Swipe Right for Murder Read online

  Copyright

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2019 by Derek Milman

  Cover design by Sammy Yuen

  Cover art by Shutterstock

  Cover copyright © 2019 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  JIMMY Patterson Books / Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

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  First ebook edition: August 2019

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  ISBN 9780316451055

  E3-20190701-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Chapter 1: Death Rays

  Chapter 2: War in Heaven

  Chapter 3: Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

  Chapter 4: On the Lam

  Chapter 5: Bushwick

  Chapter 6: Kibbutzeteria

  Chapter 7: The Swans

  Chapter 8: Shiloh

  Chapter 9: Dinner

  Chapter 10: Mohawk State Park

  Chapter 11: Digital Dust

  Chapter 12: The Debrief

  Chapter 13: Capture the Flag

  Chapter 14: The Handoff

  Chapter 15: An Army of Lovers

  Chapter 16: Heaven-Ender

  Chapter 17: Quest Gardens

  Chapter 18: The Last Tornado Dream

  Chapter 19: So How Was Your Spring Break?

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Derek Milman:

  Jimmy Patterson Books for Young Adult Readers

  Newsletters

  For my family, as always: Mom, Dad, Jordan, Lorin, Isla, Henry, my shining light Brian Murray Williams, and the great Victoria Marini, who inspired and encouraged me to write this book and never let me quit.

  FOREWORD

  The stories that I look for all have one important thing in common—true, heartfelt emotion. Whether you’re cheering on a girl with wings who’s saving her loved ones from destruction or gasping in fear for a boy with a troubled past running for—and from—his life, as in Swipe Right for Murder, I want all the books I publish to make you feel things. Intensely.

  Make no mistake, Swipe Right for Murder is absolutely the high-octane thriller that the title promises. But during the course of the chase, we follow Aidan’s race through emotional highs and lows as well. Joy, heartache, loneliness, infatuation, grief—his character comes to life on the page in a way that has you thinking he’s a real kid, maybe a lot like someone you know. Or maybe a lot like you.

  I hope you’ll be as entertained and moved by Derek’s deeply nuanced story as I was, because feeling things is never overrated.

  —James Patterson

  CHAPTER 1

  Death Rays

  It’s late afternoon at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and we’re splurging on ridiculously overpriced tea and discussing sudden death.

  Unfortunately, the topic is all too relevant at the moment.

  Spring break during my final year at Witloff Academy took something of a turn when two things happened.

  The first thing was that my Aunt Meredith, who I barely know, was injured by a Vegas Hotel Death Ray.

  So what happened is, they built this new hotel in Vegas. But the Swiss “starchitect” who designed the thing was apparently more concerned with his ego than the desert sun’s relationship to the concave shape of the building and how it might reflect off the glass front. They’re technically calling it a “solar convergence,” but let’s be honest: death ray sounds way cooler.

  Everyone who was on the pool deck at noon caught on fire like caterpillars trapped under a magnifying glass. Okay, maybe not literal flames, but my aunt is hospitalized in Nevada with second-degree burns, and now we have to go visit her.

  “It was hot enough to melt plastic cups, Aidan,” my mom told me on the phone, muffling a histrionic cry over a sister who she talks to once every seven years. Before I had a chance to consider how depressing it was that people were drinking out of plastic cups at a high-priced resort in Vegas, she added (as if she realized she hadn’t been judgmental enough yet): “I wish she would make better choices. And stop all that gambling. Vegas? Alone? She does these travel tours with endless casino stops. She just can’t stop moving.”

  The second thing that happened involves my heart.

  I’ve been having these stomach issues. I have a lot of stress at school and the nurse thought I might have an ulcer. So I saw a doctor in town who prescribed antacids and for the hell of it gave me an EKG, which yielded an “abnormal result,” meaning they thought my heart might be enlarged or something.

  Of course my mom freaked out, because that’s what she does. She’s always been something of a high-functioning hysteric, but her freaking definitely got more severe after I hit seventh grade; it’s been on a downward spiral ever since. Immediately, specialists were called, tests arranged, appointments scheduled. I can’t count all the e-mails over this.

  “Aw, your heart’s too big for this world!” my best friend Jackson told me, laughing.

  Right off the train this morning, I cabbed it to a hospital on the Upper East Side for my echocardiogram. This involved a very nice lady pressing a transducer into my chest for half an hour.

  I could hear my heart beating on the monitors—not the dull thud you’re used to. It had a liquid whipping sound, like a stingray moving through the sea. When the test was over, they gave me a towel to wipe away the cold gel smeared all over my chest (which reminded me of a rushed sexual encounter) and showed me my heart on the monitors, pointing out all four chambers.

  “Oh, look at that,” I said, seeing this muscle that’s been keeping me alive for seventeen-and-a-half years. And I wondered, then and there, if I would ever see it again. Hopefully not, I guess. So I spent a second or two watching it do its thing and feeling grateful for all its work on my behalf.

