The Masked Truth Part 30

"Cat's out of the bag," Max says. "Can't stuff it back in now. If you try, we'll be making that call to the police. What was Brienne supposed to do for you?"

"Talk to you," he blurts to me. "Find out what you know. Yes, Brienne overheard something, and worse, they found out, because I was on the phone and she said something, and they heard her. They made me send her. Either she went to that therapy thing or I was in deep s.h.i.+t."

"Sounds like you were in it already," I say.

"It was a stupid, stupid thing. I promised some guys I'd get their product from the supplier. I was the delivery boy, that's it. But I got caught, and it was enough dope that I was looking at twenty years. These guys promised to get me out of that. In return, I owed them this favorstanding guard while they pulled a hit. That's all I did: stand guard. Just like I only carried the d.a.m.ned dope. But it just keeps getting worse, one thing leads to another, and now my sister's in the hospital and"

"Pulled a hit?" Max says.

River seems annoyed by the interruption. "It means they were hired to kill those people."

"I watch enough American television to know what a hit is, thank you," Max says. "But you're saying that the murder of the Portersthe people Riley babysat forwas a professional a.s.sa.s.sination?"

"That's what these guys do. The ones who got me off the drug charges. They kill people for money. The job was to off that guy and his wife. The guy's business partner wanted him out of the way and didn't want the wife getting his share."

CHAPTER 32.

I know why River is talking. Well, besides the fact that we've threatened to call the cops. Dad always said that was the difference between the hardened criminals and the people who just screw up really bad: the screwups feel guilt. They want to confess. They want to be told that it's not so bad, and that you understand how it happened and they aren't really terrible people.

"You didn't have a choice," I say. "You were looking at twenty years for the drugs, and if these men didn't hire you to stand watch, they'd have hired someone else. You couldn't have stopped them from killing the Porters." Except, you know, by turning them in before they did it. "And the little girl wasn't a target, right?"

"No, not at all," he says emphatically. "It was the client's fault she was there. He told the guys that she'd be with her aunt, and it'd just be the couple at home, and they weren't supposed to be leaving for another hour. Then we get there, and the couple are already getting ready to leave, so they had to move fast. It wasn't until the news. .h.i.t that they realized the kid had been there all along."

"Which is when they started worrying that I saw something."

He nods. "One of the guys says you did see him. Out front."

"I saw a gun. That's all. If I got a look at the guy's face, there would have been sketches released."

"That's not what they heard. They have contacts on the force who say the cops running the case claim you did get a better look. That you just don't remember everything yet, but when you do, they'll have enough to make a case."

"Meaning if I die, your friends are free and clear."

"They aren't my friends." He s.h.i.+fts, meeting my gaze, struggling for sincerity. "And if they planned to kill you, why would they want Brienne to talk to you?"

I know the answer. I'm not telling him, though, because once I do, I have a feeling I'll get nothing more from him. Instead, I say, "Tell me about Aimee."

His face screws up.

I resist the urge to sigh. "The woman who lived here? She was my therapist. She got me to enroll in that weekend, and I'm guessing she helped Brienne get in."

"She's with one of the guys. His girlfriend. That was how it started. She's a therapist, and she works with kids sometimes, so they had her go after you to find out what you knew."

Yes, Aimee had indeed "gone after me." She'd contacted my mother directly, saying she'd read my story in the paper and she had experience with similar cases, and while she heard I was in therapy already, she'd like to offer her services if I needed extra help. It'd been perfect timing, because Mom had just fired my therapist, which Aimee might have heard through the grapevine.

River is still talking, faster now, eager to convince me. "Only you wouldn't tell Aimee anything about what you saw, so they figured maybe you'd talk to another girl in therapy: Brienne."

Which makes sense, and I don't blame him for buying it. I prod him for more on Aimee. He says he broke into her house hoping to learn more about her, and maybe that suggests he's not as stupid as he seems. That he suspects there's more to this than he thought. He's just hoping he's wrong. I'm about to shatter that hope.

"You said there was no reason why they'd send in Brienne to question me if they planned to kill me, right?"

He nods.

"So it's just a coincidence, then? You work for hit men. I witnessed a hit. Your sister overheard it. Now she joins up with me at therapy for one weekend, and it's the same weekend that someone chooses to randomly murder a group of kids?"

Sweat trickles down his cheek and his gaze shoots to Max. "He doesn't need a reason. He's nuts. A psychopath."

"Does he look like a psychopath?"

River gives an abrupt laugh at that. "You think killers look like killers? You really are a sheltered rich kid, aren't you? In your world, the bad guys walk around with sneers and scruffy beards. It's not like that, little girl. Not at all. If you saw the guys I work for ..." He shakes his head. "Believe me, there's a reason you pa.s.sed one of them on the street and never took another look. The face of a psycho looks like everyone else." He peers at Max. "Like you. You look normal, but you're crazy."

