How to Lead a Life of Crime (32 page)

“I will never feel sorry for you,” I growl. “You killed my brother and murdered my mother. You’re a f—ing monster.”

“If you really believe that, then why didn’t you destroy me back there when you had the chance?”

“Why don’t I do it right now?”

“Flick, no!” Joi grabs hold of me.

“Why not?!”

“She doesn’t hate me like you do,” my dad says. “Maybe she’s able to see something you can’t.”

“Joi never saw Jude lying dead on an embalming table. She never saw mom bawling her eyes out every time you found where she’d hidden us. Joi never saw you hit a ten-year-old for spilling your Scotch. You can pretend you’ve had some big epiphany, but I’ll always see you for who you are. A liar, a bully, and a murderer. And I’m going to make sure your little boy knows it too. What’s his name, by the way?”

“His name is Frank.”

“That’s goddamned sick. Take this.” I thrust the Taser at Joi. “He won’t make it to the police station if I’m the one holding it.”

I stomp off toward the crowd ahead, leaving Joi to wrangle my father. Ella joins me just as the wail of fire engines reaches my ears. They can’t be more than a few blocks away. Without any traffic to stop them, they’ll be on the scene within seconds.

“We should break up into smaller groups,” Ella notes. When I can’t speak, she takes charge. “Split into teams of three or four!” she shouts at the other students. “Head in different directions. We’ll meet up again on the corner of Pitt and Rivington.”

I check to see if Joi’s heard the order. She and my father are standing on the sidewalk half a block behind me. They haven’t moved since I gave her the Taser. I see my dad’s lips moving. Whatever he’s saying has stunned her. I rush back, fists clenched, ready to kill the bastard once and for all. The fire trucks have turned the corner onto our street, and the sirens are deafening. I take Joi’s arm. When she looks up at me, there are tears in her eyes.

“What did he tell you!” I shout.

She lifts herself up on her tiptoes. I feel her lips brush my ear. “He says your mother’s alive.”

My eyes snap up. My father is standing a few inches from the curb. I can’t hear his voice, but his words couldn’t be clearer.

“I’m not a monster.”

Then he takes a step backward into the street. Right in front of the first fire engine.

EPILOGUE

PETER LIVES

I
never saw the body. I never even heard the thump. I was still expecting my father to reappear when I realized Joi had my hand and we both were running.

She kept trying to stop, but I just kept on going. Faster and faster, until she finally tackled me. I remember hitting the ground and wondering why it felt so soft. When I rolled over I saw green leaves and blue sky and Joi’s beautiful face.

For a moment I was sure we were both in Never Land. “Where are we?” I heard myself shout. “What is this place? What’s happened to us?”

“Shhh, Flick,” Joi hushed me. “It’s Seward Park. We’re safe.”

“Where’s my dad?” I demanded.

“I’m so sorry.” She tried to hug me, but I pushed her back.

“He’s not dead! It’s some kind of trick! He’s a liar, Joi. A big f—ing liar! He told you my mom is alive so I’d just have to lose her again!”

“He gave me an address,” Joi replied softly. “It’s somewhere upstate. In the Hudson Valley.”

“It’s a graveyard!” I insisted. “He’s a monster.”

“Maybe he was,” Joi said. “But he might not have died one. We’ll take the next train we can get.”

“I’m not going.”

“We’re going together.”

“But what if . . .” What if she’s dead, I thought. What if he’d found another way to hurt me? And what if she’s not dead, I wondered. What would it mean? “Not today. Please? Not today.”

“All right, then.” Joi covered my face with kisses before she whispered, “Tomorrow.”

I don’t know how long we spent lying there on the grass in Seward Park. But when we finally arrived at the colony on Pitt Street, we found our fellow escapees had gotten there hours before we did. It seemed like every inch of the basement had been claimed by a slumbering kid. But they’d left Joi’s room just for us. We collapsed on the lumpy old bed with our clothes still on. I kept my arms around Joi and my face buried deep in her hair while I waited for Peter Pan to slip through the window. I thought I needed him to tell me what I should do. But he never showed up. He left me alone with a girl who smelled of jasmine and cocoa butter. And before I fell asleep, I finally realized that was more than enough.

• • •

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when Tina knocked and the door burst open. Curly, Dartagnan, and a dozen other kids rushed in to welcome us back. Once they’d all gotten hugs from Joi, Tina ushered them out again. Then she gave us each a cup of strong coffee and handed over an iPhone.

