Free The Trust by Tom Dolby

seriously.”
    “Dad, what happened in the fall was that you killed two people. Maybe not you personally, but the Society. And as far as I’m concerned, and from what everyone has told me, you pretty much are the Society. Or at least you’re the only part of it that I have any access to.”
    “Calm down, Nick. At this time, your family needs you. You haven’t even asked about how your grandfather is doing. What kind of a selfish person are you?”
    Nick’s mother appeared at the entryway to the library. He glared at his father. “Oh, forgive me if I put self-preservation and caring for my friends above my grandfather. It’s not like he’s exactly helped with this situation.”
    “Your grandfather has made more possible in your life for you and your friends than you will ever understand,” Parker said as he stood up and moved toward the door. “So I strongly suggest that you get yourself in line.”

Chapter Sixteen
    O n Thursday nights, Genie went out, a rare weekly event when she attended a ballroom dancing class and then went to a diner afterward for coffee and pie with her friends. Because of this, Patch decided to offer up their apartment for the emergency meeting. For a few hours, they would have the place to themselves. He had wanted to make it nice for everyone, and though there was no way it would ever compare to the opulence of Lauren’s apartment, he had straightened up the living room and even bought sodas and baked a roll of chocolate chip cookies.
    Thad, Phoebe, and Lauren recounted all the sabotage that had happened in the last forty-eight hours. Thad was still lobbying his school’s administration to keep the incident with the gin bottle off his permanent record. Phoebe was recovering from the vermin infestation and would need a follow-up meeting with her doctor to make sure she hadn’t been infected by the bite. Lauren was waiting for the verdict from Sebastian Giroux about the jewelry found in her bag.
    “There’s something else,” Lauren said. She pulled out her phone from her handbag and showed everyone a text message she had received that day.
    It read:
     
    AQ EKEPRLE FMPYD QZP OQL RMYD QPDRL?
     
    “Looks like gibberish,” Phoebe said.
    “It’s not gibberish,” Thad said. “It’s a cryptogram.”
    “A crypto-what?” Nick asked.
    “It’s a code where each letter stands for a different one. Lauren, give me your phone.”
    She handed her phone to Thad, and he punched the series of letters into his own iPhone, copying over the cryptogram.
    His face grew dark. “I think I know what it means. I used a cryptogram solver. It’s a little bit . . . well, it’s a little bit scary.”
    “Come on, what is it?” Phoebe asked.
    He looked at Lauren. “Go ahead,” she said.
    “It reads—and I think this is correct: ‘Do sisters watch out for each other?’”
    “That’s weird,” Phoebe said. “Does that make any sense to you?”
    “It makes sense to me,” Lauren said.
    “Why’s that?” Nick asked.
    “The text wasn’t originally sent to me. It was sent to my little sister, Allison.”
    The group was silent for a moment.
    “She’s not even in the Society,” Phoebe said after a moment.
    “Maybe that’s the point,” Patch said. “They want us to know that they’re not afraid to get to our families.”
    “Why Lauren, though?” Phoebe asked. “Why not any of the rest of us?”
    “They think Lauren’s vulnerable right now,” Thad said. “And she’s the only one who has a younger sibling who’s not in the Society.”
    “That’s true,” Patch said. “I’m just trying to figure out a pattern here. The rats were destroying Phoebe’s canvases. Phoebe’s an artist; that hits her where it hurts. Lauren, they put your job designing jewelry at risk. And the message to your sister is a further warning. But what about the bottle of gin? They could have done that to mess with any of us. Why Thad?”
    “You’re right; it doesn’t match up,” Nick said.
    Thad