The Trust_ A Secret Society Novel Part 14

Lia smiled. "Okay-but you know that if we get arrested for this, we're ending up on the cover of the Post Post, right?"

"Maybe that's a risk worth taking."

Instead of heading into the park, as the horses usually did, Patch maneuvered the carriage down Fifth Avenue. For once, he was grateful for the riding lessons he had taken with Nick when he was younger, as driving a carriage wasn't all that different from riding a horse. The driver had also given him a short primer a few days ago.

It was Valentine's Day, the shops on Fifth Avenue were all lit up, and no one paid them any mind. If they did, it was only to tip their hat or whistle at his romantic gesture.

Not many New Yorkers realized that taking a carriage ride out of the park, particularly when you didn't have a license, was completely illegal.

They reached 42nd Street, and Patch started to turn right so they could go back up Sixth Avenue.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Lia asked.

"What do you mean? You want to go downtown?" He was surprised at her audacity, but they had made it to 42nd Street without anyone stopping them. Maybe they should go all the way downtown. Street without anyone stopping them. Maybe they should go all the way downtown.

Lia grinned. "You're always saying how you want to get out of your little world, aren't you? Now's your chance. In a horse-drawn carriage!"

Patch nodded. It was true. Everything with the Society had felt so suffocating. As he looked up at the lights of Fifth Avenue, this little adventure was a welcome dive into the dark, dazzling unknown.

"Are you serious?" he asked.

"Yup."

The light turned green, and Patch continued directing Chester to keep walking. He broke into a trot, and Patch held the reins tightly.

"He's trying to keep up with traffic!" Lia said, laughing. He was a good horse, and Patch wanted to make sure that he was okay. But he didn't seem to mind at all-he seemed rather pleased at breaking out of the usual clomp-clomp-clomp clomp-clomp-clomp routine of rides around Central Park. routine of rides around Central Park.

"You are totally ruining my plan!" Patch said in mock annoyance. He was actually grateful. Fifteen minutes out of the park was one thing, but an hour or more-now that that was romantic. was romantic.

Twenty minutes later, they were down in the Village on a quiet side street. They parked Chester in an empty s.p.a.ce and then grabbed some falafel sandwiches and fries at a shop Lia liked. As they ate them in the carriage, Chester craned his neck and sniffed the air curiously.

"It's certainly a whole different world from the Dendur Ball, right?" Lia said.

"Yeah, that's an understatement," Patch said.

"Do they know anything more about who stole the necklace?"

Patch shook his head. "I don't think so. I have a suspicion that, you know, the Society had something to do with it. Nick got a weird escort card last night at the ball. It had a series of numbers on it. And my grandmother thinks that Nick's grandfather has something to do with it."

"What do you think?"

"h.e.l.l if I know," Patch said. "I just want life to go back to the way it was before all this happened. When I had my vlog."

"Oh, I almost forgot-" Lia said. "My parents have a producer friend who I would really like you to show your DVD to."

"I don't know if I can do it-the Society has control over all the footage."

"No, I mean, we could explain that this was just a sample. That the real show would focus on different people. Do you think you could give me something to send to him?"

"Sure, I guess. I mean, you know that I don't technically own the option on the material for another six months, right?"

"I think he should see it now. He's an old family friend. He'll understand that you can't officially start working on it before June."

Patch figured it was unlikely that he could get in any more trouble than he already had been in. He would have to ask Eliot Walker to send him the contents of the safe-deposit box. If he and his four friends were close to getting out of the Society, maybe that was a risk worth taking.

"Let me treat you to something," Lia said. She hopped out of the carriage before Patch could say anything.

She returned a few minutes later with two cups of gelato.

"Only you would get gelato in the middle of February, outside," Patch said.

"You don't like it? I got pistachio and b.u.t.terscotch."

"No, no, I love it." He smiled.

Patch grabbed one of the heavy blankets that was on their laps and pulled it closer.

"This stuff is the best," Lia said. "I like to go here whenever I can. Of course, for me, it's uptown."

They enjoyed their gelato quietly. The city was silent that night, as if most of Manhattan had been divided up into two's, lovers sharing intimacies. Gone were the frat boys, the tourists, the rowdy barhoppers who usually roamed these streets.

