The Masked Truth(75)

“Yes, Mom.”





CHAPTER 28


The next morning, I find the hospital bag of my belongings from “that night.” The clothing I’d been wearing has been confiscated. But there are the things I had on me, including the map I’d taken from Lorenzo’s backpack.

“What’s that?” Sloane asks as I set it aside with my stuff.

I tell her, and she picks it up. “One of the counselors had this? In his bag?”

“That’s what I said.”

“It’s not a question, Riley. It’s a WTF? Or in terms you may better understand, why on earth would a counselor have a detailed blueprint of the building? Was he planning a scavenger hunt?”

When I don’t answer, she says, “Hint, baby sister. I don’t really think he was planning a scavenger hunt. But he might have been part of a whole lot deadlier game.”

“You think he …? But they shot him.”

“Well, duh. I remember once I was talking to Dad about jobs with the highest mortality rate. The answer, by the way, is logging. He said that was wrong. By far the highest mortality rate is in the jobs criminals sign on to do with guys they don’t know. The minute things go wrong, they’re dead. Hell, even if nothing goes wrong, they’re probably dead. They were a means to an end.”

I remember what Gray said when Predator shot Cantina. One less share of the pie.

“It would make sense that they’d need an inside guy,” I say.

“Uh-huh.”

“Lorenzo was a last-minute replacement. I remember Aimee saying that. Maybe he came on so he could feed them exactly what they needed to know about the group and the building and the timing. He could help keep us calm. Which he didn’t do overtly, but he didn’t fight, either. He told me to explain hostage situations to the others, probably to reassure them that everything would go fine. Then, after he was shot, he said Aimee—the other counselor—had the cell phone and meds, but they weren’t where she said they’d be.”

“He moved them.”

“And Gideon is the one who actually shot him—by accident.”

The door opens. Mom walks in, and I forget what I was saying. Another question surges to the forefront.

“I read online articles covering Friday night,” I say. “What’s this about a manifesto on Max’s computer?”

She stops mid-step and blinks.

Sloane moves forward. “What she really means is, ‘Hey, Mom, I’m doing much better, and I’m up and around and busy figuring this mess all out, so when you get a second, could you tell me about this manifesto thing?’ ”

I remember what Sloane said about the doctor giving Mom something to calm down, and I should excuse her for that, and I do, a little, but there’s still that part of me that needed my mother to believe me yesterday.

“Tell me about the manifesto,” I say.

“I … I don’t know what—”

“I saw it mentioned online. If you don’t know, then I’d like to speak to the detectives again.”

She’s quiet. Thinking it through. I can tell she’d rather feign ignorance, talk about something more cheerful, more reassuring, but after a minute she says, “He wrote something on his computer, Riley. Explaining what he planned to do and why. I know you’re convinced he isn’t responsible, but this proves he is. It was … ugly.”

“What did it say?”

She fidgets.

“If you want to persuade me he’s guilty, you’re going to need to tell me.”

“It said he was angry. Fed up with his diagnosis and how he’s treated because of it. It said he doesn’t think he has schizophrenia, and that’s just a label they’re using to oppress him. He ranted on about conspiracies and persecution. He said he was going to take revenge Friday night, that you were all spies out to get him and he’d kill you all. Especially you.”

“What?”

“The letter singled you out. It said you wouldn’t pay attention to him, which proved you were a spy. He called you …”

When she trails off, I prod with “What’d he call me?”

Her mouth tightens. “ ‘That Mexican bitch.’ ”

I snort a laugh, and she straightens fast. “This isn’t funny, Riley.”

“Actually, it is. They called me Mexican. Our captors. So did one of the victims. Max asked why everyone presumes I’m Mexican when the only Vasquez he knew was a Spaniard. He would never have called me that. He’s being set up.”

“No, baby, he’s covering his tracks. He asked you about that so he could later claim the letter was fake.”

“The point of writing the letter, Mom, is to take responsibility. If he’s going to deny that, why write it?”

“He has mental problems, Riley. Serious mental problems.”

“And because he has schizophrenia, that’s your answer for everything, is it? That he’s crazy, so who knows why he does anything?”

“I never said crazy—”

“As for Max not believing his diagnosis, he told me he needed medication—the sooner the better—and that I needed to be careful because he sometimes saw or heard things that weren’t really there. That isn’t a guy rejecting his diagnosis.”