The Sixes

10

BUSY BOY, PHOEBE thought irritatedly. When Duncan had first asked her out to dinner, she’d assumed he was unattached, but he was clearly spreading his charms around. At least this solved one problem for her, she decided. She hadn’t wanted to get involved with anyone, and this guaranteed she wouldn’t. She had no interest in being part of someone’s campus harem.

She made her way to the bar, a drop-leaf table set up with a hodgepodge of wine bottles and half a quart of Skyy vodka. To the left of it was one of those big brick fireplaces that must have been used for cooking centuries back and now featured a gas fire. The flames danced, repeating the same frantic pattern again and again, and the gas made a popping noise like a flag being whipped by the wind. Phoebe poured herself a glass of cheap Shiraz. Just to her left was a cluster of three people—a man and two women—and she sensed, by the quick pause in their conversation, that they had noticed her and exchanged looks. Many of the faculty would know who she was, the famous plagiarist in their midst.

“Phoebe, have you met Bruce Trudeau?” It was Jan bearing gifts, a man with a potbelly so big it looked as if he was carrying a basketball beneath his shirt. “He’s in Miles’s department.”

“No, I haven’t. How do you do?” Phoebe shook Trudeau’s hand and then turned back to Jan. “This was so nice of you to do tonight. And your home is charming.”

“I thought everyone could use a drink,” Jan said. “We’re all churned up. Miles had Lily in a class last term, and she was in one of Bruce’s this fall.”

“Oh,” Phoebe said, surprised. “I assumed she was an English major.”

“Yes, but a psych minor,” Bruce said. “And very smart.”

“From what you know of her, do you think she might have committed suicide?” Phoebe asked.

“My gut says no,” Trudeau said. “She was a little distracted these past weeks, but not morose in any way. And yet it’s so hard to tell with kids this age. They hide it very, very well.”

“Were you aware if she was dating someone?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Bruce said. “Why so interested? Are you considering writing about this?”

“No, no,” Phoebe said. “Celebrities are my beat. I’m just curious.”

“What about all this serial killer talk?” Jan asked. “Do you buy any of that, Bruce?”

So, Phoebe thought, that theory was now off the leash. She bet it was moving like a brush fire on campus—and she wondered if Tom Stockton had lit the match.

“It seems awfully farfetched,” Bruce said. “But I do know there’s a reporter from the New York Post asking a lot of questions, and if he picks up on that theory, he’ll go crazy with it. And the media will descend like vultures.”

“Did you know there’s actually a target age for serial killers?” Jan said. “I read that female victims are usually between sixteen and thirty-eight. When I learned that, I put it on my list of reasons to not hate being over forty.”

“And please tell—what are some of the other reasons?” someone asked behind them. It was Duncan’s voice.

“Actually, that’s the only one I’ve found so far,” Jan said. “Phoebe, do you know Duncan Shaw?”

“Um, yes, hello,” Phoebe said.

“Can I get you a refill?” Duncan asked, nodding toward her wineglass. She glanced down and saw that the glass was almost empty.

“Sure,” Phoebe said.

As Duncan maneuvered through several clusters of people toward the bar, Jan asked Bruce about a study he was doing on delayed gratification. Phoebe only half listened. Her eyes roamed the room, searching for where Val had gone off to. She didn’t look like the type who let a man out of her sight.

“Here you go,” Duncan said, returning a couple minutes later. Phoebe turned away from Jan and Bruce, who were now deep in conversation, and reached for the wine. As her hand encircled the glass, her fingers brushed against Duncan’s, and she felt a momentary spark. He looked into her eyes, holding them.

“Were you at the service tonight?” she asked. “I didn’t see you.”

“Yes, though I was a little late,” he said. “For some reason I thought it started at seven thirty. What did you think of it?”

“Well done. But so sad, of course. I hear Lily was a psych minor.”

“Yes, apparently,” he said, forced to move a little closer to Phoebe as more people entered the room. “Miles said he had her in a few classes, but I never did. Any news about the police investigation?”

“I’m not privy to much. I did hear that the cause of death was drowning.”

She cringed as soon as the comment escaped her lips. She wondered if hearing the word drowning was troubling for Duncan.

“How’s your situation, by the way?” Duncan asked. If the topic was tough for him, his tone gave no indication. “Any more problems?”

“I had a weird chat today with someone I suspect is in the Sixes,” she said. She offered him a few highlights of her conversation with Blair. “She was very cagey. And I can absolutely imagine her sneaking into my house.”

“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” he said. “You leave New York, only to have someone break into your house here.”

“I know. The worst thing that ever happened to me in Manhattan was having my car keyed.”

Just then, someone jostled her from behind, and she was shoved forward, her breasts pressing into Duncan’s arm. She righted herself, trying to look nonchalant, but she felt her cheeks redden.

“You aren’t going to throw in the towel and head back to New York, are you?” he asked.

“Why?” she asked. “Are you afraid of the blow to the English department?”

The expression in his eyes shifted, no longer solemn.

“Actually, I’m not thinking of the English department.”

