"How can you say that?" He looked at her, his face streaked with tears. "How can you say such a horrible thing?"

"I don't know," Phoebe said. "I don't quite feel like myself. I've just..." Her voice trailed off. "I should probably stop talking." She sighed deeply, and only then did she realize how exhausted she was from everything. "Maybe we'd better get going. We have to get back to Manhattan for that d.a.m.ned c.o.c.ktail party." Claire Chilton and her parents had invited them all to a c.o.c.ktail party that evening to celebrate the success of the Dendur Ball.

"Do we have to go?" Nick said. "I'm not exactly in the mood."

"I would kill to skip it," Phoebe said. She felt horrible for the things she had said, and now it felt like she couldn't take them back. The worst part was that she didn't want to take back some of it. She really would have loved to skip the party, to have some time alone to figure things out.

"Maybe we go for twenty minutes," Nick said.

"Twenty minutes," Phoebe said. "And that's it."

Chapter Fifty-Two.

Lauren had been dreading the Chilton c.o.c.ktail party that night. A snow had started falling earlier that day in Manhattan, and by evening it had turned into a blizzard. The cars along Park Avenue were inching through the powdery banks, and it was the kind of night when you wanted to stay in and relax, not go to a c.o.c.ktail party. Luckily for Lauren, Claire and her parents lived only a few blocks away. Thad would be picking Lauren up at seven.

When he arrived, Thad's cheeks were pink from the cold outside, and he still had a few snowflakes in his curly blond hair. Lauren knew that he had started something with that guy, Kurt, whom he had met at the ball, and she was eager to get the details from him.

"You getting excited for your Paris trip?" he asked her. She had told him about the opportunity that Sebastian had offered her.

She shrugged as she b.u.t.toned her wool overcoat and stepped into the elevator. "To be perfectly honest, not really. I wish I were. Something doesn't feel right about it." She was supposed to leave in several weeks; the trip was scheduled for the second week of spring break. "I know it's an amazing opportunity, and I should be thrilled."

"Well, the question is, what exactly are the strings, right?" He looked thoughtfully at the numbers in the elevator as they descended.

"That's what I'm worried about. Is it right for me to be going on this trip alone?"

"Do you want me to come with you?" Thad asked. "I mean, I don't mean to invite myself along or anything, but it would be amazing...."

She smiled. "I could tell them that you have to come with me. But are you sure I won't be keeping you from being with Kurt?"

Thad shrugged. "It's so new, I think I'm allowed to go away for a week, right?"

"How's it going, anyway?"

Thad blushed, and Lauren started tickling him in the elevator. "Stop, stop, I'll tell you!" he said, laughing. "It's going great. He's wonderful. He's, like, one of the smartest guys I've ever met. I didn't think they even made guys that smart in New York."

"Well, he's from New Jersey," Lauren said.

"And I like that about him-he's not all stuck-up like everyone around here." The elevator doors opened and they stepped out.

"Does he know about... you know." She was referring to the Society, but they were walking through the lobby and she wanted to be discreet.

"I don't think so," Thad said quietly. "I haven't told him. I haven't gotten a haircut recently, so he can't really see the tattoo. I keep wishing that by the time we have that conversation, we'll all be out of it."

"Here's hoping," Lauren said with a sigh as she stepped out from under her building's awning and through the five inches of snow that had already fallen on the sidewalk. "Well, I'm really happy you can come on the trip." She took Thad's arm as they walked. "With you along, I'm starting to think it might be fun."

The c.o.c.ktail party was being thrown to celebrate the success of the Dendur Ball, though Lauren recognized it all as a sham. Letty Chilton-and probably Claire as well-felt awkward about the power outage and the jewelry theft and, more than anything, that the media coverage of the ball had focused more on its scandalous aftermath than on the new additions to the museum, the money that was raised, or all the hard work that Letty and her daughter had done.

When they got to the party, the first thing they noticed was the music. Mrs. Chilton had clearly made an attempt to keep the atmosphere "youthful" as opposed to the cla.s.sical selections she usually would have played at an event like this. Lauren recognized the Rolling Stones's song "Play with Fire," a creepy, bizarre song about a woman with an heiress mother, beautiful clothes, diamonds, and a chauffeur. It seemed appropriate, somehow, for the evening: vapid and mysterious.

It also reminded Lauren of Alejandro, for it was one of the songs that had come on when they swam in that heated pool last November. Since that day, Lauren had found it on iTunes and would sometimes play it over and over again, as it reminded her of that moment. A moment she would never have again.

