Confessions: The Private School Murders by James Patterson Page B

Jacob. “I’m stopping by our lawyer’s office on the way home. I’m not grounded from our lawyer’s office, right?”
    “No. I think that’s a reasonable place to go. Any chance you’ll tell me why?” Jacob asked.
    “Nope. But I’ll be home for dinner.”
    Luckily, Jacob didn’t argue. My destination on William Street was one of many featureless gray office buildings that form tall canyons shading the streets of downtown Manhattan. By the time I arrived at Phil’s address, the elevators were disgorging personnel leaving work for the day. I hoped Phil’s office wasn’t already closed.
    When I arrived on the twentieth floor, I followed the arrows until I was outside the glass door that read P. MONTAIGNE, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW . I pushed at the door and it opened. I exhaled a breath I hadn’t known I was holding.
    “Phil? It’s Tandy.”
    And there he was, standing in the doorway to his interior office, looking at me with very sad eyes.
    “Tandy, I can’t do it. Can you just trust me on this?”
    “Not a chance,” I replied, gearing up for a fight. “Those boxes are mine.”
    He gave me this look like I’d just hauled off and punched him.
    “I’m sorry, Phil. I shouldn’t have—”
    “It’s okay,” he interjected. “I have to tell you something about Matthew.”
    That brought me up short. Here I’d been obsessing about James and my love life and my supercontrolling mother and I hadn’t even asked how the trial was going.
    “What? What’s wrong with him?” I asked.
    “He wants to testify in his own defense, Tandy,” Philippe told me. “If he takes the stand, it will be a disaster.”
    “How big a disaster?” I asked.
    “I’m afraid if he takes the stand… we’ll lose.”

31
    Philippe snapped on the lights
in the conference room, and we sat in padded swivel chairs across from each other at the glossy blond-wood table.
    I was sweating through my clothes and feeling sick over bulldozing my way into Phil’s office and ordering him around, especially when he was concerned about my brother. I pictured Matthew lying on a narrow slab in his cell, his hands balled into fists, angry, helpless to do anything except commit suicide on the witness stand.
    I said to Phil, “What can I do to help Matty?”
    “I don’t know, Tandy. Reasoning with him only makes him more belligerent, more entrenched. If there was a weak prosecution, his testimony
might
move the jury. Butit’s Nadine Raphael and she’ll vaporize him. My guess is that he’s having posttraumatic shock from so many deaths: your parents, Tamara, and his unborn son. I think he just wants to blow everything up.”
    A long silence followed as we both visualized the attack by the aggressive assistant DA and what would remain of my brother’s defense when she’d finished detonating him.
    I ached for my brother. He didn’t deserve this. Any of this.
    I wanted to see Matthew run down a field with a football tucked under his arm. I wanted to hear him laugh and see him bounce Hugo on his shoulders. I wanted him back in the apartment with the rest of us. A family.
    I wanted him to be free.
    Phil said, “Matthew is my problem, Tandy. I’ve had a chance to think about yours. You can look at those file boxes as long as you do it here, in this conference room, now.
    “Tomorrow I’m sending the whole lot to climate-controlled storage along with your parents’ other papers so that I will always have whatever I may need to protect you from future lawsuits. Agreed?”
    I was so excited my fingertips tingled. “Yes. Of course.”
    “I’ll be right back.”
    It felt like he was gone for hours. When he finally didcome back, he was pulling a dolly loaded with four cardboard cartons.
    “Here’s your one and only chance, Tandy. Make the most of it.” He gave me a bottle of water, a notepad, and a box cutter, then left the room and closed the door.
    Unfortunately, my one and only chance had a cutoff time. I’d told Jacob I’d be home by