Part 30 (1/2)

”Cat's out of the bag,” Max says. ”Can't stuff it back in now. If you try, we'll be making that call to the police. What was Brienne supposed to do for you?”

”Talk to you,” he blurts to me. ”Find out what you know. Yes, Brienne overheard something, and worse, they found out, because I was on the phone and she said something, and they heard her. They made me send her. Either she went to that therapy thing or I was in deep s.h.i.+t.”

”Sounds like you were in it already,” I say.

”It was a stupid, stupid thing. I promised some guys I'd get their product from the supplier. I was the delivery boy, that's it. But I got caught, and it was enough dope that I was looking at twenty years. These guys promised to get me out of that. In return, I owed them this favorstanding guard while they pulled a hit. That's all I did: stand guard. Just like I only carried the d.a.m.ned dope. But it just keeps getting worse, one thing leads to another, and now my sister's in the hospital and”

”Pulled a hit?” Max says.

River seems annoyed by the interruption. ”It means they were hired to kill those people.”

”I watch enough American television to know what a hit is, thank you,” Max says. ”But you're saying that the murder of the Portersthe people Riley babysat forwas a professional a.s.sa.s.sination?”

”That's what these guys do. The ones who got me off the drug charges. They kill people for money. The job was to off that guy and his wife. The guy's business partner wanted him out of the way and didn't want the wife getting his share.”

CHAPTER 32.

I know why River is talking. Well, besides the fact that we've threatened to call the cops. Dad always said that was the difference between the hardened criminals and the people who just screw up really bad: the screwups feel guilt. They want to confess. They want to be told that it's not so bad, and that you understand how it happened and they aren't really terrible people.

”You didn't have a choice,” I say. ”You were looking at twenty years for the drugs, and if these men didn't hire you to stand watch, they'd have hired someone else. You couldn't have stopped them from killing the Porters.” Except, you know, by turning them in before they did it. ”And the little girl wasn't a target, right?”

”No, not at all,” he says emphatically. ”It was the client's fault she was there. He told the guys that she'd be with her aunt, and it'd just be the couple at home, and they weren't supposed to be leaving for another hour. Then we get there, and the couple are already getting ready to leave, so they had to move fast. It wasn't until the news. .h.i.t that they realized the kid had been there all along.”

”Which is when they started worrying that I saw something.”

He nods. ”One of the guys says you did see him. Out front.”

”I saw a gun. That's all. If I got a look at the guy's face, there would have been sketches released.”

”That's not what they heard. They have contacts on the force who say the cops running the case claim you did get a better look. That you just don't remember everything yet, but when you do, they'll have enough to make a case.”

”Meaning if I die, your friends are free and clear.”

”They aren't my friends.” He s.h.i.+fts, meeting my gaze, struggling for sincerity. ”And if they planned to kill you, why would they want Brienne to talk to you?”

I know the answer. I'm not telling him, though, because once I do, I have a feeling I'll get nothing more from him. Instead, I say, ”Tell me about Aimee.”

His face screws up.

I resist the urge to sigh. ”The woman who lived here? She was my therapist. She got me to enroll in that weekend, and I'm guessing she helped Brienne get in.”

”She's with one of the guys. His girlfriend. That was how it started. She's a therapist, and she works with kids sometimes, so they had her go after you to find out what you knew.”

Yes, Aimee had indeed ”gone after me.” She'd contacted my mother directly, saying she'd read my story in the paper and she had experience with similar cases, and while she heard I was in therapy already, she'd like to offer her services if I needed extra help. It'd been perfect timing, because Mom had just fired my therapist, which Aimee might have heard through the grapevine.

River is still talking, faster now, eager to convince me. ”Only you wouldn't tell Aimee anything about what you saw, so they figured maybe you'd talk to another girl in therapy: Brienne.”

Which makes sense, and I don't blame him for buying it. I prod him for more on Aimee. He says he broke into her house hoping to learn more about her, and maybe that suggests he's not as stupid as he seems. That he suspects there's more to this than he thought. He's just hoping he's wrong. I'm about to shatter that hope.

”You said there was no reason why they'd send in Brienne to question me if they planned to kill me, right?”

He nods.

”So it's just a coincidence, then? You work for hit men. I witnessed a hit. Your sister overheard it. Now she joins up with me at therapy for one weekend, and it's the same weekend that someone chooses to randomly murder a group of kids?”

Sweat trickles down his cheek and his gaze shoots to Max. ”He doesn't need a reason. He's nuts. A psychopath.”

