"No, it's-"

He was cut off as the buzzer in the front sounded, and Lia jumped up. "Party's over," she said. "Back to work."

"Can I buy the other alb.u.m?" Patch asked. It was a big purchase-he could get four alb.u.ms for its price on iTunes-but he still wanted it. He would put it on his credit card, though he knew it was a little irresponsible, given his financial situation.

"Why don't you just take it?" she said. "I'll tell my boss that someone scratched it and it was ruined. It happens sometimes."

"Hey, you don't have to do that."

"Okay, I won't." She went back to sorting receipts at the counter while keeping an eye on the customers who had just walked in, two tattooed guys with a Rottweiler.

Patch laughed. "No-that's not what I meant. I mean, it's really cool of you. I don't have much cash right now, and I've wanted something by these guys for, like, forever. You're sure it's not a problem?"

She shrugged. "We comp small stuff to our good customers all the time. I'll just pretend you're a really good customer."

"What can I do for you?" Patch asked.

She scribbled her number on the back of a show flyer, as he felt the blood rush to his neck again. "Here's what you can do: call me sometime."

Chapter Fourteen.

After parting ways with Nick, Phoebe wanted to tell her mother about what had happened but decided against it. Despite the undeniable evidence in the studio that the rats actually had been there-the room reeked of cleaning supplies after the crew had given the floor a thorough scrubbing-she didn't want to get into it with Maia. Her mom would probably never notice the rips in Phoebe's canvases anyway; she might just think it was part of the work.

When Phoebe had mentioned the Society to her mother back in the fall, Maia had sent her to Dr. Meckling. The psychiatrist, who was part of the Society himself, had implied that Phoebe was suffering from delusions and should possibly be hospitalized. After returning from the retreat at Isis Island, Phoebe had been afraid to say anything to her mom about what had happened there, for fear that her mother would, once again, think she was crazy.

Now she didn't even want to mention the rats to Daniel; though he was in the Society himself, he might not believe her.

Her mother and Daniel arrived home, and Maia busied herself in the kitchen. Phoebe sat in the living room with Daniel and tried to concentrate on the reading for her literature cla.s.s, a book of Kafka stories. As the fire he had lit started to crackle, Phoebe found that the text was starting to blend together on the page. She looked up from her book and tried to relax her eyes.

"Is everything okay with school?" Daniel said. "You look exhausted."

"Thanks," Phoebe said drily. "That's always nice to hear."

"Anything going on? It's only the first few days into the new semester, right?"

"I'm not sure you would understand," Phoebe said.

"Is it about the retreat?" he asked quietly.

"Well, yeah, for starters." After he had told her mother to send her to Meckling, Phoebe didn't know whether she could trust him or not. But he was being nice to her tonight, and she thought that if he opened up, it might help her piece together answers to some of the many questions she had.

"I think-" Daniel paused, as if carefully measuring what he was about to say. "I think you may be taking all this stuff with the Society too seriously. The work the Society has done over the years has been exemplary, and I think you're ignoring that in favor of a few minor incidents. There's the work they've done philanthropically, and the connections they help people to make. All that stuff, the initiations, the stuff on the island, that's all just to get people excited about it. Sort of like a pep rally."

Phoebe scoffed. "Um, a pep rally where they burn coffin effigies of two people? Come on, Daniel, two people my age died died! That certainly wasn't smoke and mirrors."

Daniel looked back nervously at the closed door leading to the kitchen. "You know we need to be discreet about this, Phoebe. It's a privilege to be picked for the Society, and you're treating it like it's some kind of high school prank."

"What will happen if I tell my mom again? Will you get in trouble?" Phoebe sneered at him. She was surprising herself; it wasn't like her to act this way.

"I think you know. The Council won't tolerate insubordination. You're ignoring all the good that the Society has done, and focusing on the bad. Have you heard about the renovations at the Met? Ninety percent of that has been funded by Society contributions."

Phoebe sighed. "My friends and I are just so sick of all these rules. You really believe in all this?" She was starting to wonder herself. Maybe she had overreacted to everything. Maybe Jared's death had been an accident. But Alejandro's death: Parker Bell had admitted to them that he had orchestrated it. She didn't know why she kept doubting herself. The Society was corrupt, and within her first two weeks in New York, she had gotten involved in it.

