The Sixes

3

PHOEBE STUFFED THE flyer back in her pocket and hurried along the sidewalk, her mind racing. Was the scrawled 6 an indication that Lily had become a target of the Sixes? Phoebe wondered. She pictured the girl’s sad blue eyes and felt a fresh swell of worry.

Phoebe had planned to bike along the river that morning, as she’d done most Saturdays and Sundays since she’d arrived in Lyle, but she scrapped those plans as she walked back home. There was no reason not to start her research immediately; in fact, the weekend would probably be the best time to pump students, when they weren’t busy schlepping to classes. But first she had to connect with Tom Stockton, the school’s dean of students. If she was going to hit the ground running, she needed background info and whatever leads he had about the Sixes.

Once home, she found Stockton’s cell number in the faculty directory. His phone rang five times, and just when she was certain it was going to voice mail, he answered.

“Stockton,” he announced, his tone firm.

“Hi, Tom, this is Phoebe Hall,” she said. “I know I’m catching you at a crazy time, with this student missing, but I was hoping we could talk at some point today.”

“Say again.”

“Phoebe Hall. I’m teaching here this term, and I’m supposed to talk to you about the secret society—the Sixes. Glenda might have mentioned I’d be calling.”

“Oh—right. Of course.”

“Can you meet today—to fill me in?”

“I wish I could, but I’m up to my ears with this Lily Mack crisis. I’m on my way to a meeting about it right now.”

“Could you grab a cup of coffee after that?”

He sighed. “I hate to commit to anything at the moment. We have no idea if this whole thing will turn really ugly.”

The guy was starting to annoy her. Glenda had said he was on board, but it sure didn’t sound that way.

“What if we at least set up a time, and then if you can’t make it, we’ll reschedule? I promised Glenda I’d work on this over the weekend. There’s a chance the two things might even be connected.”

“All right,” he said after a second. Invoking Glenda’s name had apparently done the trick, but he didn’t sound pleased. “Why don’t we meet at Café Lyle at noon.”

Café Lyle was the coffee shop in the student union. If she was going to entice kids to open up to her, she could hardly be seen fraternizing with the enemy. “Do you mind if we meet at Berta’s?” Phoebe said, referring to a little café on upper Bridge Street near Tony’s. “I think it might be better to do this off campus.”

After another audible sigh, Stockton agreed. As they ended their call, Phoebe considered her next move. Though she didn’t want to do much until she had a full briefing from Stockton, there was no harm in talking to Lily’s roommate right away. Glenda had already e-mailed her the name—Amanda Azodi—and her dorm.

She headed back out, this time to campus. It was just after eleven when she arrived at Curry Hall. Students, she’d discovered, tended to sleep till noon on Saturdays, but she suspected that Lily’s roommate would probably be up already, given what was going on. Phoebe tried the main door of the dorm and realized that it was locked. She’d forgotten to ask Glenda for any kind of access card to swipe. She’d have to wait for someone to exit the building.

After ten minutes a sullen-looking girl emerged, dressed in jeans, a baggy sweatshirt, and Uggs. Her ponytail, Phoebe noticed, was tied with what appeared to be a pair of stretchy yellow panties. The girl allowed Phoebe to catch the door without even a glance in her direction.

Phoebe rode the elevator to the fourth floor and stepped into the hallway. Directly in front of her was a lounge and kitchenette, with a garbage can overflowing with trash and several pieces of sagging, modular furniture; one sofa had been turned upside down. Except for the low groan of the refrigerator, the floor was absolutely still. Phoebe glanced at the number on the first door to the left: 406. It looked as if 424 would be farther in that direction. She realized this was the first time she’d been in a college dorm in twenty years.

Walking down the silent hallway, she imagined the students who lay sprawled in their beds behind the doors, sleeping off hangovers or exhausted from all-nighters they’d pulled during the week. The cinderblock walls of the corridor were plastered with announcements, including flyers pleading, “Help Us Find Lily!!!” When Phoebe reached 424, she saw that there was a makeshift paper pocket taped to the door with dozens of the same flyer inside, obviously there for people to grab and distribute. She rapped lightly on the door several times. From inside she thought she heard someone stir. As she raised her hand to knock again, the door opened partway, and revealed a young woman’s face.