"Could I kill someone if I'm not on my meds?" Max says. "Yes. Could I slaughter six people? I'd certainly like to think not, but I suspect, once it snaps, there's no difference between one and six. If I could tell the difference, I wouldn't even kill one, would I?"

River just stares like he's speaking Greek.

"I could kill someone if I was in a psychotic state," Max says. "Maybe even six people. But do you know what I can't do? Switch it off and act normal again a few minutes later. I almost strangled my best friend because I thought he was possessed. When they caught me, I kept trying to strangle him until they pulled me off. I didn't deny that I did it. I didn't make excuses. I just kept on acting crazy, because that's what crazy is. It's your reality at that moment. I didn't go into a fugue state where I had no idea what I was doing. I remember every last detail as if it happened two hours ago, because for me, it did. It happens over and over, and I cannot get it out of my head, because I can't pretend it was someone elseit was me, and I remember what it felt like to have my hands around his neck. I remember the girl screaming when she found us. I remember the look in my best friend's eyes. I remember the smell of him when he shat himself, because he was so sure he was going to die."

Max has to stop for breath, and I ... I want to cry. I see the look in his eyes, hear the pain and the guilt and the self-loathing in his voice, and I want to do something, anything, and I can't, because this isn't therapy. It's everything he should have said there. Everything he couldn't say, and now I know why, because if I can't talk about the Porterswhat it was like to see their bodies, what exactly I feelthen I sure as h.e.l.l can't expect him to share, because his private h.e.l.l is ten times worse.

He couldn't spew that anguish to strangers in therapy and then watch them awkwardly try to deal with it. He does it here because I can do nothing. No, that's not truethis isn't about me. He does it because he needs to explain this, to make his point to River, and he can say it without fear that I'll make noises of comfort and understanding about something I can't understand, not really.

He pauses only a moment, enough to catch his breath, before he goes on. "What happens to me, it doesn't come with amnesia, temporary or not. I don't pa.s.s out and forget what happened. It's not an alternate personality. It doesn't feel like something from a half-remembered nightmare. It's reality. And it doesn't switch off like a light bulb. If I shot Brienne and the others, the police wouldn't have found me jumping in front of a car, desperate to get an ambulance for Riley and your sister. I wouldn't have made up some wild story about a hostage-taking. I certainly wouldn't have had the mental wherewithal to persuade Riley that such a story was true. I'd have been running down the street, holding a bloodied knife and a smoking gun, ready to tell the world that I'd rid them of aliens posing as teenagers or some such rubbish. I would not realize I had done anything wrong."

He stops again. He's shaking, and I want to reach for him, but I know I can't. Not now. What he needs nowwhat he needs alwaysis support and understanding, not sympathy, because he hates the sympathy and the poor-you as much as I do. It feels like putting on the mask of a crying child and convincing the world you deserve their sympathy when it's the last thing you feel you deserve.

"Do you understand that?" I say to River.

He nods dumbly.

"Max didn't do any of it, and I think you already suspected that, regardless of what you said in the hospital yesterday. There is a way this wasn't a coincidence. And a reason whyif it's the guys you worked forthey'd shoot Brienne."

"Because things went wrong," he says. "They set this up to kill youand I did not know that, I absolutely did not know thatand things went wrong, and Brienne was shot accidentally. They mistook her for one of the other girls"

"They'd already shot both the other girls. And obviously there was no way they mistook her for me."

Sweat streams down his face now. He does not want to think he sent his sister in there for people who would kill her, because then he has to admit how stupid he was, thinking she'd be safe when his employers murder people for money. He needs it to have been an accident. I understand, but I can't let him think that or he's not going to give us what we need.

"They didn't mistake her for anyone. They murdered every last"

"Yes," he blurts. "Yes, all right. Things went wrong, and they killed everyone. They knew who she was, and they shot her anyway to tie up all the loose ends when it went bad."

"It didn't go bad. Killing everyone was their plan from the start."

"What? No. That's nuts. They planned to cover up your murder with a hostage-taking. They'd get money out of the rich kid's father. I heard them say they had a big score coming, some business guy with a bottomless bank account. That was the plan. I see it nowI just didn't put it together at first."

"They never initiated any negotiations. The only way they were getting money from Aaron's dad ..." I trail off as I realize what I'm thinking.

"Is if they were hired by him," Max finishes for me.

"No, that really is nuts," I say. "No one is going to hire a hit man to kill his own son."

River snorts. "You are such a sheltered rich kid. There are plenty of parents who don't give a s.h.i.+t. Like mine. And I know, from working with these guys, that there are people who'd put a hit on their grandmother if there was profit in it."

"But there was no profit. Aaron's dad found out he was gay, but no father is going to kill his kid for that."