She should have known better.

Daniel leaned toward her. "I believe that if we live according to the best ideals that have been set forth for us, we can achieve our maximum potential."

Phoebe nodded blankly and turned back to her reading. Talking to Daniel wasn't going to do any good.

When Phoebe had arrived in Manhattan four months ago from California, she had wanted her New York to be like the one she had seen in the movies.

Now it was, in a sense.

The only problem was that it was the wrong kind of movie.

Chapter Fifteen.

After parting ways with Phoebe, Nick took the subway back home. He decided to get off several stops early, on Lexington Avenue in the Sixties. It was a chilly night, but with everything that had happened, he wanted to take a walk and clear his head. As he was about to cross the street and go west toward Fifth, Nick got a call from Thad.

"Did you hear what happened to me today?" his new friend said. "I've just spent the last four hours in the headmistress's office." Thad attended the Whitford School on West End Avenue, but gossip about people Nick knew usually reached him, even if they didn't go to Chadwick.

"What did you do? I wasn't at school today, so I didn't hear."

"I didn't do anything! I opened my locker between first and second period, and a bottle of gin fell out. It shattered all over the floor, and you know how gin smells like-"

"Like my parents in the summer?" Nick interrupted.

Thad laughed grimly. "I was going to say like gin, but yeah, whatever. Anyway, you couldn't miss it. I was pulled in by the headmistress, and she was not pleased. You know how crazy they are about drinking. I guess it's the same at Chadwick."

"Don't remind me." Nick had been admonished for hosting a party that was featured in New York New York magazine, and he was still trying to regain credibility at school as someone who wasn't a complete screwup. magazine, and he was still trying to regain credibility at school as someone who wasn't a complete screwup.

"I've been suspended for a week," Thad said. "I would have been expelled, but I told them there was no way the bottle was mine. My father threatened to bring in a lawyer and do a forensic test on the broken bottle and everything. That got them to back down. But I'm still suspended, and the incident may go on my permanent record."

"We've got to figure out a way to end this," Nick said. "Let me think about it tonight, okay?"

Just as Nick was hanging up, another call came through from Phoebe, who said that Lauren had just been accused of theft at Giroux New York.

Nick shook his head. "I'm not surprised." He told Phoebe about what had happened to Thad.

"We need to get together again with the others," Phoebe said. "Let me figure out a good meeting place."

Nick slowed down his walk as he hit Park Avenue. Traffic was light, and there weren't many pedestrians. "I'm worried about you," he said quietly. "Are you going to be okay? Staying at home, with, you know... I mean, what if something else happens?" Phoebe had mentioned that Daniel, Phoebe's mother's boyfriend, would be staying over that night.

"He's not going to do anything. This is all coming from far higher up-I feel like it's coming from the Council of Regents. Seriously, talking to Daniel, I think he believes the Society is this amazing organization that's only out for the greater good. Besides, there's no reason why my being close to Daniel is any more dangerous than you being around your parents."

There was an awkward pause on the line as Nick let this sink in. "I guess you're right," he finally said.

He knew his dad had done all these terrible things, but he had mentally separated those actions from his father's role as his parent.

Maybe it was time to accept that it was all coming from the same man. He didn't want to, and it had been so difficult for him over the past several months to see his parents change from people he trusted and believed to people who trafficked in deception. Nick knew that his father wanted to draw him into his world, but he had resisted. On New Year's Eve, before everyone left Isis Island to go back to the city, Nick's father had confided in him, telling him a secret about Patch that was far too momentous for Nick to reveal. Nick hadn't wanted to tell it to Patch a mere day after they had reconciled, and then as each day pa.s.sed, it became more difficult to reveal what he had learned. Now that it had been more than a week, Nick had pushed the information to the far recesses of his mind.

Phoebe said she had to go, as Daniel and her mother were still downstairs.

As he walked up Park Avenue, Nick thought about what had happened to his three friends. The Society was punishing them for not attending the meeting on Monday night. Nick had always heard that meetings were serious and not to be missed; it was one of the Society's rules. But all these horrible acts? It wasn't right.

Alejandro's and Jared's lives had already been sacrificed. Should the five of them remain steadfast in not allowing the Society to control them? Should they skip more meetings?

Nick didn't know the right answer.

