The Sixes (13 page)

As she began to peruse the pages, Phoebe felt the funny tingle that so often came when she submerged herself in research. She was good at interviewing people, she knew—good at probing and listening and teasing out the truth from the ramblings and lies—but just as much, perhaps even more, she loved the research. She called it “Sherlocking.” She would comb through old letters and papers, or endless pages of information on the Web, for the tiny nugget that would open a secret door for her.

Alexis had earned only average college board scores, but she’d paid her dues in high school, not only finishing with all A’s and B’s but also working her tail off in a string of extracurricular activities—basketball, tennis, student council, community service. Obviously Alexis’s family had money, because rather than work, the girl had spent three different summers with a group called Hartney, which offered teen cultural trips abroad. She’d been to Australia, France, and Spain. An idea formed in Phoebe’s mind.

Alexis’s mother was listed on the information form as a homemaker. With any luck, she would be home now. Phoebe tried the number.

“Mrs. Grey?” Phoebe asked after a woman answered with a clipped hello.

“Yes?” the woman said.

“Good morning, I’m Phoebe Smart from Hartney Student Travel. We’re doing a major survey of parents whose kids have taken part in our programs—in the hope of enhancing what we do. Do you have a moment to answer some questions?”

“You’ve caught me just as I’m getting ready to go out. Is the survey long?”

“No, no, just a few questions. And your feedback will help enormously.”

“All right, then,” the woman said. “If it’s only a few.”

“Am I right to assume Alexis was happy with our programs? She did three of them.”

“Yes, she was quite pleased with them. Needless to say they’re exorbitantly expensive, but we felt they were worth it.”

“And what did she like best about them?”

“She loved the kids,” the mother said. “And the itineraries were good. She always felt she was learning something.”

“Did one program stand out for her more than the others? She was in Australia the longest, of course.”

“She loved Australia, yes. But they were all good in their own way.”

“And what is she up to now? Is she in college?”

There was a moment’s pause before the mother answered.

“She’ll be going to the University of Maryland in January.”

“Oh, that’s a great school,” Phoebe said. “But she’s not studying anyplace right now?”

“No—she’s working at the moment. At the Gap in the Crossgates Mall here. You know, just taking some time off.”

“Of course. A lot of the kids we’ve tracked down have taken a break here and—”

“I hate to cut you off, but my ride for tennis is here. I really need to go.”

“Not a problem.” Phoebe thought of quickly asking for Alexis’s cell number but was afraid it would set off an alarm. She knew where Alexis worked, and that was a good start.

After hanging up, Phoebe checked Facebook for Alexis but, interestingly, there was no page for her. She then Googled the mall and looked up directions. The trip was going to take roughly three hours. She decided she would leave right after an early breakfast the next day.

Phoebe was making the trip in the hope that time would have helped quell the girl’s fears and that she’d finally be open to talking, but Phoebe knew there was just as good a chance Alexis would still be reluctant to divulge anything. If only I knew more about the Sixes, Phoebe thought, it would give me an advantage in trying to pry information from Alexis.

She let her mind wander for a moment and then reached again for her phone. Several years ago, for a book she’d written on former child stars, she’d interviewed a psychologist named Candace Aikens whose specialty was adolescent girls and women in their twenties. Phoebe had been more than impressed by the woman’s insight, and she wondered if Aikens might have some wisdom to share on this subject. She looked up the number in her log, punched it on her phone, then left a message on voice mail.

Just thirty minutes later, as Phoebe was scrolling through e-mail she’d been ignoring for days, Dr. Aikens called back.

“I’m teaching at a small college for a semester, and I was hoping to pick your brain about something that’s happening here,” Phoebe explained.

“Sure, I’ll do my best. Tough group to understand, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, bit of a challenge for me. They just seem so different from people I knew in
my
twenties. Here’s the issue I’m dealing with: there appears to be a secret society of girls here. We haven’t got a lot to go on yet, but we do know that they like to play nasty pranks and that one of their former members ended up in the ER with a panic attack, saying they were after her.”

