The Masked Truth (37 page)

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-shirt said she thumbed her nose at labels, stood up and said, “Yep, that’s me—deal with it.” Gideon, the boy who was scared, so damned scared, lashing 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 noble 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 damn. 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 God 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 hell 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 you—begging you—not 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 anything—however hateful—
to 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.

It’s over. Yet it isn’t. Three days have passed, 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 ships passing in the night. No, two ships passing 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 pass, and we’ll see each other soon, and nothing and nobody will stop us.

The process of exonerating Max and charging Wheeler went more smoothly than I’d dared hope. It helped that Predator—who was an ex–military buddy of Wheeler’s—was 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 colleague—Cantina—and Predator’s girlfriend, Aimee. He turned on him in a flash. The only thing rarer than honor among thieves? Honor among killers.

As for what happened that Friday night, we’d correctly
figured out most of it, including Mr. Highgate putting a hit on his son. Wheeler learned of the job and incorporated it into his plan. But it didn’t actually start there. It started with Maria. Yes, Maria, the girl with the smile and the defiant T-shirt. Her stepmom didn’t want to be a stepmom. Didn’t want to share her new husband with his daughter. So she convinced him to take out a life insurance policy on Maria. Then she went looking for a killer. Wheeler caught wind of the job, learned Maria was in therapy, thought of Aimee’s failure to coax anything incriminating from me, and he hatched a plan to get rid of me and make a little money at the same time. Then he found out Highgate was looking for a hit on his son, and the pieces fell in place for something much bigger, much more lucrative. A grand scheme to combine two paying hits with silencing two witnesses—me and Brienne—and blaming a schizophrenic eighteen-year-old. As for Sandy and Gideon? They just happened to sign up for the weekend. Collateral damage.

I’ll never understand that. I’ll especially never understand how any parent could want his own child dead. That will haunt me forever. Change me forever.

What I do understand is that Wheeler was wrong. I didn’t run in that warehouse and leave the others to their fate. Because if I did, then so did Max, and I know Max did not. Maybe that’s the wrong way to look at it. Maybe I should be able to analyze my own behavior more objectively, but I can’t. I need to look at the guy who was by my side the whole time, and when I do, I can say, unequivocally, that he was not a coward.

We did the best we could. We tried to help others. We tried to
get
help for others. Our failure to do so will never stop hurting. That’s what I’ve taken from this. The understanding that there are events and situations that you’ll always second-guess, always think you could have done better.

The rest hasn’t gone away either. I know people sometimes say that if you’re depressed and anxious, you just need purpose, something to take your mind off your problems. I have plenty of purposes now—making sure Wheeler goes to jail for life, helping Max and Brienne, putting my own life back together. I’m doing all that … and I still wake every night, shaking and drenched in sweat. I have flashbacks that stop me cold. I have moments—just random moments, with no apparent cause—when I’m seized by the overwhelming urge to go to bed, cover my head and stay there. I don’t, but I still have to fight that urge every single time. But I will cope with that. I’ll cope with all of it. I know now that I can.

Right now, though, coping feels like as impossible a goal as getting time with Max. I’m spending a third of my days recuperating from injuries, a third talking to police and a third dealing with the media. Same for Max, though in his case his injury is less severe and the media attention is worse. I want to say he’s been branded a hero—a guy with a misunderstood condition that led to hateful accusations. There’s some of that. But there’s also uncertainty and whispers. Last night I overheard two nurses wondering if Max was really as innocent as they said, speculating that while he clearly wasn’t behind all the murders, the death of Aaron Highgate was a little suspicious, wasn’t it? And Max was, you know, crazy.

Sloane had to drag me away from them. Then I listened as she stalked back and told them off for me. My sister isn’t what I thought she was. I’m still not sure what she is, who she is, and that’s uncomfortable, because I’ve lived with her my whole life—I should know her better than anyone. I don’t. I’m looking forward to rectifying that, though.

I’m with Brienne now. She’s awake. The damage to her spine … I want to say that she’s fine and everyone was overreacting, but life isn’t like that. The fact she survived is a miracle, and I can’t ask for more. Well, yes, I can
ask
, but I
can’t expect it. The doctors don’t know the extent or permanence of the damage. Right now, she can’t move her legs. She has some feeling, though, and they say that’s a good sign, so I’ll take it.

