I hereby confess:
He was the last person
I wanted.
I grabbed Jenny’s cell phone and keys and got my ass out of the room. Who should I call? The campus police? The dean? The FBI?
First, I called Josh. “Jenny’s gone,” I gasped into the phone as I ran across the Edison College courtyard. “She’s not in her room and it’s been—trashed. She’s definitely responsible for the leak. Come quick.”
“How were you in her room?” Josh asked.
“I broke in with my prox card.”
Josh was quiet. “You broke into her room?”
“Josh! I think something bad has happened to her.”
“And you broke into her room? What were you thinking?”
I was thinking that if no one believed me about Jenny, I was going to get some proof. And now I was thinking she’d been kidnapped. “What does it matter? The point is, she’s gone! We have to do something. Should we call the police?”
“And report your breaking and entering?” he scoffed. “Amy, unless there’s blood all over the floor, I don’t think you’ve got much of an argument.”
The only people who leave blood on the floor are your girlfriend’s society, I wanted to snap, but held my tongue.
He went on. “She’s probably just studying somewhere. Have you tried calling her?”
“I’ve got her cell phone in my hand.” But that was a good point. I pressed the button for Recently Dialed Calls. Micah, Micah, Micah, Home, Sally’s Pizza, someone named Grace, two numbers in New York, and two more here in Connecticut. I’d call those later.
“You stole her cell phone? Broke into her room and stole her cell phone. Are you crazy?”
“You’re right.” I stopped running, and stared down at my contraband. “I shouldn’t touch anything until the police get here.”
“You need to go put her stuff back. And then you need to write a note to have her call you. Go home, wait for her, and hope she doesn’t get you in any trouble. Just because you’re a Digger doesn’t give you free rein to start breaking laws. I’m not a lawyer yet, but I’d say nothing you did tonight is cool.”
“But Josh, you’re not listening to me. I think she’s in trouble. There’s this half-finished e-mail on her computer and it says ‘help’ all over it. You said Gehry was out for—”
“Amy, I can see you’re really upset, but you need to chill out for a second and think. Where are you right now? Why don’t you come home so we can talk about this—”
“Come home?” I cried. “My suite is not your home, Josh Silver! My best friend is not your latest romantic mistake. And you are not my superior. I was there. I saw what her room looks like. You have to believe me that she’s in trouble.”
“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.” And then he hung up.
I walked back to Prescott, stewing. Maybe I should just call the cops, but Josh’s words echoed in my head. The last thing I needed was to be arrested on counts of breaking and entering. And, like he said, I doubted they’d take me seriously anyway. So a college student was a slob. They’d laugh me out of the station if I tried to file a missing persons report when the person in question had been gone for maybe a few hours. For all anyone knew, she was still at the library, “help help help” or no.
That opinion was buoyed by the next ten calls I proceeded to make. Mara and Omar were appalled that I’d even think of breaking into someone else’s suite (Mara, like the stick in the mud she was, even threatened to go to my dean with the information, until I reminded her of her Digger oaths); Kevin and Harun laughed and asked how many cracked-out conspiracy theories they could expect from me before this whole thing was over (Kevin even jokingly warned me that if I persisted in arguments along these lines, he’d start to suspect it was me behind the website); Odile said that no matter how angry I was at Jenny, there was no cause to start committing felonies; Ben was out jogging off his ire; and Nikolos, Greg, Demetria, and Clarissa told me little other than to leave a number after the beep.
I stood in the Prescott courtyard. No way was I going to go back to my place and let Josh lecture me. But I had one Digger left, and maybe I could get him to listen. I took the stairs to George’s room.
Light spilled through the crack near the floor, and I heard music, but I had to knock twice before he answered. And when he did, as soon as he saw me, George burst into a grin. “Hey there, cutie,” he said, and pulled me inside. “You ran off so quickly earlier, I thought I wasn’t going to see you tonight.”
His T-shirt was soft and hugged his chest and shoulders, and his similarly well-worn sweatpants sat low on his hips. His hair was tousled and he was wearing his glasses. I love George’s glasses. I love him in his glasses. As soon as we were inside, he crossed to his desk and closed his laptop. Sign of a guilty conscience if I’ve ever seen it. But I didn’t have time to worry about that now. “George, I was at Jenny’s.”
