The Sixes

32

FOR THE NEXT few days Phoebe holed up at her house, trying to rest and eating food that Glenda or her housekeeper dropped off. Her story had made the local paper this time, which spawned coverage nearly everywhere. She was inundated with e-mails—from colleagues on campus as well as friends in Manhattan and L.A. She answered a few but didn’t have the psychic energy for more than that. There were a ton of interview requests, too. Through her agent she said no to all of them for now, except the one from Peter Tobias. She didn’t dignify his with a response.

A few times a day Phoebe took Ginger out for a walk, going a little bit farther on each trip. She felt so grateful to have the dog. She sensed that without Ginger curled on the couch beside her or trailing behind her in the house, she would have been swallowed alive by malaise. And there was nighttime Ginger to be grateful for, too. She turned out to be a brilliant little watchdog, who barked every time a leaf blew onto the porch. But even with Ginger keeping guard, Phoebe slept fitfully.

Late Monday night, Jan Wait phoned her, and when she saw the name, Phoebe made a quick decision not to let the call go to voice mail.

“Phoebe, you have to let me know if I can do anything,” Jan said. “I’d drop off a ham, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t eat it.”

Phoebe laughed and assured Jan she would reach out if she needed anything.

“I should let you get back to resting,” Jan said after they talked for a couple minutes about school matters. “But before I do, I want to apologize for making you sound like an idiot the other day. My darling husband has confessed to me that he does have angina.”

So Duncan had told the truth about that, too. After Phoebe signed off, thoughts of him trampled through her brain. She’d done her best to keep him at bay—with only moderate success. She felt almost sick with regret, and yet she knew there was nothing she could do.

On Tuesday she e-mailed the students in her two classes, saying she would be back the next Monday but that in the meantime she wanted them to complete an assignment online by Friday. At the end of the e-mail she sent to Jen Imbibio, she added a short message: “We need to talk as soon as possible.”

An hour later, there was a curt reply: “I wish I could, but I’m very busy right now.”

“This can’t wait,” Phoebe replied. “Should I look for you in the cafeteria?”

That seemed to do the trick.

“No. I’ll come to your house again.”

The girl arrived the next morning, wearing tight jeans, a jean jacket, and a newsboy cap. She looked jaunty and smug today, her confidence temporarily restored. She obviously had no clue that the college was about to smoke out the Sixes.

“I’m disappointed I didn’t hear from you,” Phoebe said. “I took care of my end of the bargain. This was supposed to be a fair swap.”

“I was going to get in touch,” Jen said. “I really was. But then I heard you were in the hospital.”

“Tell me what you found out about Fortuna.”

The girl shrugged. “Nothing more. I did what you suggested to another member—told her I’d overheard you talking about the Sixes and Fortuna—and she just looked at me as if she had no clue what I was talking about.”

“And the girl who’s now in charge. She doesn’t know anything?”

“I don’t think so.”

“And that’s Rachel, right?” Phoebe said, making a guess.

“Yeah—” Jen caught herself. “How—? Look, I never said it was Rachel.”

“What about the sixth circle? If they’re supposedly setting you up in the outside world, how are they doing it?”

Jen bit her lip. “Um, I think it’s about contacts or something.”

“Please, Jen,” Phoebe said curtly. “You don’t expect me to believe that the Sixes suddenly turns into the Chamber of Commerce once people graduate, do you?”

The girl looked off to some distant spot across the room.

“They give you money, too, I think,” she said quietly, looking back. “To help you get started.”

Money? Phoebe thought, taken aback. “Where does it come from?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Jen said. “I think there’s some kind of benefactor, you know. It might be something like that.”

Bullshit, Phoebe thought. But she sensed Jen truly didn’t know.

Phoebe dismissed her. Afterward she sat at her kitchen table, thinking, perplexed by what she’d learned. She’d once heard that members of Skull and Bones were all given a lump sum of money to set them up for life. She had assumed it was only a legend. Perhaps it was a legend too that the Sixes rewarded members with cash, or a fake carrot held out to entice girls to join.

And if it wasn’t a legend? The money surely couldn’t come from anything good. She wondered what they might be up to. They thought nothing of having sex with guys and posting about it. Maybe they blackmailed people. But about what? Or, Phoebe thought, stretching, they made porn flicks. But wouldn’t news of that have started to leak out? She had no clue how she would find out.

Sick to death of food deliveries, Phoebe made a meal for herself that night—just pasta with olive oil, garlic, and Parmesan, but it was heaven. She needed the fortification. As she leaned back on the sofa, finishing the meal and sipping a glass of wine, she made a plan for the next day. Seeing that Jen was a dead end, it was time to try a different approach.

