The Six: Complete Series (32 page)

“Is that the guy Ed brought in?”

David nodded. “So he’s probably not an idiot. I’m sure he took a picture or something. Even if he didn’t, I want to get out of here. It’s too risky. So grab your stuff. We’re out of here in ten, all right?”

“And the house?” Milo asked.

David made an explosion gesture with his hands like he was speaking to a toddler. The pair of them smiled. “Can we stay and watch?” Milo asked.

David shook his head. “Your mother would kill me. No, we’ll be on the road by then. Quick. Grab your things.”

Milo nodded and ran out of the room.

“Please,” Irene begged, “I promise I won’t say anything. Don’t do this to me.”

“Sorry, doll,” he said quietly. David grabbed something from his desk and walked towards her, keeping the item hidden behind his back. “This is for the best.”

Irene barely got a chance to scream before he placed a bag over her head and pushed her back down to the floor.

Milo had lived the lie so long it was hard to shake it off. Of all people, he wouldn’t have guessed that Simon would have figured it out so fast. That guy seemed like an idiot, a sniveling crying idiot who couldn’t figure his way out of a paper bag.

Now it was time to go. No more moody teenager in the corner with a ratty old hoodie and emotional trauma. He could be someone else entirely. Milo had been a fun character to play. Ever since they saw the real one on TV, his dad had figured it was the perfect rouse. They grabbed that Milo first and disposed of him in the backyard. Everyone likes to be around someone famous, he figured. It would erase suspicion quickly. That guy from TV would never hurt me. He’s probably just waiting for his private jet to pick him up or his team of butlers to take him home. No one had ever suspected a thing. That is until Simon.

His dad hadn’t let him bring that much stuff to this house. Most of it was still at his mom’s in Washington. One day she kissed him on the head for a weekend with dad and the next thing he knew, his dad handed him a plane ticket and they were in Row 14 on a United flight to San Francisco.

It was fine. He’d never liked his mom. She’d been whiny and controlling, never letting him do anything. After his parents had gotten divorced, she never let him see his dad. “
Robby
,
”
she said,
“it’s not safe. You should stay here where I can keep an eye on you.”
As a twelve year old on the precipice of puberty and teenage rebellion, those words became a challenge. How dare she say what he couldn’t do. If he wanted to see his dad then he was going to see his dad.

On the eve of his thirteenth birthday he’d made a stand. It began with being friendly. He brought his mom cookies and tea and talked to her for almost an hour about her favorite TV shows. It was mind-numbing but it was part of the plan to knead her into what he wanted.

After giving her a quick back massage he dropped the bomb. His dad was doing a PBS telethon in Seattle and would have a few days to visit. Immediately her face dropped. She said no and when he pressed it she said no again. Absolutely not.

He couldn’t believe how controlling she was. It had flipped something in his body and suddenly the tea had been hurled on the ground and his screams echoed through the house. His mom didn’t know what to do with him. It was the first time he’d really let himself get that out of control and it fascinated him at what power his anger had over her.

At first she tried to calm him down by speaking quietly and not making a fuss but she didn’t agree to his demands. He never touched her but he could see the fear in her eyes. To her, it seemed like he could do anything and she had no recourse.

“Let me go!” he shouted. “Let me see him!”

“Robby,” she said, “you can’t.”

That’s when he ran into the kitchen and grabbed the knife she’d been cutting the chicken with that afternoon. He put it up to his neck and started screaming again. He said all sorts of vile terrible things to get her to back down but it wasn’t until he threatened to slash his own throat that she finally picked up the phone. It was that look of terror and pity mixed together that made it so much easier to leave her behind.

David didn’t think he was anything but good at his job. In exchange for a few weeks in the basement with the lowlifes he got presents. There was a new laptop for the 2010 group and a car from the more difficult 2011 gang. After all the troubles with Dennis and Simon he figured he was in for a ski house in Tahoe.

He had been Milo for almost a year. After all this time he had grown to like the kid. On TV he was definitely talented and funny and had a beautiful voice. It had been a pity he had to disappear but it was all part of the game. Thankfully, none of the new prisoners had seen the small story in Variety about the missing reality show contestant.

As long as his dad allowed it, he’d stay Milo. The name seemed to suit him.

Milo threw a few books and T-shirts into his backpack and stuffed his laptop into its case. He wasn’t going to miss this place. As long as he was with his dad it was okay.

Hannah sat in the police car and struggled to keep from falling apart in front of the stoic policewoman. The voices through the radio crackled and spoke in code with each statement sounding more urgent and excited.

“When are they getting here?” she asked.

The cop pointed at the radio. “They’ll be here in a few moments. They just said they’re turning the corner. The cars will be down the street. Just be patient.”

Hannah shut her eyes and let the static of the radio wash over her like crashing waves on the shore. This was out of her hands now. She had to let go of control and allow the police to do their job.

The static escalated to a crescendo and suddenly it all fell silent.

“What happened?”

The policewoman pointed towards her door. “We’re off. Stay put, okay?”

Hannah nodded. She had no interest in exploring the crime scene.

With a ca-chunk of the door and a slam the woman was gone. All Hannah was left with was the murmuring on the radio and the rear view mirror view of the house. She turned up the radio. It was nice to have a little company even if it was the clipped commands of eager cops.

The cop scuttled out and walked down to the corner catty-corner to their car. There she met with four other uniformed men who had their hands clutched over their firearm and eyes focused on the house ahead. They motioned forward and in sharp angles before striding forward silently.

As they got closer and closer she felt something amiss in the pit of her stomach. Something about this felt wrong.

Hannah couldn’t just sit. There was something that felt unsettling about what was happening. Even though she knew it was stupid and could get her killed, she couldn’t stop herself from opening the door.

