The Masked Truth (29 page)

“He moved them.”

“And Gideon is the one who actually shot him—by accident.”

The door opens. Mom walks in, and I forget what I was saying. Another question surges to the forefront.

“I read online articles covering Friday night,” I say. “What’s this about a manifesto on Max’s computer?”

She stops mid-step and blinks.

Sloane moves forward. “What she really means is, ‘Hey, Mom, I’m doing much better, and I’m up and around and busy figuring this mess all out, so when you get a second, could you tell me about this manifesto thing?’ ”

I remember what Sloane said about the doctor giving Mom something to calm down, and I should excuse her for that, and I do, a little, but there’s still that part of me that needed my mother to believe me yesterday.

“Tell me about the manifesto,” I say.

“I … I don’t know what—”

“I saw it mentioned online. If you don’t know, then I’d like to speak to the detectives again.”

She’s quiet. Thinking it through. I can tell she’d rather feign ignorance, talk about something more cheerful, more reassuring, but after a minute she says, “He wrote something on his computer, Riley. Explaining what he planned to do and why. I know you’re convinced he isn’t responsible, but this proves he is. It was … ugly.”

“What did it say?”

She fidgets.

“If you want to persuade me he’s guilty, you’re going to need to tell me.”

“It said he was angry. Fed up with his diagnosis and how he’s treated because of it. It said he doesn’t think he has schizophrenia, and that’s just a label they’re using to oppress him. He ranted on about conspiracies and persecution. He said he was going to take revenge Friday night, that you were all spies out to get him and he’d kill you all. Especially you.”

“What?”

“The letter singled you out. It said you wouldn’t pay attention to him, which proved you were a spy. He called you …”

When she trails off, I prod with “What’d he call me?”

Her mouth tightens. “ ‘That Mexican bitch.’ ”

I snort a laugh, and she straightens fast. “This isn’t funny, Riley.”

“Actually, it is.
They
called me Mexican. Our captors. So did one of the victims. Max asked why everyone presumes I’m Mexican when the only Vasquez he knew was a Spaniard. He would never have called me that. He’s being set up.”

“No, baby, he’s covering his tracks. He asked you about that so he could later
claim
the letter was fake.”

“The point of writing the letter, Mom, is to take responsibility. If he’s going to deny that, why write it?”

“He has mental problems, Riley. Serious mental problems.”

“And because he has schizophrenia, that’s your answer for everything, is it? That he’s crazy, so who knows why he does anything?”

“I never said crazy—”

“As for Max not believing his diagnosis, he told me he needed medication—the sooner the better—and that I needed to be careful because he sometimes saw or heard things that weren’t really there. That isn’t a guy rejecting his diagnosis.”

She goes quiet again.

“I know that silence doesn’t mean you believe me. It means you don’t want me to be disappointed when I find out I’m wrong. I’m not going to do anything stupid, Mom. The evidence will exonerate him. I’m certain of that.”

“I hope you’re right, baby.”

I don’t even have time to process the implications of that manifesto before Detectives Buchanan and Wheeler return. They don’t talk to me. They want my mother, because clearly, despite being only six months from the age of majority, I’m still a child who cannot be told “important stuff.” I am, however, old enough to know when important stuff is being discussed and get my ass someplace I can eavesdrop.

Max is about to be charged with six counts of murder.

It’s not just the manifesto or the fact that his prints were found on a gun. Two more weapons have been recovered: Predator’s and Gray’s guns. Both have Max’s prints on them.

That is, of course, impossible. That is to say, it’s impossible that he actually touched those weapons. Yet his prints are on them, which, combined with the manifesto, means he was thoroughly and completely framed … before we ever set foot in that building Friday night.

I’m no computer whiz, but I presume it would be possible to get the manifesto into Max’s computer, dated to look as if it had been there before Friday. They could then have gotten his prints from Friday, put them on the other weapons and then dumped both in the warehouse. But I don’t think that’s what happened at all. It’s too haphazard. Gray was not haphazard. He didn’t take us captive and then, when things went wrong, kill us all and later say, “Shit, we left witnesses. Wait! One’s a schizophrenic. Let’s pin it all on him!”

