Confessions: The Private School Murders (38 page)

Jacob had bought wine with low—almost negative—alcohol content and had gotten something totally booze-free and fizzy for Hugo. Harry and Hugo had gone to the store and loaded up on chips and guacamole, then hit our favorite local pizza place. They’d bought two extra-large pies. Extra everything. Especially artichokes, which were Matty’s favorite.

“Is he ever coming out of there?” Hugo asked, hovering near the bathroom door.

“Give the guy a break. He hasn’t had a real shower in weeks,” Harry said.

“Why don’t you set the table?” I suggested, kneading Hugo’s big shoulders. “By the time you’re done I’m sure he’ll be out.”

Hugo was just placing the last napkin as Matthew emerged from the bathroom in comfy sweats, his skin ruddy from the hot water. He paused at the entrance to the kitchen, whipped the towel off his head, and spread his arms wide.

“Meet the new Matty Angel!”

“Oh. My. God,” I said, my mouth hanging open.

Matthew’s dreads had been completely sheared off. His
dark hair was about a half inch long all the way around. He rubbed his head and grinned.

“What do you think?”

“You look like an alien,” Hugo commented.

Matty whipped the towel at him.

“Actually, you look like you’ve lost twenty pounds,” I said. “How do you feel?”

“Clean,” said Matty. “I can’t say enough about being clean. I’m never taking a hot shower for granted again.”

Harry loaded up his favorite old bands—the Stones, the Who, the Velvet Underground—into a playlist, plugged his iPod into the stereo, and dialed up the volume while Jacob laid out the food. As soon as everything was set, we attacked. The five of us ate and laughed and then ate some more. By the time it was over, I felt like I was about to burst.

At this point, some city kids our age would have gone clubbing and gotten seriously, unattractively drunk. But this was us, and we had Hugo. When the food was gone, we whipped out some games we hadn’t played in ages.

We played Apples to Apples. We played Bananagrams. We played Trivial Pursuit and The Settlers of Catan and Never Have I Ever. We cracked one another up until we were spraying fizzy apple juice across the table.

We were high on life. Matty was home, there were no
snakes, Jacob had saved me from certain death, and a serial killer was headed to Rikers Island, thanks to us.

Honestly, if Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny had walked through the door right then, it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal.

Jacob sipped his wine and basked in the kid stuff, laughing out loud, fending off the calls from the lobby about the noise. I watched as he and Matty chatted, getting to know each other for the first time. It seemed like they liked each other, and I was glad. Because I knew Jacob wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

At midnight, Harry said good night and headed off to bed. Matthew was next, carrying Hugo over his shoulder. He paused halfway down the hall and looked back at me.

“Home sweet home,” he said with a contented sigh. “Thanks again, Tandy. I owe it all to you.”

“Anytime,” I replied, my heart brimming.

A moment later, Hugo’s door closed, and then everyone in the building probably heard Hugo screaming and screeching and laughing as Matty tickled him half to death. The two of them would be bunking together until Matty figured out his next move, and I had a feeling that in the meantime, there would be no peace.

Not that I minded. Not one bit.

I cleared the table and tried to help with the dishes, but Jacob waved me off.

“Go to bed, Tandy. Doctor’s orders, remember?”

“Right,” I said, letting out a breath. I realized for the first time that there was a dull, persistent throb at the base of my skull. It had probably been there all night, but I’d been too happy and distracted to notice. “It’s been a long few days, huh?”

“That is an understatement,” Jacob replied with a smile. He gave me a long hug. “Good night, Tandy.”

“Night, Jacob.”

I turned and padded down the hall to my pale blue sanctuary. I didn’t plan on going directly to bed, though. There was something I had to do, but I’d been avoiding it.

The time had finally arrived.

86

I sat on the edge of my bed
and took the postcards from James out of the drawer in my bedside table. The card on top of the stack had the newest date, the fifth in the series of five.

The front of the card was a cityscape shot from the window of an airplane. The clouds were fluffy and pink from the waning sun in the foreground. The plane was heading into the night sky in the distance.