She began to walk towards the house and was ignored by the police. However, as she got closer, they began to move closer to her with guardedly nervous expressions. When she got two houses away an older man with a full brown beard broke from his group and took long strides towards her.

“Ma’am,” he said, “I need you to go back to your home.”

“I don’t live here,” she said.

He looked at her impatiently. “Ma’am, you need to leave here. It’s not safe.”

A small herd of police officers slid towards the front yard with their weapons drawn and their eyes focused on nothing but the front door. She knew better than to waste the man’s time. She took a few steps back until the man was satisfied by her distance. He rushed to the group and pulled out his gun in one fluid motion like a trained ballet dancer.

Hannah reached in her pocket and felt for the Franklin Pierce dollar coin that Kyle had given her after a long trip to a coin fair. He’d dragged her to an expansive conference hall where close to a hundred focused coin enthusiasts flipped through stacks of pennies from the 19th century. She couldn’t be more bored until she found the presidential quarter basket. She’d poured through the basket and found a few that made her feel happy. Her favorite of all was the little Franklin Pierce one. She’d always liked the man with a sad pouty face and the floppy hair. He was like a little emo kid who happened to live in her pocket.

More than anything, it made Kyle laugh. It was the lack of his laugh that made her miss him the most. All she wanted was for him to be there one more time to do his goofy Franklin Pierce voice that was a cross between Rodney Dangerfield and Droopy Dog.

She had just grabbed her phone to see if Kyle had called when she heard a policeman shout in the distance.

“Back away! Get out!”

A dozen navy uniforms sprinted away from the house as she attempted to move closer. She was stopped by the smell of smoke; the stench hit her first. It wasn’t until she stepped into the street that she could see that front of the house was engulfed in flames.

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

David flung open the door to the garage so Milo could get through and then locked the door behind him.

The devices were on a timer and set to go off every two minutes in random spots in the house. Within ten minutes the entire structure would be engulfed and its inhabitants along with it. He’d seen the cops parked down the street but it seemed more fun if he could make them feel like they’d almost caught him. His finger had lingered over the button for fifteen minutes waiting until that moment when they’d set foot inside. He’d laughed as they scurried away like scared little mice.

There had been bigger plans after Trayhorn. A former vice-president was a good get, but it was by no means the best that he could do. It was a test. Upping the ante was how he could see where the holes were. If it wasn’t for the asshole who followed Eduardo, there would be no smoking gun and he’d be underway making the arrangements for the next hit.

Even as he walked to the car, David checked the news alerts that popped up on his phone.

VP shot in California.

Trayhorn in ICU

Victor Trayhorn, former Vice-President, dead at age 64.

He took a screenshot of that last alert. None of their jobs had warranted national press. It was arousing to see the frantic energy around something he had orchestrated. Wherever they went next, the jobs were going to have to be bigger and more jarring. The people needed this. They needed to be woken up.

He’d started it all after he was fired from the television station. His children’s show had been on the air for almost ten years and he was still getting dozens of fan letters every week. It came out of nowhere. One day the kids were lined up to be his audience and the next day they were turned away and the door locked for good.

There was no reason; at least not one they felt like telling him. He was the modern-day Mr. Rogers and he had meant everything to hundreds of thousands of kids. After the show was cancelled, David walked up to the office of KTY’s station manager and slammed the door behind him. The man was a coward and didn’t want to fight the man who had put him in his mansion and driving his BMW. It’s was David’s DVD sales and commercial spots that had made the station what it was.

For the next fifteen minutes he felt a shift in his personality that was like the wiring in his brain was being rerouted by a cadre of operators. As he looked at that fat fuck’s face, he felt more in control than he had in his last thirty-eight years. Even as the man sat there with his chubby fingers pressing against his pale hands, he knew what he could do.

It took one phone call to the journeyman electrician that did the lighting to get it done. The man had a checkered past and a huge gambling debt. It took two grand and a little nudging to have the station manager sent to the ER with nine broken bones.

“Dad, can I drive?” Milo asked.

David fished for the keys in his pocket. Best the kid be stuck if they get pulled over. “Sure,” he said.

They jumped into the white SUV that was only used by him and Milo. He’d used it a number of times to go to television conventions and autograph shows to supplement the tech budget. It was so electric to think that all these parents and kids would come bounding up to him and praise his kind spirit and good heart when he was ignoring their every word to come up with the next job for the people trapped on the bottom floor.

After the station manager, he used the electrician a few more times to settle old grudges. At the time he was still married so the ex-wife hadn’t been touched yet, but there were old bullies and ex-girlfriends to harass and embarrass.

It wasn’t to hurt them, that wasn’t the point of the jobs. He wanted them to understand what they’d done was wrong and hurtful and that they should have to pay. It was a sort of real-life karma; if you hurt me, I’ll hurt you back in kind.

“Left or right?” Milo asked as they crept up the back entrance. He had bought the house precisely because it backed into the parking lot to a Peet’s coffee and the two were separated by a flimsy fence. A simple push by the massive SUV would knock it right over and he’d be home free.

“Right and then hit the fence. You remember what I told you?”

Milo smiled. “Avoid the poles and hit the gas until you’re through.”

David patted him on the back. “Good boy.”

After the electrician grew tried and guilt-ridden, David cut him free with a payout and a contract. One word about their dealings and there would be a knock on the man’s door with a gun and a shot before he had a chance to explain himself. The executioner was gone but the yearning was still there. It clawed at him as he tried to sleep. The release he got when he got the pictures of a bruised face or a ransacked house got him through tough days. But he could go bigger. He had the money and he had the power. He also quickly had an ex-wife and an estranged son.