The Trust (2 page)
Authors: Tom Dolby
I
t was no surprise to Lauren that St. Patrick’s Cathedral was packed for Alejandro’s memorial service. The Calleja family had even known to arrange extra seating for latecomers. Family members and friends had traveled from South America and Europe, all dressed in their best designer black—hats, veils, furs, enormous brooches—as if, grotesquely, they had been waiting for just the right moment to show off their finery. The church was decked out in white peonies, thousands of which had been imported from Brazil.
Lauren’s mind flashed to her seventeenth birthday party, the black-and-white theme, the kiss she had shared with Alejandro on the dance floor. Now the sea of black dresses and white peonies seemed like a monstrous perversion of the beauty of that night, a night where anything had seemed possible.
She felt bile rise up in her throat, and she swallowed it down.
Lauren looked down at what she was wearing, and she didn’t even recognize the dress. Something black, something she had pulled from her closet in a daze. Was it even formal? Appropriate?
It had only been a few days after their return from the island, a few days after she had learned the news. Not that a few days would be enough to process the shock of Alejandro’s death, but Lauren had pictured herself as stronger than this. Had she even remembered to put on makeup this morning? Look in a mirror? Brush her hair? She couldn’t remember. She touched the right side of her forehead to feel the awful, stinging sensation of a pimple forming, a result of too much stress, too many sleepless nights, and too much caffeine.
She wondered if she had covered up the blemish adequately. Then she realized she didn’t care.
Nick and Phoebe were sitting next to her, and Thad was on the other side. Phoebe held her hand throughout the entire service, but Lauren could barely feel the sensation of her friend’s touch, and the sentiment behind it. It wasn’t Phoebe’s fault. It was that parts of Lauren had gone numb.
After the service, Alejandro’s body would be flown back to Argentina.
There would be no burial to attend.
In that church, amid throngs of people she had never met, was Lauren’s last chance to say good-bye.
It was a Catholic mass, complete with a performance of Mozart’s
Requiem
. Lauren thought the whole thing was overdone, not to mention completely impersonal, given that Alejandro had never shown the least bit of interest in religion or classical music.
But it was for the family. Lauren knew that.
The family that didn’t want to accept that their son had been a drug addict.
Perhaps it wasn’t fair of her to think like this. Yes, Alejandro had a drug problem, but he had been able to manage it—not that this made it okay. He had gotten himself into trouble over the years, but he had never overdosed. Not until the Society caused him to do so. Lauren didn’t know the exact details about it, and she didn’t want to. It was too horrible, the thought of what they might have done to him, feeding him the poisons that his body craved.
Alejandro might have screwed up his life, but he didn’t deserve to die. Not at seventeen years old. Not with people in his life who cared about him.
Not with her in his life. Whatever their problems—his drinking, his inability to take responsibility for his life—she still cared for him. For his sweet smile, his playful sense of adventure. No matter his faults: she missed him.
Their relationship had ended so abruptly when he was dragged out of a nightclub two weeks ago on the Lower East Side by the Guardians, never to be seen again. How could she have let that happen? And now, how was she supposed to deal with all the mixed emotions: guilt and regret about not taking better care of Alejandro; fear and anger at the Society for what they had done to him.
What therapist would ever understand what she was going through?
Lauren raised a fist to her face, rubbing her eyes, and found that she was crying. It was for Alejandro, of course, but it was also for herself.
How could she have gotten herself into such a mess? Part of her wanted to find out the truth about Alejandro and what had really happened, and another part of her wanted to let it drift into the past, to be a coldhearted girl who didn’t even care that her boyfriend had died.
She would never be like that. But if dwelling on it made the raw, biting pain stay with her, then she wanted to leave it behind.
Today, arriving at the service, sitting in the pew, she felt as if she were being followed by his ghost: she could see it in people’s eyes, the pity.
Elders from the Society and members of the Council of Regents sat in the first several rows behind Rocío and Federico Calleja, Alejandro’s mother and father; his older sisters, who had flown in from Argentina with their husbands; and other members of the Calleja family.