Even as I’m thinking that, I stop. Mentally rewind.

When things went wrong, kill us all
.

That’s not what happened, is it? I remember Sandy dumped in that room. That was always the plan.

Kill us all
.

I should be dead. I wasn’t supposed to be marched down that hall by Predator and released—I was supposed to be marched down that hall, shoved into that room and shot.

If Gideon hadn’t protested, that’s exactly what would have happened to me. Gideon blew everything to hell. And Gideon saved my life.

We were all supposed to die. And Max would take the fall.

The hostage scenario was to keep us calm. Convince us we’d all be free soon, and then kill us, one by one. Instead of fighting back, we’d happily walk down that hall to our deaths, thinking only of freedom, a few steps away.

Once we were dead, all they had to do was frame Max. They’d have killed him last to make it look like a suicide. One gun—Predator’s—would have been responsible for all deaths. They only had to put Max’s prints on it, which would have been easy enough to do while he was lying there, dead. The manifesto was already on his computer, ready to be found in the wake of the tragedy.

Why?

Why would anyone want seven therapy kids dead? How could we have any possible connection beyond that weekend?

I don’t know. Right now, I don’t care. Because Max is about to be arrested and charged with six counts of murder.

Max has been clinging to the certainty of exoneration. The reality, however … yes, the reality is much different, and while his mother might insist no charges will be laid, she has not helped allay his fears. They sit by the window. He’s writing. She’s staring out, searching for words that don’t come, until finally she says, “Is there any chance …?”

“That your son gunned down six people?” he says, not looking up from writing.

“Certainly not. But Mr. Robb … your lawyer …”

“I know who Mr. Robb is, Mum.” He puts down his pen. “The drugs
alleviate
the mental confusion. They don’t add to it.”

“Yes, well, Mr. Robb needs to know if there is a possibility, however remote, that you did
anything
Friday night. Perhaps involving the boy who accidentally shot himself. You said you tried to stop him. If you grappled for the gun, or if you even grabbed it …”

“I didn’t touch Aaron or the gun. Not while he was holding it. Riley says—”

Her lips tighten. “I don’t care what this Riley says. You are putting far too much stock in the words of a sixteen-year-old girl.”

“
Seventeen
-year-old girl, who is also my sole witness until Brienne recovers. Riley’s dad was a police detective, which means she knows far more about crime scenes than I do. With Aaron, she demonstrated from the physical evidence that I was not within contact distance at the time of the shooting.”

“This girl’s father was shot, wasn’t he? Killed in the line of duty?”

“Yes.”

“And she herself witnessed the death of the couple she babysat for?”

“Yes …”

“There aren’t any suspects yet in that case, are there?”

He blinks at her, wondering for a moment if his meds
are
working, because she can’t possibly be insinuating what she seems to be.

She continues, “It seems terribly coincidental that she’d be caught up in this only a few months after that tragedy.”

“Yes, it is terribly coincidental, which is why I won’t be at all surprised if the police find a link between those two murders and the ones on Friday night.”

His mother says nothing.

“That link is
not
Riley,” he says. “Really, Mum? What are you suggesting? That she just happens to have undiagnosed schizophrenia and experienced a psychotic break while I was with her … and then used my schizophrenia to make me doubt what I saw? So when Brienne wakes up and gives the
same
story, does that mean she has schizophrenia too? Or no, wait, it means we’ve both been seduced by Riley’s charms. Fallen under her sway.”

“I’m not accusing anyone—”

“No, you just suspect I’m lying. Maybe I really did do something. Or maybe I’m covering for Riley. Your son isn’t merely schizophrenic, he’s a pathological liar.”

“That is not what I said at all, Maximus. I do not believe for one moment that you are responsible for this. I was merely saying that if you did
anything
—at all—you need to tell us, because otherwise, if these detectives find out, it’s a slippery slope.”

