it out.”

Lauren came back into the room. “You're not going to believe this. That was Alejandro's father. The hotel reported that he hadn't returned home last night, so Mr. Calleja called the police. He and his wife are flying back from Argentina.”

“How did he have your number?” Phoebe asked.

“They got it from the St. Regis. I guess they reached them with my message.”

“So we really don't need to report this,” Nick said.

“Shouldn't we tell them what we know?” Phoebe asked.

“I told Mr. Calleja that he was down on the Lower East Side last night. I didn't mention any names. I sort of—”

“What?” Nick said.

“Well, I sort of lied,” Lauren said. “I got freaked out when I was talking to him and I said I had heard that Alejandro was down on the Lower East Side. I said I didn't know who he was with. I mean, this whole thing with Chadwick and the drinking—I don't want anyone to get kicked out over this. Should I have told him more?”

They were all silent for a moment.

“It's somewhere for them to start,” Nick finally said. “We need to let them do their jobs. Besides, maybe we're overreacting. Maybe it'll all be sorted out by Monday.” He looked at Lauren and then back at Phoebe, but he knew neither of them believed that would be the case.

P
atch couldn't stop thinking about Genie's comments regarding the Bells and about what Simone had wanted him to do. Maybe his plan of getting the tattoo had been ill-advised, although his intuition told him that if he could convince one of the Society members that he was an insider, he might be able to get some information—information he hoped could help him understand what had happened to his mother.

How he was going to meet a member who didn't know him already, he had no idea.

Finally, as school was about to let out, Patch had realized what he should do. One afternoon, he crept downstairs to the utility room of his and Nick's apartment building. From growing up there, he knew exactly where everything was. He
brought with him a small transmitter he had bought at a spy shop that he could connect to the Bells' phone. He decided he would tap the main line as well as the second line, which he knew from childhood experience was Parker Bell's private phone line. Every time a call was made or received, Patch's computer would record a digital file.

During each day that followed, he listened to all the files. It was easy to determine which ones would be of interest: He ignored the housekeeper ordering groceries, Nick's mother on the phone with her friends, the doorman buzzing people up. On Saturday afternoon, he heard dozens of calls during which Nick spoke to hospitals about Alejandro Calleja's whereabouts, which Patch thought was strange. And then on Sunday afternoon, he finally heard something of interest. Parker Bell was on the phone with Nick's grandfather Palmer. They were talking about some kind of retreat between Christmas and New Year's, clearly a Society event. They were arguing about how information about the retreat would be disseminated. Parker wanted it sent to private email accounts, but Palmer argued that once something was digital, it was far too easy to forward to others, and that with everything that had happened, they couldn't afford to take the risk.

The two finally agreed that the information packets would be delivered by private messenger, the following night at ten
P.M.
, to each Society member's door. Each member would have to sign for his or her package.

It would give Patch just enough time to make preparations. In order to intercept Nick's package, there was only one thing he could do.

Patch would have to
become
Nick Bell.

 

The next morning, only two days before Christmas, Patch woke up, shivering after a nightmare. After listening to the phone call yesterday, Patch had gone to Anthony's Barbershop, bringing with him a picture from
Hamptons
magazine of Nick at a party last summer. “I want this guy's haircut,” he had told the haircutter, a large Russian woman wielding a pair of clippers.

“Who is he?” the woman asked. “He look like model.”

“Sure,” Patch said. “He's a model.”

Patch had been letting his hair grow long that semester. It was so shaggy and wavy at the back, you couldn't even see his neck. Now the woman trimmed and shaped his hair so that it was a pretty good approximation of Nick's cut.

In the middle of the day, during an hour when he knew everyone would be out of the Bell apartment, Patch jimmied the lock from the service entrance and snuck over to Nick's room. He knew where Nick kept all his clothes, so it wasn't a problem putting together an outfit; the trick was stealing a set of clothes that Nick wouldn't miss. Patch finally settled on a sweater from the bottom of his bureau and a pair of ripped jeans that Nick had often worn the previous summer.
He took a scarf and then paused for a moment to figure out the issue of a coat. Nick would miss a coat; Patch was almost sure of that. Then again, Nick was never one for conformity. Maybe it would be believable that Nick was going out without wearing a coat.

Patch quickly put on Nick's clothes and examined himself in front of the mirror. He had already switched out his glasses for contacts.

Not a bad facsimile, he thought, especially when he added a baseball cap of Nick's.

He heard a noise in the kitchen. He stepped out into the hall, but saw that it was only the housekeeper. He would wait until she left.

Later, in his bedroom, he looked at himself again in the mirror. He had been working out at Chadwick's fitness center, which made him look even more like Nick. He pushed back his hair the way Nick did, and postured in his typical swagger.

He could pass, at least from afar.

It made him feel like a terrible fraud.

Sometimes, when he and Nick were in elementary school, people had accused him of wanting to be a Bell, with the way he and Nick were so close. Now here he was trying to imitate a scion of the Bell family.

That night, Patch made his way down to the lobby, tim
ing it so that he would step out of the elevator when the clock struck ten. If he was lucky, it would be the night doorman, Roger, who was never quite as attentive as the ones during the day.

As Patch entered the lobby, Roger was talking to a messenger. “I can't ring the Bell apartment at this hour,” he said. “You can leave it here, and Master Bell will get it in the morning.”

“I need to deliver it to him personally,” the messenger said. “I was given specific instructions.”

Patch spoke up. “I'm right here, Rog,” he said.