“Ahh, I’m seeing a lot of mean girl behavior like that these days.”

“But even at the college level?”

“Absolutely. They band together almost like a pack of wolves. I call it girl power gone wild.”

“Define wild, will you?” Phoebe said. “What kind of things do they do?”

“Bully. Intimidate. They can be very aggressive sexually—predatory, almost. For instance, keeping track of guys they’ve slept with and sharing the info. It’s behavior you used to only see with guys.”

“I know that young girls can be mean. But it just seems so surprising in girls
this
age.”

“Not anymore, because our culture has come to allow it. Look at what you see on these reality television shows. It’s okay to be a roaring bitch or flip over a table on someone. In fact, it’s
prized
.”

“That sounds pretty scary.”

“I’m not saying all girls are like this. There are plenty of terrific, dynamic girls out there. There’s just a certain pathology with the girls I’m talking about—the ones who organize these wolf packs. They may have been abused when they were young or scarred by a certain experience. Years ago girls had to internalize anything that happened to them like that, but now they’re allowed to act out.”

“So all the girls in these groups have had a troubling experience in their past?”

“I’m talking mainly about the ringleaders. Other girls get lured in simply because they’re needy on some level, they want to belong. Or maybe they’re just seduced by the charisma of the queen bee.”

“The queen bee?” Phoebe felt a chill as she said the words.

“The one at the center who’s running everything and pulling the strings. In a way all the members are queen bees, but she’s—how should I put it?—queenier than the rest.”

Phoebe thought about Blair. Beautiful. Utterly confident. And fearless.

“And that’s enough to sway a nice girl into doing something nasty?”

“Some of them don’t know what’s really going on until they’re fully entrenched. And then it can be hairy for them. I’d love to talk more later, Phoebe. But I’ve got a patient coming in a few minutes.”

“No problem. This has been very insightful.”

When she set the phone down, Phoebe noticed that it had grown dark out. She sprang up from her chair and hurried from one room to the next, flicking on lights. She was out of breath by the time she finished.

She sat back down on her desk and scribbled down notes from her conversation with Dr. Aikens, wondering how it all related to the Sixes. Was their hidden agenda all about bedding boys and adding notches to their belts? Based on her brief encounter with Lily, that seemed so hard to believe, but Phoebe knew she might have misjudged the girl. She also wondered if Blair was really the ringleader. Or was there someone else in control?

Much later, when she couldn’t put off bed any longer, Phoebe took a book upstairs with her and tried to read, but she could barely concentrate. Each time the house creaked or groaned, her eyes shot up toward the open door of her bedroom. At one point she let her eyes drift over the rumpled sheets and thought of Duncan, of making love to him last night. Though sex with Alec had been decent, more than decent at times, in the last year of their relationship he’d come to rely on a paint-by-numbers approach in bed, and she had found herself yearning for something exciting and reckless. And that had defined sex with Duncan. It had been intense, freeing. She also couldn’t deny how safe she’d felt, having him with her. Don’t be a baby, she told herself. Your lock is changed. You
are
safe.

Her cell phone, which she’d parked on the bedside table, rang suddenly, making her jerk. With Duncan on her mind, she immediately thought it might be him, just calling to check in.

But when she answered, she heard a gravelly voice on the other end.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” the man said.

“Who
is
this?” Phoebe asked.

“Hutch Hutchinson. We met yesterday.”

“Oh, hello,” Phoebe said, her voice softening. “No, you didn’t wake me.”

“I’ve been thinking about what we talked about,” he said. “About that group of girls you mentioned. And I think I may have some information you’ll find interesting.”

13

H
UTCH HUTCHINSON LIVED
on the outskirts of Lyle, and his driveway turned out to be about a quarter of a mile long. As Phoebe reached the end of it, she saw that the house was actually a log cabin tucked into a cluster of fir trees at the edge of a heavily wooded area. There was an old red Honda in front of the cabin, as well as a black pickup truck, its hood and windshield scattered with pine needles.