Most of the attendees were weeping through the service, and Lauren spied Gigi and Parker Bell, Nick’s parents, both of whom were making a big show of dabbing at their eyes with linen handkerchiefs, along with Palmer Bell, Nick’s grandfather. She wanted to scream, to bound over the pews and strangle them all: Parker and Palmer for arranging Alejandro’s murder, and Gigi for her hypocrisy, for pretending that she was nothing more than an innocent bystander. It didn’t matter that Nick was Lauren’s friend. Even Nick knew how evil his parents and grandfather were—they were the leaders of the Society and its financial and charitable arm, the Bradford Trust. She wanted to shout at them, to wail, to scream:
You killed him, you evil bastards! None of this would be happening if it weren’t for you!
She wanted to tell everyone everything she knew. To go to the papers. To tell her mom and dad. To tell the police.
But how could she?
Parker Bell had made it quite clear how their futures would be jeopardized if they revealed anything about Alejandro’s death. Was that enough of a reason to stay silent? Lauren didn’t know. If she came forward, would anyone believe her? She had seen what had happened to Phoebe when she had gone to her mother with doubts about the Society last fall. The minute Phoebe had said anything, she was sent to a doctor who treated her as if she were crazy, giving her tranquilizers and hinting that she should be placed under observation.
As Lauren looked around the cathedral, she realized that it was decorated more lavishly than for most weddings, with candles everywhere, garlands of flowers even in the rafters, not to mention an abundance of not-inexpensive flower wreaths, an Argentinean tradition. All that money that could have been spent on rehab was now wasted on flowers and candles that would end up in the trash. She glanced over to the Callejas. Rocío Calleja was wearing more jewelry than Lauren had ever seen anyone wear at a memorial service: rubies, diamonds, gold. She had greeted Lauren when she had entered, embracing her as if she were a family member.
In death, it seemed that Lauren’s position as Alejandro’s girlfriend was more secure than ever.
Lauren knew one thing: she was done with bad boys. In fact, she might be done with dating altogether, at least for a while.
As the service ended, she got up with Thad and ducked away toward the exits in an attempt to avoid the crush of people. Thad had been amazing over the past few days, taking her out to lunch and for coffee dates, anything to keep her mind off things. He even took her shopping, an activity he admitted that he hated. He was such a sweet guy, and she was especially glad that Thad was gay—it removed any awkwardness from their friendship. She may have been sleepwalking through the past week, but at least she had someone who cared about her to do it with.
As everyone started to leave the cathedral, there was a commotion near the front. Palmer Bell, Nick’s grandfather, was halfway up the aisle when his cane gave way and he tumbled to the floor. Panicked voices rang through the cathedral, echoing over the organ music as everyone, but particularly members of the Society, crowded around him, calling 911 and shouting words of advice to try to revive him.
I hope he dies, Lauren thought. I hope he dies right here in this church, fifty feet from Alejandro’s casket. That would serve him right.
The paramedics rushed in, heralded by the sirens of their ambulance. Palmer Bell was coming to, but he clearly needed serious medical attention. In all the commotion, it was as if the reason people were here—to mourn Alejandro’s death—had been completely forgotten.
Once again, Lauren thought bitterly, it was all about the Bells.
A
fter his grandfather’s collapse, Nick slipped awkwardly out of the cathedral, following his family into the black limousine that was waiting for them. An ambulance that would take Palmer Bell to New York-Presbyterian Hospital had just pulled away from the curb. Nick agreed that he would meet up with Phoebe after he learned more about what was going on. According to what the paramedics had told his father, Palmer had suffered a stroke, indicated by his collapse, complaints of numbness in his legs, and general disorientation. The car pulled away and drove south, turning east on a side street and then uptown. The driver followed the ambulance, taking advantage of the path that had been cleared for them.
Nick loosened his tie and scratched his neck behind his collar, realizing that he had been sweating. The panic of a crisis was almost a welcome relief from the charade they had all been playing. It had been devastating to sit through Alejandro’s memorial service when he and his friends knew the truth about what had happened to him. And now his family was sitting in this warm cocoon of luxury while the rest of the horrible world went on. It was the first time in a week that Nick had been in such close proximity to both his parents—he had been avoiding them ever since returning from Isis Island on New Year’s Day. His mother, with her fiery red hair; his father, though graying, lean and fit on a regimen of running and stress.
Nick’s two older brothers, Henry and Benjamin, home from Yale for the funeral, were both idly texting and shooting worried glances at their parents and each other. They had proven to be nothing more than drones when Nick had asked them about the Society back in December. Nick wouldn’t have been surprised if someone told him that his brothers had been lobotomized. He had always thought Ben might have rebelled against the group, as he had been more of a free spirit, a member of the Yale Pundits, the type of guy who would bring home
The Anarchist Cookbook
and leave it in the living room over Christmas break. Henry, conversely, was notoriously uptight and headed directly to law school. Nick sensed that Henry, as a senior, was already being groomed to become more involved with the group. Perhaps Ben was as well.
