Confessions: The Private School Murders by James Patterson

is devoting himself to his studies.”
    The article went on to cite Mr. Rampling’s business expertise and the size of his fortune, but the last paragraph was dedicated to my mother.
On July 14, Mr. Rampling reported Maud Angel, founder and CEO of Leading Hedge, a New York hedge fund, to the SEC for securities fraud. He is further suing Mrs. Angel personally for $50 million.
    Reading about my mother’s supposed crime still knocked the air out of me. Philippe had explained to me that Maud was, indeed, in serious trouble before her death. She had invested heavily in Angel Pharmaceuticals, telling her clients that the company was solid when it was actually nearing collapse.
    Furthermore, Maud had borrowed money and had issued false financial statements to hide losses, and when Angel Pharma’s crooked books were exposed, Maud couldn’t pay back her investors.
    Royal Rampling was her most damaged client, so he had called her out. On the night my parents died, Rampling had been poised to bankrupt her. I was sure Maud detested him. So it was no wonder she didn’t want me seeing his son. And maybe, just maybe, Royal Rampling didn’t want his son seeing me, either.
    It was about them, of course. Always. Always about them.
    A white-hot fury seared through me so fast I almostcrumpled the precious article and its photo in my hand. But at the last second I stopped myself and instead flung the rest of the folder across the room as hard as I could, letting out a guttural howl. Papers fluttered to the floor. The folder smacked against my door. It wasn’t all that satisfying, to be honest, but it was something.
    Clenching my jaw, I grabbed my robe and walked into my bathroom, turning the hot water in the shower as high as it would go. Then I stood under the punishing spray as long as I could, trying to catch my breath, thinking about the Capulets and the Montagues.
    But James and I were different from Romeo and Juliet. While Malcolm, Maud, and Mr. Rampling had succeeded in separating us, I wasn’t dead.
    All I could do was hope that James wasn’t, either.

29
    I had once defiantly told Capricorn Caputo
that I slept like a stump. This was three months ago, during the days when arcane chemical compounds were both focusing and numbing my mind. Now my brain was free at last and fighting for a comeback. Which meant that that night, I couldn’t sleep. I could almost feel the neurons seeking out unused connections, spanning voids, plugging in, powering up.
    The glowing clock next to my bed read 1:14 . I couldn’t quiet my mind no matter how many sheep I counted or lines of poetry I recited or digits of pi I recounted.
    Where was James? Had he bailed after we were separated or had his parents sent him somewhere? Was hismemory wiped as well? Did he remember me at all? If he did, why hadn’t he tried to get in touch? He must have had my phone number, my e-mail, my family’s address, something.
    And then, at exactly 4:30 in the morning, I sat straight up in bed. Maybe James had tried to get in touch with me but his messages hadn’t gotten though. It wasn’t like Malcolm and Maud to go to all that trouble to wipe my brain and then just let a letter or a text or an e-mail get to me. They were nothing if not thorough. Maniacally so.
    If his texts or e-mails had somehow been blocked, the next logical thing for him to try would have been writing. Good old-fashioned snail mail.
    I pushed myself out of bed, intent on searching Malcolm’s and Maud’s things again, but I paused. I’d already gone through all their stuff. If there had been anything in this house from James, I would have found it.
    And then it hit me, like a smack to the forehead. Not everything we’d once had in this house was still in this house.
    After Malcolm’s and Maud’s bodies had been removed and the crime-scene unit was wrapping up, the CSI people had carried off four cardboard boxes full of my parents’ personal files.
    Those files had never been returned.
    I