“What I want to understand,” Phoebe said, “is why would he decide to help us? Why would he go behind your father’s back?”
Nick kept his eyes focused on the highway as he answered. “My grandfather and my father haven’t always gotten along. They hide it well, especially in front of strangers, but they’ve disagreed bitterly about a lot of things over the years. When he was a member in his early years, my father tried to rebel against the Society himself. And I think there’s something in my grandfather-it’s almost like regret. Why, I don’t exactly know.”
Phoebe nodded.
“All I know,” Nick said, “is that I don’t want my life to be like that.”
“If your grandfather doesn’t believe in rebelling against the Society, why is he trying to help you do it?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I’m not going to turn down the chance to make this right, to get us and the others out. I don’t know if we have any other option. We can’t work against them. We can’t skip the meetings. The police wouldn’t believe us, because we have no evidence. The only way to get out of it is to be officially released.”
“Has anyone ever done that?” Phoebe asked. “They don’t exactly seem keen on letting anyone out.”
“It’s not a question I want to pose to my father, not after what we saw on the island. I think we need to figure out this Palmer thing first.”
When they arrived at the Bell family estate two hours later, it looked as if it had been shut down for the winter. All the lights on the property were off and the ground was frozen. After parking on the gravel driveway, Nick opened the front door with his key.
“Home again,” Nick said as they stepped inside. The house was kept at a chilly fifty-five degrees in winter, and Phoebe shivered.
“Ugh, I wish I could just flop into bed,” Phoebe said. “Do you want to start our search tomorrow? For whatever we’re looking for. I guess we really should start now.”
“Oh my God,” Nick said. He stood in the central foyer facing the living room.
“What?” Phoebe asked.
Nick pointed to the space above the fireplace, and Phoebe looked up.
The Jackson Pollock painting, the one Nick had mentioned his mother had purchased at Sotheby’s for ten million dollars, was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nick sat with Phoebe in the living room, and they both looked up at the blank space above the fireplace where the Pollock had hung. There was nothing on the mantel, just a few family photos.
“Is this what he wanted us to find?” Nick asked. “This isn’t what I would call finding something.”
“More like the absence of something,” Phoebe said. “Maybe that’s part of the clue. Maybe we’re supposed to look for what isn’t there.”
“So we’re looking for something that used to be there in the first place? That doesn’t make any sense.” He rubbed his temples. A headache was starting to come on.
“Hey-more importantly: Should we tell your parents about the painting being gone?”
“We don’t have to. The caretaker will see it on Monday morning. Remember, we aren’t even supposed to be here.”
“Nick, they’re going to have police here eventually. They’ll see our fingerprints.”
Nick felt nervous for a moment before he relaxed. “We’ll just say we thought it had been sent out for restoration. My mom is always saying that the frame needs to be cleaned.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Search the place?”
They went through each room of the house, which was no easy feat, considering that it was a six-thousand-square-foot house with eight bedrooms and multiple public rooms. Luckily, because the house was built in the 1920s, it was not enormous in the way of newer houses in the area. Nick had always appreciated that; its size was manageable, and you didn’t need to run through every wing to find someone.
The house was immaculately clean but had that musty smell from windows not having been opened in more than a week. New Year’s Eve would have been the last time his parents were here.
After several hours of searching, however, they hadn’t turned up anything. It didn’t help that they had no idea what they were looking for.
It didn’t help, either, that it was four o’clock in the morning.
They went back to the living room and flopped down on the couches across from each other. “Your grandfather told you, ‘You’ll find everything you need at the beach,’” Phoebe said.
“We have no idea, though, if he was in his right mind.”
“Let’s think about this,” Phoebe said. “The one thing we’ve noticed is that the Pollock is missing. We don’t know if your grandfather moved it, but it’s all we’ve got to go on. So can we assume that this search has something to do with art?”
Nick furrowed his brow. “Maybe.” He stood up and looked at the space above the fireplace where the Pollock had been. He examined the panel, slightly darker, where the painting had been hung. Nothing appeared unusual or out of place. He pushed the panel, to see if anything would happen. Nothing.
Then Nick noticed something strange as his eyes ran over the photographs sitting on the manteclass="underline" while there had always been family photographs below the painting, they had now been switched out for specific ones. Every single picture of the Bell family was taken down in Palm Beach, where his grandfather lived during most of the year.
“I feel so stupid,” Nick said, looking at the photographs.
“Why?”
“Remember, he said ‘both beaches.’”
“Yeah, so what does that mean?”
“We’re at the wrong beach.”
It was a snap decision, but he and Phoebe knew that it was the right one. They had to find out what Palmer’s babblings were about. Nick wanted to include the entire group of five, as he felt everyone should be involved. Besides, Palm Beach would be a welcome break from the chilly New York January, as well as from all the Society madness. Making good on his request for them to keep their Saturday clear, Nick called everyone early that morning and told them to meet Phoebe and him at La Guardia Airport for a shuttle flight down to Florida. As far as getting permission, half the group had parents who didn’t care, and the other half would say they were staying over at each other’s houses. Half an hour after Nick invited him, Patch called back: he wanted to bring Lia, as they had made tentative plans and Patch didn’t want to cancel. Nick hadn’t met Lia, but at school the previous day Patch had been going on and on about her to Lauren and Phoebe and him. Nick knew that she worked part-time in a record store in the East Village and went to Stuyvesant High School, but most importantly, Patch was really excited about her. Nick supposed he should have been worried about the secrecy of their mission, but part of him was exhausted from all the hiding. If Lia lived downtown and she wasn’t in the Society, it wouldn’t matter if she knew what was going on. After all, who would she tell?
Before booking six tickets on an inexpensive flight, Nick placed a call to Horatio, his grandfather’s caretaker and butler, who watched over the Palm Beach property and made sure everything was in top condition.
“I’ll need to check with your grandfather, of course,” Horatio had said. “I believe I can reach him at the hospital.”
Horatio called Nick back in ten minutes and announced that his grandfather had said that whatever Nick wanted to do was fine. “I was quite surprised, actually, if you don’t mind my being frank. Mr. Bell said, ‘Whatever my grandson wants, you give him.’ We haven’t had this many houseguests since, well, since…”
“I know,” Nick said. “Since my grandmother died.”
“You will all stay in the east wing. I’ll make sure that the bedrooms are ready. Three rooms, you said?”
“That should be fine.” Nick figured that he and Phoebe could sleep together, Patch and Lia could share a room, and Lauren and Thad could share another. “Horatio, can you do me a favor?” Nick asked.