Phoebe had only seen Lily’s roommate from a distance the previous night, and up close the girl’s looks surprised her. At Lyle the pretty girls traveled in packs, and she had expected that Lily would be rooming with someone equally attractive. But her roommate was almost homely, with a wide, flat face, deep-set brown eyes, and shoulder-length brown hair styled in a structured under-curl that seemed from another era.

“Amanda?” Phoebe asked as the girl stared at her in confusion.

“Yes?”

“My name’s Phoebe Hall. I’m part of a team at the school looking into Lily’s disappearance. May I come in?”

“What’s the matter?” Amanda asked, alarmed. “Did they find her?”

“No—not yet. But I’d love to ask you a few questions.”

“I already talked to the police, you know. I told them everything.”

“Yes, I’m sure you were very helpful. But the college has to do its own investigation. We want to turn over every stone.”

“Okay,” the girl said after a moment’s hesitation. “You wanna come in, then? Sorry . . . our room’s kind of a mess.”

That turned out to be the understatement of the century. Phoebe entered a space that looked like it had been in the path of a tornado. The two beds, with twisted sheets and comforters drooping over their sides, were on risers, allowing for the desks and dressers to fit underneath, and every inch of extra space below was filled with wadded clothes, splayed books and magazines, plastic dishes, soda cans, and flattened cookie boxes. All the surfaces in the room—desktops, dresser tops, and windowsills—were covered, too, with more books, boxes of tampons, and jumbo plastic bottles of shampoo and hand lotion. One side of the room seemed particularly messy. Phoebe realized that it must be Lily’s side, which the police had probably searched.

“Do you wanna sit?” Amanda asked, gesturing to her desk chair.

“Great, thanks,” Phoebe said, unbuttoning her coat. As Phoebe took the chair, Amanda plopped down cross-legged onto a spongy-looking throw rug in the middle of the floor and pulled her knees up under her faded Lyle College T-shirt. The air, Phoebe noticed, smelled vaguely of mildewed towels.

“I take it the police have searched through Lily’s things?”

“Yeah. And they took some of her stuff last night—like her laptop and her notebooks. Her parents came by first thing this morning. They just kind of stood here for a few minutes and then they left. They’re like, totally freaked out.”

“I’m sure,” Phoebe said. “It must be so awful for them. And awful for you, too, Amanda. I had a friend who disappeared years ago, and the waiting was unbearable.”

It was a slight exaggeration. But there were several strategies Phoebe used again and again when interviewing people. The first: Find common ground with the person.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Amanda said, rocking back and forth on her butt. “I didn’t want to say this to her parents, but it just seems something bad must have happened to her. I mean, why else would she be gone so long?”

“She’s never gone off for a while and not told you?”

“No—though I’ve only known her for two months.”

That news surprised Phoebe. Wouldn’t an upperclassman like Lily pick a close friend to live with?

“How did you end up as roommates, then?” she asked.

“The girl I was supposed to room with flunked out. It was too late to find anyone else and way too late to ask for a single. Lily ended up stuck, too. She was gonna live off campus with her boyfriend, but then he took off. The college paired us, and the funny thing is, it’s worked out okay. I know I’m never going to be one of her close friends or anything, but we get along good.”

“Was she pretty upset about her boyfriend?”

“Yeah. But not like suicidal or anything. I think she was sad at first, but then she started to get mad. She said that’s what happens when you date a guy like that.”

Phoebe didn’t say anything. Just waited. That was another technique: Leave a silence alone, no matter how awkward it felt. Invariably the other person filled it, often with something unexpected.

Amanda shrugged a shoulder. “He was kind of a bad boy, if you know what I mean,” she said.

“Oh, one of those,” Phoebe said, offering a knowing smile. “Can’t be trusted or counted on for anything?”

“Exactly. Lily said she thought he’d cheated a few times. But then, what do you expect? That’s what you have to pick from at Lyle—bad boys or losers.”

“That’s a shame. Why is that, do you think?”

“The admission standards for the guys are much lower here than for the girls.”

“Really?” Phoebe said, caught again by surprise. “Why would that be? I’m new here, so I don’t know a lot about how things work.”