”Does he look like a psychopath?”

River gives an abrupt laugh at that. ”You think killers look like killers? You really are a sheltered rich kid, aren't you? In your world, the bad guys walk around with sneers and scruffy beards. It's not like that, little girl. Not at all. If you saw the guys I work for ...” He shakes his head. ”Believe me, there's a reason you pa.s.sed one of them on the street and never took another look. The face of a psycho looks like everyone else.” He peers at Max. ”Like you. You look normal, but you're crazy.”

”Could I kill someone if I'm not on my meds?” Max says. ”Yes. Could I slaughter six people? I'd certainly like to think not, but I suspect, once it snaps, there's no difference between one and six. If I could tell the difference, I wouldn't even kill one, would I?”

River just stares like he's speaking Greek.

”I could kill someone if I was in a psychotic state,” Max says. ”Maybe even six people. But do you know what I can't do? Switch it off and act normal again a few minutes later. I almost strangled my best friend because I thought he was possessed. When they caught me, I kept trying to strangle him until they pulled me off. I didn't deny that I did it. I didn't make excuses. I just kept on acting crazy, because that's what crazy is. It's your reality at that moment. I didn't go into a fugue state where I had no idea what I was doing. I remember every last detail as if it happened two hours ago, because for me, it did. It happens over and over, and I cannot get it out of my head, because I can't pretend it was someone elseit was me, and I remember what it felt like to have my hands around his neck. I remember the girl screaming when she found us. I remember the look in my best friend's eyes. I remember the smell of him when he shat himself, because he was so sure he was going to die.”

Max has to stop for breath, and I ... I want to cry. I see the look in his eyes, hear the pain and the guilt and the self-loathing in his voice, and I want to do something, anything, and I can't, because this isn't therapy. It's everything he should have said there. Everything he couldn't say, and now I know why, because if I can't talk about the Porterswhat it was like to see their bodies, what exactly I feelthen I sure as h.e.l.l can't expect him to share, because his private h.e.l.l is ten times worse.

He couldn't spew that anguish to strangers in therapy and then watch them awkwardly try to deal with it. He does it here because I can do nothing. No, that's not truethis isn't about me. He does it because he needs to explain this, to make his point to River, and he can say it without fear that I'll make noises of comfort and understanding about something I can't understand, not really.

He pauses only a moment, enough to catch his breath, before he goes on. ”What happens to me, it doesn't come with amnesia, temporary or not. I don't pa.s.s out and forget what happened. It's not an alternate personality. It doesn't feel like something from a half-remembered nightmare. It's reality. And it doesn't switch off like a light bulb. If I shot Brienne and the others, the police wouldn't have found me jumping in front of a car, desperate to get an ambulance for Riley and your sister. I wouldn't have made up some wild story about a hostage-taking. I certainly wouldn't have had the mental wherewithal to persuade Riley that such a story was true. I'd have been running down the street, holding a bloodied knife and a smoking gun, ready to tell the world that I'd rid them of aliens posing as teenagers or some such rubbish. I would not realize I had done anything wrong.”

He stops again. He's shaking, and I want to reach for him, but I know I can't. Not now. What he needs nowwhat he needs alwaysis support and understanding, not sympathy, because he hates the sympathy and the poor-you as much as I do. It feels like putting on the mask of a crying child and convincing the world you deserve their sympathy when it's the last thing you feel you deserve.

”Do you understand that?” I say to River.

He nods dumbly.

”Max didn't do any of it, and I think you already suspected that, regardless of what you said in the hospital yesterday. There is a way this wasn't a coincidence. And a reason whyif it's the guys you worked forthey'd shoot Brienne.”

”Because things went wrong,” he says. ”They set this up to kill youand I did not know that, I absolutely did not know thatand things went wrong, and Brienne was shot accidentally. They mistook her for one of the other girls”

”They'd already shot both the other girls. And obviously there was no way they mistook her for me.”

Sweat streams down his face now. He does not want to think he sent his sister in there for people who would kill her, because then he has to admit how stupid he was, thinking she'd be safe when his employers murder people for money. He needs it to have been an accident. I understand, but I can't let him think that or he's not going to give us what we need.

”They didn't mistake her for anyone. They murdered every last”

”Yes,” he blurts. ”Yes, all right. Things went wrong, and they killed everyone. They knew who she was, and they shot her anyway to tie up all the loose ends when it went bad.”