The Six: Complete Series (21 page)

Simon could take it. He was trapped just like her. His future was just as lost as the others. “Yes,” she said, “and I want everyone to know that she was murdered. I want them to know what happened to her.”

Irene seemed taken aback. To the woman, it seemed like Marie had thrown Simon under the bus just to help her brother. She knew that if Simon got implicated in a murder he obviously didn’t commit without coercion, then someone might make the connection and look for them.

“I don’t know who you think that you’re talking to. I don’t take orders from the prisoners. You do as you are told.” Irene had lost the fiery intensity that she had when Marie had walked into the room. In her years of subtly and not so subtly manipulating people to get them to do what she wanted, Marie could see that turning point when the wheels turned in her direction.

“Just think,” she said with enthusiastic wonder, “of how scared people will be when they find out the governor’s daughter was murdered. They love Brianna and if she’s still missing then they will hold out hope. But if she’s the victim of a senseless crime then people will be looking over their shoulders every time they go out. Isn’t that what you want?”

Irene’s fiery temperament had cooled. She looked at Marie with confusion and excitement. “What’s in it for you?”

“I want him to have closure. I want him to be able to heal,” she said.

“Even if you’re not there?”

“Yes,” Marie said, “even if I’m not there. This is bigger than just me. I want him to be able to move on with his life.” She also knew her brother wouldn’t rest until he found out who did it, even if it all led to poor Simon Archer. It was a longshot but it was better than nothing.

Marie knew she had her. She had worked with more stubborn and more pathologically aggressive people and gotten them to do exactly what she asked, no questions asked. This woman would do her bidding.

“Alright,” Irene said, “I suppose that could be arranged.”

Marie smiled. “Wonderful.”

“But,” Irene interjected, “only after your end of the bargain is complete. If you fail, then your brother will never know and his daughter’s body will not be recovered. He will go to his grave never knowing what happened to his sister or his little girl. You understand?”

“I do,” she said. “You will get your job done, I promise.”

Irene slapped the folder on the top of the stack. “Wonderful,” she said. “Let’s get you ready to go, huh?”

Marie didn’t break eye contact. “Pleasure’s all mine.”

***

Benjamin didn’t try to get out of his binds. They had barely wrapped the belt around his body and he could easily get out but there didn’t seem a point. These boys wanted answers and there was no amount of effort on his part that could be expending to get them to believe him.

Even half an hour into their sloppy interrogation, they still hadn’t touched him. They seemed scared to get near him.

“How we get out of here?” Milo asked. It was the same variation on a theme that they had been going on the entire time.

For the twentieth time he answered, “I don’t know.”

“They’ve got you in real deep, huh? Are they paying you or something?” Milo asked.

Dennis, after his belt binding exertion, had pulled back. He was obviously still in quite a bit of pain and leaned heavily against the wall as Milo did most of the talking.

“Dennis,” Benjamin pleaded, “please stop this. You know I have nothing to do with the people out there.”

Milo looked over at his partner to make sure he hadn’t gone soft. “No,” he said as he went back to his captor, “don’t try to weasel your way out of this.”

Benjamin gestured towards the phone they’d given to Dennis. “If you just let me look at that phone, I might be able to work with the electronics in it. Maybe we could find a way to make a call out of here.”

Dennis went to go untie him but Milo held him back. “Why should we believe you?”

“Milo, c’mon,” Dennis said. “he might be able to help us.”

“Or,” Milo said, “this is a test of our loyalty. We let him defy their orders and now they don’t believe we’ll do what they say. What’s stopping them from killing us all right now. No, it’s too dangerous.”

“I trust him,” Dennis said.

Milo gestured over to Simon. “He told me some pretty shitty stuff about you, buddy. You made his mom cry? I mean what kind of asshole does that to a kid?”

He barely remembered talking to Benjamin much less making anyone cry. No one had ever accused him of being aggressive. Too cold and professional were the usual complaints about his work performance.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“He told me that you were a dick to his mom when they came in. Right, Simon?”