Oh, please, she thought. If he was seeing Val, why make flirty little comments to her?

Before she could think of a response, she felt a long, thin arm brush against her own. She knew who it was before she heard the deep voice.

“Hello, Phoebe,” Val said. She was wearing flowy black pants and a black jersey top, cut low. Around her neck were half a dozen silver chains, each dangling a different object—an antique cross, a burnished silver vial, a shark tooth—into her cleavage. If I gave her five dollars, Phoebe thought, she would probably tell me my fortune.

Phoebe nodded in greeting.

“What a surprise,” Val said. “I’ve never seen you at a faculty get-together before.” Then she laid her long, slim fingers on Duncan’s arm.

“I’ve got an eight o’clock, so we should go now,” Val said, turning to Duncan. “Ready?”

“Um, yeah, I guess,” he said. “Do you need a lift home, Phoebe?”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I’m all set.”

She said good night and set down her mostly full glass, thanked Jan for the invitation, and snaked through the crowd, hoping to beat Duncan and Val to the door.

She didn’t mind the walk home. The crisp October air was energizing. She’d left lights on in the house, and when she reached it, she saw that it seemed cozy and inviting from the sidewalk.

Phoebe let herself in the front door, and after peering around to make sure nothing was disturbed, she tossed her coat on a chair in the living room. She peeled off her boots, plopped on the couch, and laid her feet on the wooden trunk that she used as a coffee table.

Let Val have Duncan, she thought, allowing her body to sink into the sofa. There was no denying she found Duncan attractive, but no romantic entanglement here meant no chance for regret. Plus, she had other things to concentrate on right now—like figuring out what the Sixes were up to and staying out of Tobias’s way.

Outside a car approached, its engine a dull hum, and then seemed to slow as it reached her house. She felt her body tense, on alert, but the car kept going. Don’t be paranoid, she chided herself.

But then there was another sound, this one much closer. She bolted upright and strained to hear. It was a scratching sound—almost like branches blown by the wind back and forth across a window. It’s coming from the kitchen, she realized with a start, or immediately outside the back door. Was someone trying to get in?

From where she sat on the couch, she could see part of the kitchen, including the back door. Frozen in suspense, she stared at the handle of the door. It wasn’t turning, and she couldn’t see anyone in the glass above it. The scratching stopped, but five seconds later, as she finally took a breath, it started again. Maybe it’s a mouse, she thought. She’d seen a package of traps on a shelf in the pantry off the kitchen, so it was clear Herb had once been plagued by them. She forced herself from the couch.

By the time she reached the kitchen door, the scratching sound had stopped again. Her eyes flew over the room, searching, but she had no clue what had made the noise. If there was a mouse, it might be inside the walls or in one of the cabinets.

And then the noise was back. It was more of a knocking now, and as she turned in its direction, she realized it was coming from the refrigerator—from the freezer part on top. Was something wrong with the motor? she wondered, now completely baffled.

She moved across the room and closed her hand around the freezer door. She yanked, pulling it open.

She saw that there was something dark and clumpy at the back, like a wet wig, and then suddenly something sprang at her, hitting her in the chest. She stepped back as the thing fell to the floor with a hard thud. Her eyes shot to the ground. It was a rat, a brown one with a hideously long, hard tail. She gasped, watching as it writhed by her feet. After only a second or two, it collapsed, dead or dying. Her eyes were drawn back into the dark mass at the back of the freezer. To her horror she saw that there were more rats, huddled together and motionless. She started to scream, but all that came out of her mouth was a ragged groan.

She stumbled from the kitchen, her pulse pounding in her ears. Moving frantically around the living room, she searched for her purse. Finally she found it on the table by the door and groped for her phone. She needed to call the police, to get them here now. But then she stopped. Her thinking seemed muddled and slow, like someone trying to run through water, but she knew that she should call Glenda first. Because she knew the Sixes had left the rats, just as they’d left the apples.

Glenda answered her cell phone on the second ring, her voice low, as if she was in the midst of something. In the background was the murmur of voices.

“Can you talk?” Phoebe pleaded.

“What if I call you back in fifteen minutes? I’m just finishing up something.”

“Um—okay. No, it can’t wait. Something awful’s happened. You have to tell me what to do.”

“What is it?” Glenda urged, her voice barely above a whisper. Phoebe could sense her friend moving, walking away from the people she was with. “Are you okay?”

“I think the Sixes broke into my house again. Someone put rats in my freezer!”

“Oh, my God. Where are you now?”

“At home.”

“Are the rats running around?”

“No, they’re all dead, I think. It’s horrible. And I bet there’s six of them.” She had to fight to keep her voice from breaking out into a wail. “Should I call the police now? I didn’t want to do anything without checking with you.”

“Um, let me think for a sec. Maybe we should have Craig take a look first. I’ll call him, and we’ll head right over. Will you be okay till we get there?”

“Yes. But hurry, please.’

As she hung up, Phoebe could feel her pulse still racing—from both nerves and fury. This had to be payback for her conversation with Blair, she guessed. She’d provoked the girl by bringing up the Sixes, and Blair had decided to exact revenge. But where had she and her cohorts found a bunch of rats? They certainly hadn’t gone off to the city dump and rounded them up with a net.

