Confessions: The Paris Mysteries (12 page)

I found Jacob brewing coffee in
the kitchen.

He turned, smiled, and said, “A little early for you, isn’t it, Tandy?”

I put a fat stack of papers on the table, including Katherine’s chart, which I unrolled and flattened out, holding down the corners with salt and pepper shakers and a couple of trivets.

I said, “I’m pretty smart, you know, Jacob? Some would say smarter than ninety-nine point nine percent of my peers.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he said. “Is your intelligence in dispute?”

He poured two oversized mugs of coffee and brought
them to the table. He slid one over to me and pulled out a kitchen chair for himself.

Then he said, “I’m pretty sure I told you those boxes were off-limits.”

“Well,” I said, “as Katherine’s sister, I think my rights to her stuff override your rights.”

“My fault for not locking them up,” Jacob muttered to himself.

I continued, “I’ve been in the basement for about eight hours, Jacob, and I’ve found some very scary shit.

“I found documents, lab reports, spy agency inquiries, and in-house memos between Peter and Malcolm proving that Angel Pharma was experimenting with nootropics, brain-enhancing drugs, as well as mood-altering drugs and strength and speed enhancers.”

Jacob stirred his coffee but said nothing. I went on.

“Let’s look at Katherine’s official chart, okay? In one year, Katherine’s IQ zoomed from a pretty brilliant one hundred thirty-three to an astonishing one hundred eighty
plus
.

“Correct me if I’m off the wall here, but an IQ boost of more than forty-five points in the course of a year has never been achieved in recorded history.”

“You think Katherine was given drugs to boost her intelligence,” said Jacob. He didn’t sound surprised.

“You got it,” I said. His flat demeanor was maddening. I stabbed the chart with my finger.

“Here’s a similar trend line in four other categories: physical strength, linguistics, math, and resistance to pain.”

Jacob said, “I see that.”

He got up, grabbed a baguette and a tub of butter from the counter, and brought them over to the table.

I continued my very focused rant.

“This strength drug. MusX. Matty took that. It’s for increasing muscle mass. Here, at the beginning of the year, Katherine could bench-press two hundred pounds. Not bad for a female high school senior with a small bone structure.

“One year later, Katherine could press four hundred forty pounds. That’s about four times her weight and probably an Olympic record. Shall I go on, Uncle?”

“I’ve seen this chart, you know.”

“So you understand, then, that MusX is an untraceable synthetic steroid made in Angel Pharma labs. This drug, plus the brain drugs, and the strength and no-pain drugs, dumbed down to commercial strength, would be pretty valuable in drugstores. But in the
full
-strength form, in the hands of military agencies, it would be
priceless
. And I can back that up, too,” I said to my uncle,
patting the raft of memos from spy agencies in four countries.

“Maybe Katherine ran off. Maybe it was too dangerous to Angel Pharma for Katherine to be on the loose. What happened to Katherine, Jacob? Who killed my sister and why?”

“You think that, Tandy? That she was murdered?”

“It sure looks that way to me.”

Jacob shook his head. “Katherine wasn’t murdered. She was killed in a collision with a bus. As for the drugs, I’ll tell you what I know, but not now. It’s a long story. And right now, you have to get ready for school.”

I said, “After what I’ve just said, you’re going to talk to me about
school
?”

He said, “Damned right.”

I yelled and screamed like a wild animal. I threw my coffee cup hard against the wall, where it totally shattered.

Unruffled, Jacob said, “That’s enough. Clean that up. And get dressed.”

Then he left the kitchen.

I felt good about throwing the mug for about a second; then I felt like a drunken football player and a total idiot. I mean, throwing china is a true symbol of powerlessness.

I wiped down the wall and put the shards of the cup in
the trash. Then I grabbed the chart and other stuff and marched up to my room. I wondered if Jacob was telling me the truth about Katherine’s death. He didn’t seem to be lying, but experience has taught me that I can’t trust any adult in my family.

Like Jacob.

Enough said.

I dressed in my school uniform.
Which I now freaking hated. Itchy knee-highs and ugly flat shoes. No makeup. At all. Were these dowdy mouse clothes really necessary?

I was properly attired and backpack-ready when Monsieur Morel pulled up to our front gate. Not much later, I was at my desk on time, and it’s a tribute to my earlier education that I was sufficiently prepared without having studied. But I was exhausted from lack of sleep. I was also heartsick and paranoid.

