The Masked Truth(93)

When Wheeler first got into the car, Max made a smart-ass comment and Wheeler had given him a look, and that look … something about that look … I’d flinched, because in that flash of a second I’d seen eyes behind a gray mask. It had passed in a blink. Memory playing tricks on an exhausted mind.

“So you can talk,” I say, and somehow I manage to make it sound casual, though my heart thuds like it’s ready to burst from my chest.

Wheeler grunts and turns his attention to the road.

“How long have you two been on the force?” I ask.

“What? Are you questioning our credentials now?” Buchanan says, and I struggle to hear another voice in his, to hear Predator, but it’s not there.

“I’m just making conversation,” I say.

“Twelve years,” Buchanan says.

“And you, Detective Wheeler? Now that we’ve established you’re not mute.”

“Fifteen,” Wheeler says.

Damn it, I need to hear him talk … in more than one-word answers.

“And before you were on the major crimes squad? Any other units?”

I don’t hear the reply, because as soon as I think of other units, I think of the SWAT team, which makes me think of hostage negotiations, and a memory flashes. An audio one. A voice on the phone, a little distorted.

The hostage negotiator.

I look at Buchanan. Even as the theory was forming in my head—the unbelievable theory that Wheeler is Gray—I thought Buchanan played no role in it. He clearly wasn’t Predator. But there was another person involved that night. One I was certain survived. The man on the phone. The fake hostage negotiator.





CHAPTER 35


I look over sharply at Max. I’m trying to figure out how to tell him, but his gaze is fixed on Buchanan with such intensity that I know he’s caught something too. He looks over at Wheeler and he’s searching, a little hesitant now, and when he notices me watching, he pulls back fast, and I can tell he’s second-guessing.

I tap the gray vinyl on my door handle. I point to the gray lettering on my shirt. Then I direct my finger to Wheeler. And Max’s eyes close with such relief that he swallows and nods. He’s not imagining the connection. And as soon as that first flicker of relief passes, his eyes fly open with such an “Oh, shit!” look that it ignites my own panic.

We’re in the car with Gray.

Gray and his accomplice.

They aren’t really police detectives. They fooled everyone at the hospital. The real police got Max’s story, and they knew it wasn’t him, and they lost interest and …

The manifesto.

It was in the papers. The papers blamed Max. The papers mentioned the manifesto. There’s no way in hell the police wouldn’t be questioning me and preparing to arrest Max and …

And if the police are investigating, and these are the only detectives we’ve seen …

They’re not pretending to be cops.

They are cops.

My brain screams no. No, no, no. There is no way officers of the law would ever pervert justice in this way, to become hired killers.

You really are a sheltered rich girl.

I hear River’s words, and I know they’re true, because whatever pedestal I might put police on, a profession doesn’t cleanse you. There are cops who have committed murder, just like there are schoolteachers and truck drivers and stay-at-home moms who have done the same. I might not want it to be true. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t.

I still try to tell myself I’m wrong. It fits, though. Who else would be able to frame Max so well? They knew they could catch the case—it must have happened on their turf, and it happened on their turf because they chose the location.

River said the hit men helped him get out of those drug charges. Who better to do that than cops? What better reason for River to keep quiet than knowing that the law—which a guy like him wouldn’t trust anyway—is behind the crimes he helped with? He said they had access to the Porters’ case file. Of course they did. And what had River done when they arrested us? Freaked out. Absolutely panicked, and I thought it was because they were police and he has committed crimes. No. It was because these were the very men he’d just ratted out.

They hadn’t called a backup car for River.

They hadn’t called the hospital to protect Brienne.

We weren’t going to the police station to be questioned.

I grab the door handle. It’s a stupid thing to do, because there’s no way that door will open. But I act on instinct—the instinct to throw it open and grab Max and roll out like some kind of action hero.

The door doesn’t budge.

“Hey!” Buchanan says. “What the hell are you doing?”

Max’s cuffed hands land on my knee, and they squeeze hard enough to hurt, and when I look at him, I see my own panic reflected back, but he’s struggling to keep it under control as he madly shakes his head.

Don’t give it away, Riley. Please don’t give it away. Play dumb. That’s our only chance.

Which seems like no chance at all. Certainly not a plan. But he’s right. The moment we let them know that we’ve figured it out, they won’t take their eyes off us.

I’m straightening in my seat when Max’s gaze goes to my stomach. His lips form a curse, and I look down to see blood seeping through my shirt.