Secret Society (15 page)

T
he night before Thanksgiving, Patch was working late in the editing suite. He was squeezing in every minute of free time he could in order to work on the show. The next day, he and Genie would have dinner together in the apartment, just a small turkey for the two of them. There were times when the Bells had invited them for Thanksgiving, but those invitations had dried up in recent years. Simone, who was also working late, came in from her makeshift office next door.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“What about?” Patch said, turning away from the screen.

“I found some of your handiwork from the AVID.”

“Yeah?”

She took a DVD from the stack she was carrying and popped it into a player. Images came up on the screen from
the Society initiation. Patch swore he had stored it in a private file, password protected it, the works.

“Where did you get this?”

“One of the interns found it on the backup tape. Is there a problem?”

Patch groaned. That's right—he had password protected the material, but every night the server made a backup tape of the day's work. He had tested out some material from the Night of Rebirth, creating a rough edit, although he hadn't thought anyone would ever see it. But he had left it in his folder overnight, so the server had made a copy.

“I think we've got our story here. You've got everyone—the Bell kid and the two girls.”

“No, Simone, you don't understand—we can't use this stuff. This was private. It was sort of a ritual thing that I taped. I wasn't supposed to be there. We don't have releases.”

“Are these Chadwick students?” she asked.

Patch nodded. “The three of them are.”

“Then we're sure as hell going to have releases for them.”

“Simone, we can't do this—it's a very serious group. It's like a cult or something. You don't know what you're dealing with.”

“Kiddo, I've dealt with much worse than a bunch of sixteen-year-olds partying and getting tattoos. Try chasing insane meth dealers all over Jersey and then tell me about danger.”

Patch sank back in his chair. “I'm not sure you understand. I will get my ass kicked if this goes public.”

“Look, we'll see about that. But in the meantime, we need more stuff like this.”

Patch shook his head. “No can do.”

“If you want to get this show made, you're going to have to get in there. You have no idea the kind of competition we're up against.”

“Let me think about it,” he said, hoping it would stall her. Maybe the show wouldn't get made. He would miss out on the chance to distinguish himself through his work. After all, he wasn't part of any secret society. He didn't have rich parents; he barely had parents at all. He was tired of getting everyone's sympathy. He wanted to stand apart from his classmates, and
Chadwick Prep
was the way he could do that.

“Patch, you signed over the rights to all footage involving Chadwick students,” she said. “Whether or not we get releases, we own this.”

He nodded. The check he had gotten, a ten-thousand-dollar option that was good for one year and gave the producers the right to use his material and sell the show to a network or cable channel, had authorized them to use any and all video that he had taken.

And that would include the Society initiation.

He had never intended for Simone to find it, but he had also never thought she would go poking around in some
archived files on the backup tape.

“Take the DVD home and think about it,” Simone said. “And don't you worry—I have a copy.”

Patch signed out for the day, saying good night to Simone and cursing the fact that he had ever left the material on the server. He headed out to West Thirty-sixth Street, a dimly lit industrial block, full of warehouses, parking garages, and storage facilities—not the type of place where it felt safe to go walking at night.

There was a black town car idling by the curb. Its window slid down, revealing a brutish man with a prominent white scar on his neck.

“Car for Patchfield Evans?” said the man.

“I don't think so,” Patch said, as he turned to go down the block.

The man in the passenger seat and the driver stepped out, both in dark suits.

“Let us give you a ride home,” the first man said.

“Why?”

The men stepped forward, one on each side of Patch, gripping his shoulders. “Just get in the car, kid.”

Patch struggled, but they had a stronghold on him. They pushed him into the backseat of the car and got back in. The driver started up the engine and began driving east.

“What do you want?” Patch said. He frantically examined his surroundings. Standard black town car. Doors locked.
Shiny chrome and wood trim.

“You have some footage that's been causing a lot of trouble,” said the man with the scar.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Patch said. They were crossing Ninth Avenue, heading toward Eighth. He wondered if they got stuck in a more populated area, they might be stalled long enough for him to jump out. He tried the lock on the door, but it wouldn't move.

“You know exactly what we're talking about.”

“No, seriously, I don't,” Patch said.

“Maybe your grandmother can convince you. Why don't you give her a call?” They had turned and were now on Eighth Avenue.

