The Trust (4 page)

Chapter Eight

W
henever 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.”

“We might as well try,” Thad said. “And you think this would get all of us out of the Society?”

“He said that if we solve this, ‘you and your friends will never hear from the Society again,’” Nick said. “The search starts at the beach.”

“Which beach?” Patch asked.

“That’s what we don’t know,” Phoebe said.

“Phoebe and I will start this coming Friday,” Nick said. “For now, we need to figure out what to do about these meetings, right?” Nick said. “In particular, the one tomorrow night.”

“Honestly, I don’t know what we have to meet about,” Phoebe said. “Like they couldn’t just let us digest everything that’s happened so far?”

“I’m not going,” Lauren said. “I can’t go on any longer with it.”

“Me, neither,” Thad said.

“Pheeb, what about you?” Lauren asked.

She looked at Lauren and Thad. “I’m with you guys. I’ll skip.”

“Maybe Patch and I should go,” Nick said. “You know, so they don’t think something’s going on?”

“I guess so,” Phoebe said.

“I’m just so angry about it all,” Lauren said. “I think we should go to the police. What could the Society do to us? We could tell the cops everything we know. I don’t even care if I don’t get into college, if they bust us for being drunk that night. We weren’t responsible for Alejandro’s death. We were partying with him. It wasn’t that part that killed him.”

Everyone looked uneasy.

“Do you really think the police would believe us?” Nick said.

“They would have to believe something,” Phoebe said. “Don’t you think? I mean, we’ve made this mistake before. We should have gone to the police the night that Alejandro disappeared.”

“We didn’t know what was happening. We didn’t know how bad it was going to get,” Nick said.

“Honestly, inside the club, most people didn’t even see him,” Thad said. He turned to Patch. “What do you think?”

Patch shrugged. “I, um, I don’t really know. It’s hard for me to say, since I wasn’t there.”

Patch realized, at that moment, that this was part of his uneasiness. Even though he should have felt like a real member, he didn’t. He would never feel like as much of an insider as they did. Even though they all greeted him warmly and treated him as a friend, he still felt like an interloper. They were the chosen ones, and that was the way it was always going to be.

And why, he wondered, did he want to feel like an insider to this group that he and his friends were now trying so desperately to escape?

Chapter Nine

O
ne of the perks of being a member of the Society was that its town house on East 66th Street had a private, glassed-in rooftop swimming pool. The text message that Nick, Patch, and the others had received said that on Monday night there would be a pool party, a rare treat in chilly January.

As Nick approached the doors of the classic brownstone with Patch, he thought about how, for the first time, the two of them would be going to a Society meeting together. For a moment, it felt as if this was the way things were supposed to be, as if the world had righted itself and all had been put back in order.

Of course, that was far from the truth of the situation. Nick sighed inaudibly as the door was opened for them by Anastasia Lin, who was Phoebe’s mentor in the class above her. She was dressed casually, in jeans and a cashmere sweater, though she wore her usual dramatic red lipstick.

“Nick! Patch! It’s so good to see you,” she said as her eyes darted from one to the other. “Is Phoebe with you?”

Nick noticed Patch giving him an awkward sideways glance. “No, um, she’s coming separately,” Nick said. “She might be a little late. She said she wasn’t feeling well.” He hoped the lie would allay any suspicion when it later became clear that Phoebe was skipping the meeting.

Anastasia led Nick and Patch up several flights of stairs in the direction of the rooftop pool. Nick wanted to give Patch the full tour of the town house, but he also didn’t want to attract suspicion from any of the other members who were roaming about. Like a classic gentlemen’s club, the place had the odor of cigars and worn leather, and its walls were adorned with aging oil paintings of mediocre quality, along with framed medals, photographs, and letters from politicians, all yellowing at the corners and wrinkled in their frames.

With everything Nick now knew about the Society, being at the town house felt cheap. He wouldn’t exactly describe the first night there in the fall as
magical
, but it had possessed a certain aura of exclusivity, of the idea that they were part of something special. There had been a richness that the building held; now, in its place, all he felt was a troubling emptiness, the feeling of promises broken, of betrayal.