Phoebe had tried to wrestle the information out of him over the phone, but he was adamant about telling her in person. It seemed to Phoebe that he might be craving face-to-face time with another person. She asked if he’d mind meeting at eight thirty the next morning because she was heading out of town.

“Sure, why don’t you come over to my place,” he said. “Coffee’s on me.” It would delay her arrival in Maryland, but she was anxious to hear whatever he had to share.

As Phoebe stepped from her car, her nostrils were filled with the fragrant scent of fir trees. This was the kind of setting she’d envisioned for herself in Lyle, but she now knew she probably would have felt skittish living so far from anyone else. She strode up and knocked on the wooden door of the cabin. No one answered. Could he still be sleeping? Phoebe wondered. Just then she heard a sound behind her, and she spun around. A golden retriever, its muzzle whitened with age, was lumbering toward her from the direction of a large work shed. A tiny Chihuahua suddenly shot right past the retriever and nearly bounded into Phoebe’s arms.

“Okay, Ginger, give her a minute to get the lay of the land,” a voice called. Hutch had now emerged from the shed himself. He wore baggy khaki pants, work boots, and a faded plaid shirt. “We don’t even know if the lady likes dogs.”

“I
do
,” Phoebe said. The retriever licked her hands with abandon as Ginger pranced at her feet like a tiny reindeer. “Though the combo is a bit of a surprise.”

Hutch laughed deeply, but Phoebe heard a doleful chord somewhere in there.

“Ginger was my wife Becky’s dog,” Hutch said, scooping Ginger up with one hand. “She passed two years ago, and Ginger just goes nuts if she sees a nice looking female.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Phoebe said.

“I appreciate that. I’m not a toy-dog kind of guy. The retriever, Sunny, is more my style. But needless to say, Ginger’s got a special place in my heart. Come on in.”

The inside of the house was cluttered but homey looking and layered with smells from all sorts of things—dog hair, pipe tobacco, fresh coffee, and the smoldering logs in the wood-burning stove. Over the hearth was an oversize framed photo of Hutch and his wife. Becky had been a plump, pretty woman whose face exuded kindness and a fierce devotion to her man.

“Sit wherever you’d like,” Hutch said, gesturing broadly with his large hand, “and just help yourself to coffee.” Phoebe took the couch, figuring Hutch would prefer the big leather recliner for himself. She could practically see the shape of his body in it. On the coffee table in front of her was a tray with a glass coffeepot, mugs, sugar, and milk. Phoebe poured a mug for herself.

“You make a mean cup of joe,” Phoebe said after taking a swig.

“Unfortunately it’s about my only selling point as a bachelor,” Hutch said. “That and the fact that I still have all my hair.”

“Well, those things are at the top of a lot of girls’ lists.”

“Good to know,” Hutch said, smiling warmly. The skin crinkled around his eyes. “Now, I’m not going to take up a lot of your time because I know you wanna be on the road.”

“That’s okay. I’ve recently had a harrowing experience with the Sixes, so I’m anxious to hear what you have to say.” She told him about the rats.

“God damn,” Hutch said, shaking his head in disgust. “Excuse my language, but that just makes me mad. We never had anything as bad as that happen, but after you told me about the group, I thought back, and something hit me. There
was
an incident that might be significant.”

Phoebe leaned forward expectantly.

“Tell me.”

“Because you said the Sixes was a group of girls, I first tried to think about stuff involving the coeds,” Hutch explained. “They usually don’t create much drama here—oh, sometimes they get drunk and throw up all over, and once I thought I was going to need a hose to break up a catfight between a couple of them.”

“Over a guy?” Phoebe asked.

Hutch smiled. “Yup. And I’m sure he probably wasn’t worth it. But I couldn’t recall anything directly involving a group of coeds. Girls just aren’t into pranks the way boys are.”

He took a swig of his own coffee and set the mug down on the thick wooden table.

