The Player's Club: Finn (3 page)

Lincoln shook his head. “I’m concerned, Finn. For you, and for your pledge, Ben.”

Now that had Finn sitting up, even though his body yelped in response. “I would never do anything to endanger anyone, and you damned well know it.”

“Not stopping someone is a kind of endangerment,” Lincoln returned.

“Ben’s a strong surfer and a solid swimmer. Besides, I had EMTs on the beach just in case.”

“How very forward thinking of you,” Lincoln said. “Were they really for him, though? Because you know you could’ve just stayed with them on the beach and fulfilled your duties as a mentor.”

Finn scowled. “Where’s the fun in
that
?”

“I do understand. But…” Lincoln paused. “You scared us, man. And this kid, Ben—where the hell did you find him?”

Finn shrugged. “BASE jumping off Hoover dam. For being only twenty-two, the kid’s got skills and he’s only going to keep—”

“So why does he need us?”

The question stopped him. “I don’t know. He thought we sounded cool. He’d heard of us. He’d made the connection.”

“A lot of people are beginning to make the connection between you and the Club,” Lincoln pointed out, then held up his hands at Finn’s murderous glare. “Just saying.”

“I haven’t told anybody who I didn’t make a pledge,” Finn said, then ignored Lincoln’s head-shaking. “I haven’t invited
that
many pledges. And I haven’t broken any rules. You know I’m not in this for the glory, Lincoln.”

“I know,” Lincoln said. “But Ben’s challenges sound reckless.”

“Oh, come on, Linc. We haven’t lost anybody yet.”

“There’s always a first time.” Lincoln sighed. “And I hate the idea that it’s going to be you.”

Finn gritted his teeth. He wasn’t quite sure what to say. Fortunately, he didn’t have to. Juliana, Lincoln’s stunning girlfriend and one of his fellow Players, popped into the room.

“Parents headed this way.” She walked over and kissed Finn on the cheek. Then punched him on the shoulder. “You’re an asshole.”

“Ow! What the hell?”

“Bad enough you’re a thrill-seeker, but that kid you tagged has a death wish,” she said darkly. “Come on, Linc. I do
not
want to have a conversation with the Macalisters.”

Lincoln nodded, standing beside her and studying Finn. “We’ll talk about this when you get back to San Francisco. I’ll have somebody pick you up, bring you over to Tucker’s condo on Turtle Bay.”

“All right.” Finn watched as they slipped out like shadows. He didn’t really have time to brace himself before his parents showed up.

His father was wearing a blue polo shirt and a pair of slacks, looking oddly rumpled—they probably came over straight from their flight, Finn thought with a twinge of guilt. His mother’s face was totally pale. He wondered if they’d gotten any sleep.

“How did you hear?” he asked, instead of saying hello.

His father’s expression was dark and ominous. “Did you really think you could keep it from me?”

“I thought we’d agreed—no more private investigators tailing me, after I lost the last five.” Why had he even trusted that agreement with his father, let his guard down? If he’d lost the tail they’d put on him this time, he could’ve avoided this whole scene.

“I thought you’d finally stopped pulling stupid stunts like this,” his father shot back. “Guess we were both wrong.”

Finn didn’t want this to devolve into one of their usual arguments. Sitting naked in a thin cotton gown didn’t exactly give him leverage, for one thing.

“We didn’t come here to argue,” his mother said, her soft voice insistent, a little panicked. She hovered by Finn’s side, checking his head. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, Mom.” Actually, his head was pounding, and his body ached like the last time he’d tried boxing, but it really wasn’t the time to mention it. “If Dad hadn’t hired the P.I.s again, you wouldn’t have known about it until I was completely recovered. You wouldn’t have had to worry.”

“What’s next, Finn?” his father said, pacing at the foot of Finn’s bed like a lawyer prowling in front of a jury. “You going to start playing Russian roulette? Going to dive into a live volcano?”

“Well, in a few weeks I’m supposed to get shot out of a cannon,” he said, remembering Ben’s second challenge.

“That’s not funny, goddamn it.”

“It’s my life, Dad. I know you don’t approve, or agree, but it is my life.”

“I could cut you off,” his father said. “Kick you off the board, make sure you didn’t draw any pay from the stocks.”

“Dad, I don’t touch the money you guys give me at this point.”
For exactly this reason,
he thought. “I’ve still got the money from Grandma Macalister. And…” He looked at his mother, not wanting to remind her of his other source of income. “The other, you know, hospital money. So go ahead. Cut me off. Cut me out of the will, if you want.”

“What difference would it make?” His father’s eyes shone with anger. “At this rate,
I’m going to outlive you.
”

His mother let out a strangled sob.

“There. See what you’ve done?” his father bellowed.

“What
I’ve
done?” Finn protested.

“You don’t even care that you’re tearing your mother apart. Don’t care about what this is doing to your mother and me!” His father’s face was red, his voice deep, ringing through Finn’s already-pounding head like a kettledrum. “When the hell are you going to grow up, Finn?”

Finn closed his eyes, wincing. “Why do you think that ‘growing up’ is doing whatever you tell me to do, Dad? How is that maturity?”

“And now you’ve joined some cult!”

Finn’s eyes flew open at that. “I’ve
what?
”

“George told us,” his father said, and Finn’s stomach roiled. He’d have some choice words for his cousin when he got back to the mainland. “That…gamers club, whatever it’s called. He said that they’re adrenaline junkies. Says the police hate them.”

