On Thursday nights, Genie went out, a rare weekly event when she attended a ballroom dancing class and then went to a diner afterward for coffee and pie with her friends. Because of this, Patch decided to offer up their apartment for the emergency meeting. For a few hours, they would have the place to themselves. He had wanted to make it nice for everyone, and though there was no way it would ever compare to the opulence of Lauren’s apartment, he had straightened up the living room and even bought sodas and baked a roll of chocolate chip cookies.
Thad, Phoebe, and Lauren recounted all the sabotage that had happened in the last forty-eight hours. Thad was still lobbying his school’s administration to keep the incident with the gin bottle off his permanent record. Phoebe was recovering from the vermin infestation and would need a follow-up meeting with her doctor to make sure she hadn’t been infected by the bite. Lauren was waiting for the verdict from Sebastian Giroux about the jewelry found in her bag.
“There’s something else,” Lauren said. She pulled out her phone from her handbag and showed everyone a text message she had received that day.
It read:
AQ EKEPRLE FMPYD QZP OQL RMYD QPDRL?
“Looks like gibberish,” Phoebe said.
“It’s not gibberish,” Thad said. “It’s a cryptogram.”
“A crypto-what?” Nick asked.
“It’s a code where each letter stands for a different one. Lauren, give me your phone.”
She handed her phone to Thad, and he punched the series of letters into his own iPhone, copying over the cryptogram.
His face grew dark. “I think I know what it means. I used a cryptogram solver. It’s a little bit… well, it’s a little bit scary.”
“Come on, what is it?” Phoebe asked.
He looked at Lauren. “Go ahead,” she said.
“It reads-and I think this is correct: ‘Do sisters watch out for each other?’”
“That’s weird,” Phoebe said. “Does that make any sense to you?”
“It makes sense to me,” Lauren said.
“Why’s that?” Nick asked.
“The text wasn’t originally sent to me. It was sent to my little sister, Allison.”
The group was silent for a moment.
“She’s not even in the Society,” Phoebe said after a moment.
“Maybe that’s the point,” Patch said. “They want us to know that they’re not afraid to get to our families.”
“Why Lauren, though?” Phoebe asked. “Why not any of the rest of us?”
“They think Lauren’s vulnerable right now,” Thad said. “And she’s the only one who has a younger sibling who’s not in the Society.”
“That’s true,” Patch said. “I’m just trying to figure out a pattern here. The rats were destroying Phoebe’s canvases. Phoebe’s an artist; that hits her where it hurts. Lauren, they put your job designing jewelry at risk. And the message to your sister is a further warning. But what about the bottle of gin? They could have done that to mess with any of us. Why Thad?”
“You’re right; it doesn’t match up,” Nick said.
Thad spoke slowly. “They must know more about my family than I usually tell people. My mom has been sober for ten years, but she used to have a drinking problem. They must have known that this would really bother me.”
Lauren gave his arm a supportive squeeze. “Hey-it would have bothered anyone.”
“What kind of sick stuff is this?” Phoebe said. “I can’t believe this-they’re not only messing with us physically, it’s like they’re trying to get to us psychologically. How do we know what’s next? If they could manage to screw up our lives this much in the last forty-eight hours, who knows what they could do?”
“We need to lay off,” Lauren said. “I mean, this is my sister we’re talking about. She’s a freshman at boarding school. It would be so easy for them to get to her. We need to go to the meetings. We need to do what they say.”
“I have a plan,” Nick said. “And it won’t put us in danger. I just need to work it out a little more before we get going on it.”
“What kind of plan?” Patch asked warily.
“I need you guys to hang tight for a couple of days. Can I fill you in on the weekend?”
Everyone nodded.
“In the meantime, maybe we all need to pretend to be model citizens, at least for a little while,” Thad said. “We need to get to know the other members.”
“I just don’t know if I can bear it,” Phoebe said. “They’re all like zombies. Claire Chilton going on about how the Upper East Side isn’t like it used to be. Who the hell cares?”
Lauren jumped in. “Speaking of Claire-I had an odd confrontation with her on Tuesday. Phoebe, I told you about this, right?”
Phoebe nodded.
“I ran into her at the Ralph Lauren store. She said that everyone had noticed that three of us were missing from the meeting, and then she started going on about how the Society was all about cultural advancement and how there was going to be a benefit for the museum. About how the Society was all about making the world a better place.”
“Oh, if only that were true,” Nick said sarcastically. “She’s totally bought into the whole thing. Her parents are both members. You know how seriously they take it.”
“There’s something else: they’ve given us a name. The five us are ‘the Infidels.’ That’s what the older members are calling us. I looked it up; it’s like when you don’t believe in a religion that everyone else believes in.”
“Well, that would be us,” Phoebe said.
Nick gave a half smile. “Maybe we should print T-shirts.”
“Yeah, right,” Patch said. “Talk about wearing a bull’s-eye on your back.”
“So let them call us that,” Thad said. “Let them think the group is about cultural advancement. We still need to fly under the radar. Don’t let them think we have anything planned.”
“Because the truth is, we don’t,” Patch said.
“That’s not entirely true,” Nick said. “I think I can figure something out. I just need some more time.”
“What should I tell my sister?” Lauren asked.
“Tell her that she’ll be fine. Tell her it doesn’t mean anything,” Nick said.
“How can you be so sure?” Phoebe asked. “I mean, we all thought that skipping a meeting wasn’t a big deal, and look what happened.”
“They’ve made their point,” Nick said. “From now on, we don’t miss any more meetings. Give me a few days-in fact, clear your Saturday, if you can. I’ll keep you posted.”
“You’re sure you can come up with something?” Patch asked.
Nick nodded. Nothing more had to be said. Patch trusted his friend, and the rest of them did as well.
After everyone left, though, Patch kept wondering about the Society, about its methods, and how they had gotten to Lauren by threatening her sister.
All he had in his family were Genie and his mother. And he wondered which one of them could be next.