“But then,” he said, “something popped into my mind when I was out with the dogs last night after supper. Early last fall, before I was handed my walking papers, a bunch of fellows at Lyle ended up with a big black check mark painted on their dorm-room doors over the course of a few days. They were all quick to report it because if the school thinks you’ve damaged your room yourself, you have to pay for the repairs out of your own pocket. I sent one of my deputies out to investigate. The boys claimed to have no idea who was responsible.

“Now, as you’ve probably figured out,” he continued, “kids don’t like to tattle on each other. But I ended up talking to some of these guys myself, and I got the feeling they really
didn’t
have a clue as to who was responsible. Last night I dug out my notes from that time. You see, I kept some records of my own over the years, in addition to what we had on file at h.q. And guess what?”

“What?” Phoebe asked. She sensed Hutch was stretching things out a bit, enjoying having her company and attention.

“Six doors had been painted in all.”

Another “signing” of the group perhaps, Phoebe thought. But what did it mean? “Was there any connection between the guys?” she asked. “Were they on the same sports team, for instance?”

“No, there wasn’t any obvious connection. Interestingly, though, the doors were in three different dorms, which seemed to suggest that it wasn’t all random—that the boys were targeted somehow.”

“That’s creepy,” Phoebe said. “Targeted for what, do you think?”

“Don’t know,” Hutch said, but Phoebe sensed he had something on his mind. He took another swig from his mug.

“Do people still use the word
dork
?” he asked.

Phoebe laughed a little. “I think so. Why?”

“Like I said, I spoke to all these guys myself. And I remember they all seemed kind of dorky or nerdy to me. The kind of guys who never went to the prom in high school and who are smart in things like statistics.”

“Did you think someone was bullying them?”

“The thought crossed my mind at the time, so I asked around a bit. Didn’t find anything.”

“Interesting,” Phoebe said. “Though I can’t see how it fits in.”

She glanced at her watch. It was after nine, and she needed to get her butt in motion. She wasn’t sorry she’d taken a detour to Hutch’s this morning—a connection with him could prove useful as she kept digging—but what he’d shared hadn’t amounted to much, and she was anxious to find Alexis. As Hutch escorted Phoebe down the driveway, with the dogs bounding alongside them, they agreed to keep each other in the loop. Then he told her he had one more piece of information to share that morning.

“That fella I mentioned the other day,” Hutch said. “The one who woke up in the river? I got his name for you. Wesley Hines. And I was right. He graduated last spring.”

Phoebe thanked him again, and before firing up the engine, she took a minute to program her GPS for the Crossgates Mall.

The first leg of the trip, just fifteen minutes long, took her down a two-lane road until she picked up the interstate to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

The landscape constantly shifted as Phoebe drove. In between massive housing developments, which looked like eruptions of giant mushrooms, she passed sprawling old farms with silos and red barns, many with fields of dried corn stalks. Eventually a sign announced that she was now in Amish country. And then she spotted a hex sign, huge and ominous-looking, on the side of a barn.

At ten she made two calls as she drove. The first was to the Gap at the mall, asking for Alexis. Phoebe wanted to double check that Alexis was on duty today.

“She just ran down to the stockroom,” a young man replied. “Do you wanna hold?”

“No thanks—I’ll call back,” Phoebe told him.

The other was to Glenda’s assistant. Phoebe explained that as part of the investigation she was doing for Dr. Johns, she needed contact information on a former graduate, Wesley Hines. The assistant promised to e-mail Phoebe with it after she called alumni relations.

In Lancaster Phoebe picked up I-83 and headed south. The traffic was heavier here, bumper-to-bumper in places. Signs for Baltimore appeared. It all seemed so busy and oddly strange to her after the two months she’d spent sequestered in Lyle. She felt like a character in a movie who has been kidnapped and hidden someplace seemingly remote, only to discover when she escapes that the real world has been thundering by just outside the door the entire time.

Yet as surreal as the trip seemed at moments, she also felt energized. She had a mission, something she hadn’t had since before the plagiarism charges brought a halt to her world. Though she had no reason to be particularly optimistic about today, she told herself she
would
return with something vital after meeting with Alexis. She had to.

