James Patterson - Confessions of a Murder Suspect

Mr. Thibodaux looked surprised. “You’re out of line, Mr. Angel.”

“ We’re out of line?” Harry said. “All Saints has been paid for our attendance for the full term, sir. We have every right to be here.”

One of our classmates, Gabrielle Harvey, was sitting close enough that I could see her roll her eyes dramatically toward another student, Colin Baxter, who was approaching Harry from behind.

I yelled, “Harry, watch out!”

Colin slowly cocked his fist, and Harry spun around just as Colin let his punch fly, hitting Harry square on the jaw. Harry went down, and Colin stood over him, shouting, “Get out of here, you crybaby creep! Get out of our school, mother killer!”

That’s when Hugo stepped in.

He growled, lowered his head, and butted Colin Baxter right in the belly. Colin sucked at the air and went down hard. He couldn’t catch his breath, and I thought maybe his gut had ruptured.

And that’s when things got extremely out of hand.

As Colin got his wind back, he began to wail—which resulted in a bunch of kids screaming for no reason, like they thought someone had just pulled out a lethal weapon or something.

In a sense, I guess we had : Hugo.

As Harry struggled to his feet Hugo ran whooping around the loft as though he’d just scored a touchdown at the Meadowlands.

“Everyone, please stop !” Mr. Thibodaux yelled.

But no one did.

I had never loved my brothers more.

Mr. Thibodaux was digging in his breast pocket for his phone. “Make no mistake—you will be charged with assault!” he shouted at Hugo.

“We’re cutting class today,” I said to our formerly esteemed headmaster. “Thank you for your help and your concern, Mr. Thibodaux. It’s been a comfort to us in our time of need.”

70

Harry went straight to his studio at Lincoln Center to burn off some steam, but Hugo walked home with me. As we passed a corner bodega, he stopped in his tracks.

“Hey, Tandy,” he said. “Let’s do something crazy.”

“What?” I asked, baffled. I was more than a little worried about all of Hugo’s newfound anger and how he was planning to channel it.

“Come in here,” he said, dragging me into the bodega. “Let’s get something we were never allowed to eat at home.”

And that’s how we ended up back at the Dakota, eating a box of instant macaroni and cheese for lunch at about 10:30 AM.

“This is vile,” I commented, reading the ingredients on the package. “I have to agree with Malcolm and Maud on this one. Like they always said, ‘You are what you eat.…’ ”

So, what was I, then? What were my brothers? What was my sister Katherine before she was run down in Africa? What were the ingredients in our father’s pills?

Not knowing what I’d been swallowing every night for the whole of my life made me question every single thing about myself, down to the size of my feet and the length of my eyelashes.

“So what do we do now?” Hugo asked me.

“Want to help me with my investigation?” I asked him in response.

I didn’t have to ask twice.

I grasped the key to my father’s home laboratory, which I’d hung from a cord around my neck, and slid it back and forth. I planned to keep the key with me until I had searched Malcolm’s lab and computer and found out precisely what the pills were made of and what their side effects were.

I opened the laboratory door and hit the lights. Hugo scooted past me, opened a small refrigerator, and took out a bottle of lemonade. I figured he’d been spying on Malcolm for so long that he knew where everything was in this place.

“What did Matthew tell you about this operation?” I asked Hugo.

“Don’t make me snitch on Matty,” Hugo said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Whatever they are, whatever they do, I like my pills. I’m going to keep taking them. I don’t want to change. I like myself the way I am.”

I had to laugh. I liked him, too.

“We don’t know what the long-term effects are,” I said, moving toward the computer.

“The short-term effects are that I whooped Colin Baxter’s butt. He’s not going to mess with any of us ever again.”

“Either that or the next time he runs into you, he’ll be armed.”

“Oh,” Hugo said. “Good point.”

The computer was still on and its documents still open, just as Harry had left it. I went directly to the memo file and skimmed many years’ worth of the back-and-forth exchange between Peter and Malcolm.

One e-mail from Peter to Malcolm read: “Tried adding four RepX on 4/13. No sign of side effects. Will keep an eye out and increase three Genner2.0 to force results.”

Malcolm’s response read: “Agreed. May decrease focus to increase Genner2.0, but can compensate with one Plav.”

It was chilling to read how casually these “supplements” were discussed. My siblings and I were mentioned, but the memos weren’t explicit enough to tell me what I really wanted to know. After another two hours of document review, the question remained: What exactly were our pills made of, and what had they done to us? Could it be reversed?

And if so, was that what I wanted to happen?

Being a “normal” girl had only gotten me into trouble before. Was I ready to try it again now that Malcolm and Maud were out of the picture? I trembled at the memory that was itching to be recognized, relived. My failed attempt at normalcy.

One investigation of mine might be hitting a wall, I thought, but I knew exactly where I had to go to start confronting the mystery of my own history.

I left the lab with Hugo in tow and shut the door behind us.

“Hugo, I think I need to be alone for a little while now,” I told him. “Are you okay hanging out by yourself?”

“Sure,” Hugo said. “Are you … okay?”

I smiled. “Fine, Hugo. In fact, I think I’m about to have a breakthrough.”

And I knew exactly where to start: that file in the cabinet I’d stumbled on earlier while searching Samantha’s room. The one labeled J.R.

It was time to get real.

71

I would be lying to you if I didn’t say that it was very, very hard to go back to that filing cabinet, where I knew there could be reams of documents detailing things I wasn’t ready to face.

So once I had the folder marked J.R. open, I took my time. Slowly, slowly, I leafed through the thick stack of pages of my own calligraphic replica of the poem “Maud,” one of several Big Chops I’d had to do after I ran away.

I forced myself to read every word of the tortured, dense Victorian poem all over again. A delaying tactic. How much did I want to find what else Maud might have tucked into this folder?

I could delay no further when a newspaper clipping fell out. Before I could read the headline, I saw a face in the accompanying photo.

Now it was no longer a hazy face in my memory, struggling to come into focus. It was plain as day, the handsome face of the young man I’d run away with. Dark blond, longish, straight hair—and the smile that had in an instant taken me in. Won me over. Made me believe in him. In fact, it had been the only thing I believed in, for that short period of time: that he would save me. That we could save each other.

There it was, in black-and-white. He was a real person. He was beautiful, yet frightening to me somehow. And he was missing.