The weeks leading up to the Dendur Ball passed quickly for Nick, though his grandfather’s challenge was never far from his mind. When he wasn’t thinking about it, Nick focused on his schoolwork, as he continued trying to repair the damage caused to his reputation during the previous semester. College applications were less than eight months away, and he had already started thinking about where he wanted to go. His entire family had gone to Yale, but he wondered if that option wouldn’t be open to him anymore if he was released from the Society.
That was a risk Nick would have to take.
On a string around his neck was the key Thad and Patch had procured from the opening on the Egyptian slab in Palmer Bell’s study. Nick couldn’t stop thinking about it, though he was unsure what the next move should be. Ever since coming back from Florida, Nick had kept the key with him everywhere he went, whether at school, going running, or in the shower. It never left him.
It was an old-fashioned key, not the flat kind used to open most doors, but the type with a long, cylindrical base and a set of teeth. It was weightier than the average key; it could have opened a door, a chest, or even a set of drawers.
In short, it could have opened anything.
Or it could be a dead end.
Before leaving Florida, Nick had tried it on every door, locked box, secretary, and trunk he could find in the Palm Beach house, with no success. Because the clue that Palmer had given them involved “both beaches,” Nick didn’t feel like the solution-if there was one-would be found in Palm Beach. The Florida house was only part of the puzzle.
On the first Saturday morning in February, a few weeks after their last trip, Nick and Phoebe drove out to Southampton, to his family’s house at the beach.
When Nick and Phoebe arrived at the Southampton house, they tried the key on every possible lock. When the caretaker, who happened to be on the grounds that weekend, asked what they were doing, Nick said they were picking up some ski equipment he had been storing up in the attic.
Nick and Phoebe searched every room meticulously, trying every chest of drawers, every closet, even an old campaign chest in the attic.
In the last guest bedroom, Phoebe wiped her forehead with her sleeve. “This feels hopeless,” she said, stifling a sneeze. “We’re kicking up dust you didn’t even know this house had.”
Nick nodded wearily. “I know. I’m just not seeing it here.”
It was an unseasonably warm day for February, so the two decided to go for a walk on the beach. In contrast to the summer, the beach was completely empty, the surf frothing up and then retreating, the ocean behind it vast and gray and unknowable. There had been a storm the week before, and some of the dunes had been nearly demolished.
They walked for a few minutes, the light breeze nipping at their cheeks. It felt like they had accomplished nothing.
“I don’t know where else to turn,” Nick said after a few minutes, with the frustration of knowing he had complained to Phoebe about this more times than he could count.
“You’ve tried every lock in your parents’ apartment,” she said. “You’ve tried Palm Beach. We’ve tried Southampton.” She reached out to him as they walked through the sand, to touch the key that was now hanging around his neck, grazing the V-neck of his cable-knit sweater. “What if it opens nothing? What if it’s all just an elaborate ruse, something to keep us occupied while the Society continues to cover its tracks?”
Nick felt the wind rustling his hair. “Remember what he said about my brothers and me playing on the beach? About the treasures being buried in the sand?”
“So what are we supposed to do? Start digging?” Phoebe asked. “Do you really think he buried something under the sand?”
“I don’t think so. I think he was just reminiscing. With all the winter storms, there’s no way anyone could keep something buried for long.” Nick stopped and glanced up at the dunes, just before the house, near the edge of the Bell family’s property line. There was a stone block that he had never noticed before, a piece of rough-hewn granite lodged into the ground. Nick loped up the embankment to it and walked through a few yards of dune grass.
He gasped when he saw what was carved onto its face. Phoebe joined him. The block read:
P.M.E.
1962-1997
“Is that… a grave marker?” Phoebe asked.
Nick shook his head. “I don’t think so. I remember my father telling me about this once, but I’ve never seen it. The storm must have uncovered it. It’s a memorial marker.”
“Who is it for?”
Nick paused. It was too much to think about-everything he knew, and everything he didn’t want to believe. “It’s for Patch’s father,” he said quietly. “He drowned near here. It was when our parents were close, and the Evanses were staying here one weekend. Patch and I were at summer camp. Patch’s dad was caught up in the surf while swimming one evening at dusk. No one thought to look for him until dinnertime. That’s what my father told me, when I asked him about it once.”
Phoebe blinked. “Does Patch know this is here?”
Nick shook his head. “It’s not really something we talk about. God, that memorial marker-I haven’t thought about that in years. If you mention to Patch about us being here, I’d rather you didn’t say anything-not that you would, but it just… well, it might upset him.”
Phoebe nodded. “I understand. Though you do know he’s trying to figure out what happened to his mother, right?”
“I know.”
“Do you remember her?” Phoebe asked.
“No, not really,” Nick said. “We were so young when she was taken away.”
They were still standing in front of the memorial marker. “Patchfield Morgan Evans,” he said. “I guess they left off the ‘Jr.’ Sort of hard to do that in initials.”
“Why initials? Why not his full name?”
Nick shrugged and smiled sadly. “You’ve been around my family enough by now, haven’t you? Everything’s a secret, everything’s encoded. Like they’re afraid for anyone to know the real story about them.”
Phoebe touched his shoulder. “Do you feel like you’re the first one to start asking all these questions?”
“Sort of. I know my brothers have, over the years. But they always get shut down. And they’re so ambitious-they care more about success than about knowing the truth about the Society or the Trust. They’re not screwups, like me.”
“I don’t think you’re a screwup,” Phoebe said. “And I guess, if you are, then maybe I’m in love with a screwup.” She smiled shyly, as if embarrassed at her revelation.
Nick tried not to look surprised, but he felt his heart beating more quickly. He had felt this way for so long and had been afraid to say anything. Ever since the night last semester on the rooftop after Phoebe’s gallery show, when they had almost kissed. Before they had gotten together, before they had started dating. She had always been the girl he thought he could never have.
Phoebe looked so beautiful, her reddish-brown hair whipping in the wind. He pulled her toward him and kissed her. “Then I’m in love with someone who’s going to be a superstar someday. We’re going to leave all this behind, right? Soon?”
She nodded. Her eyes were damp.
Nick felt tears coming as well. “I’m so sorry, Phoebe. I feel like all this is my fault. My family. The Society. Everything they’ve caused. You should have never met me. Your life would be so much better.”
“Hey-I was asked to be part of this before I even knew you. You had no way of telling,” she said.
“I know-but still, it’s hard. It’s hard not to feel like I’m partially responsible.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you to feel that way.”
He wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his sweater. “I don’t think we should mention the memorial to Patch. I’ll show it to him sometime in the summer. After things are more settled, you know?”
“You really think things will be settled?” Phoebe smiled. “You’re certainly the optimist now.”
“Yes,” Nick said. “I do.”