She woke the next day feeling achy and sore and with a slight fever. She stayed in bed longer than she wanted. At around three she could feel herself rallying, and an hour later, she draped her coat over her shoulders and headed out on foot. She had found out earlier where Rachel lived—the student town houses directly across from the southern tip of campus.

Though she’d seen the town houses from a distance, she’d never been up close to them. There were twelve in a row. The school had built them to keep upperclassmen in student housing. They were all identical, though the one Rachel lived in had a blue bike locked to the front porch railing.

To Phoebe’s dismay, she felt uneasy as she mounted the steps. She knew that once she confronted Rachel, there would be a ripple effect, and she had no idea what it would entail. And yet she couldn’t let the Sixes paralyze her.

She knocked on the door and waited. There wasn’t a sound. She had picked four o’clock, figuring Rachel might be back from her classes by then, but not yet at dinner. She rapped two more times, and still nothing. Unable to resist, she twisted the doorknob, and to her surprise it gave way in her hand. She pushed the door open and stepped inside. What the hell am I doing? she asked herself. But something other than good judgment seemed to be guiding her.

She was standing in a combination kitchen, dining, and living area, not much different from a dorm lounge. There were a few dirty dishes scattered on the table, and an ironing board standing in the middle of the living space, with the iron flopped on one side.

From somewhere Phoebe thought she heard music playing, though she wasn’t sure if it was coming from upstairs or from the hall that shot off to the right of the living area.

“Anyone home?” she called out.

Without warning, a girl appeared from the downstairs corridor. She was Asian and striking looking, dressed in a T-shirt and sweatpants that read “Lyle College” in faded letters across the front.

“Yes?” the girl asked, advancing into the room. She seemed deadpan except for the small crease that had just formed between her brows.

“I was looking for Rachel,” Phoebe said. “Is she around?”

“She’s at soccer practice,” the girl said, as if anyone with a brain would know that.

That’s right, Phoebe realized. She should have remembered.

“They make you go even if you’re injured?”

“Oh, she was just out for a game.”

“That’s good. I’m Phoebe, by the way. You’re . . . ?”

“Molly,” she said after a split second. The girl clearly had her antennae up, wary of Phoebe’s presence. Phoebe bet this was the Molly that Jen Imbibio had exchanged the look with on Stockton’s committee.

“Rachel’s in one of my classes, and I wanted to stop by to give her a book to read,” Phoebe fudged. “I haven’t been in class this week.”

“You can just leave it there,” the girl said, pointing at the table with her chin. She scooped her long black hair distractedly into a ponytail and then immediately released it. As she raised her arms, Phoebe caught a glimpse of a ridged white brace around the girl’s lower torso.

“Did you hurt yourself too?” Phoebe asked.

“I just pulled a muscle,” the girl said, shrugging. “In gymnastics. The doctor said I have to stay out for a day or two.”

Phoebe thought suddenly of the knee brace she’d seen in Blair and Gwen’s hallway.

“Can they deal with injuries like that in the school infirmary?” Phoebe asked.

Molly scrunched her mouth up into a twisted pout. “No. You have to go off campus.”

Phoebe glanced down at her own arm in the sling.

“I need someone myself—someone close to the school,” she said. “I’d love the name of your doctor.”

There was another hesitation. “Dr. Rossely,” Molly finally said. “But he’s very backed up, I hear.”

“Okay,” Phoebe said. There was something odd happening, she sensed. “That’s Rachel’s doctor, too, isn’t it? I believe she mentioned him.” Phoebe had no idea where she was going with the lie. But something had set off an alarm in her head.

“I guess,” Molly said. Her eyes were wary now.

“Well, I’d better let you go,” Phoebe said. “Have a nice night.”

“You’re not going to leave the book?” the girl said. It sounded like a challenge.

“You know, I think I’ll wait and give it to her in person,” Phoebe said. Funny, she thought. I’ve been forced to use one of Val Porter’s old tricks.

The girl didn’t see her out, but Phoebe could feel her eyes boring into her as she walked to the door and struggled to open it.

So what the hell is going on? Phoebe wondered as she walked home through the falling darkness. It could be pure coincidence that three seniors in the Sixes had injuries. After all, Alexis had said that most of the members were jocks—though that was interesting in itself. And there also had been that odd hesitation when Molly said her doctor’s name, reluctance on her part, it seemed, to divulge the information.

Were they faking their injuries, Phoebe wondered, so that they’d be sidelined from games for some reason, maybe hurting the chances for victory the way athletes did in big-league sports where people waged bets on the outcome?

