James Patterson - Confessions of a Murder Suspect

For one thing, I had never forgiven them for Katherine’s death.

It was a hard kernel of anger that I could barely stand to examine.

And there was another thing I’d never forgiven them for.

CONFESSION

The kiss. Destroyed. Forever. Malcolm and Maud ruined it.

It was my first kiss. It was once the most precious moment in my life, an experience I could relive and savor and examine from new angles, like a piece of fine art. Now it was like a worthless forgery. I couldn’t see it in my mind’s eye, couldn’t feel it, couldn’t even truly remember it.

I only believe it actually happened—almost as if in another life—because I wrote it down. And honestly, friend? I wonder sometimes if I just made it up , like a silly little fairy tale hastily scrawled by a pathetic, caged child.

When I stopped sobbing, I pulled my diary from its hiding place under my bed and found the page where it is written. The book fell open to the page immediately, since I’ve reread the words so many times:

What I remember most is that the laws of physics no longer seemed to apply. Gravity was backward and the world was, I’m quite certain, moving in slow motion. His pull wasn’t a pull; I was just falling upward, and he caught me. There really was no beginning or end to the kiss; it wasn’t even really there—and because of that, it was tremendous. Our lips were just four sweet, shy people meeting, saying, “Hello, it’s nice to meet you.” But what passed between them was massive. Nuclear. And in an instant, every cobweb inside me was obliterated. My inner struggles, my uncertainty, my fear of tiger attack… gone. Just the feeling of being a newborn, a pure soul just waiting to be imprinted upon.

I slammed the book shut. Even after all this time, it reads as nonsense.

35

A knock at my door interrupted my thoughts.

I called out to whoever it was, “I’m not here. Go away, please.”

But there was another, more insistent knock. “Tandy, may I come in?” Samantha asked.

I didn’t want to see Samantha, or anyone else, but the knob turned and she came in anyway. She sat next to me on my bed.

“I miss them, too, Tandy. I’m sure your mother always wanted the best for you. But you know, she was complicated. A woman of many secrets.”

“What do you mean?” I searched Samantha’s face.

She seemed more shocked by what she’d said than I was. Whatever she had meant, she now choked it back.

“What secrets?” I asked.

“Oh, you know,” Samantha said. “Her past. Her mother and father… weren’t good to her. She never told you kids much about all that.”

“You can tell me now, Samantha,” I said. “She’s dead.” I gulped. It was harder to say that than I’d expected.

Samantha just shook her head. It was as if she still didn’t believe it yet, still felt she couldn’t ever tell Maud’s business to anyone. “We have to accept them as they were, with all their faults.” And then she was sniffling, too.

Samantha was the last person to see my parents alive, but I hadn’t thought for a moment that she could have killed them. She had no motive to kill Malcolm and Maud, because she had absolutely nothing to gain. She no longer had a job . And soon, she wouldn’t have a place to live, either.

I looked into her pink-rimmed eyes.

“Do you know who killed them?”

She shook her head.

I said, “I do accept them, Samantha, whoever they really were. I’m going to give the eulogy at their funeral. I wonder what I’m going to say.”

36

My mother had secrets; Samantha obviously had secrets; and so did I. Now I think I’m ready to tell you a really big one.

Uncle Peter must have come back on the scene, because he and Matty were shouting at each other just outside my room. So I turned on some music and took out my pillbox.

The pillbox, which once belonged to Gram Hilda, is made of ebony and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. I opened the box and saw that I’d forgotten to take my pills the night before.

It was the first time I’d ever forgotten my medication. Ever.

I was horrified—probably because my parents would’ve been so angry with me. I could’ve even gotten a Big Chop for this. The same was true for my brothers, and for Katherine, when she was alive.

You never miss your meds.

I shook out the day’s dose of candy-colored pills and held them in the palm of my hand: two green pills, one pink one, three white caplets, one multicolored round pill, two tiny black ones, and a yellow gelcap.

These were Malcolm’s special super-vitamins, which he’d brought home from the factory for us ever since we were kids. I’d looked for them in the Physicians’ Desk Reference and in the Angel Pharma catalog, but I’d never found matches for them. I had always suspected that our pills were Malcolm’s off-label special blend.

“They’re why you children never get sick,” he’d say if we asked. And since we were the only kids we knew of who pretty much never got sick, there was no reason not to believe him.

But I hadn’t taken my pills the night before—had missed just one dose—and then I had fainted, had an emotional breakdown, sobbed, and felt out of control. In short, I’d acted in a way that was just not like me.

I felt… like a lot of other teenage girls must feel.

Could this be… normal?

I wasn’t sure what to make of it yet. But an idea was forming. It was not an entirely new idea, but it had never before seemed so powerful. And scary.

Why were the Angel kids so special, so different from other people and from one another?

Were my laser focus and concentration, Matthew’s speed and agility, Hugo’s strength, and Harry’s artistic talent enhanced by this daily handful of pills? Had our father found some way to help us become more perfect, as good as we could possibly be, maybe even a little… supernatural?

If so, what would happen if we stopped taking the pills?

I’d already started to see myself break down emotionally. Were my focus and concentration and analytical skills next?

I dropped the handful of pills onto my bed and ran straight to Harry’s room.

He was wearing headphones and had started a painting that was both garish and strangely familiar. The colors were swirled all around, but I could have sworn I recognized our father’s face in the deep green, purple, and black shapes with striking white zigzags Harry was throwing onto the canvas.

I lifted one of his earpieces and said, “Harry—the pills. What are they for? Do you know?”

He shrugged. “You’re the detective. I’m just an art dweeb.”

“I think we should stop taking them.”

“You do? But why?”

“Until we know what they are, I definitely think we should stop.”

“What will happen?”

“I don’t know for sure. But listen, Harry—we need to find out.”

“But what if they’re… necessary, or something? I’ve never not taken my pills. Malcolm and Maud would give us Big Chops for it.”

“Malcolm and Maud are gone,” I said, probably more harshly than I should have, because Harry’s eyes began to water. “I just think we need to try this,” I went on in a more soothing tone. “Don’t you want to know what they’re for… and why we are the way we are? I’m sure it’s all connected somehow.”