The Masked Truth(74)

He dropped out of high school three years ago, after having spent more time smoking up than attending classes. No known occupation these days, though his peers suspected he was doing the same thing he had been in school: selling dope. Last year’s charges had been dropped. After that, River apparently moved on to bigger and badder things, working with the guy who murdered the Porters.

So River plays lookout for the Porters’ killers. Brienne overhears. Brienne promises to join the weekend therapy session to find out what I know. Brienne and I are both taken hostage at that session. We’re both shot and almost killed. I’d be crazy not to look for my link here. The problem? I can’t see it. The obvious answer is crazy. That the guys who killed the Porters wanted to finish the job. Eliminate the witness. But it’s been four months, and I haven’t exactly been in hiding. The hostage plan was far too elaborate for a simple assassination. And why the hell would River let his sister go in to talk to me if I was about to be killed?

Also, presuming everything that happened that night was about eliminating me seems … well, weirdly egotistical. Also paranoid. I’d also like to say it’s preposterous—that kind of thing doesn’t happen, right? But I’m a cop’s daughter, and the night I overheard my dad and his coworkers talking at their poker game was far from the first—or last—time. I was a curious girl who, admittedly, had a macabre turn of mind. I’d listened in often enough to know that people committed murder for the slimmest of motives and rarely had an excuse like schizophrenia.

Murdering potential witnesses is actually common in certain circles. Which is why, for the first month, Mom wouldn’t let me leave the house alone. Oh, sure, she’d find an excuse—Sloane has to drive past the school anyway; I want to go to the bookstore too—but I knew the reason. She’d been worried.

I don’t want to think this could have been about me, and it’s not just because that sounds self-centered. If it is about me, that means I’m responsible for six deaths. They all died because of me. Yet that’s crazy, isn’t it? To think these guys would murder six people to get to me? But what if they’d planned to kill only me, and then everything went wrong, and they panicked and …

I’ll stop there. As Sloane says, you can overthink things—get trapped on the hamster wheel of your own thoughts and fears. I’ll stick this in my mental back pocket: River could have been involved.

I dig deeper on Brienne. From what I see on social media, she’s an average teen. Sixteen years old. A former cheerleader, having quit the squad in the past year to focus on her grades, much to her friends’ dismay and befuddlement. She’s stayed on the track team, though, and has an active social life. A normal kid. Someone I could be friends with. No, strike that—someone I will be friends with, if she’ll have me, when she recovers.

When I dig into Brienne, though, I discover something I should have thought of, and I’ll blame the oversight on the fact that I have way too much on my mind. It’s been thirty-six hours since we escaped that warehouse, meaning our case is all over the news. Brienne isn’t named in most articles—she’s an “unnamed sixteen-year-old in critical condition.” A few of the online sources identify her, though. And they all identify me, because I guess I lost my right to underage anonymity when I was outed in the Porter case.

Our story is everywhere. It’s the perfect news for a slow week: teenage girl survives babysitting slaughter to be hunted by psycho killer during therapy weekend. Except the “psycho killer” isn’t Gray. It’s Max.

He’s eighteen, which means there’s no issue with identifying him. Which they do. With particular glee, a few point out he made the news in Britain a year ago, in “another violent incident.” They don’t elaborate, and when I search on his name, I get nothing, likely because he’d been a minor at the time. But this too makes a great story: the crazy British teen who flees his country only to murder six people here and, really, what has our immigration system come to that they can’t keep out guys like this?

Three of the articles hint at a stronger link between Max and the tragedy in the warehouse. More than the fact he has schizophrenia and there is “forensic evidence linking him to the crimes.” They mention something found on his computer. A manifesto. That’s all they say. I think I know what the word means. I’ve heard it before, in cases like school shootings. The killer writes a blog or records a video in which he explains his motive. But there is no way in hell Max wrote such a thing, so I think maybe I’m misunderstanding the word. My dictionary app insists I’m not, though.

“Do you know anything about a manifesto found on Max’s computer?” I ask Sloane.

She looks up from the magazine she’s been reading. “What?”

“A manifesto. It’s—”

“It’s a declaration. Why someone plans to do something.”

“Right. Sorry. I found references to one on Max’s computer.”

She sets down the magazine. “I didn’t hear anything about that. Must be a mistake. You know how journalists are. Dad always said if they can’t break a story, they make a story.”

“I guess so.”

“Time to shut off that laptop yet?”

“I want to make notes while they’re fresh in my mind.”

She sighs. “I don’t know how they won’t be fresh in your mind tomorrow, when you won’t stop thinking about them all night. Thirty minutes. Then lights out.”