  I won’t know if there’s a real problem with my heart for another week, when I see our family cardiologist and he interprets the echo results. But that’s cool because now the world has this romantic gloss to it. I mean I might die young.

  I might die young. My heart, you see.

  I’ve been practicing that line in my head.

  We were supposed to go to a fancy-schmancy resort in Maui but now we’re not because of my burned-up aunt. And that’s okay. I mean about Maui, not my aunt. Although I swim, I’m not as athletic as the rest of my family. Sometimes that can get
pretty annoying on family vacations what with the surfing and the tennis and the hiking and shit.

  In Cabo last year, we went horseback riding along a beach. The rest of my family galloped off like they were in Red Dead Redemption, but my horse just lumbered along, sticking to the edges, eating every weed in sight. I finally gave him a sharp little kick and was like, C’mon, buddy, let’s move! The horse stopped munching and slowly turned his head to look back at me with this expression like: Bitch, please.

  I wound up stumbling back to the hotel hours later, covered with dust and grit, to find the rest of my family glistening and supine, tanning by the pool, lazily swirling straws through bright-yellow drinks with little pink umbrellas. “Oh, Aidan, honey, did we lose you?” said my mom, sitting up a tad and only slightly lowering her sunglasses from her novel—the second Fifty Shades of Grey book.

  The bronze-skinned pool boy gave me a sympathetic smile. I found him later stacking chairs, and felt vindicated when we hooked up in a blue-and-white-striped changing cabana while my family ate shrimp tacos without me (I was still pissed) at the only passable restaurant at the resort—Pasión Del Amanecer.

  The pool boy’s name was Santiago. I remember that while he kissed me, I gazed through the cabana flap into the dark pool. The water reflected squiggles of light from all the hotel windows above. Between kisses, I mouthed his name because I liked it.

  Jackson taps my knee, exposing that impressive bicep of his. The jagged edge of his red lightning-bolt tattoo peeks out from under his cobalt-blue, short-sleeved button-down.

  “Should we get more hot water?” he’s asking me, gesturing at one of the waiters framed by the tall windows. The view is amazing: Central Park splitting the beige glittering buildings of New York City like a vegetal invasion climbing out of the planet’s core. Tatiana, Jackson’s girlfriend, is nodding, texting, reaching for a mini pastry on a tier of plates. The sandwiches are gone already. “Yes, please,” she says.

  Jackson and Tatiana are the perfect couple: both of them black, gorgeous, super-smart, athletic, total Renaissance types. Jackson got into MIT, where he will probably stay for a year and create the next Facebook. Tatiana is already at Harvard. Pre-law. They met on a secret Tinder-like app that only accepts people who are a certain level of attractiveness and intelligence. I’m not kidding. Digital eugenics. It’s happening.

  I look practically homely next to them. At least three people (that I know of) already walked up to Jackson today, revealed themselves as modeling scouts, and dropped business cards in his lap. I get why. Jackson is tall, toned, has an amazing smile and perfect bone structure. I call him “Rational Erik Killmonger.” He calls me “the flaxen-haired ghost of a J.Crew heir who died choking on an almond croissant.”

  He has no interest in modeling. But he smiles at anyone who asks.

  Sometimes I think my feelings for Jackson might go deeper, but I don’t want to complicate our friendship, so I never let my mind fully go there.

  I gaze down at the cars racing around Columbus Circle. Being so high up makes the world seem quiet. I snap a few photos. I use Instagram, but not as much as everyone else does. I prefer to upload photos to my Tumblr. It makes me feel like a serious photographer. I number and title every photo.

  I look at Jackson. “Is Leo coming?”

  “Leo is flaking,” says Jackson. “Surprise, surprise.”

  Leo is our other friend. Half Asian. Hipster. Coder. Puppyish. Flakes a lot. Goes to Comic-Con. Total stud anyway. Loves Minecraft, Fortnite, and Tarantino (but nothing after Inglourious Basterds). Heading to Brown next year. Full scholarship. Will probably create the next Snapchat or go into finance.

  Yes, all my friends are intelligent and attractive. It’s just nice in a world of dust, blood, and fire to always have something lovely to look at. And I like being intellectually challenged.

  In the fall I’ll be attending a small liberal arts college in New England. I don’t like telling people which one because then I get put in a box and people think they know me. Not that it matters. I’m sure everyone there will be named Aidan, too. Liam or Aidan. A sea of Liams and Aidans wearing Sperry Top-Siders and cardigans with catalogue colors like “heather” or “toast.”

  That’s my big fear, I guess—that I’m a clone; that I’ll never be different; that my whole future is just mapped out for me and I essentially have no free will at all.

  I grew up in a Rhode Island suburb where church bells chime at the top of the hour and everyone drives a Volvo SUV. People become lawyers and doctors like it’s written out in their DNA. My dad is a pediatrician on his way to retirement and my mom is a periodontist. So freakin’ normcore, I know.