And then she knew. They must be rats from one of the labs at school. The girls could have broken in and taken them. All that work just to send her a message. Phoebe squeezed her head in her hands. Everything was accelerating, just like years ago. They weren’t going to let up.

What’s taking them so freaking long? she wondered, when she saw that fifteen minutes had passed since she’d called Glenda. But a few moments later a campus police car pulled up outside. Ball was driving, with Glenda in the passenger seat. As soon as Phoebe let them into the house, she blurted out the basic details of what had happened.

Ball, zipped in his leather uniform jacket, scrunched up his mouth and strode into the kitchen, with Glenda and Phoebe trailing behind him. “Damn,” he said as he took in the scene. Glenda gasped. To Phoebe’s disgust, she saw that a small amount of blood had trickled from the mouth of the rat onto the floor.

“This is outrageous,” Glenda said.

“How’d they’d get into the house—do you know?” Ball asked.

“The rats?” Phoebe asked.

“No,” Ball said, barely tamping down his impatience. “The girls. Dr. Johns said you think the Sixes did this.”

Phoebe glanced at Glenda and then back at Ball. “Yes, I’m sure it was them,” Phoebe said. “I think they must have made a copy of my back-door key yesterday.” She explained about the apples, and that the locksmith appointment wasn’t until tomorrow.

“That’s the kind of information I should have been alerted to earlier,” Ball said, narrowing his eyes at her.

“I know. That’s why I stopped by your office this morning and left a message for you.”

From the way Ball’s upper lip lifted, Phoebe could tell he hadn’t appreciated her comment. She’d busted him in front of his boss.

“Let me take a look around,” Ball said, still securely in alpha male mode.

“But shouldn’t we call the police now?” Phoebe asked.

Ball and Glenda hurriedly exchanged a look.

“Let’s hold off on that for a second, okay?” Ball said. “Let me first see what we’ve got here.”

“There’s something else you should be aware of,” Phoebe told him. “I assume these must be rats from one of the labs on campus.”

“Of course—which means there’s been a break-in there,” Glenda said.

Ball whipped out his cell phone and commanded someone named Jake to hightail it up to the science center to investigate—and another cop named Buddy to head over to Phoebe’s, along with some large trash bags. When he hung up, he suggested that Glenda and Phoebe take a seat. He headed back to the kitchen.

“Fee, I’m so sorry I got you into this,” Glenda said.

“Well, at least we can be pretty sure now that the Sixes do exist,” Phoebe said. She brought Glenda up to speed on her conversation with Blair. “It also means they’re fairly organized. It took at least two people to pull this off, I’d say.”

“And they’re even nastier than we imagined,” Glenda said.

Off to her left, Phoebe could hear that Craig was now in her study. She hated the idea of him in there, possibly pawing her things. When he eventually emerged, he made a beeline for the front door, opening it with a handkerchief.

“Which door did you use when you came home tonight?” he asked Phoebe.

“The front.”

“You need to use a key to lock it when you exit, right?”

“Yes. I’m sure I locked it when I left, and it was locked when I got back. I also made certain the back door was locked when I left.”

Ball didn’t say anything, just moved around the periphery of the room, checking the windows. When he was done, he stood silently for a moment, his mouth twisted as he deliberated. Without asking, he headed upstairs, and they could hear the clomp of his feet above them. Five minutes later he was back downstairs, shaking his head.

“All the windows are locked, too,” Ball said. “And the back door. Which means they must have made a copy of your key. Because if they got in through an entry point that you’d accidentally left unlocked, they would have been forced to leave either a door or window unlocked when they took off.”

“So now do we call the police?” Phoebe asked.

Again Ball shot a look at Glenda, one that seemed to speak whole sentences. Phoebe glanced at Glenda. Her face was tense with worry, but Phoebe wasn’t sure what she’d just telegraphed to Craig.

“Ms. Hall, I know this may be awkward for you,” Ball said, “but I’m going to ask you a favor as a member of the school community. I’d like us all to keep a lid on this for the time being.”

“A lid on it?” Phoebe said. “Why?”

“I think it’s best that we handle this ourselves for now. I’ll investigate discreetly and try to determine who exactly broke in—and then we’ll go to the police. That way we don’t end up creating a big stink that the whole world knows about. And I mean that literally. We’ve got a damn New York City reporter on campus.”

Phoebe snapped her head toward Glenda, convinced her friend would nix the suggestion. But Glenda’s eyes were imploring.

“Please, Phoebe,” she said. “So much is at stake.”

“But—” Phoebe started to protest but caught herself. Ball was right—the whole thing could blow up in Glenda’s face.

“All right,” Phoebe said. She wasn’t crazy about the idea of covering things up, but she could understand Glenda’s point of view. Besides, if they alerted the cops to what had happened, Phoebe would be told to stop her own investigation.

And she had no intention of giving up. Because that was exactly what the Sixes expected her to do.