The Masked Truth(44)

Dad said that to some people, it makes perfect sense. The guy lost his job and was about to lose his house and all his savings over a bad investment, and he didn’t see a future for himself, and he couldn’t imagine how his family would survive without him. So he took them with him. Which wasn’t love. It was the most horrible self-centeredness I could imagine. Dad agreed, and we’d discussed it, and I know when he went to talk to that lady, after she threatened to “end it all,” that’s what he was thinking—about that case and others like it—but I didn’t care. Didn’t care at all. I just wanted him here.

Don’t do this. Brienne needs you to be strong. Present.

“My dad was amazing,” I say. “My mom’s great too. Even my sister’s not bad some of the time.” I try to smile for that, but I know it’s a shitty smile, and then I remember what she was saying before I got distracted by thoughts of my dad.

“You said you thought you were doing the right thing. For your family. You mean therapy? They wanted you to go, and now, well, obviously …”

“I’m regretting it?” She tries for a smile and fails. Tears fill her eyes again. “I don’t need therapy, Riley. Or maybe I do. You know what? Honestly? I think I do. I think I need a ton of therapy if I ever agreed—”

She shakes her head sharply, and I’m not sure what to say, beyond I don’t understand. After a moment, I say, “If there’s anything you want to talk about …” and she gives a sharp bark of a laugh, and my cheeks heat, as I realize how lame that sounds, how trite.

“Talk?” she says. “Confess, more like. I will. Because that’s as brave as I get, Riley.” She takes a deep breath and says, “I didn’t come for therapy this weekend. I came for you. To meet you. To talk to you. To get you to talk. That was the plan.”

When she doesn’t go on, I say, “Interview? For a school project? Or your school paper?”

“I wish.” She wraps her arms around herself and sinks lower against the wall. “Believe me, Riley, I’m not the kind of girl who’d go the extra mile for a project. Or join the school paper. Or the school anything. And yet, I’m the good girl in my family. The black sheep who actually cares about school, not because I bust my ass to get A’s but because I actually go, and I study enough to pass, which is as high as the bar gets for us. If I graduate high school, I’ll be the first in my family in two generations. And they’ll throw me a big party and tell me how proud they are of me.” She laughs bitterly. “No, they’ll probably set my diploma on fire to show me how worthless it is.”

“I—”

“I’ll tell you why I’m here, Riley. And I’ll do it before you fix that gun, just in case you decide to shoot me for—” Her hands fly to her face again. “Damn it, I’m sorry. I am such a stupid—”

I take her hands and pull them down. “Don’t say that. Just tell me.”

It takes a moment. Then her gaze lifts to mine, slowly but resolutely, as if she is indeed peering down the barrel of a gun and trying very hard not to flinch. “My brother was one of the guys who went after that couple you babysat for.”

I drop her hands. I don’t mean to, but I do, instinctively, as my gut clenches and I manage a strangled “Wh-what?”

“He didn’t shoot them. I swear he didn’t. He isn’t like that. He was standing watch. He owed these guys, and they needed a lookout. They said they were going to rough up that man—David Porter. Scare him. Only that’s not what they did, and my brother didn’t know what they had planned. I swear he didn’t know, Riley.”

“Okay …” I say slowly. “So you came here to talk to me …”

“I overheard my brother—River—talking on the phone a couple weeks ago, about the job. He caught me listening. He …” She inhaled. “He freaked. I tried to convince him to turn himself in, and he … well, he freaked out more. These guys have him scared shitless. Then, last week, he said he needed a favor from me. He’d heard a rumor that you knew more than you were letting on. That you were working with hypnotists and whatever to help you remember that day. He found out you’d be at this therapy camp, and he wanted to enroll me so I could get close to you and find out what you know. He arranged it all, pretending to be our dad.”

I’m quiet, processing, wondering how he could have found out I was at this camp, but Brienne takes my silence for anger and hurries on, words tumbling out.

“I didn’t know what else to do, Riley. I know that sounds cowardly. It is cowardly. But he’s my brother, and I want to help him. What I really wanted was for him to turn himself in and cut a deal. I talked to someone who said if he told his story and identified the killers, he probably wouldn’t even get jail time. But he’s scared. So scared. He’s not a bad person, Riley. It’s how we were raised, and it’s all he knows. I was scared for him, so I agreed to help.”

She continues, “I was going to find out what you know. I had to, so I’d know if River was really in danger. But no matter what you said, I was going to lie to River. I was going to tell him that you heard a voice—one of the killers talking to a guy outside, and you looked out the window and saw River. That way, he’d have real reason to turn himself in. Both because you saw him and because you could confirm that he was outside when it happened. That he wasn’t the shooter. That …” She trails off. “That was my plan.”