Patch nervously dialed home, and a man picked up on the second ring. “Yeah?”

“Let me talk to Genie,” Patch said angrily. “If you have done anything to her—”

There was a rustling on the line, and then Patch heard Genie's voice. “Hello?”

“Genie, are you okay?”

“I'm fine, dear. I think you should know there are some men here who came to see me.”

“How many men?”

“Two.”

Goddammit. He had always worried about this day when someone would trick their way into the building. It was far too
easy to fool Genie, even as sharp as she could be. She probably thought it was a food delivery or something.

“What do they want?”

The tone in her voice changed, just enough so Patch could recognize it. “I think you'd better speak to whomever you're with and do what they say. You understand?”

Patch nodded. “I understand. Genie, be careful.”

“Don't you worry about me.” Her voice suddenly became steely, clearly addressing the men in the room. “These men are just leaving, aren't you two?”

She hung up.

Patch addressed the men. “What do you want?” he said, shaking a bit. They had passed Columbus Circle and were heading up Central Park West.

“Give us whatever footage you have, and consider this a warning that you'd better not do anything with the rest. The smartest thing for you to do would be to destroy it. You got that?”

Patch couldn't stop shaking. He rustled around in his messenger bag and held up the DVD. “Here's all I have. Just don't, don't hurt my grandmother. I'm calling the cops if those guys aren't gone when I call her back.”

“You're not calling anyone. Get out of the car. And kid?”

“What?” Patch said.

“Watch yourself. We're not the only surprises they've got in store for you. I think your grandmother would be really
upset if something happened to you.”

The car pulled to a stop on Central Park West, near Tavern on the Green. They unlocked the door, and Patch scrambled out, still shocked. He needed to walk this off. They seemed to be satisfied to have the disc, as the car merged into the traffic heading uptown.

He decided that the best thing to clear his head would be to walk home, across the park.

T
he news reached everyone on Thanksgiving Day.

Murders and suicides happened all the time in New York, but it was rare that they were so dramatic: a body found at the base of Cleopatra's Needle in Central Park on Thanksgiving, nearly naked but apparently untouched. When Nick saw the crime scene footage on the local news channel, he gasped. The victim, still unidentified, was around his own age.

“This is absolutely horrible,” said Nick's mother, as they were sitting in the breakfast area with the late edition of the
Post.
“I don't know how things like this happen.” She poured fresh-squeezed orange juice from a glass pitcher for everyone.

“Fast living,” said Henry, who was by far, among the three brothers, the most uptight.

The whole thing gave Nick a queasy feeling. During his conversation with his father and grandfather the previous evening, he had let it slip that he knew Patch had taken the video. They were already aware of its existence, but it was particularly awkward to have to admit to them that Patch had told him about it two days after the Night of Rebirth. His father was angry that Nick hadn't gone directly to him, but Nick wasn't buying it. After all, his dad had given him no directives on how to deal with a situation like this.

And besides, did they expect him to rat out his friend?

He had gone over the issue with them, trying to convince them that Patch was not going to be a problem, that Patch understood the potency of the material and would keep it under lock and key.

Neither of them had seemed convinced.

 

The following morning, Phoebe was making some tea in the kitchen, the first time she had been out of her room in nearly twenty-four hours. She opened her phone to find a text message:

She groaned. The beach? At this time of year? She was so confused. She had been sleeping almost constantly since
her breakdown; she had even begged off Thanksgiving dinner, which her mother had had with Daniel at a restaurant in Tribeca. There were tons of voice mails on her cell, but she hadn't found the courage to listen to them yet. She finally decided she would call Nick to ask his advice on what to do.

He picked up on the first ring, and she felt an instant sense of relief. “Hey,” he said. “I was worried about you. I think somewhere between messages nine and ten, I got the idea that maybe you were ignoring me.”

“I'm sorry,” Phoebe said. “I had—what's the best way to put this—let's just say I had a bit of a meltdown.”

“It's vacation, you should be relaxing.”

“I guess that's what I've been doing, if you can call napping in a Xanax-induced stupor relaxing.”

“I'm so sorry, Phoebe.” His voice was so quiet, so serious, that it made her want to be with him.

“Don't stress, I'll be fine,” she said, attempting to brush off his concerns.

“So what's up?”

“I need to know—did you get this message about the beach?”