"Don't be too sure," River mutters.

"There was profit in it, Riley," Max says quietly. "The divorce settlement. I have no idea what kind of money they could be talking for child support and trust funds and whatever else, and I'm still with you on thisI don't see how a parent could hire someone to murder his son for anythingbut add up the factors and ..." He shakes his head. "No, sorry. I still can't fathom it."

"Doesn't mean it's not true," River says.

I remember what Aaron said about why he'd been at the sleepover. His father arranged it. Insisted on it. Threatened him if he didn't go. I feel like I'm going to throw up.

"So that's what happened," River continues. "A hit for money plus one to remove a potential witness. But it went wrong and"

"The only thing that went wrong is that they had to abandon their plan and turn an organized ma.s.s murder into a free-for-all. They pretended it was a hostage-taking. Then they began releasing kids. Do you know how they released them? Took a girlSandyto another room and shot her, letting us think she got out. No one was supposed to get out. Including your sister. Part of this was about cleaning up loose ends. Brienne was a loose end."

"That's No They wouldn't ..." He swallows, as if realizing how ridiculous that sounds, to say that the hit men he worked for wouldn't murder his sister. "But ... but I'd find out."

"I don't think they're too worried about you," Max says.

"They'd never have told you they were behind it," I say. "It would have seemed like Max killed everyone, including your sister. But I'm still alive. Max is still alive. Brienne is still alive. And we all know the truth."

"No," he whispers, his eyes widening. "Brienne!" He tries to scramble up. "I need to get to the hospital."

"Sloane is watching her."

He stares at me blankly.

"My sister."

"That girl I met? Seriously? She's probably taken off with the first cute intern who looked her way."

"Sloane is watching your sister, and the nurses' desk is right outside the door. Brienne is safe. No one can get to her."

"Of course they can. You don't understand. They can get to her easily. They" He stops himself and shakes his head.

"And here's the part where you tell us all about them," Max says.

"After I see my sister."

"No," Max says. "Tell us, and then you see her."

River's jaw sets. Then his legs shoot out, in an awkward kick that still makes contact. Caught off guard, I fall back with an oomph. Max jumps in and grabs him by the back of the s.h.i.+rt, but River starts flailing, struggling madly, and I know that twine isn't going to hold, and I know I'm in no shape to take him down if he gets free, and I can't ask Max to do it.

"Okay!" I say. "Okay. We'll take you to Brienne. You'll see she's all right, and then you'll tell us what you know or I'm going straight to the police."

CHAPTER 33.

We untie River. Max uses River's own switchblade to do it. He keeps the knife to use as a threat. I take Max aside.

"Let me have the knife," I say. "If he needs to be threatened, I'll do it. I know you hate"

"Am I acting odd?" Max whispers. He gives a tired quirk of his lips. "Odder than normal?"

"Of course not. That isn't why"

"That should always be 'why,' Riley. If I pick up a steak knife at dinner, you need to ask yourself whether I've been acting normal."

"That's"

"You can argue with me about it later. I know that's not why you don't want me having the switchblade, and I appreciate the thought. But I'm the one he's frightened of. Ergo, I must play bad cop today."

We're heading out. River is in the lead. He drove, and his car is down the block. Max is right behind him. The knife is in Max's pocket, but River seems in no hurry to test how quick he is on the draw. His concern is his sister.

Max makes River help me over the fence. I'm struggling to stay upright and my only goal now is not to collapse. My side is burning and my legs keep threatening to give out. We scale the fence, and we're walking to the corner when two figures turn it.

I don't react at first. It's a residential neighborhood. Two men in suits have just come around the corner, and I'm focused on moving forward and watching River. It's River who reacts, stopping short and turning fast, about to run, and Max sees that and he reacts. He grabs River by the back of the s.h.i.+rt and then someone says, "Thank you, Max," and we all go still.

I turn to the two men, one now taking River as Max grabs my arm, and the second man says, "Uh-uh. If you're going to run, Max, please don't take Riley. I think you've gotten her into enough trouble."

It's Buchanan and Wheeler, the detectives.

"It's over now, Riley," Buchanan says to me. "He can't hurt you."

I protest, saying that Max never hurt me, that it's all a mistake, that we have answers now, and River is telling me to shut up, just shut the h.e.l.l up, and Wheeler takes him and Buchanan is on his radio, calling for backup. Max is looking left and right, as if trying to figure out what to do.

Should we run? Can we run? No. We can't, and I don't see the point. We may not have everything we need, but we have answers, and the police have River. Time to let this play out.

I glance at Max, and it's as if he's read my mind. He's nodding and indicating we should go with them, that it'll be all right. So we let Buchanan lead us to their unmarked car while Wheeler waits for a backup cruiser to take River.