The Sixes

Phoebe stopped abruptly. She debated whether she should even bother calling Michelson to tell him about the tarot card. Would he even care? The fact that the Sixes might know horrible details from her past and choose to torment her about them would have no relevance to the deaths they were investigating, even if Blair and Gwen were guilty.

She thought back on what Jen had shared about the scarf. If the story was true, it meant that someone was trying hard to implicate Blair—and perhaps by association, the other Sixes. That clearly suggested that the killer was someone at Lyle College, someone who knew the Sixes made a perfect target.

And that took her right back to where she’d started on Monday. If the Sixes hadn’t killed Hutch, then the murderer could very well be a psychopath, someone who received his kicks purely from killing. But there was now something new to factor in, something she should have followed up on before: the new man who’d been in Lily’s life this fall. In her mind she heard the line Lily had supposedly said to Amanda: Wouldn’t I be a fool to date a little boy again?

Phoebe glanced at her watch. It was almost four and she hadn’t heard from Glenda yet. She tried Glenda’s cell again, and when that proved futile, she rang the office number once more.

“I’m sorry, she’s still out, Ms. Hall,” the assistant informed her.

“It’s really urgent I speak to her, and she’s not picking up her cell.” Phoebe realized that she sounded like a child not getting her way.

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me telling you,” the assistant said. “She was going to pick up Brandon from school today and help him with his homework. From there she was heading over to a literary magazine fair they’re holding on the quad this afternoon.”

“All right, I’ll try to catch up with her at the fair.” Then Phoebe had an idea. “One more question. Do you know how I could find a list of all the school committees this term, and who’s on them?”

“I’m not sure who would have access to that list. Dr. Johns, of course. And probably Dean Stockton.”

Stockton was the last person in the world Phoebe wanted to ask.

As soon as she hung up, Phoebe realized she couldn’t wait for the fair. She had to talk to Glenda now. She draped a coat over her shoulders, grabbed her purse, and headed for her car. Glenda would probably be back from Brandon’s school by now and Phoebe planned to stop by the house. She would be interrupting mommy time, she knew, but she had to learn if Glenda had ever shared information about her past with anyone at Lyle. Phoebe had driven only a block toward Glenda’s house when she was forced to flick on her windshield wipers because the drizzle had morphed into a light rain.

To Phoebe’s surprise, the housekeeper didn’t respond to her knock on the door. She tried again, and as she waited, she detected music playing inside—a jazz song. Someone was home and obviously couldn’t hear her above the noise.

She pushed the front door open and called out hello. No one responded. The music seemed to be coming from the conservatory, and she followed it, like a thread. She reached the room and glanced around. There were speakers on a small table, the source of the jazz, but no one was in the room.

She glanced out the long windows, across the yard to the driveway. Glenda’s car wasn’t even there. Damn, Phoebe thought, Glenda must have shifted her plans. Phoebe backed out of the room and into the main hall, rushing to leave. As she took a step toward the front door, the landline in the house rang. She flinched. And then from just inside the living room, she heard a male voice answer hello. It was Mark. Phoebe froze in position.

“Yes, I understand,” Mark said. “But never call me on this phone again, do you understand? I told you to use my cell.”

Phoebe stayed still, holding her breath. It wouldn’t be pretty to have Mark discover her presence, but at the same time, she was desperate to hear what he would say next.

“Of course, I told you that,” he said after a few seconds. There was another long pause. She heard him clear his throat.

“I’ll have it for you,” he said crisply. “I said I would, and I will.”

Oh, God, Phoebe thought. He was about to get off and possibly leave the room. She tiptoed to the front door and snuck outside, scrambled down the steps of the porch, and bolted to her car. Once inside she finally breathed and fired up the engine. Before pulling out into the street, she looked back at the house. To her chagrin, she saw the curtains of the living room part just an inch. Someone, most likely Mark, was peering outside.

Had he recognized her? If he had, he might guess she’d eavesdropped and would have another reason to keep her on his shit list. But what worried her even more were the words she’d overheard. Why wasn’t the person supposed to call him on the landline? And what was it that Mark was supposed to produce?

She drove to campus and parked in the lot behind the student union. It was raining harder now, and her sweater sleeves and sling were soaked by the time she reached the front of the building. There were a few tables on the plaza draped with plastic coverings, but most, she realized, had obviously been dismantled because of the weather, and only a half dozen people now milled around. A dripping sign, written in script and propped against a chair, read, “Rain Date: Friday.” Phoebe tried Glenda again on her cell, but she reached only voice mail. She waited for fifteen minutes under an overhang, thinking Glenda might still show, not knowing the fair had been canceled. Finally, after the last table was hauled off, Phoebe tramped back to her car. The ache in her elbow had returned full force.

Once home she popped two ibuprofen and made green tea, hoping to calm her jangly nerves. With the mug in one hand she circled through her rooms, hashing over her conversation with Jen. She had to find out what committee Lily had been on and who she’d fallen in love with. That could very well be the killer. But there were confusing aspects. How would Hutch have learned about the connection? And how did Trevor Harris’s death fit into this scenario? Had Lily’s lover killed him out of jealousy? But that couldn’t be the case: it had sounded like Lily had fallen in love this fall after Trevor was clearly out of the picture. Phoebe grabbed her phone and dialed Jen’s number.

“Is there any chance that Lily started the relationship with the older man when she was still with Trevor?” Phoebe asked when the girl picked up.

“No, it started this fall,” Jen said. “And besides, she loved that guy Trevor. They were going to live together, and she was really upset when she thought he took off.”

“So she never suspected something bad had happened to him?”

“No, because he’d been talking a lot about how fed up he was with Lyle and with being hassled here.”

“Hassled?”

“About his grades. And by the campus cops. He told Lily they had it in for him.”

That was interesting. Phoebe asked if Jen knew why, but the girl said she had no clue. Phoebe signed off, promising to call tomorrow.

It was dark out now, and foggy too, and the rooms seemed to be shrinking, pinning her in. She knew she had reason to be on edge, but the fading light wasn’t helping. She dreaded the coming night and wished she’d never opened up that piece of cardboard. Why, she wondered, hadn’t Glenda called her? And where was Duncan? Why the hell was no one getting back to her?

And then, it was as if she had conjured him up. She heard a knock at the front door, and when she spun around, she saw Duncan through the glass in the window.

“Hey,” he said when she opened the door. His black trench glistened with water. “I got so crazed I never checked my phone, and when I heard your message, I decided to just hurry over.”

“Oh, God,” Phoebe said. “I’m just so glad you’re here. There’s something totally freaky going on.”

As he stripped off his coat, she began to tell him about the tarot card.

“Let me play devil’s advocate,” Duncan said when she’d finished. “Couldn’t it just be the Sixes leaving their own specific warning for you—that your fate is about to change?”

“Sure, I guess,” Phoebe said, flinging her arms up. “But the more I think about it, the more it seems like too big of a coincidence. Fortuna always left the mark of the wheel. And there’s a wheel right on the front of the card.”

Duncan looked at her sympathetically, but she suspected he felt she was making much ado about nothing. “Even if someone did find out about Fortuna—let’s say that Glenda mentioned it to someone—you shouldn’t let it cause you any grief, Phoebe. What difference does it make if someone knows about your past?”

“What if it’s more than that?” she blurted out. To her dismay, she heard her voice