The Masked Truth (30 page)

“Doesn’t everyone do that?”

“Maybe. Perhaps mine is different. I just … I don’t want to deny that I have a symptom if I do. For now, I’ll just say
that it’s never told me to do anything stupid. It’s usually telling me
not
to.”

“What was it telling you
not
to do this time?”

He tenses. She pulls back.

“Sorry,” she says. “I’m prying. We shouldn’t be talking about this anyway. We really do need to go, Max. If you do it now, you’ve only left a hospital against doctor’s orders. That’s not a crime. But as soon as they tell you you’re being charged …”

“It’s entirely another matter.”

“Yes. Will you come with me?”

He manages a quirk of a smile. “Are you offering to take me away from all this, Riley Vasquez?”

She returns the smile, a little too bright, relieved he’s back to himself. “I am. We’re breaking out of here. Sloane is all set with a distraction. As soon as you’re ready to go …”

He shoves his journal and pen into his jacket and pulls it on. “Ready.”

As I told Max, getting us out of the hospital isn’t illegal. Of course, we can’t just stroll out, either, or I’m sure someone would summon the police to get those charges laid ASAP. So Sloane distracts the floor staff while we sneak out. Yes, Sloane is letting her little sister leave with a guy accused of mass murder. That took some work. While she calls bullshit on the charges, she wasn’t keen on me leaving the hospital with anyone, given my condition. I convinced her, though, and she was the one who’d offered to help with the staff and then keep an eye on Brienne, in case the killers came back.

Max’s boots and jacket are evidence now, but his mother had brought him replacements from home—another pair of Doc Martens and a vintage leather motorcycle jacket. Not that he’d had much use for either in the hospital, but I think she was trying to make him more comfortable, like my mother bringing the tattered stuffed marmoset my dad brought home from a training trip when I was little.

Max and I assume that once the detectives realize he and I are gone, they’ll put out a BOLO for a Hispanic teen girl walking with a blond guy. We split up and take side roads until we’re far enough away that it seems safe to regroup and talk.

I tell Max everything—from Lorenzo to Brienne’s brother. Then I tell him all of my research and my plans. He says nothing until I finish, and then, “That’s … brilliant.”

I look over sharply, thinking he might be, if not exactly mocking me, maybe a little amused. But he seems stunned. After a moment he says, “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this, Riley.”

“You saved my life.”

He goes quiet, his boots clomping on the sidewalk. Then he says, “I could have got you killed.”

When I look over, he’s facing straight ahead.

“You need to know that,” he says. “To understand. What I’m capable of.”

“I know you can have delusions. There was something in the articles about a violent incident back in England.”

He stiffens. I hurry on, “I’m guessing there’s some truth to that. From the way you tried to avoid fights in the warehouse, I thought maybe your father abused you …”

His head whips my way. Then he lets out a sharp laugh. “Excellent deduction, but no. My father can be a bit of a bastard, but he’s never raised a hand to me. Neither of my parents has. They say that’s one possible precipitating factor for schizophrenia—an abusive family life—but it isn’t the case with me. We have our issues, but they’re more issues of expectation. Only child. High-achieving parents. Formerly high-achieving son.”

“I’m sorry.”

A pained chuckle. “That sounded bitter, didn’t it?”

“Frustrated.”

He shrugs it off with a roll of his shoulders.
Rather not talk about it, Riley. Let’s skip the therapy and stick to the plan, shall we?

But after a few more steps, he says, “The incident … what you read in the papers. I should explain.”

“Only if you want to.”

“No, but I ought to. It’s only right. So you understand what could happen.”

We round two corners before he continues. “I thought my best friend was possessed by demons. The twelve Malebranche from Dante’s
Inferno
, though the only one who’d talk to me was the leader, Malacoda.”

“That’s very … specific.”

“I’m very particular in my special brand of crazy.”

He glances over, seeming to expect a smile for that. Instead, I say, “You shouldn’t say that.”

“That I’m crazy?”

“You have schizophrenia. It’s not crazy.”

