Confessions: The Private School Murders Read Online Free PDF Page A

new guardian walked down the hall to Katherine’s former bedroom, went inside, and closed the door behind him.
    Harry, Hugo, and I shared a silent, impressed, maybe even hopeful look. All in all, Jacob Perlman had been polite and clear. Rules, we could follow. Someone who treated us with respect and dignity, we could handle.
    Uncle Pig might have just done us the biggest favor ever.

7
    “I get it. The rules, I mean,”
Harry said finally. “He needs to keep tabs on us. That’s his job. But I have one question.”
    “What?” I prompted.
    “What’s in it for him?”
    “He gets to live in the Dakota?” I shrugged. “Plus Peter’s paying him, of course.”
    Harry said, “He’s going to be here until we’re eighteen. That’s a two-year job, right? But we’ll probably be evicted for nonpayment in a couple of weeks. So when we’re living in a refrigerator box under a bridge, what’s Jake’s plan for that?”
    Hugo piped up. “Don’t worry, bro. I’m going to write Matthew’s biography. We’ll get a big advance for thebook, and then big bucks for the movie rights. I’m going to be Matty’s agent, too, so I’m taking a cut for that. In a couple of weeks we’ll be rolling in it.” He kicked back with his feet on the table, his arms crooked behind him. Underneath his shifting weight, the Pork Chair squealed.
    “You can’t even spell,” I pointed out.
    “That’s what editors are for,” Hugo replied, grinning hugely.
    “Does Matty know about all this?” I asked him.
    “I’m working it out with Philippe,” Hugo said, referring to our attorney, Philippe Montaigne. “I’m drafting a chapter outline right now.”
    “When you’re not working on the website?” I asked, arching my eyebrows.
    Hugo sat forward, his feet slamming heavily into the floor. “Man. I got a lot to do. I’ll be in my room.”
    “First ten-year-old literary agent slash ghostwriter slash Internet-based freedom fighter in the history of the world,” I said to the empty Pork Chair. “But I almost think he can pull it off.”
    “Of course he can,” Harry said. “He’s Hugo.”
    I smiled as loud guitar music shook the photos on the walls of the hallway. Hugo at work.
    “I’ve got a composition due tomorrow,” Harry said, rising from the sofa. “Are you okay?”
    “Sure,” I said, glancing across the room toward the windows that overlooked the park. “What could possibly be bothering me?”
    A tiny line appeared in the center of Harry’s forehead. “May I make a suggestion?”
    I stood up as well. “All ears.”
    “Let Caputo be the cop,” he said. “He’s got a precinct and a forensics lab behind him. You’re just going to get in his way.”
    “Do you even realize that if it wasn’t for me the truth behind Malcolm’s and Maud’s deaths might still be a mystery?” I asked him.
    “Memo to Tandy,” Harry said, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Adele was not a relative, and she was killed with an actual gun. Murderers? They tend to not like the people who come after them. So I
suggest
you stay out of it, sis.”
    “You’re probably right,” I said with a sigh.
    He eyed me shrewdly. “But it doesn’t matter, does it?”
    “Not really,” I replied.
    He shook his head and we parted ways. Him to his room and me to mine. I changed into a pair of my mom’s silk pajamas—yellow with red poppies—and got into my king-sized bed, perfect for the restless thrasher I was. I plumped the pillows, stared out at the canopy of leavesacross the street, and listened to the variously pitched sounds of traffic.
    I thought about Adele, how she would never see another tree or hear traffic or kiss a boy or anything else. Right now she was on a slab in a cooler at the medical examiner’s office waiting for the forensic pathologist to slit her open from clavicle to navel. My empty stomach turned.
    What would Adele have done with her life?
    Who would she have become?
    Why did she have to die?

CONFESSION
    Since I’ve