The Masked Truth Part 23

"What?"

"All they found were those poor kids and the two counselors."

"And the gun," Sloane murmurs. "They found Max with the gun."

"A kidnapper's gun. Which we took. If it was his, how the h.e.l.l would he have gotten it in? There was a metal detector" I shake my head sharply. "No, I'm not even dignifying this with discussion. I was there, Mom. What are they saying, that I had a breakdown? Hallucinated three kidnappers and a night of h.e.l.l?"

"They say you're confused," she says softly.

"What? Confused? They honestly are claiming I imagined the whole thing? That's ... That's ..." I can't even finish.

"They say he's very persuasive. Schizophrenia often results in social issueswithdrawal and isolationbut every case is different, and this boy is very intelligent, very charming. He had a psychotic break and convinced you there were kidnappers in the building."

"And I then had my own hallucinations? Because I saw them, Mom. Talked to them. Watched them kill ..." I swallow and she reaches for me, but I pull back. "I was there. Max didn't need to convince me of anything."

"They say the repeated trauma may have resulted in a derealization. That means"

"I know what 'derealization' means," I snap, and maybe she doesn't deserve that, but there have been times I felt as if my mom doesn't quite get me. Never like this, though. Never like this.

"Derealization is an extreme symptom of PTSD," I say. "Where reality seems unreal. Last night certainly did seem unreal, but derealization would not cause me to completely misremember what happened."

"The doctor also suggested a possible fugue state."

"Which is basically amnesia. In other words, they're suggesting I experienced a fugue state due to the trauma and then allowed Max to fill in the blanks. That would mean I'm lying right now. That I don't actually remember what happenedonly what Max told meand now I'm pretending I do remember it."

"Of course not, baby. You're just confused."

"The word is 'lying,' Mom. Outright lying to protect Max. Why? Oh, wait. Let me guess. Because he's cute."

"Mmm," Sloane murmurs, her first interjection since Mom started. "He's a seven. That's not cute enough to lie for."

I glare at her. "No boy is cute enough to lie for."

"Depends on the lie, but yeah, not for something like that. And definitely not for a seven." When my glare sharpens, she says, "What? I'm agreeing with you."

"No one is saying you'd lie for him because he's cute, Riley," Mom says. "If they did, I'd set them straight. I think they're implying that you're honestly confused, and you believe that you saw"

"What I saw," I say. "There's no believe. A man shot me as I was running away with Brienne. Max wasn't even there. He was there when the other guy stabbed meMax was pulling him off before he killed me. That is the only violent thing Max did, and it was to protect me. It was h.e.l.l in there, and whatever is wrong with Max, he kept it under control. He avoided violence, and that's why I thought maybe there was abuse in his past. Now I realize he was avoiding it because he knows he might be p.r.o.ne to it, as part of his diagnosis. He kept it under control in every way, and I owe him my life."

It's a good speech. An impa.s.sioned defense. When I finish, I expect Mom to hug me and tell me that she believes me and we'll sort this out. That it's a mistake, and it'll be fixed, and we'll do it together. But she only stands there, shredding a tissue between her fingers.

"It may have seemed as if he saved you, baby" she begins.

"Go."

"Riley, I know this is tough"

"Go!" I snarl the word and she falls back. "Get out of here. Now. Or I'm going to scream, and then we'll see who they think is the crazy one. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe I did it. Huh? Have they considered that? Makes more sense, doesn't it? That can happen with PTSD. You lose it and go nuts, and poor Max, well, he hallucinates, so it was easy for me to convince him there were kidnappers."

"Riley, don't. You're"

"Count of ten, Mom. If you're still in here, I'm screaming until someone comes and then I'm confessing. Ten ... nine ..."

She leaves when I get to six.

CHAPTER 23.

I'm so furious I can barely form words when the nurse stops by. I manage to tell her that I want to speak to the policenow. When she returns a few minutes later to say they're on the way, I'm already on my laptop, researching schizophrenia so they can't bulls.h.i.t me.