The Mandel Academy was all over the news. The earliest stories had focused on the tragic loss of a beloved institution and the presumed deaths of all the teenagers inside. Then sometime around ten in the morning, the firefighters had found Mandel’s lab. The old part of the building may have burned to the ground, but the bottom two floors remained intact. A half hour later, one of New York’s Bravest discovered the morgue.

We knew then that it was only a matter of time before the investigation widened. Within hours, any building owned by Lucian Mandel would be locked up and labeled a potential crime scene. So Joi and I hurried to the artist’s studio in Greenwich Village, only to find that the alumni files had been moved. They weren’t at Mandel’s house on Tenth Street either. I wanted to keep looking, but Joi refused. The files could wait, and I needed my rest. Our train would be leaving first thing the next morning.

I argued and pleaded. I wanted her to see that what my father had told her didn’t make any sense. He claimed that he’d staged my mother’s death. The sedative in the syringe had knocked her out. But the dose wasn’t enough to kill her. He swore he was trying to protect her from Lucian Mandel. Even up to the very last moment. Even when I was on the verge of beating him to death. He would have gone to his grave before he’d let Mandel know that my mother was alive.

But like the rest of my dad’s stories, it was all a big lie. Why would he have gone to such trouble to save a life he’d tried so hard to ruin?

“I don’t know,” Joi admitted.

“And even if he did hide her away, why did she stay? Why did she let him remarry and father a son? Why didn’t she try to find me?”

“I don’t know,” Joi said. “But if your mother’s alive, you need to ask her.”

• • •

The address my father gave Joi belonged to a Victorian mansion set on a lush, rolling lawn.

“Do you know the name of the people who live here?” Joi asked the cabbie who’d picked us up at the train station.

“It’s not a house, miss,” he said as he turned up the drive. “It’s a mental institution.”

The lady at the front desk shook her head when I asked to see Elizabeth Brennan. “We don’t have any patients here by that name.”

I took a step back, but Joi didn’t budge. “What was her maiden name?”

“Chapman,” I said.

The woman’s brow furrowed. “What’s your relation to Beth Chapman?”

Joi nudged me when I didn’t speak. “I’m her son.”

“Excuse me for a moment.” The woman slipped out of her chair. A few seconds later, she returned with a nurse.

The nurse didn’t seem pleased to see me. “You say you’re Beth Chapman’s son?”

“Yes, my name is Jonathan Brennan.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” she announced. “Beth’s sons are both dead.”

That’s why she never tried to find me. He must have told her that I was gone too.

“His brother, Jude, was the one who died,” Joi informed the nurse.

“I was . . . I was . . .” I couldn’t get the rest out.

“He’s been away at school,” Joi said. “He just discovered that his mother is here.”

“Don’t move,” the nurse ordered. “I’ll be right back.”

There was a framed picture in her hand when she marched back into the lobby. The nurse glanced down at the photo of me, Jude, and my mother. When she looked back up, she was smiling.

“Well, what do you know?” the nurse marveled. “Beth told me a few days ago that her son would be coming. She’s been waiting for you ever since. The doctor thought her condition had worsened. I wonder what he’ll have to say about this.”

“Can I see her?” I croaked.

“I don’t know why not. After all, she’s expecting you. Follow me. Beth’s room is right down the hall.”

“Why is she here?” I asked as the nurse guided us through a security door. “What exactly is her condition?”

“Chronic hallucinatory psychosis.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Joi was the one who answered. “It means she speaks to people no one else can see.”

My hands were trembling when I opened the door. I was terrified of what I might find on the other side. A padded room. A lunatic strapped into a straitjacket. A madwoman babbling away at the walls. But I saw a bright, sunny chamber filled with furniture my mother might have chosen herself. A small, blond woman sat by the window, watching as sprinklers watered the endless green lawn. She wore chinos and red espadrilles. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her linen shirt was the color of the sky.

“You’re here!” She was in my arms before I had a chance to say anything. She sounded elated. But she didn’t seem surprised.

“Who told you I was coming?” I asked when she finally let me go. “Was it Dad?”

She answered with a smile. A real one.

“Was it Jude?” I bent down and whispered into her ear. “Do you speak to Jude, Mom?”

“Not anymore,” she replied. “Jude’s in Never Land now.”

• • •

That night at the colony, Jude sent me one last dream. Peter Pan wasn’t in it. This time Jude was just a kid in a T-shirt and jeans.

“You gonna be okay?” he asked me.

“Yeah,” I told him. “You?”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” he promised.

“Then I guess I should go. I’ll miss you, Jude.”

“You know where to find me. I’m not going anywhere.”

