Confessions of a Murder Suspect

80

I pushed open our front door and called out to my brothers, then ran to the living room, where I saw that the French doors fronting our balcony were open.

Harry was standing just inside the open doors, wide-eyed and pale. His hair seemed to be standing straight up from his head. He looked terrified. I followed his gaze out the open doors.

The Dakota has steep roofs and tall gables and turrets, many dormer windows, and a few little balconies, like ours. Nathan Crosby has a balcony, too.

I pushed the fluttering gauze curtains aside, and what I saw almost stopped my heart. My little brother, shoeless and shirtless, was crossing the narrow brick ledge that extended from our balcony to Nate Crosby’s.

The ledge was not meant to be a footbridge. It was just a narrow band of fancy brickwork—nothing more than a decoration, really—and yet Hugo was digging his feet into it, finding fingerholds in the bricks above him and scrambling spiderlike across the gap, more than ninety feet above the sidewalk.

I hissed at Harry, “Why didn’t you stop him?”

“I tried. He doesn’t listen. You know he doesn’t listen!”

“Hugo!” I yelled.

“Don’t call him,” Harry said. “Let him concentrate. If he should miss a step—”

“Hugo!” I called out again. I couldn’t help myself.

He turned his head, grinned, and said, “Don’t worry, Tandy. I can fly.”

Oh, God, my too-brave little brother… He wouldn’t survive a hundred-foot fall.

Hugo’s feet slipped as I watched him. I covered my scream with both hands, and, somehow, without even looking, he found his footing again. Then he lost a handhold and had to find another.

I felt sick to my stomach.

But within two minutes, Hugo had reached Crosby’s balcony, swung his legs over the railing, and planted his feet. He raised his arms, his fingers forming a V for victory, as though he’d just won an Olympic gold medal.

“You’re wicked!” I shouted, sounding just like my mother.

“Swim fast, die hard,” he shouted back at me. Where did a ten-year-old get a line like that?

And just like that, I was once again reminded that nothing about our family was normal: Hugo was laughing with the sheer joy of being Hugo when he picked up a flowerpot and hurled it through Nate Crosby’s French doors, then climbed through the broken doorway.

“He’s barefoot!” I said. “There’s broken glass everywhere!”

“Yeah. And that’s the least of our problems,” said Harry. “Let’s go.”