“She behind this whole snafu?” he asked. He was rummaging in his mini-fridge now, and retrieved two beers. “Figures as much. That girl’s a menace to the society. No pun intended.”
“Yes, but that’s not all. She wasn’t there.”
He popped the caps off and handed me one. “I’d be hiding out, too, if I were her.”
“I think she’s been kidnapped.”
He raised an eyebrow over the rim of his glasses. “Really. Why? Find a ransom note? Someone holding her for a million shares in Microsoft?” He chuckled and took a pull on his beer.
“No, I found a half-finished e-mail covered with the word ‘help.’”
This shut him up for a second, but then he regrouped. “Come on, Boo. Who do you think would kidnap her, aside from your average cult deprogrammer?” He leaned back on his futon. “And to them I say, have at it.”
This was beginning to get frustrating. Why would no one take me seriously? I’d been right about the patriarchs last time, but no one had listened until we all lost our summer jobs. “I think it was the patriarchs. I think they discovered she was behind the leak and had her disappeared.”
At this, he really started laughing. “Right. We’ll find her with cement sneakers at the bottom of New Haven Harbor. That’s not those guys’ style.”
“What about last spring?” I argued, though my pique was fading fast. Eight discouraging conversations were about as many as I could take.
“Wrecking a couple of undergrad internships is about as criminal as these dudes get. I thought you were over this whole Rose & Grave mythology thing.”
“I was until I went into Jenny’s room.”
He pulled me down beside him on the futon and started rubbing my neck. “Just relax for a second. You’re freaking out.”
I felt his thumbs dig into the tightness near my shoulder blades and bit my lip. Okay, I was. Freaking out again, just like they expected me to. I’d been named Bugaboo for a reason—I was the one who knew the least about how the society worked, who would be most prone to paying attention to its carefully cultivated legends. But I’d been proven correct during Reading Week last semester. A bunch of the patriarchs had banded together to ruin our newly tapped club, and they’d almost succeeded. However, George was right. They hadn’t been doing anything illegal. Just unethical.
Still, the deeper George kneaded my flesh, the tighter my throat grew with unspoken words, and yes, even unshed tears. The rest of them hadn’t seen what I saw.
George pushed my hair to the side and began to kiss the back of my neck. “Listen,” he whispered between nibbles. “My dad was a Digger, and so was his dad and his dad and his dad, and the closest anyone ever got to breaking the law was a couple of campus pranks. Kurt Gehry and his gang like to talk big, but they’d never do anything dangerous. They’re a bunch of punks with power, that’s all.”
Man, did I want to believe him. I hadn’t been with George since the day the site went live. We’d been too preoccupied to get…occupied. And it did make a lot of sense. The professional bullying of a bunch of undergrads sounded a lot more realistic than actual cloak-and-dagger stuff. And now that I was sitting here, half in George’s arms, the idea that Jenny was in danger—that she was indeed tied up in someone’s trunk or sitting in a dark room with an interrogation light swinging overhead—well, it sounded patently ridiculous. No wonder everyone had laughed at me. “You really think it’s okay?”
“I know it is.” He took me by the shoulders and swiveled me until I faced him. “Relax. This is all going to blow over. It’s just the latest in a long line of society scandals.” He lowered me until I was reclined against the futon. “Let’s get your mind off of this.”
Strange and unnatural forces must be at work, for here I was in the presence of George Harrison Prescott, yet I found myself not in the mood. Okay, maybe some of my suspicions were over the line, but that didn’t mean I had to disregard all of my instincts. I sat up. “What were you doing before I came in?”
“Working. Why?”
“Working on something so private you needed to shut your screen?” I folded my arms. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“Boo—”
“It’s okay, you know,” I said quickly. “We have no understanding.”
“So then, why does it matter?”
Because I was curious. “IM-ing with some chick? Surfing MySpace profiles for pretty young things?”
He laughed. “Come on, now. I’m a player, not a pervert.”
I shook my head. “You’re so ready to claim that title.”
“I don’t need to claim it, baby,” he said, leaning in. “The Diggers already dubbed me Puck.”
But I was temporarily immune. “What were you doing?”
He collapsed back against the futon. “Are we really going to start doing this? I thought you were cool.”
“I am.”
