Under the Rose (22 page)

“I actually need help.”

“And you
actually
think I’m going to give it to you…why, exactly?” He tilted his head to one side. “Let’s forget for a minute that you’ve never been anything but a bitch to me. As far as I can see, you’ve been doing your level best to grind my society into dust since we handed you the reins. And now you want my assistance?”

Let’s
not
forget that the first time I met this dude, he threatened to have me drowned and/or forced into sexual servitude. Not exactly getting off on the right foot. So what if it was hazing? Still hurt. But no matter. I had one card to play. “Look, I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. No surprise to either of us, I’m sure. But what we both like is Rose & Grave. And it’s in trouble. It’s in trouble because of this current scandal, and if my suspicions are right, it’s about to be in a lot more trouble than that. I’m here for the society, nothing more.”

He swallowed. If there was one thing I knew about this boy, it was that he was Digger, through and through. I’d gotten to him this way last year as well. Malcolm was right; Poe would help me. He’d hate it, but he’d help.

“What are you talking about?”

“Jenny Santos is the one who leaked the information to that website. And she’s gone.”

“Hiding out?” His voice dripped with anger. Like I said, Digger through and through.

“I don’t think so. Her room looks trashed, and she left her wallet, keys, cell phone—everything—behind. There’s a half-finished e-mail on her computer. I think she’s just…gone.”

“What do you mean? Like, kidnapped?”

“Kurt Gehry said he was going to deal with the matter
his
way, and make an example of the culprit. You know him better than anyone else. Do you think it’s possible—”

Poe—James—oh, screw it,
Poe!
—pushed open the screen door. “Come in.” He hustled me inside, took a quick look around the yard, and shut the door.

“Thanks. I don’t think I was follow—”

He whirled on me. “You’re serious about this. You think the
White House Chief of Staff
arranged for a college student to disappear. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?”

“Yes. People have been telling me all night. But you let me in.”

“Because I didn’t want anyone on the street to catch you raving.”

I shook my head. “No, because you think I might be right.”

He stabbed his fingers into his hair. “Wait here while I change my clothes.”

I didn’t ask him
Into what?
but I sure wanted to, as I’d never seen him in anything else (except, of course, for the times he was dressed up like Death). He trailed into his bedroom, yanking his shirt up over his head, and then slammed the door behind him.

“So does that mean you’re going to help me?” I said to the closed door. No answer. I sighed, then looked around his cramped living space. Probably should make myself as comfortable as possible while he conjured up a new wardrobe.

In the middle of the room was a lumpy couch, upholstered in fraying, pale blue fabric that had been out of fashion since 1985. We were sporting something similar in our dorm room and I wondered if he’d salvaged his furniture from his undergrad years. I knew little about Poe’s family background, but judging from the environs, he wasn’t one of the wealthy Diggers, and the rumored post-grad gift of thirty thousand dollars was as mythical as our assumed total control of the world. He had a nice laptop, though. It lay closed on top of a scuffed coffee table piled with thick law textbooks. I raised my eyes to the bookshelves lining the wall. Curiouser and curiouser.

F
IVE
T
HINGS
T
HAT
A
RE
A
BOUT
T
O
S
HOCK
Y
OU
A
BOUT
P
OE

1)
He’s a vegetarian. At least, he has a ton of vegetarian cookbooks. That can’t be an accident. (But then, how he’s friends with Malcolm Cabot, the great white hunter, is beyond me.)

2)
He has
Harvey
on DVD. (Doesn’t exactly seem like the giant imaginary rabbit type.)

3)
And plays the harmonica.

4)
And gardening is very good for the shoulders. (I can admit that, right?)

5)
He also has a pet snake.

Actually, that last bit probably doesn’t surprise you at all. But standing there, looking at this six-foot beast in a glass tank definitely made me a little uneasy. There was a wooden partition between the snake’s cage and another aquarium. I went to peek inside the second. There, in a little nest made from cedar chips, near a tiny wheel and a lump of moist cheese, sat a white mouse, surrounded by five tiny, naked, bloody, albino bundles.

“Awww,” I cooed. I couldn’t help it.

“There were originally eight, but she ate the runts,” Poe said.

“Gross.” I looked at him, and bit my lip. From whence did he obtain such rocking duds? Now he was dressed in a soft burgundy sweater that must be at least cashmere blend, and a pair of charcoal gray cords. “What are their names?”

“I don’t name food,” he said. “They’re all for him.” He pointed at the snake cage.

Gross again. “You’re feeding them to the snake?”

“Eventually,” he said. “It’s the food chain. Most of her siblings got fed to him, too.”

Forget all that stuff about how cool it was he was vegetarian. Forget anything I said about his shoulders, too. “That’s awful! You fed her whole family to that snake, and now you’re feeding him her children?”

“Don’t you want to know
his
name?” Poe smirked.

“No!”

He cocked his head at me. “Amy, are you a vegan?”

I crossed my arms. “You’re the one who has all those files on me from deliberations. You know I’m not.”

“Then don’t act holier than thou about Lord Voldemort, there.”

Voldemort?
Figures. And the attitude explained his continued friendship with Six-Point Buck Cabot. But it wasn’t why I was here.

“Enough niceties. I’m here about our problem. Are you going to help me?”

“In a manner of speaking. I’m coming with you, and I’m going to help you track down this girl. But it’s only to prove how wrong you are.”