From time to time her mind found its way to Duncan. Last night in bed, she’d kept thinking about the sex with him, but she knew that more than lust was involved in her preoccupation. She liked the
man
. Maybe that was why she’d turned him down for dinner in the first place. Because she’d been fighting an attraction to him without even realizing it.

But where could this possibly lead? she asked herself. She’d be heading back to New York as early as January—and May at the latest. The last thing she needed was to become emotionally entangled with someone in Lyle. Besides, for all she knew, that was what he was avoiding as well—especially considering what he’d been through in the past two years.

Despite heavy traffic in spots, Phoebe made decent time, and at just after noon she pulled into the massive parking lot of the Crossgates Mall. It had been years since she had been to a suburban shopping mall, and she felt slightly overwhelmed when she stepped inside. There was a cacophony of sound—Muzak, reverberating voices, gushing water from the fountains—and visual noise too: endless signs, banners, and flags. Phoebe used the map to locate the Gap on the main floor, and after sliding on a pair of black sunglasses, she slipped into the store.

There were only a few customers inside, flipping through stacks of jeans and shirts. Phoebe moved toward a table piled with cotton turtlenecks and feigned fascination. After a moment she glanced up and let her eyes sweep around the store. At the moment there appeared to be only two salespeople on the floor—an African American woman in her forties and a white guy just out of his teens. No sign of a woman of about twenty. Maybe Alexis was in the stockroom again.

Phoebe moved a few feet to a table piled with sweaters. Minutes passed, and still no sign of Alexis. Just as she was starting to worry that she’d blown it somehow, Phoebe noticed a doorway that led to the Gap kids’ section. She sauntered toward it, and when she peered into the room, she saw a pretty brunette wearing a headset, folding tiny little sweaters. That’s got to be her, Phoebe thought.

She hung by the doorway of the kids’ room rather than going inside and drawing attention to herself. A short time later, the black woman drifted into the section and began talking to the brunette. Phoebe strained to hear, hoping the women might call each other by name, but it didn’t happen. By this point, though, it was clear there weren’t any other salespeople, and Phoebe was certain the brunette was Alexis.

Phoebe made her way back outside, settled on a bench directly across from the Gap entrance, and called the store again.

“I’m planning to stop by the kids’ department, but I wanted to make sure that Alexis will be there today,” she said to the employee who answered. “She was so helpful to me the last time.”

“Yes, she’s here,” the girl said.

“Great. I hope she’ll be there during lunch.”

“Yes, she doesn’t take her break till two.”

Phoebe made a quick dash to the ladies’ room and then, after picking up a newspaper and coffee, began her wait.

At about one forty-five, earlier than predicted, she saw Alexis walk briskly out of the store. Phoebe jumped up and followed her until, a few minutes later, she entered the food court. After buying a soda and slice of pizza, the girl took a seat at a white metal table for two. Phoebe grabbed a breath, then made her way in that direction.

“Alexis?” Phoebe asked when she reached the table. She noticed that the girl had pulled off all the cheese from her pizza, and it now lay in doughy clumps on the waxed paper. Alexis glanced up casually, perhaps expecting to see a coworker or a friend. When she spotted Phoebe standing there, she wrinkled her brow.

“Yes?” she said.

“My name is Phoebe Hall. May I sit down?” Phoebe didn’t wait for a reply. She slid into the empty chair across from the girl. Though Alexis was pretty, up close Phoebe saw that there were angry red patches of rosacea on her cheeks and forehead, the kind of flare-up that was often stress-related.

“What—who are you?” Alexis demanded. She seemed flustered, but Phoebe also sensed anger beginning to boil beneath the surface.

“I’m a new instructor at Lyle College. And I was hoping to talk to you for a few minutes.”

Alexis’s face reddened even more, as if someone had suddenly held a blowtorch to it. She placed both palms against the table and shoved her chair back, making a metallic grating sound so loud and obnoxious that other customers snapped their heads to see what was happening.

“I already told people there last spring,” Alexis sputtered. “I have
nothing
to say.” She screwed the cap back on her Diet Pepsi, preparing to bolt.