The Masked Truth Part 33

River runs, and I exhale. They don't realize what we know. They're setting him free and now they'll carry on pretending to be detectives and Wheeler shoots River in the back of the head.

At first, I don't realize what's happened. I hear the suppressed shot, even more m.u.f.fled by the closed car windows, and I don't recognize it. Then River's head flies back and his arms and legs keep going for a second, kicking out as his body seems, impossibly, suspended in midair. I see the blood spray. I see blood and brain and bone, and I start to scream.

CHAPTER 36.

I scream as I never screamed at the Porters', never screamed at the warehouse. But now I do, and I don't even realize I'm doing it until I hear the high-pitched shriek and feel it ripping from my throat.

Buchanan scrambles over the seat and slaps a hand to my mouth, saying, "Shut up! Shut the h.e.l.l"

"Don't touch her!" Max snarls, and knocks Buchanan's hand aside. He pulls me to him, as best he can, his hands still cuffed. He tugs me against his shoulder and whispers, "Shh, shh, shh. I know, Riley. I know. But you need to be quiet. Please."

I squeeze my eyes shut and get myself under control. I keep seeing River, shot in the head. Keep hearing Wheeler saying, "Run," and I didn't think it was possible to hate him more, but I do. Somehow I do. I want to scream and howl at him. I want to ... I want to ...

I push the thought aside. Can't go there. Won't think that.

"It's my fault," I whisper. "My fault. I pulled River into this. I made him talk."

"No," Max says fiercely. "He got himself into this. His choices got him into it, and he didn't deserve what just happened, but it's no one else's faultjust his and ..." He shoots a glare at Wheeler, who's strolling around the car.

Yes, strolling. I see that walk and the c.o.c.ky look in his eyes and that I'm-so-clever smirk on his face.

Gray.

This is Gray, unmasked. Yet not unmasked at all, because this is the mask: the face of an ordinary man. He wore his real face in the warehouse. The face of a monster. An inhuman, alien thing.

Wheeler opens Max's door. "Why'd you have to go and do that, Maximus? Shoot the poor kid as he was running away?" He shakes his head and tsk-tsks and I lunge at him, cursing and snarling, scrabbling over Max as I launch myself at Wheeler. But Max grabs me and holds me back.

"That's funny," Wheeler says. "You don't look the least bit surprised. Dare I guess that you'd already figured out who I am? Such clever children. For children, that is. Crazy, messed-up, broken children. Come on, Miss Riley. You can get out of the car now. Just don't bother rus.h.i.+ng me again." He waves the gun. "I have a plan, and shooting you doesn't exactly fit, but I can make it fit. So don't test me."

"May I get out?" Max asks.

"Oh, listen to that. So polite. Proper grammar, even. Why, yes, Maximus, you may get out."

He does, holding me back until he's standing, and then keeping me behind him as I get out.

"Look at the chivalry," Wheeler says. "Polite and chivalrous and even kind of cute, if you go for the tortured-bad-boy-wannabe look. I can see why you fell for him, Miss Riley. Of course, it helps that in your own way, you're almost as screwed-up as he is. Birds of a feather and all that." He walks to Max and cuts the strap on his wrists. "There. I reward your intelligence by setting you free."

"No," Max says. "You have two guns on me, and the longer you leave my hands tied, the more likely the bruising will show up in an autopsy. Especially if I panic and struggle."

"Did they teach you that in school? The British school system really does provide a liberal and all-encompa.s.sing educational experience, doesn't it?"

"More like too many hours spent watching CSI," Buchanan says, coming up beside us.

Wheeler snickers.

"You brought River here to kill, so it will look as if I did it," Max says.

"Mmm, maybe not so clever. Running a few steps behind, are you, Maximus?"

Max opens his mouth, and I suspect he's going to say no, he's just trying to hurry this along and get to the point. But he wisely doesn't.

"Yes," Wheeler says. "That's part one. Part two?" He turns to me. Buchanan has moved closer, gun trained on Max. "On your knees, Miss Riley. You're about to beg for your life, but Max here isn't going to listen. If he can't have you, no one else will." He lowers his voice. "He's kind of crazy that way."

"You don't really expect her to" Max begins.

"Go along with it? Actually, I do. Because she knows you're both going to die, and her option is one to the head ... or a much slower and messier death, as you decide not to grant her mercy but to make her pay for being such a stuck-up b.i.t.c.h."

"How about if I actually shoot her?" Max says quickly.

"What?"

"I'll do it. That'll pin the shooting squarely on me. Not just my fingers on the gun, but powder and blood splatter and everything else you need to prove conclusively that I shot her."

Wheeler lets out a belly laugh. "Oh my, it seems chivalry is dead. Or it dies very fast in the face of actual death. Not much sense winning brownie points with a girl if she won't survive to let you spend them, huh, Maximus? You'll shoot her and frame yourself and then we can arrest you instead of staging your suicide." He fakes a deep frown. "Unless you're actually just trying to get me to hand over the gun. Oh, you almost got me there, my boy. You really did."