Simon looked up with surprise. It was clear that that information was not supposed to be shared with the group. “It’s not a big deal...”

“No,” Milo said, “a guy like that doesn’t deserve a second chance.”

Benjamin turned towards Simon. “What is he talking about? I don’t remember hurting you or your mother.”

Simon shrugged. “When we came in, you told us we didn’t have a case. Then you told my mom that she was responsible for what happened to me.”

The conversation came rushing back. “Simon, no, that’s not what happened. You’re remembering it all wrong.”

Milo was not in the mood for explanations. “Don’t tell him he’s wrong just ‘cause you look bad. Now we know what kind of person you really are. You’re just a lying asshole in a business suit.”

“Simon, tell him what happened.”

Simon shook his head.

Benjamin turned back to plead with Milo. “He’s twisting what happened. I would never say something like that. That’s not why I couldn’t take his case.”

Dennis hobbled over with his hand still pressed firmly against his side. “Why then?”

He didn’t want to tell them, not like this. “I had a family situation back then. It wasn’t reasonable for me to take that case.”

Milo scoffed. “Family emergency. Lamest excuse in the book.”

“I did,” he said. “His case still stayed in the firm that I was in charge of. If I thought it was a waste of time why would I have allowed my associate to take it. It would have made me a lot of money. Who would pass up something like that for a bogus excuse.”

The boys didn’t have an answer.

“What happened? Why didn’t you take the case?”

Benjamin looked over at Simon who already knew. His associate had long ago explained the family why the lead prosecutor wasn’t taking their case. Simon looked at him with sympathetic eyes.

“Guys, just leave it,” Simon said.

Milo crossed his arms in frustration. “Are you on his side now? What is going on with you people?”

He didn’t want to rip open the scars that he’d spent so many years hiding. All he wanted was to end his days without having to talk about Stephanie.

“No,” Simon said, “I just don’t think this is helping.”

Milo smirked. “Well now I have to know.”

He wriggled in his binds. “Just leave me be.”

The room hummed its quiet song as the four of them stood around the elephant in the room. “Nope,” Milo said as he reared back. It seemed to come at him in slow motion.

His fist rammed into Benjamin’s face and rammed his head against the wall in turn.

“Whoa!” Dennis screamed as he hobbled towards Milo. With his one free hand, he pulled the attacker away before could strike again. “What the fuck, man?”

“Let me go!” Milo shouted as he maneuvered back towards Benjamin. “Tell us!”

There was unbridled, uncontrollable anger in the boy’s face. No amount of reasoning was going to allow him to escape. “My daughter. My daughter died, alright?”

Milo’s arched arm fell to his side. “What?” he said with the same intensity, unable to turn it down on such short-notice.

He hadn’t talked about Stephanie in years. His wife wouldn’t let her name be uttered in their home. It was like she had never existed. All the pictures of her that his wife had hidden were stored in his office for safekeeping. They were always there to remind him of someone that used to love him no matter what.

“She killed herself at college. Her freshman year. She’d only been there three weeks.”

Dennis backed away from the whole situation. “I need to sit down,” he mumbled as he escaped back to his wall.

“Shit,” Milo said.

“Yeah,” Benjamin said, “and Simon’s trial was in November. I was in no condition to lead a case that intensive. I never meant to hurt your mother. She knew about my daughter and felt terrible. That’s probably what you remember, Simon.”

Milo walked over to Benjamin and gestured for him to lean forward. Silently, he undid the prongs of the belt and slipped it off. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know...”

He didn’t want the apology. He didn’t want the pitiful looks that he’d collected over the years. All he wanted was to get out of this room.

“Give me the phone,” he said. “And leave me alone.”

***

Marie fiddled with the buttons of the tight blouse they’d given her to wear. At home, her entire wardrobe was composed of oversized clothes that she swam in. She had been a fat kid, a fat teenager and blossomed into a fat adult. Then she got married to a man whose idea of a good time was riding eighty miles on his bike and baking souffles composed of herbs he’d grown from his own garden.