I gave him a hug and left him behind. I could hear announcements being made, and I could see strangers milling about in the background. Then I realized I was at JFK Airport, about to board a plane to Savannah. It was the day I left for military school.

I looked over my shoulder. Jude was standing beside my mother, waving at me. I’d forgotten how happy he’d seemed the last time that I saw him. And I suddenly knew why Jude had sent me the dream. That’s how he wanted to be remembered.

When I waved back, we both knew what it meant. I’d finally said my goodbye.

• • •

In the weeks since the Mandel Academy went up in flames, the whole world has turned upside down. The billionaires and bigwigs who once sat on the school’s board of directors are being hounded by the press and the police. The academy’s instructors have all been hauled in for questioning. None of them have been charged with a crime yet, but few people believe they could have been ignorant of the atrocities committed in the basement of their workplace. A shadow has fallen over the other Mandel alumni as well. Arthur Klein has visited every news show in the country to warn the public about the dangers of Exceletrex—and to denounce the people who would have profited from poisoning millions of children. A reporter from the
New York Times
is investigating the drug company’s links to the Mandel Academy, and most of the school’s graduates are now keeping low profiles or hiding out in their homes. Even those who don’t need to fear the police or the newspapers are probably quite keen to avoid the Wolves.

Eight of the academy’s top students left with files on the fifth of July. Seven alumni were forced to hand over fortunes. Then New York’s latest millionaires began living large. Two Wolves quickly wound up in jail—Austin for assault and Julian for drug possession. Five continue to spend their days providing fodder for the city’s tabloids, which are filled with breathless accounts of their extravagant shopping sprees, drunken fistfights, and endless displays of debauchery.

The eighth escaped Wolf showed up at the colony.

“How did you find us?” Joi asked.

When Leila grinned, she could have passed for a regular girl. “One of the teachers at the academy asked me to check out a virus created by some kid named Lily. The instructor thought there was something strange about it. She was right. She just wasn’t smart enough to figure out what it was. I saw the message you sent to Tina. So the first thing I did when I got out was find Tina. Then I followed her here.”

“You knew about the message?” I asked. “You could have had us killed.”

“For plotting to set us all free? What kind of person do you think I am, anyway?”

I didn’t know how to answer.

“Never mind,” Leila said. “I guess I was pretty awful. God knows what all that Exceletrex has done to my brain. But at least I’m trying to change. That’s why I’m here. I brought you a present.”

• • •

I hoped Leila would be our last unexpected visitor. For a while, the whole world seemed convinced that the academy’s students had all perished in the fire. But the only bones discovered among the debris belonged to Lucian Mandel. When the newspapers noted the absence of charred human remains, the police began to look for the school’s missing students. But we never thought anyone would discover the colony. Then my father’s attorney appeared at our door. He was there to tell me that my dad had revised his will so that his fortune would be split between his two living sons. The first thing I did was demand a copy of the document. All I wanted to see was the date. The changes were made the day after I’d been arrested at JFK.

I used my inheritance to buy an apartment for my mother. The doctors say she may be well enough to move in soon. Then I purchased a building on Essex Street, which is already filled with Ghosts, Androids, and Urchins. I donated the rest of the money to Joi’s new charity. The Lower East Side Children’s Fund.

Life is more comfortable now, but it’s no less dangerous. If an attorney can find us, so can the Mandel alumni. They must think we managed to get our hands on their secrets. Otherwise, a few would have declared war by now. Joi and I are still searching for Mandel’s files. But we’ll find them. And right before we send most of the alumni to jail, we’ll put Leila’s present to use. She’s given us access to every graduate’s bank account. Joi’s already decided where the funds should go.

• • •

I’ll always regret that my father chose to die like he did. But these days I have too many good things to enjoy—and too little time to waste on regrets. If I find a free hour, it belongs to my little brother. Frank’s mother had always been told I was dead. But when she saw me standing outside her door, she knew I wasn’t an impostor. Her son is the spitting image of his two older brothers.

She’s selling the mansion in Connecticut. Now that she knows the truth, she says it’s too haunted to occupy. Before the brokers descended on the house, she insisted that my mother and I take whatever I wanted. I would have asked for the Rothko, but that wall was already empty.

So my mother and I picked out a few little treasures that belonged to Jude. After he died, his possessions had been packed away and consigned to a dark corner of the attic. That’s where I found the box. Inside was a green felt hat, a wooden sword—and every story ever written about Peter Pan.

I gave the box to Frank. When he opens it ten years from now, I’ll be there to tell him all about Never Land—and our very own brother who was able to fly. Because Peter Pan can never die. And as long as I’m around, there will always be someone here who believes in him.