Nick’s mother, Gigi, was on the phone and fussing with arrangements, calling Palmer’s doctor, making sure that the hospital would be ready to see him. Nick’s father was bickering with her, arguing that any doctor would do—whoever was on duty in the emergency room was fine. Just because Palmer had made a large bequest to the hospital several years back, he shouldn’t expect to be treated any differently.
Yeah, right, Nick thought. The rich are always treated differently.
The limousine pulled up behind the ambulance, and Nick could see his grandfather being loaded out and wheeled to the emergency room.
As Nick stood in the hospital lobby with his mother and father and his two brothers, assorted hangers-on started trickling in: Family lawyers. Advisers. Friends. Society members who were concerned.
How is he? What room will he be in? Does he have the best doctor? My father had a stroke and . . .
To Nick, it was like vultures gathering around a half-dead carcass, waiting for their share of the spoils.
He walked out of the hospital’s revolving doors and headed home without saying a word to anyone.
W
hen Phoebe joined Lauren outside the cathedral after the memorial service, Thad gave her a knowing look. He had been waiting patiently with Lauren, but now that Phoebe had arrived, he seemed to know instinctively that the girls needed some time together. He parted ways with Lauren and Phoebe, giving them both hugs.
Phoebe walked with Lauren back to Lauren’s apartment on Park Avenue. There was to be a catered reception at the Calleja apartment at the St. Regis, but Lauren hadn’t wanted to go, and Phoebe agreed with her that they should skip it. Both of them knew that it didn’t make any difference to Alejandro, and that in the swarm of travel-weary mourners, his family wouldn’t even notice their absence.
Phoebe also knew that her friend needed her more.
Lauren was horribly depressed, as anyone would be about her boyfriend’s disappearance and death—it had only been two weeks since it had happened, and the pain was still fresh. Even worse, though, was the knowledge that Alejandro had never needed to die. Sure, he may have played fast and loose with the rules, but no one deserved his fate: to be kidnapped from a nightclub, taken to a flophouse on the Lower East Side, and forced to take all the drugs he could? Alejandro may have had a drug problem, but he hadn’t been out to kill himself.
Phoebe, Lauren, Nick, Patch, and Thad were the only ones who knew about any of this. Parker Bell had told all the other Society members that Alejandro had overdosed of his own free will, that it was a terrible tragedy that could have been prevented.
Only the five of them knew the truth—that the Society killed Alejandro because he was in danger of revealing its motives to the world. Alejandro had had a series of bad nights in the fall, one during which he was quoted as saying that he knew important people, and everyone would be sorry.
A simple comment like that was enough to make the Society concerned—it put the Society’s secret existence, not to mention the assets in the Trust, at risk. More than anything, though, Alejandro’s death fulfilled the Society’s goal of creating a class of fourteen. A class that would be stronger. A class that was bound by a secret.
For what? Amidst all the commotion and the threats, it was hard to understand what the Society was so worried about. During the retreat, Parker Bell had made repeated references to a way of life that the Society had to uphold. Phoebe understood that its secrecy was its power. The Society, she had learned, was a network of wealthy, educated people who recruited their sons and daughters, as well as other talented, educated young people. Phoebe had fallen into the latter category, while Nick, with his family’s involvement, was in the former.
The group used this network to gain and grant advantages to its members, sometimes legitimately, and other times in ways that were illegal. By the time members learned about the Society’s criminal ways, they were in too deep; they were either culpable for some of the Society’s deeds, or the Society had enough information on them to blackmail them effectively.
The Society also had a public face: the Bradford Trust Association. The members used the Trust as a cover, sometimes giving the group the appearance of a benevolent charitable foundation. Phoebe suspected that some of the members didn’t even know about the Society’s misdeeds, that they were only aware of it as a social group associated with the Bradford Trust.
Trust
was a funny word: Phoebe couldn’t think of a single person in New York City, apart from Nick and her three friends, whom she truly, honestly, could trust.
