The Private School Murders

by James Patterson

“What else could it be?”

  “For three weeks?” Harry said. “Where the hell are we going? It only takes like six or seven days to get to Europe.”

  “Maybe we’re going to Australia!” Hugo said, bouncing in his seat.

  “Or Antarctica,” Matty said. “That’d be cool. At least there are no reporters there.”

  Jacob said nothing.

  “Come on, Jacob. Don’t you think you should at least give us a clue?” I hated being out of the loop.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and looked me in the eye. “All right. Here’s your hint. If you want to know how the court ruled in the case of your parents’ estate, I suggest you come on this trip.”

  88

  Once we figured out where we were going to be for the next several weeks, Hugo and I decided to explore the Queen Mary 2 to pass the time until the ship cast off.

  “Lookit that, Tandy!” he gasped, pointing toward a top deck. “Lookit that!”

  There was a shopping area the size of a land-bound mall, a three-story, red-carpeted spiral staircase leading to the Grand Lobby, a huge theater as big as Radio City Music Hall, and a restaurant designed to look like an English garden. A deck circumnavigated the ship, as wide as a boardwalk, lined with lounge chairs and so high above the waterline, we were on the same level with the seabirds in flight.

  After an hour or two of wide-eyed wandering, Hugo and I found Harry in the piano lounge. He was playing a jazz medley, drawing in people who stood in the entrance. After a stellar rendition of “Piano Man,” we grabbed Harry and dragged him with us to the main deck as the ship prepared to leave her mooring. Tugboats that seemed as small as toy cars had lines attached to our ship and began their work of heavy tugging as the ship’s horns sounded.

  Hugo covered his ears, grinning the whole time.

  And then we were being guided through the harbor toward open waters. The movement of the ship was powerful, graceful, monumental. For a while, anyway, I stopped wondering where and why and turned myself over to what could be the thrill of a lifetime. Like it or not, we were on this seagoing luxury hotel for an entire week.

  I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to enjoy it.

  After admiring the dramatic open ocean awhile longer, we met Jacob for dinner in the Queens Grill, where the menu featured tandoori-baked prawns—which Harry immediately renamed Shrimp Tandy.

  Then we followed Jacob up and down stairs and along carpeted hallways to his suite on the ninth deck. Jacob’s room was pretty luxurious. He had a flat-screen TV, creamy bedding on his king-sized bed, a wonderful abstract oil painting, and a wide balcony overlooking the foam-flecked ocean nine stories below.

  “Geez,” Hugo said. “Your room is much nicer than ours.”

  “Of course. I’m wealthier than any of you. At least for the moment.”

  He was wealthy? And had he just said we were about to become even wealthier?

  How could that even be true? We had been on rock-bottom austerity measures since he’d come to live with us. As far as I knew, we were being sued by Royal Rampling, who had promised to make us destitute.

  Jacob definitely had our attention.

  He opened a chilled bottle of apple cider and poured glasses for us all. Matty was leaning up against a wall, enjoying himself. I had the distinct feeling that he and Jacob had done some male bonding and that our uncle had clued my big brother in on this new development.

  Jacob sat in a round leather swivel chair with his back to the sea and sky.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news,” he began. “What do you want first? Show of hands on bad news first.”

  We all raised our hands high.

  “Don’t drag this out, Jacob,” I snapped.

  “Patience, Tandy. Okay. The bad news is that the court ruled in favor of Royal Rampling, who is your parents’ principal creditor. He was awarded the co-op, of course, and the furnishings, and whatever equities and bonds were in Malcolm and Maud’s possession at the time of their deaths.”

  “What about the Pork Chair?” Hugo asked. “Can we keep that?”

  “The Pork Chair is worth tens of thousands, Hugo,” Jacob said gently. “So are Mercurio and the Pegasus piano, and all the other artwork your parents owned, including Maud’s emerald ring. Unfortunately, it’s all gone.”

  “That’s so unfair,” Harry said. “The piano was mine. It’s like a part of me.”