“Then, what?” He studied me. “Is this some kind of turn-on? You want to know what other girls I’m with?”
An enumerated list? Hardly. “I want us to be honest.”
“And I want things not to change.”
Translation: He was seeing other people, but thought telling me would make me mad. Right now, I couldn’t be sure what I was feeling, since I was already mad. “George, if I decided to stop sleeping with you, how would you feel?”
He considered this for a moment. “I don’t know. Why, are you going to?”
“I don’t know.”
We sat there for a moment, not looking at each other. Finally, he spoke. “The truth is, I’m not seeing anyone else, and I haven’t since we first got together.”
Probably a lie. And I was picking a fight with him because he wouldn’t help me. What a screwed-up relationship this was.
“Boo, look at me.” When I didn’t, he cupped my chin in his hands and turned my face toward his. His copper eyes burned right into mine. “I’m not lying. I haven’t been with anyone but you. But that doesn’t mean I won’t. And if you want me to tell you, I will, and then you can make any decision you want.”
It didn’t get much fairer than that. “What do you want me to do if I start seeing someone else?”
He grinned. “Hide him.” And then he kissed me.
But for the first time ever, I spent the night in George’s room without any sex involved. I slept poorly, and early the next morning (okay, around 8 A.M.) I left and headed back to my suite. As expected, Josh was either gone or asleep.
I paced for a while in my room, as unable to sleep there as I had been in George’s arms. Sure, I was angry at Jenny, but underneath it all, she was my brother, and what’s more, she was in all likelihood in serious trouble. But if Jenny Santos, who was about a hundred times smarter and better connected than I was, couldn’t help herself, how was I supposed to do anything?
I couldn’t, but then again, maybe I wouldn’t need to. I’d call in the big guns. I sat down at my laptop, pulled up my Phimalarlico webmail, and dashed off a quick e-mail to Malcolm.
From: Bugaboo-D177@phimalarlico.org
To: Lancelot-D176@phimalarlico.org
Subject: Emergency
Lance, I need your help. Lucky betrayed us, and now she’s gone missing. The others think she’s hiding out because she knows how angry we are, but I suspect foul play. I saw her room. If she left, it wasn’t planned. I need your help. We need to find out what happened to her. Call me ASAP.
My big sib must have been on his computer, because I got an answer two minutes later.
From: Lancelot-D176@phimalarlico.org
To: Bugaboo-D177@phimalarlico.org
Subject: Re: Emergency
bad timing, little sis. leaving now for fishing trip. (what are you doing up at this ungodly hour?) this is quite the mess. i understand your predicament, but you know what to do: call poe. he’ll help you.
Yeah, right into my grave he’d help me—roses not included. I shot back:
From: Bugaboo-D177@phimalarlico.org
To: Lancelot-D176@phimalarlico.org
Subject: Re: Re: Emergency
Poe hates me and I’m not too fond of him. He’d never help me. Please, Lance? I need you!
This time, it took less than thirty seconds to get a response.
From: Lancelot-D176@phimalarlico.org
To: Bugaboo-D177@phimalarlico.org
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Emergency
gotta run. call poe.
You know that bit about banging your head against the keyboard? In real life, it’s not actually all that effective as a stress reliever. Plus, it’s a bit impractical, what with all the accidental shutting down of programs that results.
Once I rebooted, I considered my options:
1) Forget the whole thing. Jenny must be okay.
Yeah, so not my thing.
2) Go back and beg some of the other Diggers for help.
Right, because I’m a veritable glutton for punishment.
3) Deal with it myself. After all, I’m a smart, capable sort of girl. I could surely get to the root of a suspected kidnapping all on my own.
Except, what do I know about kidnapping? I’m a Lit major, for crying out loud. The last abduction I read about was The Rape of the Lock.
4) Call the cops and explain to them that I was worried this girl I didn’t actually know all that well and wasn’t really all that friendly with and who is also, by the way, a computer millionaire, may have been kidnapped as part of a vast conspiracy reaching all the way up to the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States because she’d threatened to tell the world who a bunch of middle-aged men had slept with in their teens.
Res ipsa loquitur.[3]
5) Suck it up and contact Poe.
After all, he’s every bit as paranoid as I am, and much more experienced at dealing with it.