  I guess that’s why, when I finally left my hometown, I made sure I was not going to be friends with other boring, belching white dudes who watch ESPN obsessively and think the Chainsmokers are a really deep band. I pretty much hated my (highly rated) public school. There were definitely specific factors behind my wanting to get the hell out of there. I mentioned my unhappiness at school—painting it more as a general malaise—only once to my parents, in passing, while we were in a department store. I mused out loud about maybe going away to a boarding school. And then boom, off I went—shipped to Witloff at sixteen. TO BECOME A MAN.

  “So this dude Drew,” Jackson is telling me.

  I run my fingertip around the rim of the teacup. “Drew.”

  Right: our sudden-death conversation. Jackson is telling this story because of my heart and my aunt. In the theme of: bad random shit can just happen.

  “My cousin Alex goes to Amherst with this dude named Drew,” he says. “And Drew took a semester abroad. And he was skiing in the Swiss Alps during winter break last year. And he died. In an avalanche.”

  “That’s terrible,” says Tatiana, clapping a hand to her throat.

  “Amherst dude named Drew died in an avalanche while skiing in the Swiss Alps during break?” I say, leaning forward.

  “Yep,” says Jackson.

  “So basically he died the preppiest death of all time.”

  “Basically.” Jackson covers his mouth with his hand.

  “Don’t laugh at that.” Tatiana waves her finger at me, mock-scolding.

  “Yeah, don’t,” says Jackson. “Could be you.”

  Tatiana gives him a look. “Don’t tell him that.”

  “What? His heart could explode!”

  “I could go at any minute,” I say, flopping back, making the sound of a flatline.

  Jackson laughs.

  “I wonder what started the avalanche,” I say. “Do you think Drew stopped skiing to make a really loud phone order to Lacoste or something?”

  “His questions about Slim Fit versus Regular echoed too loud and then whoosh,” says Jackson.

  “This is not funny!” Tatiana protests.

  Jackson calls her Tats. And I call him Jacks. And she’s right. Sometimes we can be assholes.

  “His family,” she says, looking stricken. “Can you imagine?” She looks around, trying to get the waiter’s attention. “The service here could be a lot better.”

  “Yes,” says Jacks, rolling his eyes, “we know. Tea service is better in Singapore.”

  Tatiana gives me a look, like Can you believe this is who I’m dating? I take her hand in mine to commiserate. I like Tats. She grew up in Singapore. Something with her dad’s corporate job, I don’t know. But she loved it there. Misses it. Says it was beautiful and perfect. Everything always sucks because we’re not in Singapore.

  She does go on about that a lot.

  I never mention the fact that you could go to prison for being gay there.

  I surreptitiously check my phone, but there are no new calls or texts. I even more surreptitiously check a certain hookup app under the table and find out pretty quickly this hotel is Cruise Central. I look around but see no immediate possibilities. There’s some sort of bridal shower happening in one corner of the lounge. A gaggle of tourists with shopping bags from the Time Warner Center
hold court at the low Chinese table in the center of the room. An elegantly dressed older lady wearing an eye patch walks by clutching an orange Hermès bag. I snap her photo. I always snap a burst, so I can meticulously choose the best shots later. “Lady with Hermès” is the working title of that one.

  They finally refill our hot water and do it with a smile. Personally, I think the service is fine. They’re just busy. The entire lounge stops and stares as Jackson gets up to stretch. Literally, there’s a hush. His arms go over his head in one smooth motion like a dancer, and he turns left then right, his shirt lifting just a bit so you can see the thin band of white underwear poking out from his skinny jeans.

  Tatiana seems oblivious to this little display. But I know Jackson. This is the kind of shit peacocks do. He likes to be noticed. He knows the power of everything about him that works. And perfect as the two of them may be, or close to it anyway, I know for a fact that Jackson has a wandering eye.

  Jackson lives in northern New Jersey. Like mine, his family isn’t super rich or anything. But he’s staying the night with Tats (whose family is, and has an apartment in TriBeCa) because he has a ton of interviews for high-octane summer internships—Vogue, The New Yorker, Vice, various tech start-ups and consulting firms, the freakin’ UN.

  I’m telling you, man, you get singed if you stand too close to his flames.

  My parents put me up for the night at the Mandarin because it’s popular with a lot of kids from Witloff stopping through New York. The echo test is done now, so I have most of tomorrow to kill (“go to the Neue Galerie, honey, see the Klimts”) before we all have dinner somewhere downtown at five p.m. sharp, like the rock stars we are.

  “What are your plans?” Tats is asking me.

  “My plans?”

  “Don’t look so scared,” she says. “Not your life. Just for the rest of the day.”

  “Yeah. We have to bounce,” says Jackson as he pats down his jeans, which is what he always does before he bounces. It happens very suddenly. You think you’re hanging out, you think it will last somewhat longer, but then there’s the jean pat-down, and he’s gone—off to the next great adventure.