The Masked Truth (16 page)

Aaron and Brienne agree it’s a good temporary hiding spot. There are boxes in the first room. None are big enough to hide behind, but once we’re all in, Max grabs one and sets it right behind the closed hallway door.

“I think they can push a box aside,” Aaron says.

Max ignores him and sets a second one on top of the first.

“They can push that one too,” Aaron says.

“But it’ll topple when the door opens,” I say. “Which we’ll hear from that room”—I point to the adjoining one—“and can slip out the other way.”

“Oh.” Aaron eyes the setup. “Okay. That’s a good idea.”

I brace myself against Max’s smart-ass reply. He thankfully keeps his mouth shut and just fusses with the boxes.

Brienne and Aaron retreat to the next room. I stay and watch Max, intent on his task, getting it exactly right, frowning and reconfiguring when it’s not. His hair falls in his face every time he leans forward, and after he makes a few increasingly impatient swipes, shoving it back behind his ear, I tug off one of my hair band bracelets and hold it out.

He takes it and smiles, and it’s not his cocky grin or sardonic smirk or even his distracted no-really-I’m-fine smile. He pauses what he’s doing and gives me a genuine smile. It’s warm, and it’s real, and it relaxes me. I suppose that’s a weird reaction.
Relaxes me
. I should say “it sent a thrill through me,” or “it lit up his face and I realized how cute he was.” But it’s like hot cocoa on a cold day, making me feel warm and happy and comforted. When he smiles, I hear,
It’s okay. We’ll get through this
, and that’s exactly what I need.

He ties his hair back, and I gesture at the boxes, saying, “May I?” and he bows—not his usual mocking formality, but as amiable as that smile. I tweak the top box, angling it slightly, and when he tests with the door, his smile widens and he says, “Perfect,” and we head into the other room with Brienne and Aaron.

Max stops beside me and lowers himself to the floor, knees up, his back against the wall. Brienne opens her mouth, as if to say sitting isn’t a good idea, but I join him.

After a moment Brienne crouches beside me and whispers, “How are you holding up? Are you okay?”

“Right as rain,” I say before I can stop myself, and Max chuckles.

“I’m fine,” I say as Brienne looks confused. “You?”

She nods. “I was worried about you.”

“Max is keeping me on track.” I smile over at him, and he dips his chin and shifts, as if uncomfortable accepting credit.

Aaron finally sits, sideways facing us, his knees drawn up.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’d say I’m sorry my dad’s rich, but that just makes me sound like an entitled asshole. Which isn’t to say I’m not, but …” He shrugs. “I’ll at least apologize for having an asshole for a father, which means I come by it honestly. I’m sorry he’s not getting the money faster.”

“I’m not sure it would help,” I say. “Even after he pays, our captors can stall for a while before the police will expect us to come out.”

“He
will
pay,” Aaron says. “He just doesn’t want to be too quick for fear they’ll raise the final price. Like I said before, he can afford it, and it’s a smart business move. It’ll also buy him leverage with me. Which he also needs. Get his kid to shape up and toe the party line.”

“Stop crashing cars?” I say with a half smile.

“Nah, he’s fine with that. I’m supposed to be a hotshot brat. Follow in Daddy’s footsteps and make him proud.”

When I raise my brows, he says, “I’m serious. I actually crashed the Rover on purpose. Even had a six-pack in the car and an open can in the coffee holder. Which is why I’m pissed off about this weekend. I did exactly what he expects, and he punishes me for it?”

Now Brienne and I both look at him.

“What?” he says. “Your families don’t expect you to drink and drive and smash up a fifty-thousand-dollar car? Oh, right, sorry. You guys come from normal families.”

“Not exactly,” Brienne murmurs, looking uncomfortable.

It takes him a second to get it, but then he jostles her leg. “Sorry. Open mouth, insert foot. Especially when I’m feeling sorry for myself. Yeah, my family is screwed up. I crashed the Rover because I’m trying to convince my dad I’m just a normal bratty teen. I got in a fight with my girlfriend, dropped her off at the side of the road, bought some beer, cranked up the tunes and wrecked the car. Proving I’m the son he wants,
and any evidence to the contrary was a one-time error in judgment.”

“Uh-huh,” I say.

He glances over. “He caught me in bed with Chris a few months ago. Chris and I have been best friends since grade school. Chris, by the way, is short for Christopher, not Christina.”

