James Patterson - Confessions of a Murder Suspect

My mother said, “Yes. It’s best to let the children find their way… in their own way. Mal? Do you want the last word?”

“No. You have it, sweetheart.”

My mother looked up at her husband, wearing a brave smile that tore at my heart. She said, “Thank you, Malcolm. I’ll love you forever.”

I turned away then. I knew it was where my father nodded and hugged my mother even harder. They were entwined when the seizures started.

I choked out, “Turn it off, Harry.”

Tears were streaming down both of our faces.

“I’m sorry,” said Sergeant Caputo. He reached out and touched my arm. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

CONFESSION

It probably won’t surprise you to hear me say that watching Nate Crosby’s illicit video made me cry, longer and harder than I ever have in my life. But it might surprise you to hear me say that I wasn’t crying because seeing my parents’ death was so horrible.

I was crying because it was beautiful.

That was real, normal love—right here in the house of Angels. A man who couldn’t bear the idea of living on this planet without the woman he married and had committed his life to. A woman despairing because she was dying and didn’t have enough time to make everything right for her family. A woman crushed when she saw that the man she loved was taking his own life, too.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t exactly “normal.” But it was the most tangible proof I’d ever had that they loved each other so much.

They loved each other. Malcolm and Maud loved each other.

In their deaths, Malcolm and Maud had finally succumbed to their most basic emotions. Love. Fear of death. Fear of life without the one you cherish.

Witnessing their ultimate sacrifice had somehow given me the most valuable lesson of all. Now I knew I couldn’t wait until the brink of death to finally be real and true to myself.

Their own Big Chop was going to save me.

84

I’m not sure I could have faced preparing a eulogy without seeing that video. As painful as it was, it gave me strength. If Malcolm and Maud truly believed we could do anything in life, even without them, I believed I could deliver this speech.

And I would not be a robot.

The press dogged us when we left the Dakota to attend the service, ran after us on the street, got right in our faces. It didn’t matter to them that we were orphans. It didn’t matter that we had been cleared of killing our parents.

As you might expect by now, the press was at its obnoxious worst. I hated them. They wanted interviews. They wanted drama. They wanted news. But we weren’t going to give it to them. We kept where we were going secret so the press couldn’t follow us.

Philippe was one of the very few friends invited to the extremely small, very private service at a funeral home on Eighty-third and Columbus. Despite how powerful and influential Malcolm and Maud were—or perhaps because of it—we didn’t really know who their true allies and supporters were, so we decided to keep the invitation list to the very closest and oldest family and friends. I actually think our parents would have been proud of us—for trusting no one.

Philippe took the three of us aside before the service began and, without ceremony, delivered some information that forever rocked our worlds.

“Your mother had pancreatic cancer,” Phil said. “Stage four. She didn’t learn about it until it was too late for treatment. And this kind of cancer… There’s no cure.”

Although his explanations were clear, my mind was foggy. Not because I’d stopped taking the pills, but because I was oversaturated with feelings. I wasn’t sure I was hearing him correctly.

“She was dying ?” I’d deduced on some deeper level that illness was implied in the video of my parents’ death, but it was stunning to hear the news nonetheless. “I just can’t believe that, Phil. We would have seen something—medications, trips to the doctor.…”

“She didn’t want you children to know, Tandy. You know how important it was to your parents that you be strong, no matter what. I imagine Maud visited the hospital under the guise of work appointments, or while you were in school.”

“It’s not like we were ever allowed in their bathroom,” Harry added. “She could have easily hidden her meds from us.”

“As if anyone would have thought a bunch of pill bottles lying around was anything weird in our house,” Hugo remarked, as astute as ever.

“She was a woman of many secrets,” I murmured, remembering Samantha’s words, vowing to find out more about what she knew, later.

Phil nodded. “I know how hard this is, but there’s more I have to tell you. The SEC had filed a formal charge against Maud. She promoted Angel Pharma’s stock and got all of her clients to buy in, but the company was crashing.

“She would have been indicted, for insider trading and for fraud. She wouldn’t have lived long enough to be convicted, but she would have had to endure her last months in a hospital jail pending trial. She couldn’t do that.”

I pictured my mother chained to a rock. I saw the cancer tearing at her guts every day.

“And my father? What was he thinking?”

“Malcolm was going to file for bankruptcy,” Philippe told me. “He didn’t have a penny that wasn’t borrowed. Everything your father owned was tied up in the company. But, most of all, he didn’t want to live under any circumstances without your mother. What would his life have been like?”

Harry’s eyes, so sad that morning, were now blazing. “You kept all of this from us? Even after our parents were dead? Even when this could have helped solve the case?”

“I only found out about your mother’s illness yesterday, from the hospital—I was notified of some outstanding medical bills. Malcolm’s plans to file for bankruptcy would have been addressed as we settled the estate. But the part about your father not wanting to live without your mother… well, he told me that himself. I only wish I had realized that he meant he was truly considering ending his life when hers ended. I would have tried to stop him.”

I shook my head. I kept shaking it, a wordless no , no , no , until I became aware that Philippe had taken my hand and was saying my name.

“What will happen to us?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. Your grandmother, Hilda Angel, didn’t leave anything to your father, but she put what she had into a trust for any grandchildren who might be born later on. I don’t think that the government will be able to take your inheritance from you, if there is one, but I won’t have details until your parents’ estates are settled.”

At that moment, I hated my parents. I couldn’t help it.

My parents had left us to pull our lives together without them. They had died penniless and with debts that would have to be satisfied. Would we even have a place to live?

And what’s worse, Malcolm and Maud Angel had cheated and lied, and their selfishness had hurt a lot of people. They weren’t just flawed, they were corrupt. And they corrupted their children because of their need for perfection. What could our parents have said in any “papers” that would comfort us now?

I went into the chapel desperately seeking good things to say about my parents. I tried to turn my mind back to the strength they’d given me.