  “I understand and I’m sorry, Harry,” Jacob said. “But it wasn’t in your name. Angel Pharmaceuticals is being taken over by Rampling Limited, and even Peter’s shares are worthless. He will be filing for bankruptcy.”

  Uncle Peter had a huge co-op on the West Side and an elaborate social life. I felt a little sorry for him. Uncle Peter without money was going to be pathetic. I didn’t think I’d be able to call him Uncle Pig anymore.

  “Did Rampling leave us anything?” I asked, seeing his e-mail to me in my mind’s eye. His offer to leave us something if I stayed out of James’s life. “Anything at all?”

  “The clothes on your backs, the clothes in your closets, and whatever personal items in your bedrooms, Royal Rampling can’t sell. As we speak, a moving company is boxing up your possessions and putting them in storage.”

  My fingers curled into fists. I wanted to kill someone. Not be arrested erroneously for killing someone, but actually kill someone this time.

  And that someone was Royal Rampling.

  “That bastard,” I said under my breath.

  “I’m very sorry, kids. This is pretty terrible and none of you deserve it,” Jacob told us. “But as I said, there is good news, too.”

  I held my breath.

  “Who’s paying for this trip?” Harry blurted. “And why is Matthew grinning like that?”

  “Well, that would lead us to the good news,” said our uncle Jacob. He was smiling now, too. Like he just couldn’t wait to spill whatever he called good news.

  “Here we go,” I said quietly to my twin. “More surprises.”

  89

  Jacob opened his briefcase and removed a worn leather wallet about eight inches long and four inches wide, with a buckled leather strap going all around it. It looked like an envelope for military communiqués, something I’d seen in a movie once.

  I held my breath as Jacob unbuckled the strap, opened the wallet, and took out what looked to be a letter, written by hand on yellowed paper.

  Just then, the loudspeaker came on, and the captain welcomed us aboard the Queen Mary 2. He told us endless details about the air temperature, ocean conditions, and distances in both English and metric formats. Then the entertainment director started rambling on about the highlights of the upcoming trip. I heard none of it as my mind riffled through all the possibilities of what we were about to hear from Jacob.

  “Okay, is she ever gonna stop talking?” Harry asked.

  The second she did, there was a knock at the door—Jacob’s butler inquiring whether he required turndown service. Jacob thanked the young man but sent him away.

  “Sorry about all that,” Jacob said. “Kind of spoiled the moment.”

  “Can we get on with it already?” I asked.

  “As you wish.” Jacob unfolded the letter and said, “This is from your gram Hilda.”

  “But she’s dead,” Hugo said.

  “Yes, she passed away twenty-five years ago, before Matthew was even born, but even though she didn’t know any of you, she expected that her children would have their own children, and she wanted to make sure that her grandchildren were… well, I’ll let her tell you herself.”

  He picked up the letter and began to read.

  90

  “ ‘My darling son,’ ” Jacob read. “ ‘I am still laughing at your delight in French pastries and small, silly dogs. My pampered life must seem so frivolous to you, and yet you seem to enjoy it. I must thank you again for the wonderful photos of you and your dear family. You have much to be proud of: a promotion and so many accomplishments at such a young age, and for being su
ch a good son, brother, and soldier. I love you, Jacob, and could not be happier for you.

  “ ‘Obviously, I’m writing to you to formalize our discussion of yesterday regarding my bequests to my heirs.’ ”

  Jacob stopped reading and said, “If I may summarize here, your parents received the infamous one hundred dollars, Peter got his inheritance in advance to start Angel Pharmaceuticals, and Hilda put my inheritance in a bank in Zurich. And now she goes on to speak of future grandchildren.”

  “ ‘As we discussed, I cannot spend all that my dear Max left to me, if I live for a hundred years. Given my condition, the general unpredictability of life, and the likelihood of Maud bearing children, I have set up a trust fund.

  “ ‘I’m appointing you executor of this fund, Jacob, because I trust you and because you already have the wisdom of a man twice your age.