Soon he arrived home at his family's apartment building, across the street from the Metropolitan Museum. He considered stopping at Patch's floor to talk it over with him and Genie, but he decided against it.

Nick's fingers and toes felt frostbitten, so he took a long, hot shower, which eased the pain.

The soapy water swirled down the drain, and he gradually regained sensation in his extremities. He thought of the comforts that the Society provided for all of them. Like a long, hot shower on a chilly winter night, the Society wanted to placate them all into submission with perks and luxuries, to make life so comfortable that it would be easy to ignore the darker side of any situation.

Nick dressed carefully in jeans and a nice shirt. Running into his parents these days was an awkward affair, and he almost pretended that he didn't know them, as if he were in a hotel and was pa.s.sing another guest in the hallway.

But tonight he couldn't avoid them. Not when his girlfriend had been sabotaged.

Downstairs he heard his father in the library. Nick walked in.

"Nick, it's nice to see you," his father said. "You look a bit flushed. Did you go running today?"

Nick tried to keep his bitterness in check. He sat down on one of the leather couches and took a deep breath before answering.

"No, I didn't. I had to help Phoebe. Her art studio was filled with rats."

His father raised an eyebrow. "Rats? How odd." He took a sip of his scotch.

"Thad was suspended when a bottle of gin fell out of his locker, and Lauren was accused of theft. Dad, we know that the Society is responsible for all of this."

His father looked at him. "Maybe you'll think about these occurrences the next time that you decide to miss a Society meeting. After everything that happened in the fall, I'd think you would take your responsibilities more seriously."

"Dad, what happened in the fall was that you killed killed two people. Maybe not you personally, but the Society. And as far as I'm concerned, and from what everyone has told me, you pretty much are the Society. Or at least you're the only part of it that I have any access to." two people. Maybe not you personally, but the Society. And as far as I'm concerned, and from what everyone has told me, you pretty much are the Society. Or at least you're the only part of it that I have any access to."

"Calm down, Nick. At this time, your family needs you. You haven't even asked about how your grandfather is doing. What kind of a selfish person are you?"

Nick's mother appeared at the entryway to the library. He glared at his father. "Oh, forgive me if I put self-preservation and caring for my friends above my grandfather. It's not like he's exactly helped with this situation."

"Your grandfather has made more possible in your life for you and your friends than you will ever understand," Parker said as he stood up and moved toward the door. "So I strongly suggest that you get yourself in line."

Chapter Sixteen.

On Thursday nights, Genie went out, a rare weekly event when she attended a ballroom dancing cla.s.s and then went to a diner afterward for coffee and pie with her friends. Because of this, Patch decided to offer up their apartment for the emergency meeting. For a few hours, they would have the place to themselves. He had wanted to make it nice for everyone, and though there was no way it would ever compare to the opulence of Lauren's apartment, he had straightened up the living room and even bought sodas and baked a roll of chocolate chip cookies.

Thad, Phoebe, and Lauren recounted all the sabotage that had happened in the last forty-eight hours. Thad was still lobbying his school's administration to keep the incident with the gin bottle off his permanent record. Phoebe was recovering from the vermin infestation and would need a follow-up meeting with her doctor to make sure she hadn't been infected by the bite. Lauren was waiting for the verdict from Sebastian Giroux about the jewelry found in her bag.

"There's something else," Lauren said. She pulled out her phone from her handbag and showed everyone a text message she had received that day.

It read:

AQ EKEPRLE FMPYD QZP OQL RMYD QPDRL?.

"Looks like gibberish," Phoebe said.

"It's not gibberish," Thad said. "It's a cryptogram."

"A crypto-what?" Nick asked.

"It's a code where each letter stands for a different one. Lauren, give me your phone."

She handed her phone to Thad, and he punched the series of letters into his own iPhone, copying over the cryptogram.

His face grew dark. "I think I know what it means. I used a cryptogram solver. It's a little bit... well, it's a little bit scary."

"Come on, what is it?" Phoebe asked.

He looked at Lauren. "Go ahead," she said.

"It reads-and I think this is correct: 'Do sisters watch out for each other?'"

"That's weird," Phoebe said. "Does that make any sense to you?"

"It makes sense to me," Lauren said.

"Why's that?" Nick asked.