“No? Then what is?” He looks at me, and any trace of good humor vanishes. “If schizophrenia isn’t crazy, then what exactly
is
crazy, Riley? I see things that aren’t there. Hear sounds that aren’t real. I thought my best friend was possessed, and I throttled him for it. Strangled him, trying to free him from the demon. If someone hadn’t caught me, I might have killed him, and please do not tell me I wouldn’t have done that, that I don’t have it in me, because
I
don’t know what I’m capable of anymore. I no longer have the luxury of saying I know what I am and what I will and will not do, and I never will again.”

He sees my expression and says, “Bloody
hell
,” and rubs his hands over his face. “I’m sorry, Riley. You didn’t deserve that little rant.”

“You’re frustrated. Understandably and—”

“Can we not talk about it?”

I’m silent for three heartbeats. Then I say, slowly but firmly, “You started this discussion, Max. I didn’t bring it up. I don’t know how you want me to respond, but clearly I’m not doing this right, and I’m sorry for that. But I’m not the one who raised the topic or is prolonging it.”

“Right.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Yes, of course.”

“You felt you had to explain, but you don’t want to talk about it.”

“Talk …” He yanks his hands out and runs them through his hair, and the band I gave him shoots free and bounces to the sidewalk as he mutters, “Talk, talk, talk.”

“Too much talk. I know.”

“No, Riley. That’s the thing. I do want to … I want to …” Hands back in his pockets as he mumbles a curse I don’t catch, and then, “Focus, focus.”

I look up at him. “I know I’m not doing what you want, Max, and I’m trying to figure out what that is, but I can’t. So you’re going to have to tell me. What do you want right now?”

He kisses me. I don’t see it coming. Well, yes, I see him moving forward, but we’re standing so close that by the time I see him move, he has my face between his hands and he’s lifting it into a kiss. A deep kiss, nothing that can be mistaken for the equivalent of a friendly hug or squeeze. This says more. So much more, and it’s everything I didn’t realize I wanted him to say until he’s kissing me and all I can think is,
Yes. I like this. I really, really like this
.

He backs up fast, his hands dropping. “No, not that. Sorry. Not that.”

“Um, I didn’t start …”

“Yes, I know. It was me. But you can’t let me do that.”

“Okay …”

“Stop me if I do that. Or if I do anything else. If it seems I might hurt you.”

“So … stop you if you try to kiss me or kill me?”

“Yes.”

I bite the inside of my cheek then. I have to, because I
want to laugh at that, at the absurdity of it, but his expression is perfectly serious.

“What I’m trying to say, Riley, is that you can’t trust me. Yes, I’m on my meds.” He reaches into his pocket and there’s a small collection of pills in his palm. “My mum gave me extras, as a security blanket. She knows I worry. That may seem as if it’s enough. I’m on the meds, and I’m as level as it gets for me, and I’ve never done anything while I’ve been on this dose, but that doesn’t mean I
couldn’t
. I’m eighteen. I’ve only been diagnosed a year. My condition is still changing.
I’m
still changing. I need you to be aware of that and to tell me if I start acting odd.”

When I don’t reply, his lips twitch in the barest smile. “Yes, odder than telling you to stop me if I try to kiss or kill you. For me, that’s a normal level of odd.”

“Okay.”

He eases back and studies my expression. “Do I scare you, Riley?”

“No.”

He nibbles his lip as he keeps studying me. “I don’t want to, but I think I should. I think it’s safer for you if I do.”

“You don’t scare me, Max. I understand that I need to be careful around you. I understand that I need to be watchful. I understand that if you do something that worries me, I need to get the hell out of your way and not tell myself I’m overreacting, even if I am.”

“Exactly!” He throws his arms around me in a hug. “That’s exactly it.”

I look up at him as he embraces me. “Should you be doing this?”

He sighs. “Probably not.”

He backs away, and we both break into a laugh. He runs a hand through his hair and then stops short and looks about the ground for the band.

“Here,” I say, peeling another from my wrist.

“No, got it.” He retrieves the fallen band, and then pauses and takes the one I’m offering, putting it onto his own wrist with “Backup.” His cheeks flush, and I’m not sure why, but it’s gone in a blink, as he fastens his hair again and waves at the sidewalk, saying, “Shall we?” and we continue on.