  “ ‘I am leaving my beloved town house in Paris to my grandchildren, with one condition. They must visit the house and decide whether they wish to keep it or sell it. Their decision must be unanimous.

  “ ‘The trust fund to be divided by my grandchildren will mature twenty-five years after my death. The legal documents and account number are in your safe-deposit vault.

  “ ‘Jacob, dear, I have few regrets in this world, but one of them is that I wasn’t with you for all your special childhood moments. But then, we have had our unforgettable, even luminous summers, a priceless treasure. Even though you only left yesterday, my house feels empty because you are gone.

  “ ‘My love, as always, goes with you.

  “ ‘Your mother, Hilda.’ ”

  Jacob carefully returned the letter to the leather envelope. Then he looked at us.

  “That day she speaks of. Well, it was a marvelous day,” he said, his voice cracking. “Not just the poodles and the éclairs, but we walked around the streets of Paris and laughed and reminisced about many things. It was the last time I saw her.

  “She died a few months later of a heart attack at the age of seventy. That was twenty-five years ago today. The four of you are her only grandchildren. And, Tandy, now I can tell you why we’re on this ship and where we’re going.

  “We’re going to see your grandmother’s house in Paris. It’s on the Right Bank in the Sixteenth Arrondissement. I would say that this area is comparable to the Upper East Side, but with wide boulevards and beautiful gardens and not far from the Arc de Triomphe. You could not pick a better home in Paris.”

  I stared at Jacob, stunned. No one moved. No one spoke. No one breathed.

  And then, all at once, everyone started talking.

  “We’re moving to Paris?”

  “How much money are we talking about here?”

  “What about C.P.?”

  “How much money, Uncle Jacob?” Hugo shouted.

  Silence reigned. Jacob smirked.

  “We’ll let the bankers and accountants work that out, okay, young man?” he said. “But it will be a lot. It will be quite a lot.”

  Talk about surprises. Talk about one door closing with the force of a sonic boom and another opening as wide and as welcoming as angels’ wings. Screw Royal Rampling and his threats, his broken promises. The Angel family was going to be just fine.

  That night we all trooped to the stern of the imposing Queen Mary 2. I unhooked the keys to apartment 9G in the Dakota from my grandfather’s key chain, and my siblings took their keys in hand.

  With the wind whipping our hair into our eyes, we tossed our keys into the churning wake and said good-bye to the only home most of us had ever known.

  91

  Beautiful morning light streamed through the glass doors of my room. I was enjoying the distant hum of the engines, thinking about my gram Hilda, formerly characterized as fierce and mean but now clearly our savior, when there was a knock on my door.

  I called out, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Jacob.”

  I put on some sweats and went to the door. Jacob said, “Is this a bad time? I can come back.”

  “No, no, please come in.”

  I sat cross-legged on my bed as Jacob dragged over a desk chair.

  “I want to talk to you privately,” he said.

  He had another envelope in his hand, this one plain paper with the QM2 logo in the corner.

  “Another surprise?” I asked.

  “Tandy, transatlantic crossings used to be called passages, and I think that, more than for your brothers, this trip can be a life-changing passage for you,” he said.

  I drew my legs in closer, keeping an eye on the envelope. “I’m intrigued.”

  “Three days ago, you were almost killed. You rescued your brother from a very probable life sentence, and you found a decomposing body in the Dakota, along with innumerable poisonous creatures. The months before I arrived were apparently rife with death and betrayal, and I’m pretty sure your first fifteen years weren’t exactly merry.”

  “Merry?” I said with a laugh. “What does that word even mean?”

  Jacob nodded, then went on.

  “This ocean voyage is an opportunity for you to relax. I hope you will rest and heal, and that you will take pleasure in spending time with your brothers. You may never have an opportunity like this one again.”

  I felt tears pooling in my eyes. I never in my life had heard my parents use the words relax or heal.

