The Masked Truth(2)

When I peer down, I see Mr. Porter’s face. His mouth is bloody and he’s wiping it as he sits up.

“You want money?” he says. “There isn’t more than a hundred bucks, but you can take my credit cards.”

The rest is drowned out by the sound of the hair dryer, still running. A door creaks behind me. It’s Darla, stepping from the bedroom, her mouth opening as she sees me.

I fly up those stairs so fast I’m sure I’ll be heard. I push Darla back into the room and close the door.

“The game’s ready,” she says, and I realize she didn’t hear anything.

“Go ahead and start. I-I’ll be right there.”

I need to get to a phone. Is there one in her parents’ room? Do they still have a landline?

And how long am I going to stand here wondering while a robbery unfolds below?

Robbery. Oh God, there’s a robbery, and the Porters are down there and I have Darla and I need to—I need to do something, anything.

I hurry back to Darla and drop to a crouch. “I’m going to step out and talk to your dad. You need to stay here. Start your turn. Youngest goes first, right? Now wait right—”

The hair dryer stops.

I have to warn Mrs. Porter.

A shriek from downstairs. A half-stifled yelp of shock has Darla’s head jerking up, her eyes going wide.

“Did you hear that bird? It sounds strange, huh?” My words tumble out fast and shaky I’m not even sure she understands. “Stay right here while I—”

A shot.

I bolt up from my crouch so fast I nearly fall over. Did I just hear—? No, I couldn’t have. It’s a robbery. Just a robbery.

“Riley …?” Fear licks through Darla’s voice, and I know she heard the same thing.

“It’s—it’s just a car,” I blurt, barely able to get the words out. “Backfiring. But … but … we’re going to play a new game, Darla. Y-your mom’s coming up in a few minutes to say goodbye and we’re going to hide. How’s that?”

The fear evaporates as she lets out the first note of a squeal. I slap one trembling hand over her mouth. “Shhh. Don’t give it away. Now get under the bed.”

“But that’s the first place she’ll—”

“We don’t want to worry her. Just surprise her. Come on.”

I prod her to the bed. Then I hurry to shut the door. Below, I hear Mrs. Porter’s muffled sobs.

I need to do something.

“Riley?” Darla pokes her head from under the bed.

I quickly shut the door and run back to her.

I’m overreacting. Cop’s kid—we do that. It’s a simple armed robbery.

Simple armed robbery? At the thought, this weird burbling laugh sticks in my gut.

Yes, armed robbery is bad, but that’s all this is. The thief wants something. He fired a shot to scare them. That’s all. He wants debit cards or credit cards or jewelry, and they’ll give it to him. They’re smart. They aren’t arguing.

Just a robbery.

That’s it, that’s it, that’s it.

I crawl under the bed and strain to listen. I can still hear Mrs. Porter, her words now too faint to make out, but her tone tells me she’s begging.

Why don’t I hear Mr. Porter?

That shot.

No, they’ve knocked him out. That’s all. Knocked him— A second shot. And Mrs. Porter stops begging.





CHAPTER 1


If there’s anything more tragic than spending your Saturday night babysitting, it’s spending your Saturday night babysitting after canceling a date with the guy you’ve been dreaming about all year.

How many times have those lines gone through my head in the past four months? How many nights have I lain in bed, thinking them? Stood in front of a mirror, thinking them?

You stupid, stupid girl. You had no idea what tragedy is.

Tragedy isn’t a ruined Saturday night. It isn’t a missed date. It’s lying under your bed with the babysitter and listening to two shots, and then following your babysitter into the hall and seeing your parents at the bottom of the stairs, covered in blood. Tragedy is spending your life trying to understand how that could have happened, how you could have been under the bed, giggling, with your babysitter, while your parents were murdered. And your babysitter did nothing about it.

Hell is being the girl who did nothing, who has to live with that guilt. Worse, having to live as a hero, listen to people tell me how brave I was and how I saved that little girl, and all I want to do is shake them and say, “I hid under the freaking bed!”

It doesn’t matter if my mother and my friends and my priest and the police and two therapists have told me I did the right thing. It doesn’t even matter if my older sister Sloane says it, rolling her eyes with “God, Riley, you are such a martyr. Would you rather have been shot? Like Dad?”

Any other time Sloane brought up our father’s death that casually I might have taken a swing at her for it. Maybe that’s what she wanted. To smack me out of my paralysis. It didn’t matter. I heard her say it, and I walked away.

After Lucia and I became friends, she admitted she used to cut. I’d been supportive and I’d tried to understand, but I couldn’t really. Now I do, because the impulse to feel something, anything, is so incredible that there are times I dig my nails into my palms hard enough to draw blood. It doesn’t help.