The Masked Truth(68)

Two detectives arrive about thirty minutes later. I’m still online, watching videos of people talking about their experiences with schizophrenia, because I want to understand. After everything Max did for me, I owe it to him to try—as best as an outsider can—to understand.

The detectives are two guys named Buchanan and Wheeler. I don’t know either, and I’m disappointed by that. I’d hoped they’d be familiar faces, detectives who knew me from Christmas parties or summer picnics. Detectives who had some idea what kind of girl I am—not the sort to get “confused” or lie for a boy. But it’s a big-enough city that I don’t know every cop and detective. Far from it.

As Buchanan grills me, I realize they honestly believe Max did it. There’s absolutely no doubt in their minds, and all they’re doing now is gathering evidence to prove it so they can charge him. Meanwhile, he’s being “held” in the psychiatric ward downstairs, apparently because his mother was such a pain in the ass that they agreed to let the hospital hold him rather than put him in a cell.

Kudos to his mother, then. But her fight isn’t helping change their minds about him, because these two seem as ignorant as my sister when it comes to schizophrenia. I hate saying that. I really do, because I realize there’s a stereotype of cops as dumb bullies, and most are the polar opposite of that.

Maybe these two have just seen too many violent schizophrenics. Maybe they had a really bad case where one committed some terrible crime. Maybe they don’t know anyone with schizophrenia beyond the scope of policing. Whatever the excuse … well, there is no excuse, but whatever the cause, they have made up their minds. There is a schizophrenic teen and six bodies, and the link is obvious.

After they leave, I calm down enough to sort through the “facts.” I make notes so I can help Max, and as I do, as much as I hate it, I can see why the detectives have concluded Max is guilty.

Because there is no proof that we were kidnapped.

Predator must have survived his injuries. They’d removed Cantina and cleaned up all evidence that they’d ever been there.

As we’d guessed when we escaped, they faked their contact with the hostage negotiator—it must have been another partner playing Agent Salas. They’d never contacted anyone. At all. While we were running for our lives, our families had carried on with their Friday night, believing their kids were safely at a therapy sleepover.

That made no sense. The purpose of kidnapping is to make demands. So I can’t blame the detectives for thinking something is seriously wrong with this scenario. When they learned one of our group had schizophrenia, they must have thought, “Aha!”

At that point, the fact they had a living witness who said that wasn’t how it happened should have made them take a harder look. Maybe it did. But in talking to them, I got the feeling they didn’t consider me a real witness. I had “problems,” as they described it. I’d “been through a lot,” they said.

There’s only so much one person can take, Riley. Eventually something has to give, and you’re so young and you’ve had so much happen. First your dad, and then the people you babysat for, and I know how terrible that must have been.

Do you, Detective Buchanan? Do you really? You can’t. Sorry.

Part of it was my youth, but I got the feeling they might not have been so quick to decide I’d been unduly influenced if I had a Y chromosome. I’d lashed out earlier with Mom, wondering if they thought I was susceptible because I’m a girl and Max is a cute guy. That actually did seem to play a role in the detectives deciding I’d fallen under his spell. He’s cute and charming and a year older than me and has a British accent. No, seriously, Buchanan actually said that.

I know my daughter loves boys with accents. Especially British. She goes nuts for those One Direction kids. It’s the accent. It makes them sound like something out of romance books, with lords and earls and whatever. Girls love that stuff.

Actually, no, detectives, I have issues with the class system and its lingering effects on British society.

Buchanan just thought I was being a smart-ass then, and commented that I must have gotten along really well with Max.

So there it is. I’m not a valid witness because I have mental health issues, I’m under eighteen and I’m a girl. And Max is a cute boy. With an accent.

There’s more. I wish I could say there isn’t, because by that point I just wanted to paint them as incompetent morons, not merely jumping to conclusions but skydiving onto them.

The lack of evidence to support our story is one strike against Max. Me as the only witness is another. There’s Brienne too, of course, but she hasn’t woken up. I pray she’ll recover, and that has nothing to do with helping Max’s case, because I get the feeling nothing she says will help him. I need hard evidence.

They have that evidence. Or so they think.

Max was found with the gun that killed Aaron and Gideon. Aimee, Maria and Brienne were shot with Gray’s weapon and Lorenzo and Sandy with Predator’s, which ballistics should prove, but the detectives will only argue Max had backup weapons.

They have the knife used to stab me too. Like the gun, it has Max’s prints on it because he disarmed Predator. There aren’t any other prints. Our captors wore gloves.

So what do the police have as evidence? One messed-up witness. One comatose witness. Two weapons with Max’s prints all over them. They found preliminary gunshot residue on his clothing too. It also has bloodstains: Lorenzo’s, Aaron’s, Brienne’s and mine.