The Masked Truth(84)

“Of course you did.” He twists for a quick kiss on my cheek. “Because you’re brilliant.”

I sigh. “Less kissing, more keeping-your-ass-out-of-jail, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”





CHAPTER 31


Lorenzo and his wife lived in a decent apartment in a decent part of town. That is, I suppose, what one would expect for a thirty-year-old counselor and his schoolteacher wife. Aimee was younger than Lorenzo, and she can’t have been making significantly more money, but she has a nice Victorian house in the kind of neighborhood young professionals aspire to. It’s possible that Aimee came from money, but when I look at this neighborhood, it only supports my conclusions.

I’d hoped there was more to it. Yes, there is no excuse for helping to murder any innocent person. Yet I wanted, if not to exonerate Aimee, at least to understand how this person I trusted—this person I liked—could do such a thing. I wanted to learn that she had a child I didn’t know about and these ruthless killers kidnapped him and forced her to help them, and all along she’d been planning ways to save us, but then everything went to hell and she couldn’t.

Which is bullshit. She led us on a wild goose chase for the cell phone and meds. Even after everything went wrong, she stuck to her role. I cannot understand that. I can’t even begin to try.

As we walk down her street, no one suspiciously peers out of a window or slows to eye us from their car. We’re just a clean-cut teenage couple, cutting through their peaceful neighborhood. Even with the tied-back hair, Doc Martens and motorcycle jacket, if Max reached into his pocket, you’d expect him to whip out a sketch pad, not a semi-automatic.

Aimee’s house is the second from the corner. We scout the landscape and decide the yards are wooded enough to attempt a back-way entry through the neighboring one.

Yes, we plan to break in, despite the fact that neither of us has any experience with it. I’m relying on my extensive knowledge of fictional representations of breaking and entering. Max is relying on … me. This should go well. Climbing the first fence reminds me how much more recovery time I require. I manage it, though, with Max’s help.

While Max stands guard, I creep to the back door. I send up a Hail Mary, on the very slim chance of divine intervention, because I’m going to need it. I hope that Aimee left her back door open or a window ajar. If necessary, though, I will break one of those windows. I’m already mentally planning how to do it—seeing one on the basement level, sizing up whether I can fit through, spotting a rock in the garden that will work, wondering if I dare ask Max if I can borrow what is likely an expensive and rare jacket to wrap the rock in so it’ll make less noise when I break the glass.

I’m turning the knob, my sweater sleeve pulled over my hand to keep it fingerprint-free. My mind has already moved on to the window-smashing plan, because there’s no way this door will be open. But it’s not only open—it opens. It jerks wide, someone on the other side pulling as I’m pushing, and I leap back thinking, You idiot! Just because she lives alone doesn’t mean her house will be empty! And then I see River Ruskin. Standing there, holding the knob in his gloved hand as he stares at me.

His other hand slams out, and I think I’m a goner. There will be a knife in that hand, maybe even a gun, and I was stupid, so damned stupid, thinking I could investigate murder—mass murder. Me. A seventeen-year-old high school kid whose only claims to any expertise are a detective father and a penchant for crime novels. Stupid, stupid, stupid. And now dead.

Only there isn’t a weapon in his hand. All he does is shove me aside and run past, and that’s when he sees Max—a bigger guy, in combat boots and a leather jacket, charging straight at him. River reaches for whatever weapon he has in his pocket. I grab the first thing—the only thing—I see, and I swing it at his head. And damn, that hurts. Hurts so much that it feels as if he stabbed me. He didn’t—it’s just the fact that I’m swinging a garden shovel as hard as I can, forty-eight hours after I was stabbed. The pain is bad enough that I don’t even see the shovel connect. Everything goes black, and I start to fall.

My arms shoot out wildly in the dark. I hit something. It’s soft. It gives a not-so-soft oomph. The darkness clears, and I see Max grabbing me. I ward him off with, “River!” and he pauses, frowning, as he wonders why the hell I’m talking about bodies of water at a moment like this. Then there’s a flash of dismay, as he thinks this incongruity proves he’s having trouble with his reality settings. Before I can open my mouth again, his lips form an “Oh!” of comprehension and he turns sharply … and looks down.

River lies motionless on the ground.

“Huh,” Max says. “You really hit him.”

I scramble over, and Max says, “You didn’t kill him, Riley. It was a garden spade.”

We both kneel beside River, checking vitals. He’s fine. Just unconscious.

“We should get him into the house and question him,” I say.

Max’s lips twitch.

“What? Do you have a better idea?”

“I do not. I’m simply reflecting on the fact that you are a very remarkable girl, Riley Vasquez.”

“You’re not going to kiss me again, are you?”

“Do you want me to? You can ask, if you do. No need to be shy.”