I have a plan. It is not a great one. I’m sure it could be, if I were a detective. Or a criminal. The truth is that I’m not equipped to solve this mystery. Sure, I can pull the “I’m a cop’s daughter” routine, but that only gets me one step down a very long path. I have no experience interrogating witnesses. No right to interrogate them. Certainly no skills for either convincing or forcing them to answer my questions. I don’t know how to pick a door lock or search an apartment or break through laptop security.

Max knows none of the above either, because we’re a couple of middle-class teenagers whose idea of rebellion is blowing off a first-aid course to sneak into a summer concert. When I admit that, Max tops my badassery by confessing that he once stole a punt from Oxford to take a girl for a river ride. Or that’s what he told her, when the truth was that he’d gotten permission to take it, because his mother was a prof there, and he certainly wasn’t going to risk his own future admission by doing something “daft” just to impress a girl.

On top of our complete lack of experience, we also have situational factors to contend with. Namely, that I’ve been knifed and shot, meaning I can’t exactly run, jump or fight. And Max is wanted by the police for six murders, and soon every cop in the city will be looking for him.

Still, I have a plan, even if it’s not quite as impressive as I might like. There are people I want to speak to. With
any luck, those conversations will lead to links and clues we can pursue.

I’m convinced now that Lorenzo was in on the scheme. Max agrees with my reasoning. If Lorenzo was part of it, then the most likely motivation would be money. Through his wife, I might be able to confirm that, maybe get a sense of his plan for the money—
we were just about to move into a new house
—or proof they were in serious financial straits—
he was having such a hard time, struggling to pay his mother’s cancer bills
.

The first stop on my list is Lorenzo’s apartment, where Max waits outside. At this point, I’m not a suspect in anything, and while Lorenzo’s wife might be surprised to see me on her doorstep, she’ll almost certainly be too deep in grief to have paid much attention to reports on my condition. I’ll tell her I was just released from the hospital and came by to offer my condolences.

It’s a pretty good plan. And it goes wrong the moment Lorenzo’s apartment door opens and the woman standing there is older than my grandmother.

“Is Mrs. Silva in?” I ask.

She shakes her head and starts to close the door. When my hand shoots out to stop her, I think I startle both of us. She falls back with a squeak and I do too, and she nearly slams the door before I can grab the knob.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I know this is a bad time, but—”

She cuts me off with a stream of Spanish so fast that I have to struggle to catch the gist of it. I claim I’m fluent in the language, and I am … compared with most kids in my school, who know only enough to successfully order beer and margaritas on a trip over the border.

This woman thinks I’m selling something and says that her grandson has died and if I don’t let go of this door she’s calling the police.

“Soy Riley Vasquez,”
I say quickly, introducing myself. Then I slow my Spanish, picking my words with care, knowing how bad my accent is. “I was with your grandson. I’m one of the survivors.”

Her eyes round when I give my name. When I say the rest, she reaches out and pulls me into a hug, and I get another string of rapid-fire Spanish in a very different tone as she pats my back and then tugs me inside.

“You were with him,” she says, still in Spanish. “You were the last to see him.”

“I-I—” I’m not ready for this. Damn it, I should have been ready. Of course his family would want to know about the end. Did he say anything? Exactly what happened? Because the police never tell you everything, and you so desperately want to know.

Was someone with you when you died, Dad? Did they hold your hand? Did you have any last words?

These are the important things. These are the things no one tells you, because everyone is focused on the crime, on solving it, on fixing the damage. Only it isn’t justice you want right then. It’s not even justice you want eighteen months later. It’s comfort. It’s knowing that he didn’t die alone. That he didn’t linger in pain. And I can say neither of those things about Lorenzo.

But I have to say something, and it doesn’t matter if I think he was an accomplice to six murders, because that has nothing to do with this woman. She deserves better.

I want to lie. I want to say that I was there when he died and he went quickly. But if she’s heard anything different, then I’ll only make it worse.

So I tell her that he managed to escape after he was shot, and I found him and talked to him, and his concern was not for himself but for getting us kids out. That I held his hand and I talked to him but he wanted us to go, to
escape, and that we tried as hard as we could to find a phone so we could get him help.