“So this is it,” Patch said as he looked around. They were on the top floor. The entryway to the swimming pool had a white marble floor and a tiled dome ceiling. Through the entryway, blue light from the pool flickered against the potted palms that lined the sides of the room. The roof of the swimming pool was glass, so you could see the stars as you floated in the water.

A bar had been set up against one wall, and Emily van Piper, one of the members of the class above them, was mixing drinks. She was wearing a blue swimsuit with a wrap tied around her waist. With her blond hair, she fit in perfectly with the pool party atmosphere. Nick knew Emily was Lauren’s mentor and would surely notice she was missing as well. Nick and Patch got ginger ales, but luckily, Emily didn’t ask about Lauren.

Nick stood with Patch on the side of the pool. “Are you going to put your suit on?” Patch asked, motioning to Nick’s messenger bag. Both of them had dutifully packed swimsuits, as per the instructions they had been given, but swimming was the last thing Nick wanted to do.

Nick shook his head. “No.”

As he looked at all the members splashing around the pool and relaxing so easily, Nick thought back again to the first time he had been here, in the fall. It had all been fun and entrancing and mysterious. Most exciting of all had been meeting Phoebe, seeing her in a swimsuit a mere twenty-four hours after they had met. He couldn’t pretend that it hadn’t interested him, that he hadn’t been paying attention.

Charles Lawrence walked over to Nick. He wore a bright red square-cut bathing suit and had a towel draped around his neck as if it were the middle of summer and he was a lifeguard at the country club doing his hourly patrol.

“Having fun?” Charles asked.

Nick gave Charles a blank look. It was difficult to know how to act around Charles—he was, after all, the de facto leader of the older class of Conscripts. He had started out as a friendly guy, someone everyone liked, but as last semester progressed, Nick suspected Charles of having a hand in Jared’s and Alejandro’s deaths. He was the one who had handed Alejandro a drink before his collapse, and he was the first one who had discovered Jared at Cleopatra’s Needle. Nick didn’t know whether to be afraid of Charles or to scorn him.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Charles said. “Actually, to both of you. I’ve been asked by the Council of Regents to be a mentor to both of you, since neither of you has one currently.”

It was true. Jared had been Nick’s mentor, and Patch hadn’t been assigned one yet.

“What about Jeremy?” Nick asked. “And aren’t you already Bradley Winston’s mentor?” Jeremy Hopkins had been Alejandro’s mentor, so it would have been logical to pair up Jeremy with Patch.

Charles laughed. “Bradley is doing just fine. And I’m not really sure Jeremy’s up to the challenge. He’s a little busy right now with some kind of art project that he’s doing with Anastasia.” He looked at Nick. “Your dad asked me personally that I be a mentor to the two of you.”

“Whatever,” Nick said, shrugging. “I guess it’s fine.”

“Why don’t you and Patch go get changed?” Charles asked. “The water feels great.”

Nick scowled. “Not tonight.” He laughed a little, mostly out of nervousness. “I don’t see how you can just relax after everything that’s happened,” he muttered.

“What do you mean?” Charles asked.

“Um, I don’t know,” Nick said. “Maybe that two people died last semester? Why does no one seem to care about that?”

“Nick, accidents happen. Everyone knows that. You can’t dwell on the past. Come on, have a drink, come and hang out with the other members. People are starting to think you’re a bit of a snob, the way you only talk to your friends.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Nick said. “We’re fine where we are. We’ll watch from the side.”

Nick knew he was supposed to pretend that nothing was wrong, but when someone like Charles came along and provoked him, he couldn’t stay silent. He wasn’t going to let on about his grandfather’s challenge and his offer to get him and his friends out of the Society—that would just be stupid. But he also figured that Charles and the others might be suspicious if he and Patch suddenly seemed like they were going along with everything, no questions asked.

“Suit yourself.” Charles shrugged and walked away.

