Chapter 11: Inside Out
Telling Chloe about Rachel was so hard. She took it better than last time, but this time she had Max breaking the news instead of digging up her rotting corpse in a fucking junkyard. After a solid twenty minutes of anguish, Chloe finally started to calm down. She asked Max how much she knew about what happened, but Max dodged, insisting that Chloe get herself together and get a shower. After that, she'd tell her more.
Drained and frazzled, Chloe didn't put up a fight. When she reached for the door, though, Max stopped her. "Chloe, you trust me, right?"
"Y-yeah. One-hundred percent," she replied, wiping at her puffy eyes with the heel of her hand.
"Where… where is David's gun?" Max asked.
Chloe walked back over, and dug around at the side of the bed. A moment later, she had the gun by the barrel and extended it toward Max. "Is… something going to happen today?"
Max shook her head. "Not if I can help it." Her hand wrapped around the grip, her finger refusing to so much as approach the trigger. Chloe let go of the barrel, and Max moved to stow the weapon in her bag. "But this is going back to David."
"What the fuck, Max? We need that—"
"You're the only one that gets shot, Chloe!" Max snapped back at her. Her eyes never leaving Chloe's in an attempt to prevent her eyes closing and her mind showing her that particular memory, she continued, "It is safer for this to be with David. Besides… I need a peace offering."
"You're sure about this?" Chloe asked, her fingers flexing and extending as she stared at the bag.
Max nodded. "I… I know what I'm doing. Please believe me."
Chloe didn't argue. She just muttered a few curse words as she headed for the door again. Max knew full well that Chloe wore her emotions on her sleeve. It was a hell of a thing to see Chloe so spent. Or maybe she just choked down her protests because she trusted Max that much.
If only I had that much faith in myself.
While Chloe went to take a shower, Max headed downstairs. Her time with Chloe changed things drastically. Before, she helped Joyce cook and even had time to eat before David showed up. Now, David had finished eating, and he was sitting at the table talking with Joyce. A few of their whispered words caught Max's ear, and she knew they were talking about the break-in. The fact that they clammed up the moment she stepped in only reinforced Max's suspicions. Not that their late-night trespass had any bearing on anything that even remotely mattered.
Despite her ability, time was not on Max's side. Gripping the strap of her bag, she preempted whatever the Madsens were about to say. "David, I need to speak with you. In private," she said, nodding over toward the garage. "Please."
"No, I think you and Chloe need to answer some of my questions. I know you two were at Blackwell last night," he said as he rose from his seat. He pointed at Max, "I want you out of my house. I knew the first time I saw you here that you were just another bad influence—"
"Shut up!" Max barked. "None of that matters right now."
"You will not disrespect me in my house!" David shouted back, stepping toward her.
"Rachel Amber is dead," Max replied, meeting David's fury with an icy glare.
David stopped, just a step away from Max. A glance back at the very wide-eyed Joyce, a hand over her mouth, and he relented. "You know this? For a fact?"
"The who, the when, the how… everything." Max again tilted her head toward the garage. "Can we talk, now?"
Nodding, David extended an arm toward the garage, inviting Max to lead the way. As soon as Max made it in, she walked over and leaned against the counter, just below the hidden monitor. David hung back by the door, closing it before leaning on it. "If this is some kind of ruse…"
Max shook her head, doing everything she could to make sure that was the only part of her that shook. "You're… not an idiot, David. I know you know that Chloe and I have been investigating Rachel's disappearance. You've been conducting your own investigation." She let out a bitter laugh. "You were so damn close…"
"You had better start explaining yourself, and I mean right now," David challenged, glaring at Max.
"Chloe and I took a shortcut. We're about ten steps ahead of you in the investigation. I'm about two steps ahead of Chloe," Max said, hugging herself. Though she had to tell David everything he needed to know to stop Jefferson, she just didn't know if she could go into detail about the Dark Room without breaking down. "This… this whole thing is more fucked up than you could've ever imagined." Reluctantly, she let go of herself to dig into her bag. "I see the writing on the wall. I'm going to stop looking, and I'll make sure Chloe does, too. It's too dangerous."
Crossing his arms over his chest, he took a step toward Max. "What's going on? Are you and Chloe in trouble?"
"I wanted to give this back to you before Chloe got hurt," Max pulled out the pistol, holding it by the barrel and extending the grip in David's direction.
"That's my missing gun! You took it?" David yelled, loud enough for half the neighborhood to hear. He closed the rest of the distance, pulling it from Max's hand. "It's loaded!" A moment of inspection, and he shouted again, "This has been fired! What did you two do?"
He reached to grab her, and Max held out a hand. The conversation rewound until the gun was back in her bag. "…too dangerous." Max felt the cold steel of the barrel on her fingers as she considered her next moves. "I… I took this back from Chloe. I never wanted her to have it in the first place. It's safer with you." She pulled the gun out again and held it out for David. "Chloe did some target practice in the junkyard, but no one got hurt. I… should've done more to stop her. I'm sorry."