“There's a meeting at a house in Southampton. That's all I know. There's some kind of special situation. I think it has to do with the body that was found in the park.”

Phoebe paused. She had read about it yesterday online; the
news was so appalling. “Nick, I can't do this anymore. This is all too messed up. I mean, you heard what happened to my paintings, right?”

“I did,” he said. “No one blames you, Phoebe. It was just a weird thing. You didn't know Patch was going to send you those images of the initiation.”

“I'm sorry—what did you say the images were of? And how did you know they were from Patch?”

“Phoebe, they were from the initiation—Patch filmed it. You were there. You don't remember?”

“Not those parts of it.” Phoebe shook her head. “I blacked out that night. Oh, my God. No wonder they've been furious with me.” She thought for a moment. “I, um, feel weird talking about this, but your dad called me.”

“Oh, man, you can't take him that seriously. Look, just pack up and come out here. You can stay with me.”

“Nick, I'm not sure your family wants me around.”

“I'll explain it to them. It'll be fine. I'll tell them it was a misunderstanding. That you didn't know what the images were of.”

“Okay,” she said, resigned.

“Phoebe?” Nick paused for a moment. “I can't wait to see you.”

B
y Friday, word had gotten around the Chadwick community that a young man, possibly a prep school student, had been found dead in the park. For Patch, as he read the horrible news in the papers, it hit far too close to home. The evening of the murder—if, in fact, it was a murder—Patch had walked across the park, right past the needle, had seen it glimmering in the moonlight.

It could have been him.

He sat in the kitchen with Genie, the Friday papers surrounding them. “Genie, you have to promise me: no more letting strange men up into the apartment anymore.” He hadn't wanted to be too hard on her on Thanksgiving, but now that it was Friday, Patch felt like he had to drum it into her.

“Patchfield, I'm sorry. They said they had a food delivery.
I thought maybe you'd ordered something ahead of time so that it would be here for you when you got home. Remember how upset you were with me a few weeks ago when I didn't let up that Chinese delivery boy?”

“I know. I'm sorry. I'll always let you know if I'm going to do that in the future.”

Patch thought about everything that had happened. The game was up. There was no way he could use the material: Being threatened over it made it impossible even to think of involving the Society in his show.

Chadwick Prep
wasn't going to happen. Which totally, completely blew.

Patch sighed. Why was it always this way? Why did there always seem to be some bigger, richer, more powerful group or person who was getting in the way of his dreams? Throughout their childhood, it had always been Nick who was the popular one, and now it was the Society that was messing with his aspirations of having his own television show. Maybe he would have to wait, he thought. Maybe having his vlog would be enough for now.

Adding to everything, Simone had called him on Thursday morning, when he had barely had time to process the events of the previous night. She wished him a happy Thanksgiving before getting to the point. “You've heard the news by now, right?” she had said. “I'm sending a cameraman over to the scene. I think we've got a major story here. This could be one
of our arcs that would really get a network hooked.”

“Wait, what are you talking about?” Patch asked.

“You don't know? The kid in the park. It's someone from your social set. They're saying it's an Upper East Side kid.”

This was too much—it was gruesome. The onlookers, the media, the images of the body being taken away. The press was lapping it up, and Patch didn't want any part of it. He imagined how the guy's parents must have felt, how his friends were feeling, whoever he was.

Detectives had been saying how bizarre the death was, how the body was presented as if it were some kind of ritual offering. The cause of death had been hypothermia, but it was unclear why he was nearly naked at the end of November, and why he had been placed at the foot of Cleopatra's Needle, below seven stories of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Was it a drug thing? A cult? It didn't make sense.

Even with the scantest amount of information, Patch suspected the Society may have had something to do with it.

“Patch, are you there?” Simone had said. “I want you to go over to the needle. Check out the scene. Get some more material.”

“You're joking.”

“You say you want to be in television. That means doing difficult things sometimes.”

“Simone, I can't.” He took the phone into the hallway. “It's too…too exploitative. This guy died and it's really sad, but
we should let the real news cover this stuff.”

“Patch, you don't seem to get it. I'm not
asking
you to do it. I'm
telling
you to do it.”

Patch took a deep breath. “And I'm telling you that I'm not doing it, Simone. I'll see you on Monday. Enjoy your Thanksgiving.”