“You're Nick Bell?” the messenger asked.

“That's right,” Patch said.

“Thank the Lord, Nick. I thought I was going to have to toss this guy out,” Roger said.

“No worries, Rog.” Patch signed an approximation of Nick's handwriting. “I'm headed out. I'll take it with me.” He breezed past the doorman, and the messenger with the sealed manila envelope in his hands.

“I'm going to need to see some ID,” the messenger said.

“No need for that. I can vouch for him,” Roger said.

“Thanks, Rog!” Patch said. As soon as he was out of view of the front doors, he broke into a run all the way up Fifth, around a corner, and toward a diner on Second Avenue, where he planned on settling in with a soda to read the envelope's contents.

His body was quaking, though it wasn't because of his deception.

As he slowed to a trot, he recalled the nightmare he had woken from that morning. In it, he was lying at the base of Cleopatra's Needle, staring at a brisk November sky.

T
he next day, Phoebe waited for Lauren and Nick outside the Society townhouse on East Sixty-sixth Street. They had requested a meeting with Nick's father. Phoebe didn't understand why they couldn't do this at Nick's apartment, but she had agreed on meeting up at the Society's headquarters—or at least what she and the other Initiates had assumed were its headquarters.

Nick and Lauren arrived, and Nick rapped on the big brass lion's head knocker, worn from years of use.

Charles Lawrence answered the door, casually dressed in a cashmere sweater, as if the three of them would be joining him for drinks. “Hey, guys,” he said. “Mr. Bell got pulled away to a last-minute meeting. He wanted me to handle this for him.”

“Charles?” Phoebe said. “What are you, like, his little errand boy or something?” She couldn't believe her audacity, but somehow it seemed rude of Nick's dad not to show up, particularly considering her new status as Nick's girlfriend—though, admittedly, she realized that Nick may not have told his parents about them.

Charles smirked at her and motioned for them to step into the front parlor. “What can I help you with?”

“Where is my dad?” Nick asked.

“He had to deal with something that couldn't wait. He sends his regrets.”

Nick slumped down in an armchair in the drawing room on the first floor of the townhouse.

“We know about Alejandro,” Lauren said.

Charles paused. “What about him?”

“He wasn't admitted to any hospitals in the area. We called them all.”

“Okay, and this worries you because…” Charles was looking at them like they were stupid.

“Tell us where he is,” Lauren said.

Charles laughed. “I have no idea where he is. If I did, I would certainly tell you. Have you tried his parents?”

“Yes—and they've called the police,” Lauren said.

Charles looked unconcerned. “That's good. I'm sure they'll find him.”

“What is this all about?” Phoebe asked.

“What is what about?” Charles asked, twirling a pen in his hand.

Phoebe continued, “This. The Society. Everything we've been doing over the past few months. It's like we've all been pupils in a class, but we're not sure what we're studying.”

Charles sat down, apparently thinking carefully before answering. “What you three need to understand is that you are preserving a way of life.”

“What way of life are we preserving?” Lauren asked. “That tells us absolutely nothing.”

“These times are uncertain, economically, politically. You are preserving the life that your parents want you to live and that you will want your children to lead.”

“How do you even know what our children would want?” Phoebe said. “Isn't that a little presumptuous? You don't even know if we want to have children!” She looked at Nick as she said this to see if he had any reaction, but he didn't.

“You'll understand soon,” Charles said. “Just wait until the retreat at Isis Island. Everything will be made clear then. You should have gotten your packets last night.”

“Right,” Phoebe said, nodding as she recalled the bizarre messenger delivery she had signed for the night before. “The famous retreat.”

“I never got a packet,” Nick said.

“I'm sure your father has all the information,” Charles said. “Don't you worry about a thing.”

 

Soon the three of them were back on the sidewalk, shivering in the cold. They started walking east, where they could find a coffee shop. Nick realized he hadn't eaten lunch.

“I want out,” Phoebe said after a few moments of silence. “This is not how my life is supposed to be. I want to be a normal teenager again.”

Nick and Lauren nodded silently.

“Phoebe, you don't understand,” Nick finally said. “We can't leave. It's not like a gym membership, something you can cancel and forget about.”

“But what are we truly getting out of it? Nothing but trouble. Nick, you admitted that your club night didn't turn out how you wanted it to, and, Lauren, your jewelry's amazing, but you could do that stuff without their help. Besides, what's going to happen to us if we leave?”

“We don't know what happened to Alejandro,” Lauren said firmly. “We have to stay in until we figure that out, don't you think?”

“This could all be a wild goose chase,” Phoebe said. “We have no idea what happened. They're totally stonewalling us.”

“What if he really is in rehab and his parents don't want anyone to know?” Lauren said. “There are all those rumors floating around. What if he's in one of those places where they take away your phone, don't let you call anyone? Like in,
I don't know, the Arizona desert or something.”

“Did you get his parents' number? Maybe you could check on what's going on,” Phoebe said.

“I told them to call me if they found out anything. I guess I could try them again at the hotel.”

Phoebe put an arm around Lauren as they walked.

“Look,” Nick said. “Let's at least stay in until we find out what's up with Alejandro, okay? Maybe more will become clear at this retreat thing.”

“Do we even have any information about it?” Lauren asked. “I mean, we got this whole packet telling us what to bring, but we don't even know where we're going.”

Nick decided he would tell them as much as he knew. “It's an island off the coast of Maine,” Nick said. “I say we get through Christmas, and then we go.”