The Masked Truth Part 27

Then when?

Soon.

I am eighteen. I can b.l.o.o.d.y 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 talkingit'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 feetthe 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 thatthatwas 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.

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l.

"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."

"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."

CHAPTER 29.

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 ma.s.s murder. That took some work. While she calls bulls.h.i.+t 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 homeanother 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 a.s.sume 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 everythingfrom 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but he's never raised a hand to me. Neither of my parents has. They say that's one possible precipitating factor for schizophreniaan abusive family lifebut 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, "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," 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 h.e.l.l 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-cla.s.s 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 bada.s.sery 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 moneywe were just about to move into a new houseor proof they were in serious financial straitshe 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.