The Six: Complete Series (31 page)

“Let me go,” Milo muttered.

Simon wasn’t negotiating with them anymore. When the guard finally noticed the melee in the corner, he dropped the man on the floor and pulled out a cell phone, ready to report. “Put ’im down.”

“No,” he said.

“Do it. Put him down,” the guard said.

Milo trembled under the hold. It would be so easy.

“Let us out.”

The guard laughed. “I don’t think so.”

He squeezed and twisted just enough for Milo to squeal.

“Keep it up and I’ll zap you. Got it?” He patted his pocket to reinforce how it easy it was to kill them.

“Now,” Simon said to Milo. “Do it now.”

When no words came out, Simon twisted a little more, making sure he pinched the carotid artery to make Milo feel more disoriented. “Shit,” Milo said. His voice broke as he spoke.

The guard looked at Milo differently than the rest of them. He seemed almost self-conscious around him. The guard had his hand clasped against his pocket and his finger seemed to curl around the handle of a gun. He never took his eyes off Milo as he incrementally wrapped his fingers and primed himself to shoot.“Eduardo,” Milo said. “It’s okay.”

Eduardo relaxed his hand, not completely, but appeared to back off. However, Simon still had the kid in his hands so it was not safe. Not yet.“What’s going on?” Eduardo said as he took two small steps toward them.The man that had been thrown in started to groan and wriggle on the ground. He had a bruise that formed on the top of his head and bits of leaves and dirt stuck to the back of his suit jacket.Marie crawled over to him and felt at his neck for a pulse. She pulled at his eyelids and moved her hand in a slow clinical way down his body. “He’s okay,” she said to a room that had no interest in him. Her words fell to a thud on the floor as Milo attempted, and failed, to get out of his hold.“Let me go see him,” Milo said.

Eduardo gestured, almost imperceptibly, up towards the ceiling.

“Yes. Take me up there.”

“I don’t know—”

Milo snapped. “Now. This is an order.”

“All right,” Eduardo said as he came towards Milo and started to pull him away. Simon didn’t want to let him go. There was no telling what would happen if he was out of earshot. He had already upset the delicate balance and sniffed out the rat. For all he knew his device would be activated the moment Milo stepped out of the room.“Let me go,” Milo said through gritted teeth.Simon loosened his arms just enough for Milo to wriggle out. As he freed himself, a different boy stood before them. Gone was the hunched posture and bratty speech. He seemed noble and determined. Milo simply pointed to the door and walked out without so much as saying a word.

Hannah’s phone buzzed in her pocket. The talk with the kid from the club had yielded that photo but not much else. Disappointed, but still determined, she slipped into the car and turned on the radio.

“... fired in the auditorium. Former vice-president Trayhorn was taken to El Trajo Hospital where he was declared dead.”

The blood rushed out of her face. Kyle was there. That was his speech. Immediately she grabbed her phone where she saw a dozen missed calls and messages. She had been so taken in by the kid that she hadn’t even noticed that he had been trying to reach her.

With a trembling finger she called his number. “Answer,” she whispered as the empty ringtone played.

He didn’t answer.

Hannah looked at the message he sent.

As she soon as she saw what it said she wasn’t nervous anymore. She was terrified.

She slammed into the police station going fifty miles an hour. The moment the car stopped she burst out and ran inside. She felt her pulse race up and down her body as she nearly collapsed at the front desk with her phone clutched in her hands.

“I—need—to—” she could catch her breath. She held out her phone to the confused man behind the glass.

“What? What is it?”

The police station was mostly empty, with a few officers left to tend to non-national news level business. After hours of interrogation, she had met quite a few of them. One, a younger woman with a severe ponytail and sympathetic brown eyes sat in the back of the station with one eye on the fruitless conversation in the front.

The receptionist spun around and waved her over.

“What’s up?” she said as she strolled to the front.

Hannah took a deep breath and made sure that what she was saying didn’t sound as crazy as it seemed in her head. “Kyle. My boyfriend, Kyle. He’s at the house where the guy that killed the vice-president is.”

The woman’s entire face changed as she attempted to process the information. “What? What are you talking about?”

Hannah showed her the text messages.

I’m OK.

Following the shooter.

Here. 1943 Crest St.

There was a picture of a simple white two-story home. It wasn’t anything special. There weren’t any gargoyles or motes in front guarding the home. It looked like any other place on the street.

“He was there at Grental. He was with Trayhorn. I was talking to him right before—”

The policewoman quickly wrote down the address. “Have you spoken to him since he sent you these messages?”

Hannah shook her head. Tears of fright began to form in the pit of her stomach. “No. He didn’t answer.”

The woman had trouble concealing the knowing face of a professional who knew what that meant. Kyle had done something stupid. That was the reason he wasn’t answering. Something terrible had happened to him.

Hannah had spoken to this woman for at least twenty minutes in her marathon session. Of all of the police, she seemed to have a shred of trust in the crazed girl with an indecipherable note.

“He could be in trouble,” Hannah said. “He always answers his phone.”

Against all of her better judgment, the policewoman grabbed the keys from her desk and pointed to the door. She spoke in codes and jargon on her walkie-talkie. The pair of them speed-walked out to the only cop car left in the parking lot.

“Get in,” she said.

Hannah didn’t know if she wanted to actually go there. A murderer lived in that house and Lila had died under their powers. Neither of them knew what these people were capable of doing. Still, Kyle was there. For that reason, she had to go.

The policewoman bolted out of the parking lot and threw on the sirens the moment they were on a road. “They buy the clue. They’re bringing in a bunch of other guys. We’re nailing this creep.” There was a huge smile on her face as she spoke.

