The Masked Truth (35 page)

I appreciate the effort, Riley, really I do, but it was all for naught. Sorry about that. Terribly sorry
.

Tell her it’s not true
.

But it is.

Tell her you’ve changed your mind. That you made a mistake, and you see that now, and you won’t ever do it
.

But that’s not true.

Who cares? Say it, you idiot. Just say it
.

No.

He can’t tell her it isn’t an option anymore, because it is. It always will be. He can say he’s not going to do it tomorrow. That even before all this, he wasn’t going to do it tomorrow. This is why he keeps writing those bloody notes. He’s working it through. He gets to the end and realizes he doesn’t want to take that step, but he doesn’t delete the notes, either, because saying he doesn’t want to take the step now does not mean he’s sealing off that path forever.

Then look at her. Stop whining and look at her
.

He can’t.

Coward
.

Yes. He is.

“Max?”

She whispers his name, and it cuts through him like a blade. Right in the gut. A white-hot blade that keeps him pinned to the seat, unable to move, unable to look over.

No, Max. Not unable. Unwilling. If you care about her, look over and lie. Tell her what she wants to hear. Tell her you’re all right
.

He does care about her. Which is why he’s not going to lie. He’s not going to make her think everything is fine and he’ll never do it, because then, if he ever does, she’ll feel as if she failed, as if he was, in this moment, back on track and she failed to keep him there.

Then don’t lie. Tell her you won’t do it and mean it
.

“Max?” Her voice is so low now he can barely hear it, and he can sense her leaning toward him, hovering there, her worry palatable.

“Max? Talk to me. Please.”

He turns away and hunches down in the seat.

Max wants to kill himself.

It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve thought those words in the last few minutes, each time they’re like a punch in the stomach.

He wants to kill himself, and I had no idea.
No idea
. I thought I understood, and I was so damned proud of myself for that, for doing the research, for trying to understand what he’s going through, because I wanted to be the one who got it.

I wanted to be the one who helped him.

No, I wanted to be the one who saved him.

The thought is like grinding a fist on my punched stomach, and it’s all I can do not to double over and retch. Save him? Really? How pathetic is that? How arrogant is that? I couldn’t save the Porters. I couldn’t save Sandy or Gideon or Maria or Aaron or Lorenzo. I didn’t do a damned thing for any of them. But by God, I was going to save Max. I’d be the one person who believed in him, and I’d do more than believe in him—I’d storm out of that hospital and I’d clear his name, and I’d set him free.

Free.

To kill himself.

Because that’s what he wants, and I never saw it. Never had any idea. Oh, but I understand his situation. Really I do.

No, I don’t. I had no idea what he was going through. I saw the despair and the hopelessness. I saw the frustration and the rage. I saw the absolute agony in his face when he talked about strangling his friend, about what it felt like to do that, to live with doing that, to live with knowing he could do that again.

I saw the fear when he kept warning me to be careful around him, and I knew he was thinking he could do the same to me, but I didn’t really understand what that means
to him
. To say “I like this girl” and “I want to be with this girl, but I can’t, because I don’t know if I’ll wake up in the night and wrap my hands around her throat and maybe I never will but I can’t live with the possibility.”

I can’t live with the possibility
.

I still want to save him.

I think that’s the worst of it. I still want to take his hand and tell him he can get through this. That I’ll help him. We’ll come up with a strategy, and he’ll see things aren’t as bad as he thinks, and it’ll all be fine. Right as rain.

Complete and utter bullshit.

It will not be fine, and whatever he decides to do about that is his choice. Not mine. Not his mother’s or his father’s. Because this isn’t about us. Those notes aren’t a cry for help. He isn’t angry and looking to hurt someone. This is about him. Entirely about him. And I don’t want it to be. Because I care about him, and I don’t know how to care about someone who’s thinking of ending his life, how to take that risk when everything already hurts so much, when I’m barely walking through life myself.