  “Go to the spa every day. Get your hair done, have massages. Swim. Go dancing. Savor your meals. And sleep, Tandy. Sleep a lot. If anyone is found dead on this ship…”

  I started to laugh. For a couple of minutes, I couldn’t stop.

  “Here’s my advice, girl detective,” said my good uncle, his eyes twinkling. “If someone dies on this ship, don’t interfere. Stay out of it. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Uncle Jacob,” I said. “I understand.”

  “Good.” He grinned. “Now I have something for you.” He tapped the envelope against his knee. “It’s an e-mail from someone you want to hear from, or at least, you did. Now it’s up to you.”

  He handed me the envelope, and I tore clumsily at the flap until I’d ripped it open. I took out a sheet of paper, a printout of an e-mail, and saw Jacob’s name at the top.

  Just below that, I saw the subject line: For Tandoori Angel, Suite #9,023.

  My eyes dropped to the signature.

  My heart started slamming against my rib cage before my brain even recognized his name. But I knew.

  I knew I was holding a letter from James.

  92

  Uncle Jacob rose to his feet. I dragged my eyes away from the paper in my hands.

  “How did you get this?”

  “I have connections, Tandy. And I used them.” He smiled. “I’ll leave you to your letter.”

  “Wait.” I jumped up and hugged Jacob with all my might. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Then he kissed the top of my head, and as I turned, I heard the door close. I sat down on the bed again and read the message from James.

  Dear Tandy,

  I can hardly believe I’m writing to you with the confidence that you will actually receive this. For the last six months I’ve been at the Collège Belvédère du Pic, a boarding school in the Swiss Alps. When I say “in” the Alps, I mean at the pinnacle of the Alps, and although it’s the most expensive boarding school in all of Europe, it’s more like a prison. Leaving has always been out of the question, and there’s no way to communicate with the outside world without going through the headmaster.

  Two months ago, I escaped and found out fast that I didn’t have the skills or the gear to survive the climb down this mountain. I was captured within hours, in a whiteout that should have buried me alive. I didn’t even manage to clear the shadow of the school, that’s how ill equipped I was to escape.

  When my saintly father found out what I’d done, he threatened to have me charged with kidnapping you to East Hampton last year. He said he would testify against me.

  He wasn’t kidding.

/>   I’m going to spare you the rest of his threats, but let’s just say I knew I had to give up. So I’ve just been trapped in this mountain jail, worrying about what happened to you, wondering if you’re all right, and wishing I could talk to you, see you, hold you again.

  Then, two days ago, I was driven to the Swiss border and released without explanation. The driver just handed me a letter and left me there. The letter was from Jacob Perlman, and there was a wad of cash inside.

  He told me some of what was done to you, and I’m so sorry, Tandy. If I’d known what would happen, I would have found a way to protect you. We knew our parents wouldn’t like it, but I honestly had no idea what kind of torture they were capable of.

  I’m writing this from the only Internet café for eighty miles in any direction, including up and down. I’ll make my way to Paris, by train, by thumb, by foot, and I’ll wait for you to arrive no matter how long it takes.

  I want you to know that I love you as much as I did the last time I saw you. I’ll meet you at the Carrousel du Louvre near La Pyramide Inversée in Paris on Saturday. At 12 noon, if that works for you. God, I just can’t wait to see you again.

  All my love, James

  I read the letter again, then a third time, then a fourth. This couldn’t be real. In a few short days, I was going to see James? Actually see him, touch him, kiss him?

  Yes.

  I fell back onto my bed, clutching the letter, and wondered if the sheer brute force of anticipation had ever actually killed anyone.

  Because it felt just possible that I might die from the excitement that overwhelmed me right then.

  CONFESSION

  Here’s a little something you may have observed over the past couple hundred pages of my story, friend: I don’t know how to relax.

  My tiger parents went to the most extreme lengths to promote hard work and brilliance, even though it meant using me, using all of us, as guinea pigs. I was taught to achieve great things, to overachieve, to recognize excellence and go after it.