The Masked Truth(55)

Is the stab wound life-threatening? I have no idea, but it doesn’t matter, because we’re fifty paces from the front door, and as soon as we throw it open, there will be an ambulance waiting. An ambulance and Mom and maybe even Sloane, if she’s decided this is worth giving up her Friday night plans for.

I chuckle at that, and Max glances back, but my smile reassures him and he returns it and shoots me a thumbs-up, and I mouth, “Right as rain,” and he smiles and as soon as he turns away I exhale and let myself wince.

I have one of Brienne’s socks under my shirt, and I’m holding it pressed to the spot. It stanches the bleeding. It helps that I’m wearing a navy blue shirt—in the dimly lit hall, it’s easy to miss the fact that my shirt is now blood-soaked.

We’re almost there. We’ve slowed, because we don’t know where Gray is. Either we’re too far away to hear his footfalls or he’s finally wised up and taken off his boots.

The front hall is just ahead. Max shoots me back a reassuring grin, catching me off guard, and I fake a stumble, as if that explains my grimace. He still pulls up short, alarmed, but I whisper, “Stubbed my toe. Just what we need, huh?” and he nods, not quite looking convinced, before glancing forward to reassure himself we’re close. We are. So damned close that when he peers around the final corner I expect Gray to leap out. I expect him to leap from every door we pass. He doesn’t.

We reach the front, and Max takes the keys, holding them tight and silent with one hand while plucking out key after key to try in the lock.

First one? No. Second? No. The third goes in and Max exhales a sigh of relief. Then he turns it and—

Nothing. He keeps turning, faster now, and yanking, and I lean in and whisper, “Back door,” and he shakes his head and says, “We need to get you out this one. It’ll work. I can—”

“No,” I say. “I mean that the key is for the back door. That’s why it fits but won’t turn.”

“Right. Right.”

He inhales, calming himself. Then he tries the next key. It doesn’t fit. The fifth one does, and the knob turns, and Max shudders then as he exhales. I reach over and squeeze his arm, and whisper, “We did it,” and he turns to me, and his smile—that smile—his whole face lights up and he reaches out, hands to my face. Then his gaze drops to my shirt, though, because at that distance he can’t fail to see the blood. I can smell the blood.

“That’s not a scratch, Riley. What the—?”

“Max?” I point at the door. “Paramedics.”

“Right. Yes. Of course.”

He turns to open the door, but I touch his arm again and say, “Once that door opens … I don’t want us to go our own ways. I’d like to talk.”

He looks over sharply, and my cheeks heat because I know that sounds lame, so I wave for him to open the door. He shakes his head and steps back with a little bow, motioning for me to do the honors. My heart is hammering and it feels like Christmas morning, me bouncing at the top of the steps with Sloane, her acting so calm and “whatever,” like Max is now, but when I look into her eyes I can see the excited kid there, and I see that now in Max’s.

When I reach for the knob, he leans over and whispers, “I’ll be here, Riley. To talk. Whenever you need it.”

I smile and pull open the door and then throw up my hands, braced for the light and the shouts and—

Darkness and silence.

I’ve opened the door into an empty front parking lot.

Which isn’t possible. Not possible at all.

I walk out. Behind me, Max whispers, “No. No, no, no.” I keep walking, because there must be people out here. A whole SWAT unit and a hostage negotiator and probably half the cops in town. Plus our families. Our families and the media and gawking strangers, lured in by the siren’s call of the chaos.

But there are no flashing lights. No police officers. No family members. No reporters. No onlookers. An empty, dark and silent parking lot.

Then Max whispers, “Riley!” and he runs for me. He grabs my arm just as I see a figure walking around the corner of the building. A figure with a lowered gun.

Max yanks me back inside.

Go back in? No. I want to wrench the door open and run outside. I don’t. I let Max tug me toward the nearest room. He opens the door and pulls me inside, and when the door closes, it’s dark again until he turns on his watch light.

He motions me to the wall behind the door, and we crouch there in silence. Then, after a moment, he says, his voice barely above a whisper, “Tell me it’s real, Riley.”

“What?”

He shifts, turning to face me, and his pupils are dilated, the fear in his face worse than any I’ve seen so far, and my heart starts to thump.

“Max?” I say.

“It’s not real, is it? It can’t be. No one out there? I’m imagining it. I’m hallucinating.”

“What?”

“Tell me it’s real or tell me it’s not.” He shakes his head sharply. “Bloody hell, does that even make any sense? How can you tell me it’s real or not real if you’re part of it? If you never came into that room after Aaron died? If Brienne’s not …” He sucks in breath. “Or maybe she is. But maybe you didn’t get stabbed, which is good. But then we didn’t find the keys, either. Of course we didn’t find the keys. Bugger it, that was too easy. Much too easy, and I knew that, which is why I imagined you got stabbed, because it can’t be too easy. The good with the bad. That’s how a proper story goes. We found the keys, which is good. But you got stabbed, which is bad. It wasn’t too deep, which is good. But then there was no one outside—”