How would she ever get over his death, when she was reminded of him constantly? When every song, every movie, every novel was about love: finding it, having it, losing it?

"Hey-" Thad poked her. "You're totally zoning out. Phoebe's coming over here." Thad had graciously taken Lauren's coat and given it to the attendant.

Phoebe had just arrived at the party, separately from Nick, it seemed.

"I need to talk to you," she whispered after she and Lauren had embraced.

"Sure," Lauren said. "Let's find somewhere quiet." She left Thad at the bar and took Phoebe to a far corner of the living room. She surveyed the living room and noted that her mother would have her work cut out for her. The current arrangement was twenty years of chintz sofas and reproduction nineteenth-century furniture against faded yellow-and-white-striped wallpaper.

"I don't even know where to start," Phoebe said as they sat down on a couch near the window. "Nick and I had this terrible fight. I guess that should be the least of it. The important thing is that I think we had a chance to get out, and he totally blew it."

Lauren felt her spirits drop. "Oh my G.o.d. What do you mean?"

"I can't talk about it here. We might still have a chance. But the thing is, I completely screwed up, and now I feel like I can't take it back. I said some really terrible things to him, about how he only cares about his family, and how he loves the adventure of all this more than he loves me."

Lauren shook her head. "Love makes you do crazy things, right?"

"I guess so," Phoebe said. "I was so frustrated with him. I just want us to break free from-" She motioned out at the room, at the Society members who had started to trickle into the living room, cl.u.s.tering around the fireplace. "From all this."

"But how do we do that?" Lauren looked nervously out at the crowds that were gathering, at Anastasia and Jeremy and Bradley, all chatting excitably. Aside from the five of them-the "Infidels," as they were called-the older cla.s.s had merged with the younger one perfectly, as if they had always been friends.

"I think we just do it, consequences be d.a.m.ned."

"Phoebe, I don't think we can do that. What about the message my sister got? What if they do something to our families?"

"We don't know that they would do anything," Phoebe said. "But I suppose there's no way of being certain."

"Lauren!" They heard a voice from across the room.

The two girls looked up. It was Emily van Piper, headed their way. She was wearing a pair of high heels that must have been impossible to walk in outside.

"Lauren, I heard about your Paris trip!" She gave Lauren a hug and kissed her on both cheeks. "Are you so thrilled?"

Lauren had told Phoebe otherwise, but thankfully, Phoebe was smart enough not to say anything in front of Emily.

"Um, sure," Lauren said. "It's going to be gorgeous. I love Paris." She hoped she was enthusiastic enough to sound convincing. With Thad, though, it would be fun. Still, something didn't feel quite right about it.

"I need to go talk to Charles about something," Emily said, looking over the girls' shoulders. "But let me know if you need any tips about the city-I was just there a few weeks ago. I found the most darling little tea shop in the Marais."

Lauren nodded as Emily flitted off. At the entrance to the living room, Claire Chilton was greeting everyone. Lauren saw that she was wearing another outfit from Giroux, a black c.o.c.ktail dress Sebastian had designed.

"Look at her, she thinks she's this grand hostess or something," Lauren said bitterly.

"Just ignore her," Phoebe said. "She's not worth our time. Okay, so you've got to tell me: What do I do about Nick? Do I talk to him?"

Lauren sighed. "I don't know, Phoebe, maybe you need to spend some time apart."

Phoebe looked surprised at this statement, and Lauren was even startled that she had said it. Was she jealous of Phoebe? She didn't want to date Nick herself, as they had known each other since they were in elementary school. But maybe she was jealous that Phoebe had someone at all. Was it better to have someone you were fighting with than to be completely alone? She immediately regretted being so underhanded. Phoebe had become her best friend over the past several months, and she should have been supportive.

"Maybe you're right," Phoebe said. "We do spend an incredible amount of time together. Maybe I should get out of town or something."

"No, Phoebe, I didn't mean-I don't think you should do that."

"Why not? You just said-"

Lauren sank back on the couch in resignation. "I don't know, Phoebe. I don't really know what you should do."

Chapter Fifty-Three.

As Patch and Lia rode up together in the Chiltons' elevator, Patch examined himself in one of its panels of antiqued mirror. He was glad he had dressed up a little bit for the c.o.c.ktail party, even if that had only meant trading his sneakers for loafers and jeans for wool slacks. Even after all these years, he still never felt like he knew what to wear to functions like this one.

