Confessions of a Murder Suspect (40 page)
Read Confessions of a Murder Suspect Online
Authors: James Patterson
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Teen & Young Adult, #Mysteries, #Mysteries & Thrillers
Until Malcolm and Maud were gone. And I started making decisions for myself.
Now it’s three months later, and yeah, I’m feeling things, all right. I’m feeling sorrow and excitement and nervousness. I’m feeling happiness and uncertainty and self-doubt. There’s even a little bit of hopefulness sometimes. It’s all emotion, all the time, and to be honest, sometimes I just want to down a whole mess of those pills again so I can have a little peace.
But the worst of all these new emotions is the fear. I can’t stand feeling fear. And these days I’m afraid
all the time.
I’m afraid for my brother Matthew and what will happen to him. I’m
afraid for my little brother, Hugo, and my twin brother, Harry, and what it will be like if we’re thrown out of our apartment and tossed into foster homes and public schools. I don’t even want to know what would happen if either one of them was faced with an actual bully. Harry would probably dissolve into a blubbering ball on the floor and get his butt kicked, while Hugo would probably—no,
definitely
—Hulk Out and tear whomever it was limb from limb. Then I’d have
two
brothers behind bars.
And of course, I’m also terrified that I may never see James again.
James Rampling. The only boy I ever loved, and the one person (besides my older sister, Katherine, who died years ago) I could trust with all these emotions… if I had any idea where to find him.
That might be the worst fear of all—that I’ll never get to experience true love again. The very thought makes my stomach clench, my heart pound, and my mind race.
See? Fear. I can’t stand it. And if things don’t calm down soon, it might be the one emotion that’ll convince me to go back to being Maud and Malcolm’s good little robot. To go back to the drugs.
To go back to being numb.
1: MURDER IN THE HOUSE OF ANGELS
2: LOVE IN THE HOUSE OF ANGELS
BOOKS BY JAMES PATTERSON FOR YOUNG ADULT READERS
A PREVIEW OF
THE PRIVATE SCHOOL MURDERS
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 James Patterson
Excerpt from
Confessions: The Private School Murders
copyright © 2013 James Patterson
Cover design by Tom Sanderson.
Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Image of woman © Stephanie Frey / Arcangel Images
Image of blinds © Peter Glass / Arcangel Images
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: September 2012
ISBN 978-0-316-20701-0
