The Masked Truth(41)

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.