As Nick looked at the other members, they disgusted him as they horsed around in the pool. Two of the guys, both slim and tan, tried to throw one of the girls in, the three of them fell in together, and then she retaliated by dunking their heads underwater. He heard snippets of conversation echoing around the room:
I got my early acceptance a few days ago . . . Yale . . . Harvard . . . vacation in St. Barts . . . ski house in Aspen . . . I know! . . . Grab me another drink? . . . SAT scores? Well, I’m not going to worry about something that doesn’t even affect me!

Nick nudged Patch. “What do you think?”

His friend seemed chagrined. “I don’t know. Would I be wrong to say that it actually looks like fun? I know I’m not supposed to think that. But I can see how everyone’s gotten sucked into it. The perks aren’t bad. And the view—I think this might be the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen in Manhattan.”

“It’s true,” Nick said. “But we can’t let ourselves be so enchanted by it. I need to be more careful, though. I thought I was going to lose it in front of Charles.”

“He’s a snake,” Patch said. “He’s become, like, your father’s little errand boy.”

“Yeah, right—since I never exactly fulfilled that role, and my brothers are away at school.”

“Hey, don’t beat yourself up,” Patch said. “You’re doing what’s right. Charles will get what’s coming to him someday. What I want to know, though, is, do you think it was always like this? I mean, if our parents were—or, in your case, are—in it, I can’t believe that all the terrible stuff we saw on the island is what it’s always been about. Why would they ever join a group like that?”

Nick shook his head. “I’m not sure. Maybe there was some kind of golden age for the Society that we missed. My father said that the Power of Fourteen”—his voice lowered—“started in the 1960s. In this pool, actually. Which is totally wacked, I know. Someone drowned during a ritual and they all had to keep it quiet, since everyone felt like it was their fault.”

“Maybe it’s like with a lot of things,” Patch said. “It starts out good and then it turns evil. It gets corrupted when it doesn’t know what to do with its own power.”

Nick nodded. “But I think everyone here—or at least a lot of the people here—have no idea how bad it is. They think it’s a social organization, with all the charitable stuff and the parties and the donations made by the Bradford Trust Association. But that’s all a smoke screen.”

The Administrator approached Nick and Patch from across the room, and Nick knew they had to cease their conversation.

“Hello, Nicholas,” she said. Katherine Winthrop Stapleton, known to many members as the Administrator, was a longtime member of the Society and was in charge of keeping records. She was an older woman and didn’t tolerate any nonsense from the younger members. She also protected their parents, many of whom were Elders themselves, from having to discipline their own children about Society matters.

Nick nodded a wary hello.

“I’ve noted that everyone is present tonight except for Phoebe Dowling, Lauren Mortimer, and Thaddeus Johnson. Do you know their whereabouts?”

Nick shook his head. “I think some of them were sick.”

“It was made very clear early on that if someone is ill, they are to check in with me beforehand in order to get permission to miss the meeting.”

“I don’t know what happened, Miss Stapleton,” Nick said. “Maybe they were too sick to remember.”

She made a few notes on her pad and then retreated to the paneled anteroom. She pushed one of the panels, it opened, and she stepped inside, closing the panel behind her.

Charles appeared at Nick’s side. “Did she give you the inquisition about your missing friends?” he asked. “I told her I didn’t know anything.”

Nick nodded. It seemed so obvious that Charles was pretending he was on their side.

“You guys had better be careful,” Charles said. “You may think that because of your family and everything, you’re above all this. But you’re just the same as the rest of us.”

Claire Chilton, a member of their class, joined the boys after getting up from a chaise longue. That evening, Claire was one of the few who hadn’t gotten her hair wet at all. She was dressed in a white robe and sandals, like a Park Avenue matron at a spa retreat. “Hello, boys. Are we discussing the absence of your three friends?”

Nick ignored her, though he was unsure of whether he should respond to Charles’s earlier comment.

Thankfully, Patch saved him. “You know, we’d really better get going. School night, you know.”

A few of the Society members were looking at Nick and Patch strangely. Hunter Jones and Emily van Piper had stopped their conversation by the bar, and Jeremy Hopkins was looking at them from across the pool. Nick wondered if he was being paranoid.

“Same old, same old,” Patch muttered to Nick. “You get into a club, and you still feel like you don’t belong. Let’s get out of here.”