Confessions: The Private School Murders by James Patterson

would you think that?” I asked.
    “I hate to tell you,” she said, “but this is not the first snake loose in the Dakota today. In fact, it’s the third. Pest Control is in your building right now.”
    I gripped the phone more tightly. “Are you kidding me?”
    Jacob eyed me curiously.
    “Do I sound like I’m kidding?”
    “What the hell is going on?” I asked Officer Blum.
    “No idea, but I’ll tell the guys to come to your apartment next.”
    I grimaced as Hugo held out an open garbage bag and Jacob deposited the gory body in it.
    “Actually, that’s not necessary. This one is officially dead,” I said to Officer Blum. “Maybe I should just bring it to them.”
    “Well, okay, then.”
    She told me the Pest Control officers were on the second floor and I hung up.
    “Where are we going?” Hugo asked me as we headed toward the front of the apartment with the heavy bag full of dead snake.
    “To find the Pest Control guys,” I answered, slinging the bag over my shoulder. “Hugo, what were you actually looking for in Malcolm’s file drawer?”
    “Cigarettes,” he said matter-of-factly.
    “What?”
    He lifted his shoulders. “I was looking for his stash.”
    Before I could demand why he would do such a thing, he added, “In movies about writers, they all smoke. I’m getting into character.”
    “Geez, Hugo.” We paused in the foyer. “You want to stay four-foot-eight forever?”
    “That’s a myth about cigarettes stunting your growth,” he said as I opened the front door. Then he shouted out to Jacob, “We’ll be right back.”
    “Be back in five minutes,” Jacob shouted back. “Five.”
    Hugo dashed across the hall and thumbed the call button until the elevator arrived. As we piled in, I turned over our latest drama in my mind. We didn’t live near a zoo. And there were no indigenous snakes in New York City.
    So why were there snakes loose in the Dakota?

CONFESSION
    Remember when I said
my greatest fear is that I might not experience true love again? Well, this might be an opportune moment to confess another pretty big fear.
    I know a lot about snakes, vipers, and adders from all over the world. Why have I committed a snake encyclopedia to memory?
Know thy enemy
, that’s why.
    Snakes are the opposite of warm and fuzzy. They slither, they’re sneaky by design, and, in case we weren’t clear on this fact, they can kill you. Some snakes eliminate you so stealthily you don’t even know you’re dead until your blood coagulates and your heart stops cold.
    Some snakes shoot you full of neurotoxins, wrap themselves around you, and squeeze out your life before consuming youwhole, clothes, shoes, laptop, and smartphone, in one big package.
    Most snakes eat only mice and voles and are the gardener’s friend, but how do you know the difference in the space of a heartbeat? And that, I believe, is at the root of one’s fear of snakes. It’s a survival mechanism.
    Some people are not just afraid of snakes, they’re phobic. The technical term for a snake phobia is
ophidiophobia
, and people who have it dream of snakes, see snakes under every rock or rumple in the carpet, and freak out when they see snakes on TV.
    When I see a snake, I automatically think of my uncle Peter, which makes me hate them even more. Because I imagine he could kill and feel about the same amount of remorse as a snake would.
    Zero.

15
    I tried not to think
about the fact that the heavy plastic garbage bag in my left hand was packed with the fluid coils of a four-foot-long decapitated cobra.
    Nothing to be afraid of, Tandy. Thanks to Jacob, it no longer has fangs.
    When the elevator door slid open on the second floor, chaos greeted us. At least eight men and women in green jumpsuits were coming and going from open apartments while co-op owners clustered in small groups between the doorways.
    I saw the elderly sitcom stars, Mr. and Mrs. Llewellyn Berrigan, in their matching striped pj’s. The spectacular trombone player