I’m huddled in my corner of the backseat now. He’s retreated to his, and that’s as clear an answer as any. He doesn’t want my help. Doesn’t need it. And I feel so alone. I feel like I finally found something—found someone, found what I needed to get through all this, someone to lean on and
laugh with and talk to—and … no. That’s not what I found at all. I’m sinking, and I didn’t grab a life preserver, I grabbed an anchor, and either I let go or I sink with it, and I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let go.

I feel something touch my fingers, and I see Max’s hand, his pinkie hooking mine. I lift my gaze, and he works on something like a smile, he works so damn hard at it, and I … I burst into tears.

It’s not what I want to do. It’s the last thing I want to do. But I see his expression and the tears come, and he moves fast, stretching in the seat belt, his cuffed hands taking mine, and I fall against him and he whispers, “I’m sorry, Riley. I’m so, so sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. I never want to—”

“That’s enough,” Buchanan says. “Get away from her, Max.”

“Just a moment,” Max says. “Please. I’m still handcuffed. Just give me a moment.”

“I said get the
hell
away from her, you psycho—”

“Stop that,” I snarl, pulling away from Max. “Act like a damned professional.”

“Excuse me?” Buchanan twists in his seat. “Don’t you tell me—”

“Enough,”
Wheeler says. “You get back from him, Riley. You too, Max.”

His voice is oddly rough, like he’s lowering it, and that doesn’t matter, because as soon as he speaks, I don’t hear
Riley
and
Max
. I hear
Miss Riley
and
Maximus
. And I stare at his profile. I stare as hard as I can, my heart thumping.

When Wheeler first got into the car, Max made a smart-ass comment and Wheeler had given him a look, and that look … something about that look … I’d flinched, because in that flash of a second I’d seen eyes behind a gray mask. It had passed in a blink. Memory playing tricks on an exhausted mind.

“So you can talk,” I say, and somehow I manage to make it sound casual, though my heart thuds like it’s ready to burst from my chest.

Wheeler grunts and turns his attention to the road.

“How long have you two been on the force?” I ask.

“What? Are you questioning our credentials now?” Buchanan says, and I struggle to hear another voice in his, to hear Predator, but it’s not there.

“I’m just making conversation,” I say.

“Twelve years,” Buchanan says.

“And you, Detective Wheeler? Now that we’ve established you’re not mute.”

“Fifteen,” Wheeler says.

Damn it, I need to hear him talk … in more than one-word answers.

“And before you were on the major crimes squad? Any other units?”

I don’t hear the reply, because as soon as I think of other units, I think of the SWAT team, which makes me think of hostage negotiations, and a memory flashes. An audio one. A voice on the phone, a little distorted.

The hostage negotiator.

I look at Buchanan. Even as the theory was forming in my head—the unbelievable theory that Wheeler is Gray—I thought Buchanan played no role in it. He clearly wasn’t Predator. But there was another person involved that night. One I was certain survived. The man on the phone. The fake hostage negotiator.

I look over sharply at Max. I’m trying to figure out how to tell him, but his gaze is fixed on Buchanan with such intensity that I know he’s caught something too. He looks over at Wheeler and he’s searching, a little hesitant now, and when he notices me watching, he pulls back fast, and I can tell he’s second-guessing.

I tap the gray vinyl on my door handle. I point to the gray lettering on my shirt. Then I direct my finger to Wheeler. And Max’s eyes close with such relief that he swallows and nods. He’s not imagining the connection. And as soon as that first flicker of relief passes, his eyes fly open with such an “Oh, shit!” look that it ignites my own panic.

We’re in the car with Gray.

Gray and his accomplice.

They aren’t really police detectives. They fooled everyone at the hospital. The real police got Max’s story, and they knew it wasn’t him, and they lost interest and …

The manifesto.

It was in the papers. The papers blamed Max. The papers mentioned the manifesto. There’s no way in hell the police
wouldn’t
be questioning me and preparing to arrest Max and …

And if the police are investigating, and these are the only detectives we’ve seen …

They’re not pretending to be cops.

They are cops.

My brain screams no.
No, no, no
. There is no way officers of the law would ever pervert justice in this way, to become hired killers.