They flew down the freeway at ninety miles per hour. Hannah had never been in a cop car before, especially one rushing to a serial killer’s home. She felt a certain amount of power as the cars in front of them peeled out of the way like the parting of the Red Sea.

“What’s going to happen?” Hannah asked. “Are you going to get Kyle?”

The woman raced past an exit as the speed crept up to a hundred miles per hour, but she answered as if she was strolling a country road. “We need to assess the location. If you’re right, and I think you are, we need to be careful. Fucked up guys like this are usually paranoid as hell. We need to make sure it’s safe before we just go in. We’ll get your Kyle, don’t worry.”

And the others. Those people that Lila talked about could be in there. She prayed they were still alive and being kept somewhere at that house. The policewoman snaked around sharp turns and ran through stoplights without blinking an eye. She seemed unflappable even as a car’s brakes squealed as they avoided the police car.

They sat in silence as she got to a residential area and turned off the siren. “I don’t want to spook them,” she said.

It didn’t take long to find the house that Kyle had sent. It was even less spectacular in real life. There were a few bushes and shrubs along the sidewalk edge and a nice elderly couple walking their dog right in front of it.

“Where’s the car? The SUV? Kyle said—”

The woman raised a hand. “They’d never keep it out on the street. My guess is that it’s in a garage somewhere in the back.”

They moved forward past the house, clear down to the end of the block. Kyle was in there and he was in trouble. All she could do was wait.

He stomped on the ground in front of her face. The floor underneath her body shook. Irene opened her eyes to a sore body and his feet inches from her face. She went to touch her face but her arms would not move.

“What did you give me?” she mumbled.

David bent down and grabbed her chin. He lifted it up but she could hardly keep her head up much less comprehend why he was so upset.

“Sit up,” he said.

He’d brought her to his office. Her wrists were yanked behind her back and tied together with cold handcuffs pulled so tight that she felt her shoulder almost pop out of its socket with every slight movement.

There was no help to get her up. She pushed fruitlessly against the floor to get from her side to an upright position. After one excruciatingly painful try she fell back to the ground. Whatever he had given her had made her muscles like rubber.

When it was clear she wouldn’t get up on her own, he grabbed her by the ponytail and jerked her up. She screamed but he didn’t flinch. Once she was placed against the chair he backed away.

“What kind of goddamn idiot are you?” he said.

She’d learned the hard way that most of his statements were rhetorical.

“He followed Eduardo. All the way from the school to here. That asshole that Ed wouldn’t notice but of course he did. I only
hired
the best right?” He emphasized hired to make her realize she wasn’t employed. She was there voluntarily.

“I didn’t—” She stopped herself from explaining. David didn’t care. She could have invited the man in for tea or shot him with a machine gun. It didn’t matter. All it mattered was that he was furious and she was there to take it.

“I need to leave,” he said.

Leave. She had to bite her tongue to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. He had really said the word leave. It took her another moment to realize he’d said “I” not “we”.

“Where are we going?” she said.

He threw a few books and knickknacks in a box as he shuffled manically around his office. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“What?”

“I need to get out of here. Far away so they can’t pin any of this on me. The house will be gone and so will anyone who knows. Can’t have any loose threads now can we?” He said it so calmly that she prayed she misheard him.

“Why can’t I go with you?”

He laughed. “What are you going to do? Irene, you wouldn’t last five minutes where I’m going. No, this is for the best. The guilt would eat you up. I don’t want you to suffer, you know? This is what needs to happen. It does.”

It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t his sick idea of a prank. He was packing up and she was stuck in his office, weak and incapacitated. “David, please!” she said. “I won’t tell. I promise. Just let me go back home.”

He pointed down. “Do we let them go?”

“No.”

He used his sing-song voice from his old TV show. It used to be funny, like watching Mr. Rogers cuss or Elmo flip off Big Bird. She used to laugh whenever he’d launch into a story about a guy being thrown in front of a moving subway using his “Story Man” voice. Sometimes he’d even throw on the old red cardigan and yellow shoes and make a whole show of it.

“Did we let Frank go home?”

“No.”

“What about the ones who got caught. Are they making brunch for their families today?”

“No.”

“So why would I let you get out?”

She felt like she was going to throw up. “I love you,” she said.

He stopped for just a brief moment and looked at her. “You what?”

“I love you.”

He held a photo frame in his hand and gripped it tighter as he stared at her. “Don’t be silly, Irene.” In went the photo and he turned away from her.

It felt like a slap in the face. What had she been feeling all these years? Was it love or was it desperation? She had always assumed that there was a connection between them, dysfunctional, but it was there.

She wanted to run after him and pin him to that oversized desk he was always bragging about. He had to love her. He needed to or what was her purpose. What had she been doing all this for, if not for him?

Just as she was about to call out to him and beg him to tell her the truth, the door to his office opened. Milo walked inside with his cocksure posture and dirty hoodie.

“Oh, hello,” David said.

The blonde twerp’s face scrunched as he surveyed the office. “What’s going on?”

“We need to go. Pack your stuff.”

Irene pulled at her restraints. “I thought you said—”

David pointed at Milo. “You can’t expect me to leave him.”

She yanked so hard that she felt her arm almost snap under the force. The words coming out of his mouth were so unbelievable that it hardly felt real. “But we were happy.”

Milo smiled. “Really?”

Irene desperately didn’t want to cry in front of either of them. All of these years of sacrifice had led to this. Her family thought she was dead and she had been okay with that because she had a new family now.

It was a lie.

Milo grabbed a few books from the shelf and thumbed through them. “Why are we leaving?”

“Benjamin was followed.”

Milo lowered the book. “What?”

“Yeah,” he said, “someone tailed them from the school to here. He was wandering around the backyard and chit chatting with our little maitre’d over there.”