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.”
It was best to just go before his pain turned back to anger. She opened the door without another word. Under the new hair and intricately applied makeup, she was nearly unrecognizable.
The weather had taken a turn on the drive. A thin layer of fog and mist had taken over the street and the whirls of an oncoming storm appeared on the horizon. With her head down, she walked to the lab.
Back in the room, Irene had explained that she was not to use her real name. They gave her a fake ID badge that would get her through each level of security. According to her badge she was “Amelia Matthews”, a research scientist from Boston.
The lobby of Kipling was the one artistic part in the building. It had been designed by a donor who wanted to hire his struggling architect grandson. The ceiling was vaulted with gorgeous wooden beams that made it look more like a church than a lobby. On all sides were floor to ceiling panes of glass that filtered in soft light to every corner. Sometimes, after she’d visit her clients, Marie would stay in the lobby and let the warmth wash over her as she read.
As she stepped through the door, it was like walking back through time. Kipling used to be a place of peace and reminiscing and now she was paranoid just stepping towards the front desk.
“I need to sign in,” she said in a voice lower than her regular one. The secretary was young, probably new. She didn’t even look up as she handed Marie the clipboard to sign her name. Amelia Matthews was nervously scribbled on the wrong line. As hard as she tried to pro
ject absolute confidence, Marie couldn’t keep her hand from shaking.
The girl took a cursory look at the signature and waved Marie through the first of many doors.
All around her were frenzied awkward scientists who laughed at their own jokes and thought on a higher plane than she’d ever be able to. She walked with her head held high and her shoulders pulled back. No one recognized her as she turned the corner to the elevators.
Bag tucked under her arm, she walked into the first open elevator. It was empty, perfect. As she reached out for the lab, 6th floor, a pair of scientist in long white coats came in in mid-conversation.
“...speaking at the conference. He is such a bore. I don’t envy those people, eh?” the older man of the pair said. She didn’t dare look up as she quickly pressed the button and retreated to the back of the elevator.
“Absolutely. I can’t stand him,” a droll voice added. The moment she heard him speak, she remembered the hundreds of hours she spent with him. Her client, one of her oldest and most loyal clients, stood mere feet away from her. He’d spent more time with her than he had with some of his children.
She brushed her extensions over the sliver of face that would be visible to him. All she could do was hope and pray he didn’t look her way.
The floors dinged by as the elevator shifted and groaned under its age.
As the floors went up, the fear she felt when she left the car had gone away. Her entire life had been filled with stress, from morning to night. But now, in the moment when it she had all the reason in the world to be scared, she felt calm. As she let her sexy new look breathe in the elevator, she began to get a high she hadn’t felt in a while. There was a strange thrill in being found out that excited her.
She was a good girl, notoriously so. High school and college had been filled with studying and internships. After college she attended an endless series of graduate programs and got married to the guy next door. She was sweet and understanding, to a fault. Doormat was the phrase she would use if she wasn’t in such denial.
When the elevator finally got to the 6th floor, Hari, his colleague and Marie walked out into the dimly lit hallway. She had never gone up this far. The 6th floor was where the secrets were held. Even as a beloved therapist, she still didn’t have the chance to peek inside. Today Amelia was going to stroll in, kick ass and take names.
She followed behind Hari who was clearly part of the project she was destined to dismantle. He was twenty feet in front of her and hadn’t so much as looked back to recognize her. It was comforting to know she could slip inside and stay in character.
He swiped his card and punched in a code. Being a few feet behind, she spied what he typed. 4-7-3. The door clicked and he pulled it open. As soon as it shut, she went up to the card reader and swiped Amelia’s ID. It went through no problem. Three digits and she was in.
The lab was not unlike the ones she’d spent long hours in for med school. As much as she loved the chemistry side of medicine, that was never her passion. The first time she read a psychology book got her hooked. Suddenly carbon chains and pipets were far less interesting than behavior and brain wiring.
Scientists were not a hard breed to break down. Of all the people in the world, the ones that slipped into science as a career tended to be logical to a fault. They were fascinating in their intellect but, at their core, they loved order.
Marie hung the coat at her side and let her black dress do the talking. In the stilettos she had a different gait, like a jaguar on the prowl. She slipped through the door and straight into the heart of the lab. There was the murmur of employees talking in the distance and the hum of machines in every corner. Once she had her hands on the chemicals, she could work on breaking them down. But, she needed to know where she should be stationed, and who needed to be worked on to make that happen.
In her outfit, she felt a young man was her best bet. Steering clear of Hari, who had gone a different direction, she walked straight into the first station that held the ambitious graduate students. The first person she ran into was the perfect prey. He was short, skinny and intensely focused on moving beakers from one side of the counter to the other. Clearly bored, he’d be able to get here in the right direction.