“Ah.”

“Yep. The world may be progressing, but in some circles, it’s still the fifties. A gay kid is not what my dad wants for a son. That causes all kinds of inconveniences and complications, don’t you know. So it’s my job to convince my dad it was just teenage experimentation, indicating nothing but curiosity and a lack of judgment.”

“Why?” Max says.

Aaron scowls at him. “Why what?”

“Why not just say this is who you are, so get stuffed, Pops. It doesn’t seem as if you two get along anyway.”

“Do you know what a conversion camp is?” Aaron asks. When Max frowns, he says, “You don’t have them in Britain, I’m guessing. Lucky you. Mostly, they’re religious, with therapy to ‘straighten out’ gay kids. Like this weekend, plus prayer. Lots of prayer. But there are others. There was one in South Africa a few years ago. Three kids died because they didn’t get with the program. That’s the sort of thing my dad was threatening. And as long as I’m under eighteen, he can do it. So I have two more years to play straight and then he really can ‘get stuffed,’ as you say. Just as soon as I’m sure my mom gets whatever money’s coming to her.”

Max nods and says, “All right. I get it,” and Aaron relaxes, because Max wasn’t challenging him—he really was curious.

“My father will come through,” Aaron says. “He’s dicking around, same as he wouldn’t jump too quickly at a good
investment opportunity. Which is what this is, in a way. He can’t seem too eager.”

“Even if it’s his son’s life at stake?” Brienne says.

Aaron shrugs. “You don’t seize control of valuable assets and then torch them. We just need to stay out of their way long enough for him to cave.”

I glance at Max. He says nothing, but I can tell by his expression he doesn’t believe this, any more than I do. No more than we think Brienne’s right and these are just messed-up guys who panicked and regret their mistake.

When Mr. Highgate transfers over the hundred-grand down payment, Gray will say it took too long. Highgate stalled and that wasn’t a show of good faith and any agreement to resume freeing kids is null and void. He’ll tell the negotiators we’re all staying until the money is paid.

In a normal hostage situation, the negotiator would continue trying to arrange our early release, because that was the sure thing. He’d offer food, water, media coverage, helicopter transport, whatever it took to guarantee live bodies walked out that door. Except this is really a kidnapping dressed up as a hostage-taking. We have more than enough food and water to get through the weekend. There’s no political angle, so no need for media. And I’m sure Gray has transportation all worked out. The only thing he wants is money, and I’m afraid even that isn’t enough now. They’ll take the hundred grand. Then they’ll get the hell out, leaving nothing behind except bodies.

Pessimistic? Yes. Realistic? Yes, even as the thought makes me stifle a whimper, makes me want to curl up and put my hands over my ears and shout, “No, no, no!” But it’s true and I need to remember that and not for one second give them the benefit of the doubt. Know they plan to kill us. Make damned sure they don’t.

I say none of this to the others. I just take out the blueprint and study it, while Max looks over my shoulder.

“We need an escape hatch,” Max says.

“Sure,” Aaron says. “Or maybe a bulletproof bunker, loaded with guns and a direct line to the White House and pizza delivery.”

Max doesn’t even favor him with a look, just keeps studying the map with me.

After a moment, I look up sharply. “Guns. Didn’t you have one, Aaron? We heard shooting.”

“I grabbed one from the guy with the Star Wars mask, but it ran out of bullets.”

“Where is it?”

“Back there,” he says, waving vaguely. “Not much point in carrying it without ammo.”

Actually, there was. I remember one of my dad’s stories, about a time he’d been jumped by a kid and he’d pulled his gun—and knocked the kid out with it. I’d heard some of the guys, years later, teasing him about that.

“And then there’s Vasquez here, who mistakes his gun for a set of brass knuckles.”

“Hey, do you know how much paperwork they make you fill out if you fire the thing?”

“Could have saved us some trouble if you did, Jim. One less gangbanger to worry about.”

One less gangbanger. Ha-ha. Dad always laughed along, but I knew paperwork had nothing to do with it. I remember, too, overhearing a couple of guys at a police BBQ saying Dad was soft on the gangbangers because he’d grown up with guys like that. Which was presumptuous and racist bullshit. Dad was raised in the suburbs. He didn’t shoot that kid because he wouldn’t shoot
any
kid. Wouldn’t shoot any
person
if he didn’t absolutely need to.