“Slippery slope. Huh. How about this: if my lawyer wants to speak to me, please have him speak to me directly. I am legally an adult. Sending my mother to relay his concerns is insulting. I expected better of you.”

She doesn’t like that. She argues, of course, but the accusation has the desired effect, sidetracking her until she has to leave.

Then he’s alone in his room. Writing again, for the first time in a year. It’s not his usual fare—the wild and blood-soaked fantasies that everyone thought were so clever and so original … before the writer was diagnosed with the crazy bug.

No, Max is writing the story of a girl, one who may bear a marked resemblance to Riley Vasquez. It’s a fantasy story, of course, set in some make-believe land where his heroine’s father has been murdered by bandits and then she goes into service, only to see her employers brutally murdered. All right, perhaps it is not quite a bloodless tale … He’s leaving the actual killings out for now, in case the journal is found. In the current scene, the girl has just been accused of her employers’ deaths and has set out on a quest to prove—

The door behind him creaks open. He keeps writing. Footsteps tap behind him. Then a voice at his ear, whispering, “You need to get out of here.”

He slaps the book shut and gets to his feet, turning to face Riley. “What?”

She talks fast. Almost too fast. He should be accustomed to the American accent after a year stateside, but let’s face it, he hasn’t exactly led an active social life in the past year.

Really? And whose fault is that?

Mum, I think I need to get out for a while
.

Splendid! Let’s go to a show
.

That’s not what I mean. I was thinking I could take a class. Just one. To keep me in the swing of things. For when I start uni
.

Silence
.

I am going to go to uni, Mum. As soon as the meds are sorted. I’ll take a half load the first year and see how it goes. The best way to prepare, though, would be to start now with one course
.

Not yet, Max
.

Then when?

Soon
.

I am eighteen. I can bloody well
—

Don’t use that language with me. You may be an adult, but if you need to throw that in my face, you’re not acting like one, are you? You are temporarily under my care, despite your age, and—

“Max?” Riley says.

“Yes, I’m listening.”

Which he is, even if he’s struggling to keep up, and it’s not just the accent and how fast she’s talking—it’s what she’s saying. He cannot believe what she’s saying.

Really, Max? Really? No, you believe it just fine. It’s exactly what you feared
.

Reality: the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them
.

This was his new reality. A world where, when anything went wrong, the blame would land squarely on his shoulders because he was, certifiably, crazy. Any act of violence that involved him could be laid directly at his feet—the perfect walking-and-talking scapegoat. He could whine and moan about that, but he’d already proven it wasn’t a baseless accusation, hadn’t he? After what he’d done to Justin?

This was what he has to look forward to: a life spent waiting to be accused of exactly this. A life spent knowing that when the accusation comes, it might very well be valid. That he might very well have done it.

Which was no life. No life at all, and furthermore, not one he cared to live. And that—
that
—was his choice, wasn’t it?

Max?

Nothing. Never mind. Go away.

“What?”

He jumps, sees the look on Riley’s face and realizes it was her saying his name, not his inner voice, and worse, he’d replied aloud.

Bloody hell, bloody hell, bloody hell.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I didn’t mean— That wasn’t for you. It’s …”

He realizes what he’s saying and sees the look on her face.
Oh, yes, that’s better, Max. So much better
.

“Voices,” she murmurs, and she nods abruptly, as if processing this as fact and moving on. “I know that’s a symptom, so okay.”

“It’s not … I don’t …” He takes a deep breath. “It’s not really like that. It’s …” He trails off and shrugs. “Never mind.”

“No, go on. Please.”

He squeezes the bridge of his nose. “I don’t like to make excuses. To minimize my condition. I was going to say it’s not that kind of a voice, but how do I know? It might very well be. Or perhaps it’s evolving into that. All I know is there’s a voice. It’s mine. It’s always been there. It doesn’t tell me what to do. It just …” He shrugs. “It’s like me arguing with myself.”