"Stop primping," Lia said. "You look great."

"So do you," Patch said, drawing her close and giving her a kiss on her cold nose. He hoped it would be okay that he was bringing a non-Society member to the event, but he figured it probably was-and after all they had been through, a big part of him didn't care anymore about the Society's petty rules.

Lia had been running late, so they had decided to meet in the Chiltons' lobby; he hadn't had a chance yet to tell her about everything that had happened. The previous day, when Patch had found out the news about his relationship to the Bell family, he had felt like he needed to process the information alone before sharing it with anyone else. Now he wanted to tell Lia about it, but he didn't know when he would be able to find the right time.

"Do you really want to go to this thing?" she asked.

"What do you think?" Patch grinned.

"So we can bust out early and grab burgers?"

"Absolutely," he said as the doors opened to the Chilton apartment.

Once inside, Patch made the necessary introductions before he and Lia grabbed drinks and retreated to a corner of the Chiltons' dining room.

"I have some good news for you," she said.

"What's that?"

She lowered her voice. "Remember that producer friend of my parents? He saw your DVD and he really liked it. He wants to meet with you."

"Cool." Patch smiled. "I appreciate it. But you know I can't officially start working on anything until June."

"I know. I just think it's a good sign. And who knows, maybe he's interested in working on something else with you. I mean, it's not like a show about Chadwick kids is the only thing that you can do, right?"

"No, of course not." He had tons of ideas for different shows and doc.u.mentary projects. Besides, it would be good for him to get away from the whole Chadwick scene for a little bit. If he did a show about something that wasn't related to the school, then the Society couldn't claim that they had control of it.

Maybe he had never really needed the Society at all, not to provide an angle for the show, nor to help him get it produced.

"You look like something's bothering you," Lia said.

"It's just-" A few of the party guests were starting to walk by the dining room. "It's been an incredible two days." It all came spilling out: He told Lia about what he had learned yesterday morning, about Parker Bell being his real father, Nick being his half brother, and about his inheritance from Palmer. It felt strange to talk about money so openly with Lia, but he felt like he needed to give her the whole picture. "And then today, we found-well, we found something that we think might be able to get us out of the Society. Except that Nick might have messed it up. It's not really clear." Some of the other Society members had entered the dining room and were nibbling at the buffet that had been set up. "We probably shouldn't be talking about this here."

"Do you think we could sneak out?" Lia asked.

Patch thought about it for a moment. They had already said h.e.l.lo to Claire and to Mr. and Mrs. Chilton. "I think so. You're going to have to grab our coats, though. If they see me out there, they'll notice and ask if we're leaving."

"No problem."

Lia went to find their coats. Patch waited for her in the dining room, and then motioned for her to follow him when she returned. The two of them discreetly slipped out of the dining room and across the hall into the kitchen. A team of caterers was busy putting canapes on trays and barely noticed them.

Patch opened the back service entrance next to the pantry. The service area was a gray-painted stairwell with a garbage chute and recycling bins.

"Had you been to this apartment before?" Lia asked.

"Nope. But most apartments like this have a back staircase that goes off the kitchen." He looked down. "We're only on the sixth floor. I think it's worth it to walk."

They put their coats on and walked down the six flights to the lobby, where they were able to escape undetected. Ten minutes later, they were sitting in a booth at Genie's favorite coffee shop on Second Avenue.

They ordered two cheeseburgers, plus a coffee for Lia and a hot chocolate for Patch. After they were alone again, he explained about the trove of stolen art they had found. "You can't tell anyone about this, you understand?" he said. "It's up to Nick what happens with this information. We all promised him we wouldn't say anything."

"But I thought you were upset that he wasn't able to get you guys out of the... you know."

"I am. But this information is the last card we hold. And I think I have a plan for how we can use it."

Lia rolled her eyes. "You never stop, do you?"

He ignored her jab. He had some ideas, but his scheme wasn't fully developed yet.

"The story gets weirder," he said. "Have you ever heard of a caul bearer?"

Lia shook her head.

Patch explained what it was. "It's supposed to bring luck to the child who's born with it."

"You just said you inherited thirty million dollars. I'd say that's pretty lucky."

The waitress arrived with their drinks, and they lowered their voices.

"Parker gave me this big lecture about how I had disappointed him, how I was meant for greatness, but I hadn't exhibited it yet."

"How is he so sure that he's going to be the one who sees the greatness in you?" Lia asked. "Maybe your greatness isn't meant to emerge yet."