And, maybe, even if he needed to.

A gangbanger hadn’t killed him. It’d been a forty-year-old woman in the suburbs, exactly the kind he’d grown up
in. Ordinary neighborhood. Ordinary house. Ordinary family. Or so it seemed from the outside. Inside was a guy who liked to knock around his kids and his wife, and one day his wife took his gun and shot him and then barricaded herself and the kids in the house. Dad was trying to talk her into letting the children go. She shot him. Point-blank shot him. His partner jumped her, and the kids were safe and Dad was a hero. A dead hero.

“Riley?” It’s Max, his fingers resting against my arm.

“We should get the gun. It makes …” I’d been thinking something else too, before I got distracted. Right. I turn to Aaron. “How many shots did you fire?”

“What?”

“Two,” Brienne says.

“And there were two fired earlier,” I say. “The gun holds more ammo than that.”

“Then it wasn’t full,” Aaron says. “I tried a few times.”

Brienne nods. “Even I did.”

“Did you check the chamber?”

Blank looks.

“He’s not going to come on this job with the cartridge half full,” I say. “The gun’s jammed.”

“Can you fix it?” Max asks me.

“I can try.”

Aaron points out, rightly, that there’s no sense in all four of us leaving the safe room to recover the gun. He wants backup, though, and I guess it’s natural that he picks the other guy in the group, but Max isn’t happy about it.

“You know,” Aaron says, “just when I think you’re not an asshole, you go and prove me wrong.”

“I could say the same about you, but I won’t.”

“You just did. I need backup, Maximus—”

“Really rather you didn’t call me that.”

“Sorry, Maximus.”

“Seriously?” Brienne says, beating me to it. “This isn’t the schoolyard, boys. If you two can’t handle it, Riley and I will.”

“I’m the one who knows where I left the gun,” Aaron says. “I’m asking Max to help because I need backup.”

“And only a guy can do it?” Brienne says.

“I’m not arguing about going,” Max says. “It’s just …” A quick glance at me. “Riley and I work better together. If you can tell us where the gun is, we’ll go get it. Or you and Brienne can go. I would just rather …”

He trails off, and I know he’s not keen to pair up with Aaron. I’m struggling for an excuse, a way to back him up, because the simple truth is that I don’t want to be separated. Max is the one I trust. More than that, he’s the one I care about. I’ll do everything in my power to protect Brienne and Aaron, but Max … Max is different. The thought of him heading out there alone sets my heart pounding, but all I can think of to say is, “I’m fine with going. I’m the one who can unjam the gun.”
I hope
.

“I think you need a break,” Aaron says to me, and I’m about to argue, hotly, when his gaze slides to Brienne, and I understand what he’s really saying. Of the four of us, she’s still the most likely to crack, the one not completely convinced we can’t go to Gray, say, “I give up,” and survive. Aaron doesn’t need Max with him so much as he needs me to keep Brienne calm and steady.

I glance at Max. He’s figured it out, and he’s not happy about it, not at all—his blue eyes darkening, his lips tight—but when I say, “All right,” he only shoves his hands in his pockets and heads for the door.

I jog after him, and we pass through the interior door, Aaron hanging back to give us a moment. Max hasn’t realized
I’m behind him yet, and he gets three steps into the other room before wheeling and smacking into me.

He jumps back fast.

“Sorry,” I say. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

“And I was just heading back to apologize for storming off in a huff.”

“It didn’t seem all that huffy,” I say.

I offer a smile, but his return one is strained, his face still tight, and when I lay my hand on his arm, it’s trembling. I squeeze it.

“Are you okay?” I ask. “And don’t say, ‘right as rain.’ ”

His lips twitch. “
Not
right as rain. Is that better?” He sobers. “I’m all right. I’d just rather not be separated.”

“Are you feeling okay? Any symptoms? You
seem
okay.”

“I am. Just being shirty.”

“Whatever that means.”

“Moody. Bad-tempered. A tad bratty too. I’m comfortable with you. I want to stay with you.”

“Ditto,” I say, and I lean against him, and he puts his arm around me, just a one-armed squeeze as I lay my head against his shoulder. Then the door opens, and I step back as Aaron comes out.

“Be quick,” I whisper to Max. “No side trips looking for escape hatches. We’ll do that once we have the gun.”

He smiles, and it’s a real one now. He squeezes my elbow and then takes off with Aaron.