Patch looked at his watch. Genie was always upset with him if he was out too late on a school night. "Okay, eat up, we need to get back uptown."

Just as they were pulling out, they got a strange look from some traffic cops. Patch gamely gave them a salute and continued on up Sixth Avenue. Lia smirked as the two cops shook their heads.

When they reached the park, they rode back in, parking the carriage in an empty lot behind the zoo. Lia pulled the blanket around them and gave Patch a kiss on the lips. Her lips felt like they had frozen over; surely, the gelato hadn't helped.

"You're like ice," he said. "We should go warm up."

She smiled. "I don't care. When else do you get to hang out in the park, under the stars, in a carriage, with no driver watching over you?"

He remembered that he had packed a thermos of hot chocolate in his backpack, and now he poured out a cup. "This should help."

Lia nodded appreciatively, and after taking a sip, kissed him again.

The next morning, Patch woke up with a smile. Every element of his date with Lia had come together perfectly.

Now he threw on a bathrobe and padded outside to get the newspaper. He picked up the copy of the Times Times that he and Genie shared every morning and felt something heavy in it. that he and Genie shared every morning and felt something heavy in it.

There was a padded envelope tucked inside the paper, addressed to Genie, with only her name, typewritten on a label: "Eugenia Rogers Madison-by hand."

Though he was eager to learn what was in it, he suppressed his curiosity. Genie was in the kitchen making coffee, and she looked surprised when he handed it to her. She sat down at the kitchen table and opened the envelope.

Inside, there was a note that read:

For Eugenia,Who deserves only the original.P.B.

And then, to both of their amazement, out slid the original Scarab of Isis necklace.

Chapter Thirty-Nine.

That b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

Nick entered the apartment just as Genie was muttering this epithet in Patch's general direction. It was seven A.M A.M., and Nick and Patch had school that day, but Genie had demanded that Nick rush right down as soon as the necklace arrived.

The Scarab of Isis sat on the kitchen table, on top of its padded envelope. As if it were kryptonite, no one dared touch it.

"Nicholas, what on earth am I supposed to do with this? You take this right back to your grandfather and tell him I don't want it. No, better yet, I'm going to take it to the police. I'm sure they'll be very interested in the fact that it's been in his possession for the past two days!"

"No," Nick said. "Genie, I don't think that's a good idea. I mean, we don't know what the circ.u.mstances were-"

"The circ.u.mstances! The circ.u.mstances were that he stole it from the museum!"

"Genie, he's still in the hospital. There's no way he could have stolen it." Nick looked to Patch for support, but his friend seemed confused as to what to say.

"Oh, h.e.l.l, I don't know what the right thing is to do!" Genie plunked herself down at the kitchen table in exasperation. "He always joked that one day, he would give me the original. That good-for-nothing miscreant! Now I'm stuck with it!" She paused, and a look of sadness crossed her face. "Just like I was stuck with the memories for all those years."

She looked plaintively at the two boys, and it was as if years were suddenly erased from her face, as if she was becoming a twenty-one-year-old girl again. "One has such mixed feelings, you know, about these things. I loved your grandfather, Nick. Loved him, I think, as I have never loved anyone else since then. My husband was a good man, a sweet man, warm and generous and kind. But he and I never had the same feelings that your grandfather and I had."

"Why then?" Nick asked. "Why didn't it work out? You never told us."

Genie straightened up and composed herself. "Palmer was a member of the Society, as you know. I couldn't be, as I was a woman, and they didn't admit women formally until the 1970s. But I didn't approve of their methods-I still don't, as you know-and I made that very clear to him. I urged him to defect from the group. I had no idea the hold that they could maintain on a person. We continued planning the wedding, but it remained a sticking point with us."

Nick's phone rang, and he quickly silenced it.

"The night of our rehearsal dinner at the Yale Club, Palmer never showed up. I had bought a new dress and was wearing the necklace that he had given me on our engagement: the copy of the Scarab of Isis. My mother thought I looked foolish. I fancied myself as glamorous, as exotic. That was how he liked me to be, even if I really wasn't. You can imagine how silly I felt when he stood me up."