“What I hear is that tons more girls apply to colleges these days so most schools have way fewer guys to pick from.”

“Got it,” Phoebe said. “That doesn’t sound like a great situation.”

Amanda smiled ruefully. “It isn’t. Maybe you can help me explain to my mother why I never have a boyfriend.”

“Sometimes, though, as bad as a bad boy is, he can be hard to resist,” Phoebe said, prodding. “Do you think there’s any chance Lily heard from Trevor and went off to meet up with him?”

Amanda shook her head quickly, as if the cops had already asked that question. “I don’t think so. If she’d heard from him, I think she would have mentioned it.”

“Had she started seeing someone new?”

“Sort of. I mean, maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I heard her on the phone a few weeks ago. She was arranging to meet someone for a drink. I asked her, ‘Hot date?’ and she said it was just a guy she was starting to get to know.”

“A guy here on campus?”

“I don’t think so. I asked her if he was our year, and she just kind of smiled and said, ‘Wouldn’t I be a fool to date a little boy again?’ ”

“Someone from the town, you think?”

Amanda wrinkled her nose. “Lily’s real smart, and she wouldn’t date a townie. I just got the feeling it wasn’t a student. Maybe Blair knows.”

“That’s the friend she sometimes stays with off campus?”

“Yeah, she lives over on Ash Street. Number 133.”

“How often does Lily stay there?”

“In the beginning of the term, once or twice a week. She’d crash on their couch. But then I guess she got too busy. When she said she might stay there Thursday, it was the first time in weeks.”

“Is there anyone else she’s particularly friendly with?”

“People like her, but she’s sort of kept to herself lately.”

“Is she involved in any extracurricular activities?”

“She writes for the school paper and magazine. She really wants to be a writer. And she’s on the volleyball team.”

“And what about a sorority?” Phoebe asked. “Is she in anything like that?” She kept her eyes on Amanda as she asked this question, observing her body language.

“Oh, sororities aren’t allowed here,” Amanda said without a trace of guile. “Which is fine with me, because I wouldn’t have been picked for one anyway.”

“Is there anything else you can think of ?” Phoebe asked. “Something you might have forgotten until now?”

Amanda shook her head, woefully.

“Well, I appreciate your talking to me,” Phoebe said. “Let’s hope Lily did just go off somewhere—to clear her head, maybe.”

“Yeah,” Amanda said hopefully.

At that, Phoebe said good-bye. As she pulled the door shut, she saw Amanda still sitting on the floor, looking morose.

From the dorm Phoebe had planned to go directly to Berta’s to meet Stockton, but when she checked her phone outside, she found a message from him saying he had to cancel. “I need to spend most of today with Lily Mack’s parents,” he said. “Why don’t we plan to meet at Berta’s tomorrow—same time.”

Damn, she thought. She wondered if his excuse was legit or if he’d pulled a power play because he didn’t like her on his turf. Regardless, it left her in limbo until tomorrow. She thought about walking over to Ash Street and trying to talk to Blair now, but she knew it would be better to wait until she had a clear sense of what she was looking for. One truth she lived by as an experienced interviewer was that your first encounter with someone when their guard was down only happened once, and you had to do your best not to blow it.

She returned home, and for the next hour or so, she researched college secret societies on line. The most famous one by far was Skull and Bones at Yale, but there were plenty of others around the country. Some concentrated on playing pranks, while others had more aggressive goals, like taking control of student government and organizations. There were a few that actually did philanthropic work.

So what was the Sixes’ agenda? Phoebe wondered. There were no sororities at Lyle, so maybe it functioned as one. But if it was just a social club, why terrorize a member?

When she’d finished her search, she turned to schoolwork, completing some of her critiques of the student papers that she’d promised to return this coming week. Most of the kids in her classes were average at best at writing, but a couple showed real promise, she’d discovered. There was a gutsiness to their writing that impressed her.

As she stuffed the finished papers into her tote bag, thinking about Monday morning, Duncan Shaw crossed her mind unexpectedly. She’d been so preoccupied with Lily’s disappearance that she’d forgotten about the awkward encounter last night. She wondered if he was ticked at her. Picturing him, she realized how much more attractive she’d found him without the professorial beard and mustache. But it didn’t matter anyway. The last thing she wanted to do was become entangled in a campus romance.

