James Patterson - Confessions of a Murder Suspect

“Came home and fired a gun?”

“It wasn’t a gun,” I said, feeling my way in the dark.

The sound had been sharp, like lightning striking a tree or something really heavy dropping to the floor. Like maybe an iron. But who in this house would be using an iron?

Hugo whispered, “Samantha always stops in to see me when she comes home.”

I opened Hugo’s door just a hair.

“Look,” Hugo said, breathing loudly.

He pointed to a thin line of light coming from under the laboratory door. I gripped the key hanging from the chain around my neck. The laboratory door locked automatically when it was closed, and I thought I had the only key.

Clearly, I was wrong. So who had gotten inside Malcolm’s lab?

My thoughts were scattered, my focus gone. I had gone too long without a full night of sleep. I found myself thinking that there was an intruder in the house. Only it might be worse than an intruder. It just might be the killer.

The sound we’d heard had been the lab door slamming, hadn’t it?

I had to get to a phone and call, of all people, the police.

I was sneaking past the lab with Hugo when the door opened and the light coming from the lab showed the intruder in silhouette. He was a man I knew almost better than I knew anyone.

I screamed, “ Father! ”

76

The silhouette looked like my father’s —I swear it did.

But when the man said my name, I realized that the dark—and my fear—had tricked me.

The man in our hallway was my father’s only brother, Peter, and the expression on his face told me that he was as freaked out as we were. I could make out the shadow of another figure behind Uncle Peter, which disturbed and disoriented me more. Who would he be bringing into our home at this time of night?

He said, “Hugo. Tandy. Everything is okay. Everything is fine. It’s almost three in the morning. Go back to bed.”

Uncle Peter was holding a laptop that looked like the one Harry and I had tapped into the day before, the one with the memos about drug protocols that had passed between the Angel brothers. We’d hardly begun our real investigation of those files, and now Uncle Peter was taking away the data that could tell us the formulation and purpose of each of the drugs. There could even be information on that computer that would expose the killer’s identity. Had Uncle Peter belatedly realized that it held evidence that would prove that he had murdered our parents?

He spoke over his shoulder to the man standing behind him. “Wolfe. Let’s go. We’re done here.”

“Hey!” I shouted. I reached out and switched on the hall lights. “What are you doing, exactly?”

I got a good look at Wolfe. He was gray-haired, with tattoos winding around his neck. He was carrying two boxes of files. I thought I’d seen him driving a forklift at Angel Pharma. “You heard Mr. Angel,” he yelled. “Get out of the way, little girl!”

“This is nothing you need to worry about, Tandoori. It’s all company property, and Angel Pharma is mine. Just do what I tell you. Both of you, go to your rooms. Now!”

I don’t know exactly what set Hugo off, but he went back across the hall—and returned from his room carrying a baseball bat.

He didn’t give any warning; he just swung the bat at Wolfe’s shins. The man hollered and dropped the file boxes. Then he rolled around on the floor, moaning in pain. Papers were scattered everywhere.

“Damn you, Hugo,” Peter spat. “You little SOB!”

“You need to get Mr. Wolfe to the hospital,” I said, sounding very cool, even though I was this close to running out the door screaming. “I’ll take that computer.”

“The hell you will.”

Hugo assumed a determined batter’s stance and held the bat angled fiercely over his shoulder. “I’d give her the laptop, Uncle Peter. If I were you. If I wanted to walk out of here.”

Uncle Peter seemed paralyzed, no doubt distracted by Wolfe, who was still howling in pain. I took advantage of his moment of confusion and yanked the computer out of his hands, then jumped back out of arm’s reach.

My uncle gave me a look that could kill. But he didn’t move toward me. He’d been shut down by a ten-year-old.

“There’s nothing on that computer that will mean anything to anyone but me. I need your father’s records.”

“You can have them when I’m done.”

“Fine. Knock yourself out, Tandy.”

“Thank you. I will.”

Uncle Peter pulled out his phone and punched a few buttons. “We need an ambulance,” he said, sounding more disgusted than worried. “There’s been an accident.”

I pulled Hugo into his bedroom and locked us inside. Uncle Peter knocked and said, “Tandy, just give me the computer. It’s my property.”

I said nothing.

“Go to hell !” my uncle shouted through the door.

“You first!” Hugo shouted back. “Take the express train.”

“And, Hugo, you’ll be going to juvie for this latest transgression. You’re an animal.”

Hugo and I huddled together as the paramedics came and went. Then, finally, the apartment was quiet again.

Hugo had his bat under the covers with him.

“We aren’t safe here,” he said. “We aren’t safe anywhere, are we?”

77

I waited for Hugo to fall asleep, then slipped out of bed and got busy prowling through the files on the computer—work that was grueling, boring, and maybe even pointless.

The data was all highly technical. There were symbols instead of words. Chains of symbols instead of paragraphs. What text I could interpret was just as Uncle Peter had said—all very specific to the work of Angel Pharma.

I spent an hour opening folders before I came to a file marked “Prometheus.”

I got a strong and heady feeling that I’d just found the right door. Maybe? Was it okay to hope? Please?

The Greek myth of Prometheus had been Malcolm’s favorite. From the time we were toddlers he’d told us the story about the Titan, a champion of mankind, a wily guy who outwitted the greatest god, Zeus. Prometheus had stolen fire and given it to mortals. That ticked Zeus off, so he gave Prometheus a major Big Chop: Prometheus was chained to a rock, and every day his liver was eaten by an eagle… only to grow back at night… and then get eaten all over again the next day. Try to imagine that .

In light of what I’d learned, I wondered if my father saw himself as Prometheus, the giver of gifts to humanity through his mysterious pills.

I opened the Prometheus folder and found hundreds of documents that I could actually read—and mostly understand. This was the treasure trove of information I’d been looking for. I skimmed and absorbed and comprehended charts and lab notes and monographs describing the pills.

Uncle Peter had told me that the pills were largely made of natural ingredients. And that was true.

Mostly true.

And also—it was a gigantic lie.

Take this formula, from page 631, for instance: Harry’s red sleeping pill contained St. John’s wort and passionflower, potent apothecary herbs that promoted healthy sleep and balanced moods and also made pretty decent antidepressants. But there was another ingredient in that compound—AP-T1-4—that I didn’t know and was unable to find on the Internet.

What was it? What did it do ? What kind of side effects could Harry be having from it?