Like the others, Phoebe yearned desperately to get out of it, to tell the world about the Society, but she couldn’t. If she and her friends were going to reveal anything, they didn’t want to do so until they had a plan. It had seemed unwise to make a move until Alejandro’s memorial service had taken place. The fact that Nick’s family was so directly involved in the coverup—a revelation that had become apparent to Phoebe only in the last week—made things even more complicated.
Nick was, after all, the first and only boy she had ever loved. And she wasn’t about to ruin that.
At the moment, though, Phoebe didn’t want to come up with a plan or do anything remotely strategic—there would be plenty of time for that later. She wanted to comfort her friend. This was Lauren, after all: Lauren, who had approached her in a nightclub four months ago and taken her under her wing; Lauren, who had made Chadwick bearable.
Lauren, who had encouraged Phoebe to follow her to the Society initiation when both of them had been invited.
Phoebe looked at her as the two of them rode up in the elevator to Lauren’s mother’s Park Avenue apartment. Even when she was exhausted, Lauren was so beautiful. Phoebe had always felt like the ugly duckling next to the swan. Lauren had blond hair while Phoebe had reddish brown; Lauren was lithe and graceful, while Phoebe, though still slim, worried about her hips. Before they reached her floor, Phoebe reached forward and grabbed her friend, giving her a private hug.
She couldn’t say it was going to be okay, because she didn’t honestly know if it would be.
When the two of them arrived at the apartment, Lauren’s mother, Diana, was already home. She had taken a car from the cathedral and arrived ten minutes before them. In the kitchen, it was as if Diana was hosting a wake for three. Lauren’s little sister, Allison, was already away at boarding school, and Lauren’s father lived across town.
Diana Mortimer was not exactly the most nurturing person Phoebe had ever met; she was so thin that Phoebe imagined hugging her might not be a pleasant experience. Today, though, she had come through with exactly what Lauren needed. On this Saturday afternoon, she stood with a mimosa in her hand and welcomed the girls into the kitchen. There was a beautiful spread of food that had been prepared: two kinds of quiche, a salad, Lauren’s favorite variation on eggs Benedict, pastries, a Linzer torte, coffee, tea, and freshly squeezed orange juice. Phoebe found herself touched at the sight of it all. From what Lauren had told Phoebe about her mother, Diana had never been one to equate food with love—her wavelength was more handbags and jewelry—but right now luxury goods weren’t going to cut it.
Lauren sat down in the breakfast nook and smiled weakly at Phoebe and her mother. “You know something? I’m actually hungry. For the first time in days, I’m hungry. I’d better eat, before the feeling goes away.”
Phoebe knew what this was like, the feeling of fear-induced nausea that was so constant that as soon as it went away, you tried to get a little food down. Lately Phoebe’s stomach had been in knots as well, and so instead of trying to control her hunger as she might before a big night out, she found she was actually grateful to be able to eat a few bites without feeling sick.
The two of them dug in, asking the cook to pile their plates with eggs Benedict, quiche, and pastries. Diana asked them if they’d like mimosas, but they both declined. There was something about the Society that made them not want to drink too much—it was the drinking, after all, that had gotten their friends into so much trouble. Jared at Cleopatra’s Needle, freezing to death and dying of exposure after a night of bingeing. Alejandro, making a fool of himself at a club in the Hamptons, and then, of course, overdoing it that night at Prohibition, the club on the Lower East Side where the Guardians had kidnapped him.
No, Phoebe knew, and she sensed Lauren did, too, that staying sober and aware would be the best policy, at least for the next few weeks.
Lauren was silent as she took small bites of her food, and Phoebe resisted the urge to check her phone, which kept buzzing in her purse. It was probably Nick, but she felt it would be rude to answer. Her relationship with Nick had gone so well during all of this that she wondered what they would do if they weren’t facing an external crisis, if they didn’t have the constant outside stimulation to keep them going. They had started dating at Thanksgiving and had made it through the stress of exams, the aftermath of Jared’s and Alejandro’s deaths, the Society retreat, and Patch’s disappearance and initiation. Though it had only been a few weeks, Phoebe did worry a bit about whether things, once they settled down, would seem slow.
After eating, Lauren assured Phoebe that she really didn’t need her to stay, that she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before and was going to take a nap. Phoebe gave her friend a hug, said good-bye to Diana with a double air kiss, and let herself out.
She wasn’t going home, though, to the town house where she and her mother were living on Bank Street.
Via text, Nick had asked her to meet him in Central Park, at a location she remembered all too well from the fall: the chess tables.