Max has schizophrenia.

My initial reaction had been confusion, as I struggled to remember what it was. Once I did, I thought only, That fits. Overly worried about getting his meds, avoiding violent confrontations and, of course, the part where he'd warned me he sometimes got confused, imagined things that weren't there.

Yet after I look it up and it really hits ... I'm kind of angry and a little bit hurt. No, I am angry and I am hurt, and I cannot deny it.

I sit on my bed and stare at the wall, and I want to pull up the covers and roll over and shut the world out, because after four months of sleepwalking through my life, the one guy who made me feel somethingreally made me feel something, brought me back to myself and made me carehe lied to me. Told me he needed meds for a heart condition. Went through h.e.l.l with me and never mentioned that he was suffering from a seriousyes, a very seriousmental illness. And it wasn't like hiding an eating disorder, where it was none of my business under the circ.u.mstances. This one mattered.

I keep thinking about what we went through. No, that's not exactly true. I keep feeling what we went through. Reliving not the horror of that warehouse but the parts that weren't horrible. The parts with Max, the ones where he went from being the jerk at the back of the room to the guy who'd held my hand when I thought I was dying, who'd sworn I wasn't dyingnot just gentle and empty words but words he'd meant, pa.s.sionately meant, as if he could stave off my death with them. I remember the boy who kissed me, tasting of fear and panic. I remember all that, and I remember how I felt about him. How I feel about him. And now finding out this? It hurts. It hurts so much.

But this isn't the time for recriminations. As angry as I am, I acknowledge that he did warn me, in his way, and even if his explanation had been a lie, the warnings had not. He had made sure that if anything went wrongif he started seeing or hearing thingsI wouldn't be caught off guard. So I'll give him that, and while it does take the edge off my anger, it doesn't ease the hurt. The only way I'll deal with that is to face him and get his side of the story. First, though, I need to be prepared. To fully understand his condition.

So I continue my research.

On a scale of grave mental illnesses, schizophrenia is near the top. It isn't a temporary bout of depression. It's serious, and it's life-altering, and it's permanent. While I hate to give Sloane's snark any credence, schizophrenia really is what most people think of when they say someone's crazy. It's the homeless guy arguing with himself. It's that story in the news, the one where someone was murdered horribly and all you can think is "How can someone do that?" and the answer is "Schizophrenia." But it's not always like that. It's not often that, the same way the average person with PTSD isn't likely to snap and start shooting from a balcony. The extreme cases are the scary ones, though, and those are the ones that make the news.

Schizophrenia, like many mental illnesses, isn't easily treated. In fact, it's one of the toughest, because not everyone suffers the same symptoms. Max clearly doesn't have a problem with personal hygiene. Nor does he seem to have any trouble with social interaction. Most schizophrenia symptoms can be controlled with medication, which must be tailored to the individual and the symptoms. The side effects are not negligible. They can include drowsiness or restlessness, tremors, muscle spasms, blurred vision ... the list goes on.

There is no question of anythingand I mean anythingwe experienced in that warehouse being Max's fault. The only event I hadn't witnessed myself was Aaron's death. I remember how freaked out Max was, and now I know why. He must have been questioning the sequence of events himself, because the thing about a mental illness like schizophrenia is that you don't know when a situation isn't what it seems. You might know it's possible you're imagining it, but when it's actually happening, there must be no way to tell reality from fantasy.

Everything I read says most people with schizophrenia can't tell the difference while they're experiencing an episode. That's why Max had panicked. He knew his meds had run out, and he was terrified he had somehow played a role in Aaron's death. That's what I rememberhis terrorand that's when I truly forgive him for not telling me the truth.