"I'm not trying to do either," Max says, as calmly as he can. "Handing over the gun won't help when your partner still has his pointed at me. And I didn't say I'd kill Riley. I said I'd shoot her. A nonfatal shot. Then I'll kill myself."

"No!" I say, lunging against Buchanan's restraining hand.

"Then I'll kill myself," Max repeats. "Riley survives, and she tells exactly the story you want her to tell, because she knows what you are and that you'll have no compunctions about coming after her family."

"Compunctions," Wheeler muses. "Good word. But we also have no 'compunctions' about killing her right"

"I know," Max says quickly. "But this will be even better. You'll have the forensic evidence for your case, and you'll have an eyewitness."

"Nice try," Wheeler says. "But no." He waves Buchanan over and they switch weapons. "My friend here will do the honors on Miss Riley. Not because I have any 'compunctions' about doing it myself, but because I know you better than he does, Maximus. So I'll keep an eye on you while he does your work for you, using the proper gun, of course."

He turns to me. "Miss Riley? It has been a pleasure. You may have been a pain in the a.s.s, but I rather enjoyed the challenge. In this job, it's the same old, same old. Walk up and pull the trigger. At most, you get a moment of 'Oh no, please don't kill me!' Almost like factory work. Repet.i.tive and dull. You livened things up. Worthy adversaries, you and Maximus. Now kneel."

I do. As I lower myself, I'm eyeing Buchanan's knees. One sharp hit in the back and they'll buckle. Do I still have the strength to do it? I have no idea, but I need to try.

I'm lowering myself into position, visualizing my strike, and then Max launches himself at Buchanan. I strike the back of the man's knee as hard as I can, and he does crumple, but it's because Max has. .h.i.t him, and they're going down, and the shot fires.

No, the shot fires before they go down. It fires, and then I hit Buchanan, and then Max does, and the shot isn't from Buchanan's gun. It's from Wheeler's, aiming at Max. The gun fires. The bullet hits. Blood sprays.

Buchanan drops his gun. I'm not sure when or why or at what stage in that split-second sequence. What I see first is not blood. It's a falling gun, and then it's in my hand, with me gripping it by the barrel.

That's when I see the blood, and out of the corner of my eye I see Max and Buchanan go down, and before I can look, before I dare to look, I see another gun. Wheeler's. Rising.

I scream. I scream as loud as I can, and I run at Wheeler, the gun still in my hand as I fumble to get a proper grip on it. Wheeler swings his weapon at me and ...

And he slips. I don't know what on. It's not even a slip as much as a tiny stumble and stagger, his foot sliding out from under him. But it throws him off balance, and I'm swinging up the gun, and he's right there, and the gun hits his forearm, hits it in exactly the right place, and his hand opens on reflex and his own gun drops, and I kick it away.

And then I'm holding a gun on him. Miraculously, somehow, I'm holding a gun on him, and I look down to see what he slipped in, and it's River's blood. The irony. Yes, the irony.

I hear a groan, and that snaps me out of my moment of victory as my chest seizes, and I remember the shot, and I spin to see both Max and Buchanan on the ground. And blood. There's blood.

"Riley!" It's Max. He's pus.h.i.+ng himself up and waving frantically at me as I catch a blur of motion. Wheeler rushes me. I back up fast, careful to stay out of that snaking stream of blood.

"I'm fine," Max says, and he sounds about seventy percent correct. There's a catch in his voice, a small hiss of pain, but he's on his feet, his hand clamped to his side. "It went through me and hit Buchanan. He's gone."

And there is, in that, a second shot of irony. Wheeler shot Max and killed his partner instead. Then he tries to shoot me and slips in his last victim's blood. Bitter, ironic coincidence. Or perhaps a little more. If I care to see divine intervention, I'll see it here. Like a parent watching a toddler stumble around, insisting she reach her goal on her own, and then finally saying, "All right, you've done enough," and easing a couple of immovable obstacles out of her way.

Max is fine. Or fine enough. Buchanan is down. And Wheeler? Wheeler is at the other end of a gun barrel. My gun barrel.

I see him down that barrel, and I think of Sandy, shot and discarded in a supply closet. I think of Gideon and Maria, dead in pools of blood, staring in shock. I think of Lorenzo, fighting for his life and losing. I think of Brienne, saying "I'll be brave," Brienne shot in the back. Of her brother, given the chance to run only to be gunned down. I even think of Aimee, because it doesn't matter if she was part of this, what I'm thinking isn't of the fact of her death but the way he did it, walking up to a former partner, someone he knew, someone who trusted him, shooting her once and, when that failed, shooting her in the head.

That's what I'm remembering, not just the deaths but how he did them. How cruel and how callous and that smirking I'm-such-a-clever-boy look in his eyes. He orchestrated the deaths of seven people and would have added three more if he couldBrienne, me and Maxand what did he have to say about that? Told me that Max and I were worthy opponents. Offered us the highest praise he could. That we were prey worth killing.

"Riley ..." Max says carefully.

"He murdered seven people," I say.

"Mmm, no," Wheeler says. "Actually, I believe my partners"

"You were in charge. You planned it. And to you, it meant nothing. Their lives meant nothing."