Brienne doesn’t bounce back in any other way either. She almost died. Her brother is dead. Her parents? Her parents told the press that River had always been impossible to control, that they knew something like this would happen, that he’d go bad, and it wasn’t their fault. Brienne says she’ll never forgive them for saying that.

When her parents told the media they needed money to care for her properly, she shut them down. Said she’s not going home. She’s talking to a social worker. Mom has offered to be her temporary guardian. Brienne’s not sure she wants that. However it works out, I’ll be there for her. She was brave for me. She risked her life to save me. I will repay her for that, in every way I can.

Max joins us partway through my visit. That is not coincidental. I’d texted to say I was going to see her. We visit Brienne together for a while. Then we leave, still together, and he says, “Do you have a few minutes?”

“I texted Sloane to say I don’t need to be picked up for another hour.”

He smiles. “Good.”

He takes my hand and leads me through the hospital without another word. We’re moving fast, ducking down side corridors, tensing every time we hear a voice, and, yes, I do flash back to the warehouse. Like I said, that doesn’t go away. But it’s a quick flash, pushed aside quickly with a wry observation that these last few days I do feel a little bit hunted, in need of escape. Everyone wants to talk to me, it seems.

I’m so glad you survived that
. Um, yep, I am too.
It must have been terrible
. Yes, yes it was.
Really and truly terrible, all those kids dying
. Yes, and thank you for reminding me. I’d
forgotten for three seconds.
How are you holding up?
I’m vertical. It’s a start.
If you need anything …
Quiet. Right now, I need peace and quiet, and I know you’re trying to help, and I appreciate that, but I just need a little time to myself, okay?

Max takes me to the one place where we can find that peace. The rooftop. It’s not easy getting there, but he’s scoped out a route that only requires sneaking through two Do Not Enter doors. When we step into the sunshine, the first thing we both do is turn to the huge ventilation system, making enough noise that I swear my teeth are vibrating.

“Hmm,” he says. “Not quite as quiet as I hoped.”

I laugh and tug him across the roof until the noise of the ventilation system fades behind us. We find a spot on the far side and sit on the edge.

“Much better,” he says.

“As long as no one needs that,” I say, hooking my thumb at the helipad behind us.

He smiles, and we sit in comfortable silence, our legs dangling over the edge as we look out at the city, dappled with sunlight, and I savor that sight, because it reminds me how close I came to never seeing it again.

We’re still sitting in silence when something taps my hand, and I look down to see him holding out a jeweler’s box. I take it without a word and open it to find a necklace with a drop-shaped pendant.

“It’s a raindrop,” he says. “Not a teardrop. I realized after I bought it that might require clarification.”

I notice etching, and I lift it to read
Right as rain
, and my eyes fill with tears.

“I wish I could tell you I really am right as rain,” he says, his voice low. “That everything’s fine now, and things are never going to get that dark for me, and I’m stronger than that, because I want to be stronger than that, I want to show you I can be, but …” He takes a deep breath. “For now, I’m
as close to being all right as possible. Much, much closer than I have been in a very long time. It’s not where I want to be, but—”

I turn and throw my arms around him. “I know.”

We hug, and I feel … I feel everything. I’m scared for him and I’m scared for me. Worried for him. Worried for me. Worried for what’s going to happen, and feeling a little bit helpless because I know it’s not up to me, but that I’ll do my best, for both of us, and he’ll do the same, and that’s where it starts. With understanding and with trying and with wanting. And it’s not all fear and worry and anxiety. There’s more. So much more.

I hug him, and I’m happy. That’s what it comes down to. He makes me happy, and he makes me a better person, and he makes me stronger, and I can only hope that I do the same for him, and if I do, then the rest doesn’t matter.

I pull back, and then I take out the necklace and he helps me fasten it.

“I looked it up, you know,” I say. “Where the phrase comes from.”

He smiles. “Of course you did. And?”

“No one has a bloody clue.”

He throws back his head and laughs. “In other words, it’s utter rubbish.”

“No,” I say. “In other words, it means whatever we want it to mean. So I say that we are, in our own very special way, right as rain.”