I turned the card over and read what James had written:

Tandy, Tolstoy wrote this in War and Peace, and I swear it’s almost as if he leapt into the future and wrote it for me.

“The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there everything is dejection and darkness…”

Tears came into my eyes. James really had loved me. But so much time had passed. He was with another girl now, and my fantasies about finding him and getting back to the way we’d been were not just futile, they were messing with my brain, with my life. And if Royal Rampling was on the up-and-up, they could even mess with my family’s future.

I took a deep breath and walked over to the shredder next to my desk. I ran the postcards, one at a time, through the metal teeth. I only hesitated once. I read the last note again; then I pressed on. When the cards had all been chewed to shreds, I took the basket out to the hallway and dumped the contents down the chute into the incinerator.

I know what you’re thinking, friend:
Are you kidding me?

But no, in fact, I’m not.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t easy. In fact, it felt like someone was slowly tearing a jagged slit through my pericardium—that’s the membrane that surrounds the heart—and then hacking away at its center.

Paints a pretty picture, doesn’t it?

So yeah, it was painful beyond belief. But I had to do it. I had to acknowledge that my fantasy of living happily ever after with James Rampling was over.

And now it was time to move on.

87

I awoke to find Jacob
shaking my arm. Again.

“Tandy, this is your second and last wake-up call. You have to get up.”

“Why?” I moaned. “Why, why,
why?
”

I cracked my eyes open and saw tension in my uncle’s face. What had happened now? More snakes? Had Matthew gone AWOL? Was Hugo hanging from the ceiling beams again?

I sat up straight. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, for once,” he said, almost disbelieving. “You need to pack. Take enough clothing for at least three weeks. Bring casual clothes, rubber-soled shoes, and also nice things for dinner at, say, very good restaurants.”

I watched with narrowed eyes as he walked toward my bedroom door. I was waiting for the punch line. “Did you finish off that bottle of Mogen David all on your own?” I asked.

Jacob laughed. “I’m not drunk, and this isn’t a joke. It’s a
surprise
, Tandy. So let’s go. That’s an order.”

“When did I join the Israeli army?” I groused, throwing the covers off my legs.

“Oh, and please make coffee after you pack. I’ve got to drag the others out of bed.”

I stared at my now-empty doorway, trying to piece this together. What kind of surprise required clothes for three weeks?

I heard Jacob next door in Harry’s room, giving him the same pitch he’d given me. Good luck. Harry practically lived to sleep. I pulled a suitcase down from the top shelf of my closet, bunched up half my clothes into it, tossed in some shoes, and zipped it up. I was officially packed.

A half hour later, my brothers and I were on the street, shooting dazed looks at one another. Each of us had asked where we were going and Hugo had even threatened to fart some more if Jacob didn’t talk, but Jacob’s only response was “It’s a surprise.”

He was putting name tags on the luggage, which was lined up at the curb, and making sure the bags were all securely
closed. About half a dozen horns honked, and I looked up to find C.P. coming toward us, crossing against the light.

“Hey, C.P.!” I said happily. “Come to—”

But she breezed right past me and basically flung herself into Harry’s open arms. They hugged for a second, then walked away from us, their heads bent close together.

“Wow, T. You got dissed,” Matty said joyfully. I shoved him as hard as I could. He didn’t flinch. I scowled over at Harry and C.P. They were hugging again and she was crying.

“Enough already!” I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes.

A livery cab pulled up at the curb—a big black SUV. “Harry! Let’s go!” our uncle shouted, getting into the front seat with the driver. Matty and Hugo climbed into the third row and I slid across the second.

Harry kissed C.P. good-bye—briefly, thank God—and got into the backseat next to me.

“Red Hook, Brooklyn,” Jacob told the driver.

Brooklyn? Not JFK or LaGuardia? Not Newark?

“Yes, sir,” the driver said.

Harry said, “Hang on a minute.”

Then he jumped out, exchanged a few words with C.P., and gave her a back-bending, tongue-twisting, totally disgusting kiss that lasted at least thirty seconds.