Finn took a deep breath. “That’s not right, and George knows it,” he said sharply, wondering how to explain to them that since George had been expelled from the Club and the stupid, frat-styled pranks had stopped, the police really didn’t have an issue with the Players anymore. And since George had personally screwed up by trying to get the police chief to shut down the Club, an act that had backfired spectacularly, the attention of the police had disappeared.

“I’ve read the newspaper articles about them,” his mother interjected, taking Finn’s hand and squeezing. “Oh, honey…I think…you might want to get help. If you need it, your father and I know some of the best treatment centers in the world. We can get you in tonight.”

“Treatment?” Finn echoed, feeling more and more disconnected as the conversation grew more surreal. “Treatment for what? Adrenaline rehab?”

“Brainwashing,” his father snapped. “They pull kids out of these cults. I’ll just bet you’ve been reprogrammed.”

Finn couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing.

“Damn it, this is your
life
you’re talking about,” his father said. “And I’m not going to stop with just some lectures. You brought this on yourself, son.” His father headed for the door. “Come on, Betty.”

His mother gave his hand one final squeeze, then leaned in to hug him. Then she leaned forward, kissing his cheek and whispering in his ear.

“How was your white count?”

Just like that, a spike of fear flooded him, until he took another deep breath. Pushed her question, and the past that prompted it, out of his mind.

“I’m
fine,
Mom,” he reminded her firmly. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

TWELVE HOURS AFTER HER phone conversation with Thorn, Diana walked into the Four Seasons Oahu, dropping off all her luggage except for her attaché case, and asked to be directed to the Macalisters’ suite. Her dove-gray business suit felt sticky and uncomfortable in the tropical heat, but fortunately she wouldn’t be outside enough for it to bother her. She glanced out the window, looking at the impossibly beautiful blue sky, the waving palm trees.

Yeah, lucky you.

When she knocked on the hotel room door, Betty Macalister opened it, her pale face splotchy and wan beneath the remnants of expensive cosmetics. Everything about her seemed to scream
fragile,
from her delicately curled corn-silk blond hair to her watery blue eyes, to her translucent porcelain skin. “Diana?” she asked. “What on earth are you doing here? You can’t expect Thorn to…to sign contracts and do business today!”

Diana kept her face impassive, especially when she saw her boss, Thorn. He was shaking his head slightly. “I told you I was sending for Diana, remember, hon?” he said, his voice calming.

Betty’s expression of irritation melted into confusion. “Did you? I suppose… I’m sorry, Diana. It’s been such a hard night, and…”

“Why don’t you lie down. Take a sleeping pill,” Thorn said, ushering his wife gently into the master bedroom. A few minutes later, Thorn stepped out, shutting the door quietly behind him. He looked at Diana with murder in his eyes.

Diana took a deep breath, then pulled a legal pad out of her case along with her mechanical pencil. She sat down at the dining room table. “What are we dealing with,” she said, voice even, “and what do you need done by when?”

And who do you want murdered?
Diana added silently.

Thorn kept pacing, and Diana waited. She knew how he worked, especially in a temper. Her boss would need to get rid of some emotion before he could logically come up with a plan of attack.

“I could kill him,” Thorn said finally. “He’s my only son and I love him, but for putting us through this, I swear to God…”

He choked off the words, slamming a palm down on the back of one of the high-backed dining room chairs. Diana had seen her boss in a fury before, but it was never comfortable. She wrote
Finn
at the top of the paper.

“He decided to surf the damned Banzai Pipeline. Waves the size of an 18-wheeler, for God’s sake. Even experienced surfers get killed on it. But does that stop Finn? No. Of course not. He signs right the hell up.”

It felt like a rant, Diana thought, as he shifted to a list of Finn’s many past transgressions: running with the bulls, BASE jumping from Hoover Dam, trying to climb the Eiffel Tower. She remembered that one: negotiating with the French authorities had been a pain in the ass. If Betty hadn’t been so upset, Diana would have been tempted to leave Finn in one of their five-by-five-foot cells for a few months, merely out of spite.

After what felt like hours, Diana fought the urge to glance at her cell phone to check the time. She understood that her boss needed to blow off steam, but when it came to family matters, he tended to use Diana as a sort of substitute shrink and sounding board. Which was fine, she reassured herself—she was more than just a lawyer to the Macalisters, she knew that.

Still, flying overnight just to hear about the sexy, spoiled Finn was pushing it, even for her boss.

“And now he’s involved in some damned cult,” Thorn growled.

Her attention snapped back like a rubber band. Cults often targeted rich kids—bled them dry, cut off all contact with families. She gripped the pencil tighter. “Which cult?”

“He’s part of that…that thing. The Club.” Thorn scowled, waving his hand as if she ought to know what he was referring to. “The Gamers’ Club.”

She tilted her head as her mind shifted gears. “You mean he plays Dungeons & Dragons? They are sort of dedicated, a little vehement. Maybe a bit nutty. But I don’t know that I’d really call them a cult.” She paused, reconsidered. “Not a dangerous one, anyway.”

“No, no. The Player’s Club,” he corrected himself. “That’s it.”

Now her eyes widened. That made a lot more sense. The Player’s Club was an urban legend in San Francisco—everybody knew someone who knew someone that claimed to be in it, but very few had ever
met
anyone who really was. A reporter had gone so far as to try undercover research to write about them. The story played up the Club’s image of a notorious, underground group of thrill-seekers who apparently pulled pranks and ran crazy antics all around the globe. The Players seemed like a mix of
Fight
Club
and
Jackass,
only for millionaires. She remembered thinking they were a bunch of rich-kid adrenaline junkies.