“If you’re so sure I’m wrong, why even bother?” I asked. “Everyone else has just been ignoring me.”

“Everyone else doesn’t know how much trouble you can be. Besides, I want to get my hands around her throat just as much as the next Digger.”

“Works for me. Shall we start now?”

If I didn’t know better, I’d think the smile he gave me was sweet. “The sooner we do, the sooner I get you out of my sight.”

Trust me: The feeling was mutual.

I hereby confess:

I never took Interrogation 101.

12.

Sacrosanct

“First step: We call the Santoses,” Poe said, power-walking back to campus.

“Do you have their number?” I was practically skipping in order to keep up. I’m sure we made quite the picture. Of course, Poe already thought I was a lightweight. An unintentional gambol or two wasn’t going to significantly lessen his opinion.

“It’s at the tomb, along with all her other records. We needed it during the deliberation process.”

“I thought they burned that stuff.”

He flashed me a look. “Yeah.
They
do. Amy, are you forgetting? You’re one of
them.
”

I skipped another step, hurrying to catch up. “Okay, fine. I thought
we
burned that stuff.”

“We burn the records of the discussions. The new club doesn’t need to know everything the knights who tapped them thought. But the actual files we amass on each of the taps, we keep. They’ll be in the room of records, filed under my year’s club.”

But when we got to the tomb, Poe froze. “I had no idea it was this bad.”

I peeked over his shoulder. Actually, it had settled down somewhat since earlier. The CNN van was still there, but Channel 8 News had departed, and so had most of the roving reporters. “This is nothing. You should have seen it the other day.”

He pursed his lips. “I believe I’m persona non grata at the tomb right now.”

Not right now. Just during the C.B.s. But I wasn’t about to get in a fight with him over semantics. I still wanted his help. Besides, if he wanted to avoid the tomb, I was cool with it.

“This seems a little overboard,” Poe said. “Given the information actually leaked.”

“Maybe they’re gearing up for next week,” I said. “Why, aren’t the initiation rites sacred enough for you?”

“For me, of course.” Of course. “But I don’t see it as earth-shattering to CNN.”

We sidestepped any unnecessary interviews, and entered the tomb, though I couldn’t see how we’d gotten through without being photographed from several angles.

“We were definitely nailed,” Poe said.

“And the Diggers have to realize this was always a possibility. If they were so worried they’d have built us a secret entrance.” Like I used to think they had.

“Always a possibility?” Poe scoffed. “They didn’t have telephoto lenses in 1831, Bugaboo.”

Up in the room of records, Poe quickly uncovered Jenny’s file. He skimmed through it looking for a phone number while I entertained myself snooping through the files on my fellow members. It may interest you to know that Puck was once suspended from high school for being caught in the girls’ locker room. With a girl. Seems his penchant for dangerous places is not a new one.

I moved on to my file. Wow, they had everything in here, from photocopies of my kindergarten report card to my father’s IRS returns. “How the hell did you guys get your hands on this stuff?”

Poe looked at the folder in my hands, then slammed it shut. “Later. Let’s call her folks.”

Naturally, we didn’t use the tomb’s telephone. “Just in case,” Poe whispered, and I was relieved to know I was not alone in what the others clearly thought were my more outlandish neuroses. Instead, we used my cell. Poe leaned in to listen, and I suppressed my instinct to pull away.

Mrs. Santos answered on the eighth ring. Her tone was cautious, halting.

“Mrs. Santos, I’m a friend of your daughter, Jenny. I was wondering if—”

“Who is this?”

I hesitated, and Poe jabbed my shoulder. But what if Jenny was at home, and had warned her mother not to take calls from society members? She might not have made a list of every possible patriarch, but I’m sure she’d guard against the current club, especially the Diggirls.

“It’s Amy Haskel, Mrs. Santos. I’m a friend of your daughter’s from Eli.” Poe was now holding up two fingers. The jerk actually planned on fining me for this!

“I don’t know you,” Mrs. Santos said. “Are you in Edison College? Where’s my daughter?”

“That’s why I’m calling. I think your daughter went out of town for the weekend and she has…my notes for a project we’ve got due on Monday. I’m trying to track her down to get them back. Has she been at home?”

“She has your notes? That’s not like Jenny. What project?”

This lady made my paranoia look like amateur night. “It’s an English project. Shakespeare.”

“Jenny isn’t taking Shakespeare this semester. And she certainly wouldn’t leave campus without telling us in advance. She must be at the library.”

“No, Mrs. Santos. She definitely left. None of her suitemates have seen her for almost a day and a half.” Poe was scribbling on a notepad. He held it up.

Don’t scare her.

Too late. The other side had gone quiet. “Her roommates?” There was a catch in the woman’s voice. “Have you notified her dean? Why hasn’t anyone called us?”

“I’m calling you now, Mrs. Santos.” But now that I did have her mother worried, I was afraid of what it would mean if I was wrong. Maybe Jenny was on her way home, or staying at a friend’s, or even holed up at Micah Price’s apartment. Maybe the rest of my club had been correct, and I was getting everyone stirred up for nothing. “You’re in the Bronx, right?”

“Who is this?” There was a new voice on the phone, one I assumed to be Mr. Santos’s. “Why are you scaring my wife? What happened to my daughter?”