The Sixes

Phoebe closed her eyes again. She felt woozy suddenly, as if she had just stepped close to the edge of a precipice and looked down.

“Do you want to go back to sleep?” Glenda asked.

“No,” she said, opening her eyes again. “I feel like I’ve been sleeping for days, and I want to know what’s going on. Talk to me. Is your job safe?”

“Don’t know. The board isn’t asking for my head yet. They certainly can’t blame me for Wesley, but the Sixes are another story. They were formed during my tenure. As long as nothing else happens, I may be okay—which of course, will drive Stockton crazy because he seems to want me to fail.”

“I’m so relieved, G.”

“Oh, there’s one piece of interesting news that I wanted to share. After I saw you at the soccer game, I went back to my office, and Val Porter paid me a visit. She had something to confess.”

“Do tell.”

“She said that last spring she’d engaged in some lip locking with a student—a female. They both had been drinking. This fall the young woman ended up in one of Val’s classes, and she began to feel the tiniest bit of pressure from the girl. After you filled Tom in on the circles, he told Val about them, and she began to suspect that the girl was in the Sixes, and had targeted Val to be part of the girl’s fifth circle. Val swears she never altered the girl’s grade. But she was hysterical she might have jeopardized her job.”

“That may explain why I heard her tossing her lunch in the ladies’ room,” Phoebe said. She looked off, thinking. “Do you think she’s only telling you part of the story? I heard that Blair used to consult with someone, that there might be another person pulling the strings for the Sixes. Do you think it could have been Val? It would make sense if you think about her interest in woman’s empowerment.”

Glenda shook her head slowly.

“I don’t think so. Val seemed borderline hysterical to me.”

“What about the girls in the Sixes?” Phoebe asked. “Are you putting names together?”

“We still can’t establish for sure that anyone’s a member—even Blair and Gwen. There’s no proof. One of them is going to have to be willing to tattle.”

“Damn. There’s one girl who I may be able to put pressure on, but first I need to use her for something else.”

“Leave that alone for now. You need to think about recovering. In fact, why don’t I let you rest again? I can see you’re sleepy.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“There’s just one other thing I wanted to tell you. Duncan called me as soon as he heard the news about you.”

“Really?” Phoebe said quietly.

“He told me that you two were no longer seeing each other, but he wanted to make sure you were all right. And he wanted me to tell you he’d asked about you.”

Phoebe leaned her head back on the pillow, hesitating.

“Yeah, he didn’t take too kindly to me insinuating that he might be a murderer. I guess that’s not something you find in a Cosmo article on ‘50 Ways to Turn Your Man into a Mush Ball.’ ”

Glenda smiled wanly. “I’m sorry, Fee,” she said. “Maybe it’s for the best, though. After all, you won’t be here forever. And now, I’ll have to beg to even have you stay next term.”

After Glenda had left, Phoebe forced herself to eat the soupy ice cream in the container on the tray. A nurse stopped in and checked her vital signs. Phoebe lay back ready to sleep, but she seemed too jumped up inside.

Wesley was in jail. She had nothing to fear from him now. But there wasn’t really closure. The Sixes were still out there, unfettered. With Blair and Gwen back in the mix, they might gather strength again, wreaking havoc.

And somewhere on the campus, someone knew about Fortuna.

32

FOR THE NEXT few days Phoebe holed up at her house, trying to rest and eating food that Glenda or her housekeeper dropped off. Her story had made the local paper this time, which spawned coverage nearly everywhere. She was inundated with e-mails—from colleagues on campus as well as friends in Manhattan and L.A. She answered a few but didn’t have the psychic energy for more than that. There were a ton of interview requests, too. Through her agent she said no to all of them for now, except the one from Peter Tobias. She didn’t dignify his with a response.

A few times a day Phoebe took Ginger out for a walk, going a little bit farther on each trip. She felt so grateful to have the dog. She sensed that without Ginger curled on the couch beside her or trailing behind her in the house, she would have been swallowed alive by malaise. And there was nighttime Ginger to be grateful for, too. She turned out to be a brilliant little watchdog, who barked every time a leaf blew onto the porch. But even with Ginger keeping guard, Phoebe slept fitfully.

Late Monday night, Jan Wait phoned her, and when she saw the name, Phoebe made a quick decision not to let the call go to voice mail.

“Phoebe, you have to let me know if I can do anything,” Jan said. “I’d drop off a ham, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t eat it.”

Phoebe laughed and assured Jan she would reach out if she needed anything.

“I should let you get back to resting,” Jan said after they talked for a couple minutes about school matters. “But before I do, I want to apologize for making you sound like an idiot the other day. My darling husband has confessed to me that he does have angina.”

So Duncan had told the truth about that, too. After Phoebe signed off, thoughts of him trampled through her brain. She’d done her best to keep him at bay—with only moderate success. She felt almost sick with regret, and yet she knew there was nothing she could do.

On Tuesday she e-mailed the students in her two classes, saying she would be back the next Monday but that in the meantime she wanted them to complete an assignment online by Friday. At the end of the e-mail she sent to Jen Imbibio, she added a short message: “We need to talk as soon as possible.”

An hour later, there was a curt reply: “I wish I could, but I’m very busy right now.”

“This can’t wait,” Phoebe replied. “Should I look for you in the cafeteria?”

That seemed to do the trick.

“No. I’ll come to your house again.”

The girl arrived the next morning, wearing tight jeans, a jean jacket, and a newsboy cap. She looked jaunty and smug today, her confidence temporarily restored. She obviously had no clue that the college was about to smoke out the Sixes.

“I’m disappointed I didn’t hear from you,” Phoebe said. “I took care of my end of the bargain. This was supposed to be a fair swap.”

“I was going to get in touch,” Jen said. “I really was. But then I heard you were in the hospital.”

“Tell me what you found out about Fortuna.”

The girl shrugged. “Nothing more. I did what you suggested to another member—told her I’d overheard you talking about the Sixes and Fortuna—and she just looked at me as if she had no clue what I was talking about.”

“And the girl who’s now in charge. She doesn’t know anything?”

“I don’t think so.”

“And that’s Rachel, right?” Phoebe said, making a guess.

“Yeah—” Jen caught herself. “How—? Look, I never said it was Rachel.”

“What about the sixth circle? If they’re supposedly setting you up in the outside world, how are they doing