Of course, it wasn’t going to be easy. Not only was there the aforementioned mutual hatred, but I’d managed to avoid ever learning the bastard’s real name. That would be step one.
Cue Mission Impossible theme and commence stealthy journey back into the tomb. Once there, I took the stairs to the room of records. There’d been a motion to seal off the room until we’d located the leak, but no one thought it would be much of a deterrent. The person already had their info. Now I was glad for the access.
Along the wall of the room of records hung a group portrait for every club as far back as daguerreotypes were in vogue. I checked the wall for D176. The men were clustered around the grandfather clock I knew was in the Firefly Room, and before them lay a low table with the etching of Persephone on top. Each wore a formal tuxedo with tails. There was Malcolm in the front row, his hand resting on the shoulder of the knight I knew as Poe. I looked at the list of names beneath the photo.
James Orcutt.
What a ridiculously normal name. I’d half been expecting Darth Vader. But, no matter. The Grand Library had a computer terminal (because, honestly, how grand would it be otherwise?). I entered Orcutt’s name into the student directory, and a few moments later had his home number. Bingo. I exited into the hall and approached the tomb’s only phone.
Point of no return, Amy. Are you honestly going to do this? Go to Poe? I took a deep breath, and dialed.
“Hello?” My Pavlovian response to his voice has always been fight-or-flight, but I steeled myself and tried to sound cheery. Or at least amicable.
“Hi. James?” The name sounded bizarre on my tongue. “This is—”
“Amy Haskel.” Not a question. “What do you want?”
I hesitated, still reeling from the shock that he’d recognized my voice. “I…Malcolm said—I need your help.”
Silence, and then, “Figures. What is it—wait, are you at the tomb?”
“Yeah.”
“Meet me at my place: 27 Danbury, number 3. Come now.” And then he hung up.
What choice did I have? I was the desperate one. I’d work on his timetable. So I hoofed it across town. All the law students live off-campus, but when I got to the address Poe—sorry, James, but old habits die hard—had indicated, it was clear my nemesis was living as disreputably as possible. I stood for a moment on the tree lawn and debated whether or not the trash heap before me could possibly be the right address.
The front yard was a mess of weeds, hemmed in by a sagging chain-link fence emblazoned with a black-and-red BEWARE OF DOG sign. But there was no dog to be seen as I opened the catch and picked my way up the cracked front walk, and no mangy mutt chased me as I put my first tentative steps onto the team-of-termites-holding-hands that passed for a stoop. The steps creaked beneath my feet, and the front porch practically screamed “Skirt the edges,” with all of its saggy spots. I reached number 3 and rang the bell.
A few moments later, the door beyond the screen opened, and there stood Poe—I mean, James—in his usual uniform of grubby white undershirt and worn dress pants. He leaned against the jamb and regarded me through the screen.
“You actually showed.”
“I actually need help.”
“And you actually think I’m going to give it to you…why, exactly?” He tilted his head to one side. “Let’s forget for a minute that you’ve never been anything but a bitch to me. As far as I can see, you’ve been doing your level best to grind my society into dust since we handed you the reins. And now you want my assistance?”
Let’s not forget that the first time I met this dude, he threatened to have me drowned and/or forced into sexual servitude. Not exactly getting off on the right foot. So what if it was hazing? Still hurt. But no matter. I had one card to play. “Look, I don’t like you, and you don’t like me. No surprise to either of us, I’m sure. But what we both like is Rose & Grave. And it’s in trouble. It’s in trouble because of this current scandal, and if my suspicions are right, it’s about to be in a lot more trouble than that. I’m here for the society, nothing more.”
He swallowed. If there was one thing I knew about this boy, it was that he was Digger, through and through. I’d gotten to him this way last year as well. Malcolm was right; Poe would help me. He’d hate it, but he’d help.
“What are you talking about?”
“Jenny Santos is the one who leaked the information to that website. And she’s gone.”
“Hiding out?” His voice dripped with anger. Like I said, Digger through and through.
“I don’t think so. Her room looks trashed, and she left her wallet, keys, cell phone—everything—behind. There’s a half-finished e-mail on her computer. I think she’s just…gone.”
“What do you mean? Like, kidnapped?”