His first affair began when she weighed two hundred pounds he had gotten down to two percent body fat. The sneaking around was subtle at first. She found out he was cheating on her with a sexy young thing he met online. Ever since then, she’d hidden in her plus-size clothes even as she lost over eighty pounds. Wearing a size twelve when she could fit into a size four was her little rebellion against a man who only cared about looks.

They’d given her a tight black blouse and long hair extensions. Suddenly she went from drab and unmemorable to something that might garner a little attention. Confidence, said the little man who did her makeover, is key. Look good and people will let you do just about anything. Also, he stated, the fewer people that recognized her, the better.

The driver played quiet pop music as they drove down the freeway. He seemed nice enough, pleasant and distant. He had the sweet gentlemanly demeanor of a man who had been raised by a strong-willed mother. He wasn’t terribly tall, average height, but had large biceps and sculpted torso which showed a desire to show off, probably because he lived with older brothers.

This didn’t seem like a job he was proud of. Everything he did seemed tentative. As he opened the door, he helped her in and immediately looked around to see if anyone noticed his valiancy.

The therapist in her kicked in. “How’s your mother?” she asked as he eclipsed a slow-moving Toyota.

“What?” he asked.

“Your mother. How is she?” Asking about someone’s mother was always an entre into conversation, whether it be filled with happiness or littered with tragedy.

“How do you know about her? Did they tell you to ask about her?” he asked. His voice jumped an octave as he spoke.

“No,” she said, “I was just making conversation.”

“Don’t. Don’t get to know me,” he said.

His fingers wrapped around the steering so hard that his knuckles almost popped through the top of his hand.

He kept peeking at the rearview mirror where she noticed a small blinking white light was attached. “What is that?” she asked.

“Let’s just stay focused, alright?”

As he stared at the mirror, she could see his muscles tighten and his breathing constrict. He had been anxious ever since she started speaking to him. There was something about what was on the other side of that camera or device that scared even a man who held her life in his hands.

“Where is she?”

The car sped up and he turned the music even louder.

“Do they have her?”

He said nothing but his face said it all. The little twitch in the corner of his eye and the involuntary gasp showed when he was so violently trying to hide from her.

“Where is she?”

He made the music even louder.

They had his family. Somewhere, they were in danger. This poor man was being forced to drive innocent people to trauma. He held the power to murder others without having to be in the same room. A sweet young man had been turned into a machine of pure anxiety and terror. If he took a wrong step he was just as vulnerable as she was, except it wouldn’t be his life, it would be his family.

She let it go. Her family was cracked and broken and she didn’t need to be catalyst to more pain and destruction.

“I’m sorry,” she said more to the camera than to the man behind the wheel.

It took twenty minutes to get to Kipling. She had visited it a handful of times to visit with her former clients. It was an unimpressive building with a lawn meticulously cared for by a team of dedicated gardeners.

The driver stopped a block away, behind a large retaining wall that hid them from everyone except the random jogger that came by the car.

He handed her a small bag. “Take this. It has everything in it.”

Immediately she looked inside. There wasn’t much in there, just a small pepper spray, a flashlight and a knife. “Is this everything?”

“Yeah, I guess so. They said you knew what to do already. That stuff’s just in case you get caught or something. At the bottom, there’s a canister. They said it’s what you need. Not sure what they meant.”

In the dark corner of the bag, there was a silver can with a tightly screwed cap. It was the gas, whichever knock-out concoction they’d created. The people, whoever it was Irene had under her thumb, didn’t have a lot of creativity. She didn’t think she’d need to go to such lengths to get this job down.

Marie slung the bag around her shoulders. “Thank you,” she said as she squeezed his shoulder. At first he flinched, but gave into her overture.

He looked at her like a lost son reaching out to his mother. “They’re giving you two hours. So, 4:15. Then I have to...”

“I know. It’s okay,” she said. “Whatever happens, happens. It’s not your fault, okay?”

He seemed so small in his seat against the background of the giant Kipling building in front of them. “Please, just go.”