James Patterson - Confessions of a Murder Suspect

My blue pills were called HiQ. They contained natural ingredients that enhanced brain function, including uridine 5'-monophosphate, a nucleotide that stimulates neurons in the brain. But along with the list of natural ingredients and fillers, I found another mystery component: AP-33a.

My yellow capsule was called Lazr. Lazr was made of bacopa monnieri, a plant extract that improves memory and motor learning. Like the other pills, Lazr also contained an unknown additive: AP-101.

According to my growth chart, I’d been taking Lazr since I was one year old. Fifteen years!

What was AP-101? AP had to stand for Angel Pharmaceuticals . But I found no mention of any of the mystery ingredients in any other Angel Pharma materials or on their websites.

The next file I opened looked like a log of some kind. Each notation had a date and time, followed by descriptive notes about my brothers and me. One from just a few weeks earlier caught my eye: “Tandy showing increased levels of concentration thanks to extra dosage of HiQ, e.g., reading for six hours with no distractions or movement other than turning pages.”

How could my father have known I was reading for six hours straight without moving? I remember the novel well; it was one I’d self-selected, for once, because he and Maud were out that day. But if they were out, how did he know what I was doing? Who spied on me for him? I already knew that Uncle Peter was wrapped up in all this, and Samantha had been keeping secrets with my mother for years. Could it be possible one of them was also watching us for our parents?

I closed the Prometheus folder and thought about my father as a tireless Titan, developing performance-enhancing drugs at Angel Pharma, using these drugs to help his own kids achieve every kind of success, and then exporting the drugs to be used on kids in other countries, with the grand goal of spreading Angel-like perfection throughout the world.

Had my father really been a morally driven, visionary genius with a superior intellect? Or had he been a crass capitalist exploiting his own children for profit?

Was he courageous or shameless?

I thought I knew the answer.

My father was both.

78

I locked the lab up tight and returned to the living room, where I had done the six hours of straight reading noted in the journal. I had no other starting points, and besides, it was nice to just sit next to Robert and think sometimes.

I leaned back in the chair and pretended to read a book. I turned my head slightly to the left, and then to the right, to see from what places in the room someone could have been watching me, unnoticed. I’m always very aware of my surroundings, so it disturbed me that someone could have been close by without my knowing it. But when I looked around the room more closely, I saw that there were plenty of places where a person could stand unnoticed behind a giant sculpture, or even hide behind an open door. It just seemed so… cliché, like something right out of a bargain-bookcase mystery. Still, I had to admit that it was possible, and very probable, that someone had consistently observed me in the room that day without my notice.

That’s when it hit me: No one needed to be in the room to spy on me. My parents were highly equipped for any task. They had money, technology, staff. And Malcolm was a scientist.

I jumped out of my chair and started scanning the surrounding walls, my heart pounding so hard I felt almost light-headed.

I was running my hands over the molding above Robert’s TV when I noticed something that just didn’t look right. Sure enough, there was a tiny glint like a winking eye in one of the rosettes carved into the wood. It was almost invisible—unless you were staring right at it.

Which I was doing. Of course, maybe I was just seeing things.…

By that point my heart had started galloping—a very uncomfortable feeling. I dragged my chair over to the wall, climbed up on it, and got as close as I could to the little glass object above me. I stood there long enough to absorb what my eyes were telling me.

I was staring up at a tiny hidden camera.

I went and ransacked the drawers in the kitchen until I found a screwdriver. Then I went back to the chair, under the glinting camera lens. It was only glued on, so it was easy for me to pry out even while standing on tiptoe.

I studied the little gizmo, which was the size of a shirt button. It was wireless.

It was incredible.

It was scandalous.

This lens could mean only one thing: My parents had been spying on me. They’d used my cell phone to track me when they’d ambushed my escape. There was no reason to believe they weren’t filming me, too. All of us.

We were experiments , after all. Scientists need to observe their experiments as much as possible to compile comprehensive data. The facts you glean from dinner conversation just aren’t enough.

I suspected that the data on every move my siblings and I had made—perhaps as long as we’d been alive—was hidden somewhere in this apartment.

With a surge of anger, I threw the tiny camera as hard as I could against the wall. I hated it with a passion. I wouldn’t rest until I had destroyed every hidden camera in the apartment.

I paced in circles for a minute, trying to get myself under control. My heart felt like it might burst, so I took deep, calming breaths. At least no one had been in the room with me when I was reading that day. Cameras weren’t any better, of course, but maybe I could rest slightly easier knowing that I had leapt to a conclusion about Samantha physically spying—

My pacing halted when it hit me like a brick that I might have been onto something the first time. After all, who was the expert with cameras in the apartment?

Samantha.

My heart sank. Could Samantha have been helping with my parents’ experiments? I suddenly realized how naïve it was of me to think it could have been any other way. She spent more time with us than either Malcolm or Maud. She had scores—maybe hundreds—of files of photos of us. And family videos.

So what about hidden videos?

It might be possible that she wasn’t just Maud’s personal assistant. She could have been our parents’ lab assistant, too.

79

I quickly woke up my brothers , and we congregated for an ad hoc meeting on Harry’s bed.

“Look at this,” I said, showing them the wicked little gadget. “I found it in the living room. It’s a camera.”

“A camera? Like spies use?” Hugo asked. “Awesome! How was it planted?”

“It was just glued to the molding,” I said to Hugo. “And it’s not awesome . It’s terrifying . Someone has been watching us.”

“Who do you think put it there?” Harry asked, still stunned.

“Who do you think?” I looked at him with the answer plain in my eyes.

“Sick,” Harry said, shaking his head. “That’s sick.”

“Help me, Harry,” I urged. “Please. I can’t sleep until we go through the entire house and find every camera—if there are more of them—and remove them. I have a vision of some creepy lab assistant in a back room at the factory getting paid to take notes on us. Or even worse… maybe Uncle Peter is monitoring us.”

Harry got it instantly and pulled on a sweatshirt. We were not going to allow ourselves to be violated like this anymore.