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.”
Chapter Seven
As 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.”
Chapter Eight
Whenever Patch found that his world was closing in on him, he liked to go to the Metropolitan Museum to help clear his head. There were little nooks and crannies that he knew about, away from the tourists, among the more obscure collections. European Decorative Arts was one of his favorites-it was basically a fancy word for antiques. There was something cool about thinking that people had sat on these chairs, eaten on these tables, conducted their affairs and intrigues. And that we, today, would never know what had transpired.
It was such a universe apart from his own problems, it made him forget them momentarily. On Sunday afternoon, he could almost forget everything he was thinking about the Society, all of his questions. A Society meeting had already been called for the following evening at the town house. Would he go? Would Nick and the others? He didn’t know.
Patch’s phone buzzed as he was examining an antique harpsichord. It was a text from Phoebe, confirming the details of a meeting at Lauren’s that night with just the five of them. It made sense that they would do it there; Lauren was the only member whose parents didn’t have any connection to the Society. Phoebe had told Patch about Daniel Fullerton, the guy her mom was dating, who was in the Society; Nick’s parents were involved, of course; and Patch’s grandmother, Genie, would likely overhear whatever they were planning and have an opinion on it. This new guy, Thad-they didn’t know much about his family, but Patch imagined that Phoebe figured he was too recent a friend to take a risk on. Patch had learned that trusting people hadn’t been so easy these past few months.
A few hours later, Patch arrived at Lauren’s apartment. Despite the nap she said she had taken, Lauren looked exhausted, her hair messy and matted. The five of them stood around her kitchen, and at her urging, helped themselves to the refrigerator full of food. It was stocked, which surprised Patch; it seemed welcoming, like a normal house, not that of a fashionable socialite, which was Lauren’s mother’s reputation. He and Nick and Thad dug in.
Lauren, who wore jeans and a baggy sweater, carried her cup of tea into the living room. Nick accepted a beer, and Patch decided he would have one, too-just one, to help him relax. Phoebe sat protectively next to Lauren on the sofa in front of the windows with the gauzy curtains that faced Park Avenue. What had happened in the past few months had been hard on all of them, but Lauren was particularly feeling the blow right now. Though Patch had heard her admit that she didn’t even know if things with Alejandro were going to last, he imagined that it still burned, to have someone in your life disappear like that, as if they had never existed at all.
For a moment, he realized that this was how he felt about his parents. He had been too young when his father died to have any clear memories of him, and his mother had been hospitalized since Patch was six.
“How are you holding up?” Nick asked Lauren.
Lauren shrugged. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. I haven’t done any of the winter reading, I feel like I’m going to be floating through my classes tomorrow. Sebastian wants me to come up with new jewelry designs-I guess he thought it might distract me or something? All I want to do is sleep and watch stupid movies.”
“Do you think…” Patch paused, not wanting to say anything inappropriate. “Do you think it might help for you to talk to someone about it all? Like a professional?”
“Not that Meckling freak,” Phoebe said, jumping in. “He’s like the Nurse Ratched of shrinks. I still can’t believe my mom took Daniel’s recommendation. I guess she didn’t know that he was part of it all.”
“I know someone good,” Thad said. “He helped my older brother when he was going through a lot of stuff.”
Lauren nodded. “I guess so. I don’t know. I just want it all to go away.”
“I’m not sure we can make it go away,” Nick said. “But I think we can get out of it.” He looked at Phoebe. “My grandfather gave me a challenge yesterday to search for something.”
“To search for what?” Thad asked.
“We don’t know exactly,” Phoebe said. “I’m worried it might be a trap.”