"Oh ho, is that what you want, Miss Riley? An existential conversation on the value of life? The value of his life?" He points at River. "A thug kid so dumb it's a wonder he survived this long? His equally stupid sister? What kind of lives do you think they had coming? Petty crime and jail time for him. Babies and black eyes for her."

I'm shaking as I hold the gun on him, as I listen to him and I remember them. Really remember them. Sandy, the girl who came to therapy out of love for her parents, to prove she'd made a foolish mistake and she took responsibility for it and they'd never need to worry that she'd repeat it. Maria, the girl who found the letter opener while the rest of us were too terrified to move, the girl whose T-s.h.i.+rt said she thumbed her nose at labels, stood up and said, "Yep, that's medeal with it." Gideon, the boy who was scared, so d.a.m.ned scared, las.h.i.+ng out in his terror. And Aaron, the boy who could be exactly what you expected ... and the polar opposite of what you expected, a self-centered jerk who wasn't self-centered at all, who'd tried to convince our kidnappers to free us and just keep him.

I remember them and I hear Wheeler, and all I can think is that I want him to shut up. I want to shut him up.

I don't want to put a bullet in his brain. I want to shoot him, over and over, until he's on the ground, howling in agony, and then, maybe then, he'll understand what he's done, when he's dying slowly "Riley?" Max is right behind me, leaning down, his breath whispering against my ear. "It's all right. It's over. I've got the other gun. You can lower that one, get Buchanan's mobile and call the police."

"They are the police," I say. "They took a good job, a n.o.ble job"

Wheeler laughs. I raise the gun and Max says, "No! Please, Riley. I won't fight you for that gun. Not after Aaron. But I'm asking you to put it down. Please, please, please put it down."

"He killed them! All of them! And he doesn't give a d.a.m.n. They're dead and he's smirking and laughing and"

"And it's wrong, Maximus," Wheeler says, imitating my voice. "It's just wrong. All those worthless idiots he murdered, and he doesn't care, and I just want to cry. I want to cry and feel sorry for myself and"

"Shut up," I say.

"He's a bad person, Maximus," Wheeler continues. "A very, very bad person, and I want to kill him, but I don't have the guts, because I'm just a scared little girl. A coward who hid under a bed, and I really wish I had a bed right now, because all I want to do is hide and thank G.o.d I'm alive, because that's what matters. As bad as I feel about those others, what matters is that I'm alive. Yes, Miss Riley, you're alive. You know why? Because you have the brains to run. To hide. To get out of the way. Cowardice saved you. The others? They were just too stupid to live. Literally, it seems. Morons who stumbled into their own deaths"

"Shut up."

"and got themselves killed. Through misguided bravery or abject stupidity. They deserved"

"Shut the h.e.l.l up!"

I shoot. The bullet hits him in the shoulder. He staggers back but doesn't fall. Then, through clenched teeth, he says, "I believe you need to work on your aim, Miss Riley."

"My aim is fine. That's your right shoulder. If I were trying to kill you, at least I'd have hit your left side."

I shoot again ... and hit him in the leg. He goes down. As I advance on him, Max breaks from his shock and runs in front of me.

"No, Riley."

"I want"

"I know what you want, and I'm asking youbegging younot to do this."

"He deserves"

"A life in prison. That's what he deserves. A life in prison as a cop who killed kids. That's what he's trying to avoid. You know it. Deep down, you know it."

"I don't care."

"Then I do." He touches my left arm, carefully. "He'll say anything now to make you kill him. You don't deserve that. You don't deserve to wake up in the night and see his face. To be walking down the street and see his face. To keep seeing his face, everywhere, and remembering what you did. Please, please, please. Do not do that to yourself. You've incapacitated him. That's good. That's enough. Anything more ..."

Anything more is murder.

Murder.

Wheeler is talking. I don't hear him, because I know Max is right. Wheeler will say anythinghowever hatefulto make me kill him. He deserves to die, but I don't deserve to live with killing him.

Max doesn't deserve to live with knowing he couldn't stop me.

I look up at Max, and I hand him the gun.

CHAPTER 37.

It's over. Yet it isn't. Three days have pa.s.sed, and I don't see an end in sight, but Max is free and Wheeler is in prison and neither of those things is going to change, and I am satisfied with that.

I've barely seen Max in three days. We've tried, but it's like two s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing in the night. No, two s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing in a storm. We catch sight of each other or we manage to pop off a text and then we're pulled off in our separate directions, by our separate obligations.

We start ending our texts with "Soon." Every last one of them. Our version of goodbye, a closing that isn't a closing but a promise. This will all pa.s.s, and we'll see each other soon, and nothing and n.o.body will stop us.

The process of exonerating Max and charging Wheeler went more smoothly than I'd dared hope. It helped that Predatorwho was an exmilitary buddy of Wheeler'swas still alive, lying low and waiting for his friend, and when the police showed up at his door, he treated his good buddy the same way they'd treated their colleagueCantinaand Predator's girlfriend, Aimee. He turned on him in a flash. The only thing rarer than honor among thieves? Honor among killers.