Phoebe found her phone, and after scoring a number for the only Dr. Rossely in Lyle—first name Todd—she called his office. She said she was recovering from an accident and wanted a second opinion. The receptionist said they would be able to squeeze her in at two tomorrow. So much for being all booked up. She felt a weird current pulsing through her: a mix of worry, anticipation, and recognition of something—but she didn’t know what.

At home, she heated up the leftover pasta from the night before and dragged her duvet and pillow down to the couch, much to Ginger’s confusion. But Phoebe had already decided that she would spend the night downstairs. She had stirred the pot with the Sixes again, and there was every chance they’d come calling once more. She needed to be where she could hear them if they tried to sneak in.

At ten Glenda called. “Sorry not to come by today,” Glenda said.

“Well, your housekeeper dropped off a chicken pot pie for lunch, which was very yummy. I’m going to need liposuction by the time this is over.”

“Dr. Carr mentioned you were doing some class work online. Don’t push yourself, Fee, if you’re not ready.”

“No, I’m ready. In fact, I’m going stir-crazy. I know you’re jammed up, but I’d love to see you some time. Don’t get me wrong—Ginger is great. She’s just not much of a conversationalist.”

“Maybe Thursday. I have to go out of town tomorrow for a good chunk of the day.”

“Where are you off to?”

“To see a donor who lives out of town. They need handholding through all of this mess.”

“Okay,” Phoebe said, though it seemed odd for Glenda to be leaving town for a day when the campus was in so much turmoil.

“There’s one thing I want to bring you up to speed on,” Glenda said. She let out a long, weary sigh. “It bugged me when you said that Trevor Harris had felt the campus cops were out to get him, and I decided to discreetly investigate. From what I can tell so far, it seems Ball’s been shaking down certain students—pressuring them to make payments to him in exchange for not slapping them with charges for things like drugs or vandalism. No wonder campus drug use seems to be down.”

“Oh, man,” Phoebe said. Though she’d never cottoned to Ball, she hadn’t seen this one coming. “I think I may have even spotted him in action. I came across him having a talk with the same male student twice, and he seemed sheepish about it.”

“The bodies just keep piling up, don’t they? I need you to go through the student handbooks and see if you can find that kid. But no one can know anything about this yet, okay? We’re going to try a sting operation. Of course, this could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back for me.”

“G, I’m sorry. Let me know if I can help in any way.”

She had planned to pick Glenda’s brain about what she’d heard today regarding the doctor, but changed her mind. She would wait until she had more information. There was no point in upsetting Glenda any more than necessary.

She fell asleep at about ten thirty, a book still on her lap and Ginger curled between her legs. Sometime during the night, something roused her—as forcefully as if she’d been shaken awake. She shot up straight, confused. Both her back and her elbow hurt like hell, probably from being scrunched up on the couch. Was it pain that had woken her? Or something else? At her feet, Ginger remained motionless but emitted a long, steady growl.

“What is it?” Phoebe whispered urgently. She froze and listened. The dog stopped and then started again almost instantly, this time her growl laced with threat. Somewhere nearby there was something the dog didn’t like. Phoebe searched with her hand to make sure her phone was within reach on the trunk next to the couch.

For a minute Phoebe detected nothing. But then, from outside a window along the side of the house, she thought she heard a sound. She strained to hear. It might have been nothing more than the creak of a tree branch in the wind. No other sound followed. For the next two hours Phoebe lay with her head against the armrest, listening. Around dawn she finally fell back to sleep. When the sun nudged her awake an hour later, Ginger crawled up toward her head and licked her face.

“You’re such a good little doggie,” Phoebe said. “What if you stayed with me forever?” Her words surprised her—she hadn’t even sensed them in advance—but as soon as she spoke, she knew it was what she wanted to do.

Ginger licked her face again.

“I’ll take that as a yes, okay?” Phoebe said.

She spent her morning reviewing the assignments that had begun to trickle in. But her mind kept returning to the appointment with Dr. Rossely that lay ahead. She wasn’t sure why she felt so agitated about it. It all means something, she told herself. I’m just not yet sure what.

His office wasn’t far from her, just two blocks south and one west in an area that was part residential, part business. There were a few older clapboard houses still on the street, but others had been torn down to make way for two-story office buildings like the one Rossely was in.

The space inside wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting. Rather than some fussy or run-down-at-the-heels reception area, there was a spare, modern space with posters on the wall from exhibits of the Barnes Foundation. The two patients in the reception area never gave her a second glance, but the receptionist, a middle-aged woman dressed attractively in a pink satin blouse and pearl stud earrings, seemed to study her with recognition. Of course, Phoebe thought as she filled out the necessary forms. I’m a celeb around here now. I can’t tell them I had a bad fall from a bike.