The pills I’d once taken had protected me from depression, but now I was nakedly vulnerable to bottomless despair and the effects of what’s commonly called “birds coming home to roost.”

The birds were black shadows over my past, present, and future: my parents’ deaths and Katherine’s, along with the constant virtual threat of Royal Rampling, who’d made every black SUV seem like a messenger from hell.

The biggest, blackest bird was the unknown.

What was going to happen to the orphaned Angels? I was still a
kid
. How was I supposed to cope with things that were so out of my control?

No, really. How?

As I wallowed in my private downward spiral, I remembered a beautiful black lacquered box my dad had given me, saying it had once belonged to Gram Hilda. The box was inlaid with mother-of-pearl flowers on the outside and had velvet-lined compartments inside, in which I kept my very special high-potency, candy-colored pills.

A black pill and a pink gelcap would put an end to these horrid sinking feelings. I fantasized about taking one.

When school was over for the day, Harry took off for his new studio and Morel dropped me at home before driving Jacob and Hugo to soccer camp. I watched the taillights of the Mercedes round the corner, then went upstairs to my room.

I found the black lacquered box in the corner of my suitcase. It looked like a jewelry box, and it had probably been used as such by Gram Hilda. Inside the box was an
array of Lazr and HiQ and, especially seductive, the pink gelcaps I knew as Num. Num could take me to a crisp, clean place where there was no fear, no pain, no anxiety. It was beautiful there.

I picked up the ten remaining Num capsules and held them in my hand, rolling them back and forth in the cup of my palm. And then I dumped them back into their compartment and slammed down the lid of the box.

Didn’t I
want
to have normal human emotions?

Or had my parents been right when they’d told me emotions were a useless distraction?

I knew I should take the pills to the bathroom and flush them down into the famous sewers of Paris. But I couldn’t quite do it. I put the box back in my suitcase and went downstairs.

After a particularly awkward Jacob-made dinner of watery quiche, canned peas, and grapes, I returned to my room and opened my laptop.

I had letters to write. It was damned well about time.

Overnight, my somber bottom-of-the-sea depression morphed
into the foulest possible anger. Like a gathering squall about to break over a small island in the middle of the ocean.

I glared and grunted at breakfast, then got into the front seat of the house chariot with Monsieur Morel so I didn’t have to talk to anyone. When we disembarked fifteen minutes later at the convent school, I barked at Harry for walking on my heels.

He said, “Shut up, Tandy. Meet me at lunch. I’ve got something to tell you.”

At noon, I made it to the lunchroom before Harry did.

The Sisters of Charity didn’t have the kind of cafeteria
we have in schools at home. Tables lined a windowed wall and were laden with baskets of bread, a kettle of clear soup, fruit and cheese, and compotes of pudding. I was suddenly ravenous.

When Harry showed up, we loaded up our trays and walked together to an empty table.

I was fully aware of the kids around us, with their racket reverberating through the big hall. They seemed so young to me, so innocent. Nothing like me or my brothers.

I dipped bread in my soup, and as I ate, I kept my eyes on Harry.

His face was flushed. His hair was wild. His glasses were seesawing on the bridge of his nose. He was elated and hyper, which stirred up my darker-than-dark mood.

Harry said, “You okay, Tandy?”

“Me? I’m fine.”

“Oh, right,” he said. “What do you call that toxic cloud right over your head?”

“I’m
fine
.”

“You’re lying. You know it. I know it. And you
know
—”

“So
what
do you want to tell me, Harry? I’m not asking you again.”

“I’m not going to
tell
you,” he said, “but I’m definitely going to
show
you. After school.”

I was this close to losing it, but my brother was on fire,
and whatever had lit that little blaze, I had to go with it. I really couldn’t let him down.

With permission from Jacob, Monsieur Morel dropped Harry and me off at a tram that took us to Suresnes, a western suburb of Paris. Harry was still being a jerk, giggling, whistling through his teeth, as we walked to an address on Rue Honoré d’Estienne d’Orves.

I followed my brother up a couple of steps to an unmarked door that had been painted an attractive marine blue. He pressed an intercom button and said his name into the grille.

The door opened with a loud double
click
.

What the hell?

“Harry, where are we? Is this your studio?”

“Brace yourself, Tandy. As they used to say when the Beatles walked out onstage, your mind is about to be blown.”

Harry was one of the few kids in our generation who could get away with familiar references to the Beatles.

But then, Harry was named for George Harrison.