Confessions: The Private School Murders
downstairs.
    “She liked to read mysteries until late at night, wake up early, and go for a run on the empty streets of Tribeca. And she was in love with Matthew Angel.”
    My mouth went dry. This woman was good at her job.
    “Not surprising. Matthew is one of the most eligible bachelors in the country. But I’m not here to praise Matthew Angel. Let’s just say that Tamara loved him andtrusted him and was dreaming of the future, when she would have their baby.
    “Sometime on the night of October twenty-second, or in the early-morning hours that followed, Matthew came home and went to bed with Tamara. According to his statement to the police, Matthew had been drinking. Had he also been brooding, harboring anger as well? Was he enraged that the baby Tamara carried might be his
brother
, not his
son
?”
    Harry’s grip on my hand tightened. I gripped him right back.
    “We don’t know what was in Matthew’s mind. We only know that on the morning of October twenty-third, Mandy Shine, the housekeeper employed by Matthew and Tamara, knocked on the door, and when no one came to answer it, she went into the apartment, as was her custom.
    “What she saw that morning caused her to run screaming into the street, prompting the doorman to investigate and immediately call the police.”
    Nadine Raphael spun on her designer heels, returned to the prosecution table, and exchanged the glamour photo of Tamara for another one. I tried to see it, but the prosecutor held it against her body.
    Then she said, “This, ladies and gentlemen, is what Ms. Shine saw.”
    Nadine held up a horrible bloody picture of Tamara Gee lying faceup on a big white bed, a sheet covering her baby bump. Bright red blood was sprayed and spattered on every surface of the room, contrasting Tamara’s pale skin and blond hair. I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling faint.
    Jurors gasped at the sight of the grotesque tableau. The foreman, a large sunburned man, covered his eyes with the palms of his big rough hands. The brassy-blond woman sitting next to him doubled over and groaned. Another juror, a woman about Tamara’s age, covered her mouth with her fingertips as tears filled her eyes.
    “The defendant has no credible defense, ladies and gentlemen. He told the police that he had an ironclad alibi, that he’d been out drinking and playing poker all night long with friends, that when he got home in the small hours of the morning, he undressed and went to bed in the dark. That he didn’t know Tamara was dead until he awoke the next morning to find her next to him, at which point he panicked and fled the scene. Why didn’t he call the police? Why didn’t he immediately seek justice for the love of his life?”
    It was a good question. The very question I’d asked Matthew myself.
    “Since that day, Matthew’s alibi for the night in questionhas fallen apart. There will be no witnesses to tell you that Matthew Angel was out drinking or playing poker at the time when Tamara and their baby were killed.
    “Here are the facts: Matthew Angel is a violent career athlete who believed that his girlfriend had been unfaithful with his own father. In fact, postmortem DNA tests have proved that the child was Matthew Angel’s.
    “But Matthew didn’t know that on the night Tamara was killed. And this is what happens when Matthew Angel gets mad,” Nadine Raphael said, rattling the photograph in front of the jury. “He kills the woman who loved him and the baby they made together.”
    I brought my fist to my lips and bit down hard to keep from crying out.
He couldn’t have done it!
I wanted to scream.
    “We will prove our case beyond a shadow of doubt. And we will ask you to find Matthew Angel guilty of two savage murders.”

19
    Hugo took in a big breath,
completely filling his lungs. Seeing that he was about to yell, I clapped my hand over his mouth and held on.
    I whispered into his ear, “If you as much as squeak, we will be thrown out of here. Blink once if

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