David snatched the gun from Max's hand. "It's loaded," he said, a razor's edge to his tone. At least he wasn't yelling this time.
"Chloe thought it would give her protection during our investigation," Max said. "I… don't want anyone to get hurt. Least of all Chloe."
David unloaded the gun before setting it on the counter by Max. He gave her a long stare, then nodded. "You should've told me she had it as soon as you knew she'd taken it."
"I know," Max replied, lowering her gaze as she hugged herself again. "I'm sorry."
Sighing, David shook his head. "So… Rachel Amber?"
"Murdered. By Nathan Prescott and Mark Jefferson."
David's frown deepened. "You know that. For certain?"
"Yeah. Nathan did the act itself, but Jefferson is the one ultimately to blame," Max replied. "And Chloe doesn't know. If she did…" A meaningful glance over at the pistol on the counter and David got the message. "Like I said, I'm only a couple of steps ahead of Chloe. This needs to end before she catches up."
"How could you possibly know all this?" David asked.
"You have files… license plate numbers and GPS coordinates. They're in your lockers and your laptop. We took those, Nathan Prescott's burner phone, and a drug dealer's client list to piece together everything we needed to know," Max said, doing her best to keep her voice even as the panic rose deep in her chest. "I know it was stupid. Reckless. We just wanted answers… I never… not in a million years would have guessed that…"
Max breathed a ragged breath in and out, her whole body shuddering. "Max…" David said, putting a rough hand on her shoulder. "Tell me how to put a stop to this."
"The farmstead," Max replied, not daring to look up at David. "There's a bunker underneath the old barn, but it's under 24/7 surveillance. If you can get the police in there, though… everything is in there."
David withdrew his hand, again crossing his arms over his chest. "And how am I supposed to do that?"
"The police in town are in the Prescotts' pockets," Max said, trying to work her way through the problem. She couldn't help but berate herself. How stupid could she be, coming back without a plan to take out Jefferson? "We need… we need something serious enough to involve the state police." Max turned around, scanning the counter. Then, she kicked herself. She pulled out her journal and her pen. Max ripped a blank page free.
"I have an old army buddy. He landed a gig as a statie. I might be able to call in a favor," David said, "but we can't just go into the bunker without a warrant. Not if we want this to go down on the books."
Max started drawing a rough map of American Rust. "Call him. Go to American Rust. It's an old junkyard," she said. I then walked David through before pointing at the spot in front of the sign. "Dig there. She's not deep."
David's head snapped away from the sheet to look at Max. "She?"
"Rachel Amber," Max said, bile rising in her throat as she swore that awful smell of rot invaded her nose. "Tell… tell him an anonymous tipster gave you the info. And that anonymous tipster also told you about the bunker. That should be enough for a warrant, right?"
"God damn it. Maybe," David said, staring at the spot Max circled on the paper. "You're sure about all this?"
"I absolutely am. One-hundred percent," Max replied. "If you have trouble getting a warrant, talk to James Amber. He's the DA. He might be in the Prescotts' pocket, too, but I don't think he'll let them get away with murdering his daughter." Max then flipped the page over and started sketching again. "Okay, in the barn the stairwell down to the bunker is hidden in the far corner and locked with a huge ass lock," she explained, pointing out the front door, tractor, and where the stairwell was. "Beyond that is a vault door." Max scribbled a few numbers at the top of the page. "The code is 5-4-2."
David continued to stare intently at the page. "You even know the passcode for the door? How?"
"It was in the stuff we took from Nathan," Max explained. "In the bunker… there's a computer and a printer. I'm not sure what all is on the computer, but behind the computer is a cabinet full of binders." Max breathed a ragged sigh in and out as she tried to keep an emotional distance. This was all too much. "I-I need a minute, okay?" Max walked away, hugging herself. Her stomach violently churning, it took everything in her to keep from vomiting right there. She just kept breathing deep breaths and swallowing the neverending saliva in her mouth.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she got herself together to start talking again, "Those binders are everything you need to put Jefferson and Nathan away for good." Max walked back over to the door, not daring to look over at David. "Now, go… go put an end to this, okay?"
"Yeah," David muttered. He grabbed the gun, locking it in a drawer, before snatching up the sheet Max made.
Max reached for the handle, her hand trembling. "And David? If you go in there with the police… I want you to look at the binder labeled 'Kate,' and I want you to think long and hard the next time you start accusing innocent people of fucked up shit."
"I know… I made a mistake with her," David relented, his head hung low as his shoulders drooped.
"You just don't know how bad," Max bit back, her voice quiet but laced with venom. "And stop spying on your own family, or I'm telling Joyce about the cameras." Her courage evaporating even as she said the words, Max turned the knob and retreated to the safety of the house.