You really are a sheltered rich girl
.

I hear River’s words, and I know they’re true, because whatever pedestal I might put police on, a profession doesn’t cleanse you. There are cops who have committed murder, just like there are schoolteachers and truck drivers and stay-at-home moms who have done the same. I might not want it to be true. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t.

I still try to tell myself I’m wrong. It fits, though. Who else would be able to frame Max so well? They knew they could catch the case—it must have happened on their turf, and it happened on their turf because they chose the location.

River said the hit men helped him get out of those drug charges. Who better to do that than cops? What better reason for River to keep quiet than knowing that the law—which a guy like him wouldn’t trust anyway—is behind the crimes he helped with? He said they had access to the Porters’ case file. Of course they did. And what had River done when they arrested us? Freaked out. Absolutely panicked, and I thought it was because they were police and he has committed crimes. No. It was because these were the very men he’d just ratted out.

They hadn’t called a backup car for River.

They hadn’t called the hospital to protect Brienne.

We weren’t going to the police station to be questioned.

I grab the door handle. It’s a stupid thing to do, because there’s no way that door will open. But I act on instinct—the
instinct to throw it open and grab Max and roll out like some kind of action hero.

The door doesn’t budge.

“Hey!” Buchanan says. “What the hell are you doing?”

Max’s cuffed hands land on my knee, and they squeeze hard enough to hurt, and when I look at him, I see my own panic reflected back, but he’s struggling to keep it under control as he madly shakes his head.

Don’t give it away, Riley. Please don’t give it away. Play dumb. That’s our only chance
.

Which seems like no chance at all. Certainly not a plan. But he’s right. The moment we let them know that we’ve figured it out, they won’t take their eyes off us.

I’m straightening in my seat when Max’s gaze goes to my stomach. His lips form a curse, and I look down to see blood seeping through my shirt.

“Riley’s hurt,” Max says. “Her injuries have opened up again, and she’s bleeding.”

It takes two long seconds for Buchanan to look. Two seconds to remind himself that this should be a cause for concern. He glances over the seat and grunts, “It’s a little blood.”

“She needs to go back to the hospital,” Max says. “You aren’t charging her with anything, are you? It was my fault. I tricked her into leaving with me.”

Any other time I’d have jumped to his defense. But that wasn’t the point here, and instead I mumble, “It wasn’t really
tricked
, but I had no idea he was about to be arrested. And he said we’d only be gone”—I inhale sharply, wincing as if in sudden pain—“an hour at most.”

“Can we drop her off at the hospital?” Max says. “Or call a backup car to take her?”

Of course, we don’t really expect them to agree. Max is confirming our theory while distracting them from my escape attempt.

“Can she at least call her mother?” Max says. “You confiscated River’s mobile. Can she use that and let her mom know she’s all right?”

“The hospital knows she’s with us.”

“Can you give her painkillers?” Max asks. “Tylenol, aspirin …”

“Can you shut the hell up?” Wheeler growls. “I know it’s a strain for you, Maxi—” He stops before saying “Maximus” and retreats into silence as Buchanan shoots him a look.

As Max has been trying distraction techniques, I’ve been frantically looking for a way out of this car. All I can think about is River and what happened to him, because I have no idea where he is, but I’m sure he’s not alive and I’m equally sure we won’t be either if we finish this ride.

I might be able to smash out the window with my elbow, but that’s on a good day, and even if I managed it, they’d have guns on us before I could squeeze through, and if by some chance I did get out, I’d leave Max behind, and that isn’t happening.
Is not happening
.

I could try to catch the attention of a passerby. They’d probably think I was just goofing off, but I would still try … if there were anyone around. We’re in an industrial area, and I see cars in parking lots, but very few of those, and I swear half the buildings have For Lease or For Sale signs on them and boarded-up windows and …

I see rubble. Up the road. The remains of a demolished building. And I remember me and Max huddled in it as I lost consciousness.

Don’t leave. Please, please, please. I don’t want to be alone
.