A nurse popped into reception about ten minutes later, called out Phoebe’s name, and led her to an examining room. The doctor arrived shortly after that. He was around Phoebe’s age, six-one, and more urbane than she was expecting. He had on a pair of fancy-looking frameless glasses, and he’d had his thinning hair trimmed into a buzz cut, a hip look she rarely saw in Lyle.

“Dr. Rossely,” he said, shaking her hand. He practically oozed bedside manner. “My, you’ve had a busy week.” So either he’d recognized her, too, or the receptionist had tipped him off.

“Oh, so I’m busted, then?” Phoebe said, smiling.

“I’d hardly say busted. You’re a local star. It must have been some ordeal to go through.”

“Yes, unfortunately it was. I’m a bit battered and bruised.”

Rossely glanced down. “I see from your records that you were treated at Cranberry Med. Aren’t you working with the doctors you had there?”

“By and large, yes,” Phoebe said. “From what I can tell so far, they did a nice job repairing my elbow. But I’d like a second opinion on my right shoulder blade. It got whacked pretty bad and hurts like crazy. They told me it’s only a bruise, and there’s nothing they can do for it.”

The words had sounded so forced and fake as she said them—it was as if she were doing a bad job performing in a high school play—and she wondered if he suspected that she was remolding the truth.

“And they didn’t prescribe anything?”

“Tylenol with codeine. I tried it just for a few days.”

“Well, let’s take a look,” he said. “In my opinion, there’s always something that can be done. I don’t like seeing people suffer needlessly.”

He edged around the side of the examining table and opened the back of her gown. With a firm but careful touch, he probed the area with his fingers. Twice, she winced in pain. The part about her shoulder hurting hadn’t been a lie.

“Sorry about that,” Rossely said. “The area definitely seems inflamed. Let’s get an X-ray and see if there’s also swelling.”

Rossely departed, and the nurse came back; she escorted Phoebe into another room for the X-ray. As Phoebe was led back to the examining room, she heard a buzz of activity coming from rooms up and down the corridor. Finally Rossely returned. He was holding an X-ray, and with one swift movement of his hand snapped it onto a light box mounted on the wall.

“Well, the good news is that there’s no fracture,” he said, smiling. “But as I said, there’s definite inflammation, and that should be treated. Off the record, they should have paid more attention to this at Cranberry, but things get pretty crazy up there.”

“Thank you,” Phoebe said. Rossely opened her folder on the counter and jotted a few words down. Out of the corner of her eye she studied him. Though she found him unctuous, he certainly didn’t look sinister in any way. Was this just some stupid wild goose chase on her part?

He swung around slowly, smiling.

“I also want to give you something for the pain,” he said. “Pain’s a funny thing. People often think they should tough it out and try to ignore it, but you can start a weird cycle that way. The pain almost feeds on itself, and then the cycle is hard to break. It’s better to nip it in the bud.”

“Of course, I did try the Tylenol with codeine,” Phoebe said. “But I didn’t feel it helped.”

“This is much better,” he said. “It’s OxyContin. You should take two every twenty-four hours.”

Instinctively, Phoebe’s mouth parted in surprise. OxyContin, she knew, could be addictive. Hutch had even mentioned it going for $80 a pill on the black market.

“Is something the matter?” Rossely said, obviously noting her reaction.

“No, I was just wondering if it was safe. I’ve heard people sometimes have problems with it.”

“It’s safe if used correctly,” Rossely said. He smiled tightly. “It’s essential with any drug to follow the directions to a T. No more than two a day, as I said.”

“Of course,” Phoebe replied, realizing she’d ruffled his feathers a little. “And thank you. It’s actually wonderful to have someone take my situation seriously.”

Rossely lightened up again. “Good,” he said. “That’s what we’re here for.” He turned toward the counter and began to scribble the prescription. “I should see you again in a week.”

“Will do,” Phoebe said. As she slid down off the examining table, Rossely turned back around and handed her the prescription with long, slim fingers.

“By the way, do you mind my asking who recommended you?” he said. “You didn’t note it on our form.”

“A professor at the college who had heard your name. But I believe you treat several students from Lyle. Rachel Blunt?”

She saw the muscles of Rossely’s face tighten.

“Rachel, yes.” He seemed uncomfortable suddenly. Phoebe decided to go for broke.

“And Blair Usher, too,” she said. “She had a sports injury as well.”

“Forgive me, but I actually shouldn’t be discussing patients with you,” he said. Again, the tight smile, with lips as white as a clenched knuckle. “It’s not only inappropriate, it’s also against the law. I hope you understand.”

“Of course,” Phoebe said. “I’m sorry.”

But she saw that she had clearly hit a nerve.