He pursed his lips. “I believe I’m persona non grata at the tomb right now.”

Not right now. Just during the C.B.s. But I wasn’t about to get in a fight with him over semantics. I still wanted his help. Besides, if he wanted to avoid the tomb, I was cool with it.

“This seems a little overboard,” Poe said. “Given the information actually leaked.”

“Maybe they’re gearing up for next week,” I said. “Why, aren’t the initiation rites sacred enough for you?”

“For me, of course.” Of course. “But I don’t see it as earth-shattering to CNN.”

We sidestepped any unnecessary interviews, and entered the tomb, though I couldn’t see how we’d gotten through without being photographed from several angles.

“We were definitely nailed,” Poe said.

“And the Diggers have to realize this was always a possibility. If they were so worried they’d have built us a secret entrance.” Like I used to think they had.

“Always a possibility?” Poe scoffed. “They didn’t have telephoto lenses in 1831, Bugaboo.”

Up in the room of records, Poe quickly uncovered Jenny’s file. He skimmed through it looking for a phone number while I entertained myself snooping through the files on my fellow members. It may interest you to know that Puck was once suspended from high school for being caught in the girls’ locker room. With a girl. Seems his penchant for dangerous places is not a new one.

I moved on to my file. Wow, they had everything in here, from photocopies of my kindergarten report card to my father’s IRS returns. “How the hell did you guys get your hands on this stuff?”

Poe looked at the folder in my hands, then slammed it shut. “Later. Let’s call her folks.”

Naturally, we didn’t use the tomb’s telephone. “Just in case,” Poe whispered, and I was relieved to know I was not alone in what the others clearly thought were my more outlandish neuroses. Instead, we used my cell. Poe leaned in to listen, and I suppressed my instinct to pull away.

Mrs. Santos answered on the eighth ring. Her tone was cautious, halting.

“Mrs. Santos, I’m a friend of your daughter, Jenny. I was wondering if—”

“Who is this?”

I hesitated, and Poe jabbed my shoulder. But what if Jenny was at home, and had warned her mother not to take calls from society members? She might not have made a list of every possible patriarch, but I’m sure she’d guard against the current club, especially the Diggirls.

“It’s Amy Haskel, Mrs. Santos. I’m a friend of your daughter’s from Eli.” Poe was now holding up two fingers. The jerk actually planned on fining me for this!

“I don’t know you,” Mrs. Santos said. “Are you in Edison College? Where’s my daughter?”

“That’s why I’m calling. I think your daughter went out of town for the weekend and she has…my notes for a project we’ve got due on Monday. I’m trying to track her down to get them back. Has she been at home?”

“She has your notes? That’s not like Jenny. What project?”

This lady made my paranoia look like amateur night. “It’s an English project. Shakespeare.”

“Jenny isn’t taking Shakespeare this semester. And she certainly wouldn’t leave campus without telling us in advance. She must be at the library.”

“No, Mrs. Santos. She definitely left. None of her suitemates have seen her for almost a day and a half.” Poe was scribbling on a notepad. He held it up.

Don’t scare her.

Too late. The other side had gone quiet. “Her roommates?” There was a catch in the woman’s voice. “Have you notified her dean? Why hasn’t anyone called us?”

“I’m calling you now, Mrs. Santos.” But now that I did have her mother worried, I was afraid of what it would mean if I was wrong. Maybe Jenny was on her way home, or staying at a friend’s, or even holed up at Micah Price’s apartment. Maybe the rest of my club had been correct, and I was getting everyone stirred up for nothing. “You’re in the Bronx, right?”

“Who is this?” There was a new voice on the phone, one I assumed to be Mr. Santos’s. “Why are you scaring my wife? What happened to my daughter?”

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Santos, I’m not trying to get you upset. I’ve just been trying to get in touch with Jenny, and I haven’t—”

“You’re not the only one.”

Poe and I exchanged glances.

“For the last two days, all we’ve gotten is phone calls, phone calls. ‘Where is Jenny, have you seen her, have you talked to her.’ We haven’t, and she hasn’t answered the phone in her room.”

I thought about her cell phone, still nestled in my bag. It hadn’t shown any missed calls. Wouldn’t her parents try that number as well?

“Oh, Carlos!” said Mrs. Santos. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you worried.”

Poe was scribbling again. He held up another note. You think the patriarchs knew she was gone?

“So I want to know who you are, and why you’re calling us. You’re not in her class, because we know what classes she’s taking, and you’re no friend of hers, because we know all her friends.”

Maybe you don’t know your daughter like you think you do. But I couldn’t say that any more than I could say, I’m a fellow member of her secret society. “I know her through Micah Price,” I tried, because that was the only barbarian name I knew.

“That boy,” Mrs. Santos spat, “is no friend to our girl.”

Sometimes I don’t get parents. They either go to extremes assuming you’re getting yourself into trouble, or they completely underestimate what their children are doing behind their backs. The Santoses appeared to be the latter kind. They were about to get shocked out of their complacency.

“Ever since she started hanging out with him, she’s been different. She used to come home on the weekends, come to our church. Now she won’t even speak to our priest.”

Or maybe they understood the situation better than I gave them credit for.

“Have you talked to this Price?” Mr. Santos asked. “All her other friends have been calling, but from him, not one word.”

“So you’ve been hearing from her other friends,” I said. “No one else?”

Silence.

When Mrs. Santos finally spoke, it was in a whisper. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? The Brotherhood of Death.”

Abort! Abort! read Poe’s pad.

“So it’s true,” said Mr. Santos. “She joined with you.”

Poe grabbed my arm and squeezed, but I wrenched away. Protecting the secrecy of the society was not my main goal at this point. So far, the Santoses had given me good info. I wasn’t going to let a little thing like discretion stand in my way. “And if I am?”

“Maricel, hang up the phone.”

“Where is my daughter?” the woman pleaded. “If you are so powerful, you can find her, right? You can help her if she’s in trouble?”

“Hang up the phone, cariña.” This time the man’s voice sounded farther away, as if he was at her side rather than on his own extension. “Don’t talk to them.”

“No! You don’t tell me people are calling after Jenny, and I have to hear it from some stranger. So I don’t care what they say about the Brotherhood.” She spoke into the phone now. “You’ll find her, right? You’ll find her for me?”

“I can try,” I said, but the phone had gone dead. I looked at Poe.

His expression was grim. “That was a mistake. The Edison dean won’t presume malfeasance in the case of a girl who skipped town for the weekend, but if parents call and start raving about the ‘Brotherhood of Death,’ especially given the current media scrutiny, then there might actually be some police pressure put on this case. There’s definitely going to be more media attention. All undesirable circumstances.”

“Speak for yourself,” I said. “If there really is foul play going on, how can it hurt?”

“And if there isn’t, then we just committed treason.”

“How about this: My oaths to the society only pertain to the law-abiding parts?”

“If only it were that easy.”