From there, her mind flew to Lily once again. Maybe the mess Lily had alluded to was actually related to a romantic entanglement and not the Sixes after all. Could she have taken off with the new guy she was apparently seeing? Or been harmed by him? Phoebe was still tossing these thoughts around as she slid into bed later that night.

She woke the next morning at around seven, and after a quick breakfast, loaded her bike in the trunk of her car. She drove through town toward a small park along the river, which spread out from either side of the old steel bridge at the base of Bridge Street. A bike path shot off from the north end of the park and ran for miles along the river, and though it wasn’t scenic near the town, farther north Phoebe had discovered some beautiful secluded areas and several stunning vistas across the muddy brown Winamac. Her weekend bike rides had become one of the few pleasures she’d found in Lyle.

Phoebe stopped her car in the parking lot near the park and tugged her bike from the trunk. According to the weather report she’d checked earlier, it was going to be overcast most of the day, but right now there were only a few scattered clouds scuttling across a bright blue sky.

As she walked her bike toward the path, Phoebe glanced around the empty park with its weathered benches and granite war memorial. Across the street was a row of shabby buildings—an old barbershop, a hardware store, and the two grungy tavern-style bars that Glenda hated. One was Cat Tails, where Lily Mack had last been seen the night she vanished.

Phoebe mounted her bike and began to pedal. Even this early on a Sunday she usually passed other people—mostly gray-haired walkers and other bikers—but today she seemed to have the path to herself. Soon she’d gone a mile, and the malaise she’d been feeling began to dissipate. The air was crisp and cool, woodsy scented and almost intoxicating to breathe. And the trees here were brilliantly colored—no fiery reds like you saw on the sugar maples in her home state, Massachusetts, but bright yellows and oranges and burnt sienna. For the first time in ages she felt a surge of something like joy.

After she’d ridden for about forty minutes, she stopped for a drink of water. She was on one of the most isolated parts of the bike path now—dense thickets of trees lay between the path and the two-lane highway that ran parallel—and there wasn’t a soul in sight. In fact, she had yet to pass a single person during her ride. She found the isolation suddenly disconcerting. I’ll go just a little farther, she thought, and then turn back.

As soon as she climbed back on her bike, an older couple in tracksuits emerged on foot through a cut in the trees, walking a husky. Phoebe relaxed at the sight of them. A short time later she heard bikers coming up behind her, and soon three men whizzed by, suited in full spandex. Okay, no need to worry, Phoebe told herself. A few minutes later a man approached on a bike from the opposite direction. He was in his forties, probably, dressed casually in athletic shorts and a T-shirt. As he passed, she saw him furtively check her out. Give me a break, she thought.

Suddenly the air grew cooler, and Phoebe glanced up. The promised blanket of clouds had finally begun to unfold across the sky, instantly dulling the colors of the leaves around her. It seemed like a good time to turn back. Rather than stop her bike, Phoebe slowed down and made a U-turn in the path.

She’d gone only a short distance when she spotted another biker approaching her from the front. To her surprise, it was the same guy she’d passed five minutes ago. After he’d shot by, she turned; simultaneously he snapped his head back in her direction.

Maybe the guy was only retracing his route, like she was doing herself. Maybe he was trying to pick her up. Regardless, she felt uncomfortable. She began to pedal faster, anxious to reach town. She checked behind her again. There was no sign of the guy. She was relieved when she glimpsed the tip of a church spire through the trees, indicating that the town of Lyle lay just ahead. I’m probably just being silly, Phoebe thought, letting my city fears affect me here.

As she neared the park, she suddenly heard noises ahead—the murmur of voices and also the hum of running motors. She quickened her pace, curious. Emerging from the path into the park, she was stunned see a fire truck, an ambulance, and two police cars parked haphazardly along the street. Yellow police tape had been used to cordon off a large section of the park closest to the river, and about thirty people gathered alongside it.

She dismounted and raced ahead, her bike rattling. She could now see that there were several boats bobbing in the river, black Zodiacs filled with cops and men in wet suits. But the real action was on the bank of the river. One Zodiac had already pulled up there, and several cops hovered around it. Oh, God, Phoebe thought. They had found Lily Mack.