“Kurt Gehry said he was going to deal with the matter his way, and make an example of the culprit. You know him better than anyone else. Do you think it’s possible—”
Poe—James—oh, screw it, Poe! — pushed open the screen door. “Come in.” He hustled me inside, took a quick look around the yard, and shut the door.
“Thanks. I don’t think I was follow—”
He whirled on me. “You’re serious about this. You think the White House Chief of Staff arranged for a college student to disappear. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?”
“Yes. People have been telling me all night. But you let me in.”
“Because I didn’t want anyone on the street to catch you raving.”
I shook my head. “No, because you think I might be right.”
He stabbed his fingers into his hair. “Wait here while I change my clothes.”
I didn’t ask him Into what? but I sure wanted to, as I’d never seen him in anything else (except, of course, for the times he was dressed up like Death). He trailed into his bedroom, yanking his shirt up over his head, and then slammed the door behind him.
“So does that mean you’re going to help me?” I said to the closed door. No answer. I sighed, then looked around his cramped living space. Probably should make myself as comfortable as possible while he conjured up a new wardrobe.
In the middle of the room was a lumpy couch, upholstered in fraying, pale blue fabric that had been out of fashion since 1985. We were sporting something similar in our dorm room and I wondered if he’d salvaged his furniture from his undergrad years. I knew little about Poe’s family background, but judging from the environs, he wasn’t one of the wealthy Diggers, and the rumored post-grad gift of thirty thousand dollars was as mythical as our assumed total control of the world. He had a nice laptop, though. It lay closed on top of a scuffed coffee table piled with thick law textbooks. I raised my eyes to the bookshelves lining the wall. Curiouser and curiouser.
FIVE THINGS THAT ARE ABOUT TO SHOCK YOU ABOUT POE
1) He’s a vegetarian. At least, he has a ton of vegetarian cookbooks. That can’t be an accident. (But then, how he’s friends with Malcolm Cabot, the great white hunter, is beyond me.)
2) He has Harvey on DVD. (Doesn’t exactly seem like the giant imaginary rabbit type.)
3) And plays the harmonica.
4) And gardening is very good for the shoulders. (I can admit that, right?)
5) He also has a pet snake.
Actually, that last bit probably doesn’t surprise you at all. But standing there, looking at this six-foot beast in a glass tank definitely made me a little uneasy. There was a wooden partition between the snake’s cage and another aquarium. I went to peek inside the second. There, in a little nest made from cedar chips, near a tiny wheel and a lump of moist cheese, sat a white mouse, surrounded by five tiny, naked, bloody, albino bundles.
“Awww,” I cooed. I couldn’t help it.
“There were originally eight, but she ate the runts,” Poe said.
“Gross.” I looked at him, and bit my lip. From whence did he obtain such rocking duds? Now he was dressed in a soft burgundy sweater that must be at least cashmere blend, and a pair of charcoal gray cords. “What are their names?”
“I don’t name food,” he said. “They’re all for him.” He pointed at the snake cage.
Gross again. “You’re feeding them to the snake?”
“Eventually,” he said. “It’s the food chain. Most of her siblings got fed to him, too.”
Forget all that stuff about how cool it was he was vegetarian. Forget anything I said about his shoulders, too. “That’s awful! You fed her whole family to that snake, and now you’re feeding him her children?”
“Don’t you want to know his name?” Poe smirked.
“No!”
He cocked his head at me. “Amy, are you a vegan?”
I crossed my arms. “You’re the one who has all those files on me from deliberations. You know I’m not.”
“Then don’t act holier than thou about Lord Voldemort, there.”
Voldemort? Figures. And the attitude explained his continued friendship with Six-Point Buck Cabot. But it wasn’t why I was here.
“Enough niceties. I’m here about our problem. Are you going to help me?”
“In a manner of speaking. I’m coming with you, and I’m going to help you track down this girl. But it’s only to prove how wrong you are.”
“If you’re so sure I’m wrong, why even bother?” I asked. “Everyone else has just been ignoring me.”
“Everyone else doesn’t know how much trouble you can be. Besides, I want to get my hands around her throat just as much as the next Digger.”
“Works for me. Shall we start now?”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think the smile he gave me was sweet. “The sooner we do, the sooner I get you out of my sight.”
Trust me: The feeling was mutual.
“The thing speaks for itself.” Though never a Classics major, the confessor does know a little Latin.