He warned me, as best he could, in case something went wrong. What he has, though, isn't something to be taken lightly, to be shared in casual conversation. I hate to talk about my anxiety and my depression. I've seen how people react to it. Nowthrough SloaneI've seen how they react to schizophrenia, and I suspect her response is actually relatively benign, if inconsiderate and infuriating. Say "schizophrenia" and people remember those horrible news stories, and having seen that terror on Max's face, I think that's what he recalls too. But he did nothing wrong Friday night. The evidence in Aaron's death supports Max's story completely. Now I just need to make sure the police know it.

Two detectives arrive about thirty minutes later. I'm still online, watching videos of people talking about their experiences with schizophrenia, because I want to understand. After everything Max did for me, I owe it to him to tryas best as an outsider canto understand.

The detectives are two guys named Buchanan and Wheeler. I don't know either, and I'm disappointed by that. I'd hoped they'd be familiar faces, detectives who knew me from Christmas parties or summer picnics. Detectives who had some idea what kind of girl I amnot the sort to get "confused" or lie for a boy. But it's a big-enough city that I don't know every cop and detective. Far from it.

As Buchanan grills me, I realize they honestly believe Max did it. There's absolutely no doubt in their minds, and all they're doing now is gathering evidence to prove it so they can charge him. Meanwhile, he's being "held" in the psychiatric ward downstairs, apparently because his mother was such a pain in the a.s.s that they agreed to let the hospital hold him rather than put him in a cell.

Kudos to his mother, then. But her fight isn't helping change their minds about him, because these two seem as ignorant as my sister when it comes to schizophrenia. I hate saying that. I really do, because I realize there's a stereotype of cops as dumb bullies, and most are the polar opposite of that.

Maybe these two have just seen too many violent schizophrenics. Maybe they had a really bad case where one committed some terrible crime. Maybe they don't know anyone with schizophrenia beyond the scope of policing. Whatever the excuse ... well, there is no excuse, but whatever the cause, they have made up their minds. There is a schizophrenic teen and six bodies, and the link is obvious.

After they leave, I calm down enough to sort through the "facts." I make notes so I can help Max, and as I do, as much as I hate it, I can see why the detectives have concluded Max is guilty.

Because there is no proof that we were kidnapped.

Predator must have survived his injuries. They'd removed Cantina and cleaned up all evidence that they'd ever been there.

As we'd guessed when we escaped, they faked their contact with the hostage negotiatorit must have been another partner playing Agent Salas. They'd never contacted anyone. At all. While we were running for our lives, our families had carried on with their Friday night, believing their kids were safely at a therapy sleepover.

That made no sense. The purpose of kidnapping is to make demands. So I can't blame the detectives for thinking something is seriously wrong with this scenario. When they learned one of our group had schizophrenia, they must have thought, "Aha!"

At that point, the fact they had a living witness who said that wasn't how it happened should have made them take a harder look. Maybe it did. But in talking to them, I got the feeling they didn't consider me a real witness. I had "problems," as they described it. I'd "been through a lot," they said.

There's only so much one person can take, Riley. Eventually something has to give, and you're so young and you've had so much happen. First your dad, and then the people you babysat for, and I know how terrible that must have been.

Do you, Detective Buchanan? Do you really? You can't. Sorry.

Part of it was my youth, but I got the feeling they might not have been so quick to decide I'd been unduly influenced if I had a Y chromosome. I'd lashed out earlier with Mom, wondering if they thought I was susceptible because I'm a girl and Max is a cute guy. That actually did seem to play a role in the detectives deciding I'd fallen under his spell. He's cute and charming and a year older than me and has a British accent. No, seriously, Buchanan actually said that.

I know my daughter loves boys with accents. Especially British. She goes nuts for those One Direction kids. It's the accent. It makes them sound like something out of romance books, with lords and earls and whatever. Girls love that stuff.

Actually, no, detectives, I have issues with the cla.s.s system and its lingering effects on British society.

Buchanan just thought I was being a smart-a.s.s then, and commented that I must have gotten along really well with Max.