"Where did he go?" Patch asked.

"His father packed him on an ocean liner that was headed for Italy. He was going to do his version of the Grand Tour. It was unconscionable, really, what they did. You don't do that to a young woman."

"And it was all because you wanted him to leave the Society?"

Genie nodded. "I believe so. That's the only logical explanation for it. Nick, your grandfather could be a wonderful man, but he only recently developed a backbone. He was a spineless creature back then, in his twenties. He was nothing more than a p.a.w.n of his family." She paused. "You can understand why I am so protective of both of you."

Nick's phone rang again, and once again he silenced it.

"I have always blamed the Society for what happened," Genie said. "I know that perhaps it's foolish, for me to hold such a petty thing against such a complicated organization. I have no idea what kind of forces were at play. Perhaps I will never know."

"He loved you," Nick said. "From this note, I mean-I know it's bizarre, but he clearly still has feelings for you."

"Nick, feelings die. You must understand that. They seem so fresh, so eternal, at your age, but at a certain point, one simply stops caring. Palmer's note is nothing more than a boyish memory. You can't take that kind of thing seriously. He had a life, with his wife. I was not part of that."

Nick looked down at his phone, which had a message.

"You should get that," Patch said. "It looks like your mom is trying to reach you."

Nick called his mother back. She answered quickly and delivered her news with little emotion.

"Oh my G.o.d," he said. His fingers felt numb as he held the phone.

"What is it?" Patch asked, after Nick hung up.

"It's my grandfather," Nick said. "He died this morning, in the hospital."

"Oh my dear," Genie said. "I'm so sorry. I feel like such a fool! I shouldn't have said those things about him. This must be such a shock. Does your family expect you back? We shouldn't be keeping you here."

"No, it's okay," Nick said quietly. "Could I stay here for a few more minutes?"

"Of course," Genie said. "Let me get you a cup of coffee." She busied herself around the kitchen.

Nick needed a refuge from the craziness that was sure to ensue in his family's apartment. Not only was there the issue of what to do with the necklace, but there would be funeral arrangements and an obituary and condolence cards and more flowers than he could imagine.

The last time he had seen his grandfather, he had asked Nick to solve that riddle, the one that would help him get out of the Society.

Now that Palmer was gone, Nick didn't know if they had lost their chance. But he knew they still had to try.

More than anything, his grandfather's last words to him rang through his head: "Nicholas, you have always had everything you need."

After learning the news of his grandfather's death, Nick was even less sure what to do about the necklace. As his family name was at stake, Genie had allowed Nick to make the decision about what to do with the stolen necklace. She said she didn't want any part in it and had given it to him in the padded envelope. By the time Nick headed upstairs to face the chaos in his apartment and finish getting ready for school, his parents had already left for the hospital.

Nick carefully placed the scarab amulet in an empty desk drawer in his room. Several hours earlier, before hearing the news about Palmer, Nick would have brought the necklace to the police and told them the story of how it had arrived, but now that didn't seem right. Nick didn't want the story of the necklace overshadowing his grandfather's death. And Patch didn't want his grandmother brought into the scandal of the theft. Nick felt an obligation to protect Genie.

Going to school that day was a dose of much-needed reality, time to reflect on the right course of action. Nick didn't tell anyone about the necklace, not even Phoebe. He needed to think it all through. If he went to the police, they would want the whole story. If he appeared at the museum, they would want an explanation as well. But it wouldn't be right to keep the necklace, either.

He would have to return it, anonymously.

When Nick arrived home to the apartment that afternoon, he carefully closed and locked his bedroom door. He put the necklace back into a new, heavily padded envelope, closing and sealing it tightly while wearing gloves to avoid fingerprints. He was able to find a return address from a Metropolitan Museum mailing that read "1000 Fifth Avenue," which he pasted onto the front of the envelope. That evening, he walked outside and placed the envelope in a mailbox right across the street from the museum. He would have taken it directly there, but he didn't want to risk being caught by a security camera.

By the next afternoon, the news was all over town. The museum revealed that the necklace had been returned by an unidentified party and they were grateful for its swift delivery. His plan had worked.

Chapter Forty.