So there it is. I'm not a valid witness because I have mental health issues, I'm under eighteen and I'm a girl. And Max is a cute boy. With an accent.

There's more. I wish I could say there isn't, because by that point I just wanted to paint them as incompetent morons, not merely jumping to conclusions but skydiving onto them.

The lack of evidence to support our story is one strike against Max. Me as the only witness is another. There's Brienne too, of course, but she hasn't woken up. I pray she'll recover, and that has nothing to do with helping Max's case, because I get the feeling nothing she says will help him. I need hard evidence.

They have that evidence. Or so they think.

Max was found with the gun that killed Aaron and Gideon. Aimee, Maria and Brienne were shot with Gray's weapon and Lorenzo and Sandy with Predator's, which ballistics should prove, but the detectives will only argue Max had backup weapons.

They have the knife used to stab me too. Like the gun, it has Max's prints on it because he disarmed Predator. There aren't any other prints. Our captors wore gloves.

So what do the police have as evidence? One messed-up witness. One comatose witness. Two weapons with Max's prints all over them. They found preliminary gunshot residue on his clothing too. It also has bloodstains: Lorenzo's, Aaron's, Brienne's and mine.

It's d.a.m.ning evidence. I need to do more than protest his innocence, I need to prove it. Which means I have to figure out what the h.e.l.l happened in that warehouse, where a teen therapy group was ma.s.sacred for apparently no reason at all.

There is a reason. There's always a reason. Now I have to find it.

CHAPTER 24.

I need to talk to Max. The possibility he can add more to my understanding of the situation is a good excuse. So is "offering support when he needs it." I'm not sure he'll want that support. The guy who sat in the back of the therapy room doesn't strike me as someone who particularly wants to talk about his problems. Really, though, I just need to see him, to speak to him.

I've now been in the hospital nearly thirty-six hours. Awake for the past eight. That doesn't mean I'm ready to start doing flying lunges and pa.s.sata sottos, but I'm on my feet and ready to do battle in a very different way. Which is good, because in my current state of mind it's probably best not to hand me a saber.

I don't ask permission to leave my room. I pull on jeans and a shirt that Mom brought for "when I feel better." Then I sneak from my room and down the hall.

I need to find the psychiatric ward. My plan is to take the stairs down a levelwhere no one will recognize meand check out the hospital map by the elevator. I get into the stairwell, and I'm quietly closing the door when a voice says, "Going somewhere?"

I turn to see Sloane with her arms crossed.

"Wh-what are you?"

"I saw you putting on your clothing and figured you were about to take an unauthorized stroll. Being unauthorized, I knew you'd leave this way. Dad's not the only detective in the family. I learned a few tricks. Apparently you did too, sneaking down to hear Max's side of the story so you can defend him."

"What? No. Yes, I'm sneaking from my room, but only because I want ..."

"A cigarette?"

I give her a look. "A candy bar. I'm hungry."

"Great. Reese's cups, right?" She reaches for the door. "There's a vending machine in the waiting room. I'll walk with you. I might even pay."

"Aren't visiting hours over?"

"Nice try, but no. As the immediate family of the poor kid who just went through h.e.l.lagainwe're allowed to stay as long as we want. Mom knows you don't want to see her right now, so I promised to stay. All night. They're bringing me a cot so I can sleep right beside you."

"You don't need to do that."

"But I am. So two choices, kid. Either we hit the vending machine on the way back to your room or we hit it on the way back from Maximus's room. Is that really his name? I looked it up, and it's not even a real name. It's Latin for 'greatest,' which is pretty d.a.m.n optimistic. It also means 'largest.' " She pauses. "Now that one's more interesting."

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Say what you're going to say."

She grins. "And how would you know what I was going to say unless your mind went in the same direction?"

"Yes, his name is Maximus, but he really prefers Max, so let's stick with that."

"Not crazy-British-dude?"

"Sloane ..."

"What's Brit-talk for 'crazy'? Barmy, isn't it? Can I call him that?"