Marie flipped her hair so it draped down her chest. She sauntered over to the boy and placed a hand near his next beaker. She let her lean into him as she spoke.
“Hello,” she purred.
He looked around the lab in bemused confusion. It seemed like he was waiting for his buddies to pop out and tell him it was all some elaborate prank.
“Hello?” he said. “Can I help you?”
“I was hoping you could show me around.” She let her fingers drift across the counter in front of him. The man seemed frozen as he still clutched the vial in his hand, suspended awkwardly in the air.
“Oh, um, yeah I guess so.”
One of her favorite psychology phenomenon was the unblinding trust people had in someone who projected authority. If she showed up in a police uniform or as a fireman, the majority of people would do whatever she said, no questions asked. If she acted like she ran the joint, it would easy to get this done.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
He carefully put his vial back and tucked the stool back under the counter. “Oh, Eric, ma’am.”
“Eric, could you show me around? I’m from the lab in Boston. They sent me to check in.”
The vagueness kept him moving. “Boston? How exciting,” he said. Eric was a sweet boy, probably still in college, and had a thick Southern accent.
“Oh yes. You should work in our lab when you graduate,” she said. His cheeks began to turn red as he walked out of his little enclave and into the proper lab.
“Yeah,” he said, “that’d be cool.”
The lab wasn’t full since it was mid-afternoon on a Friday. The few people inside were hard at work and their focus was entirely on the experiments and chemicals in front of them.
“So,” he said, “this is Claire and Roger.” A petite blonde and her handsome friend briefly waved at the guest before they went back to looking in their microscopes.
The lab techs that Eric introduced her to were all polite for the least amount of time it was socially acceptable before going back to work. She could have tap danced across the floor and taken off her shirt and garnered no more than a cursory glance from an intern.
The tour moved at a breakneck speed. Before she knew it, they had made their way to the back, where the amenities were suddenly much nicer and the scientists were even less interested in being spoken to. “We’re almost there with Memisol. They told you about it, right?”
“The Alzheimer drug?”
He nodded.
“Yes, of course. That’s what I’m here for.”
“I’m not on it,” he said, “but they’re saying it’s almost there. Pretty exciting, huh?”
“Thrilling,” she said.
***
Benjamin had worked on the phone for almost an hour. Everything he tried was blocked. He tried every button except for 1 which was the speed dial for the doctors. Milo sat next to him the entire time and watched his every move.
The hope of escape slowly faded with each error message that popped up on the tiny screen. Twice he’d asked to borrow it and see if there was back method to dialing out but the old man wouldn’t let him touch it. “I used to be an engineer” he kept saying, like that meant anything.
He was tired of watching. All Benjamin did was press the same buttons over and over again and got sent back to the same black restart screen. Then he’d go right back and press “5” again. It was like watching a chimp download an app. Milo’s patience had worn thin. “Benjamin, please. Just let me try something.”
The black eye Milo had given him was beginning to take shape. He didn’t mean to hit the old guy but he was acting crazy. Something needed to calm him down.
“I think I’ve almost got it,” Benjamin said as the phone angrily buz
zed once again.
“Just stop, alright?” Dennis said. He’d taken to sitting near Simon who still had his back turned and was silent. It seemed to calm Dennis down so no one told him to move.
Benjamin didn’t let his grip wain. “There has to be a way to hack this thing. If it can just get it...” he pressed another button and the phone puttered and shut off.
It was first time it had turned off completely since Benjamin had taken it. Since it was the only source of entertainment in the room, all eyes had been on its dimly glowing lights. And now, the glow was gone.
“What’d you do?” Milo asked.
Benjamin pressed the buttons wildly but there was nothing to be done. “I don’t know.”
It sat there, flaccid and dark in his hands as he tried to pry at the back. “It was just working...”
“You broke it,” Milo said.
Dennis grabbed his side. “What if my stitches break now?”
Benjamin kept tapping it but it stayed off. “I don’t understand.”
Milo had had enough. This old man had been an engineer in a time when they used hammers and chisels to whittle blocks of wood into tiny figurines. He probably could barely turn on his phone at home, much less hack into an encrypted device and do anything with it.
There were footsteps coming down the hall. Benjamin immediately set the device on the floor and hid it behind his back. “Is that them?”
After two weeks, Milo had become a connoisseur of the noises that emanated through the building. If it was a single pair of footsteps then it was just someone walking in the medical wing which they figured out was located right above them. If it was two, then the two old men that brought them food and water were coming. But if it was the clack of heels or the thud of boots the big guns were coming to punish someone.
The footsteps stopped for a moment.
“Is it?” Dennis asked.
“Shh!” hissed Milo as he waited in the silence for another step.
He prayed that the next sound would the light shuffle of the nurse. At this rate, Benjamin was probably never leaving and the next one in rotation was him. His body still hadn’t healed from the burns. There was no way he could go back out there again.
The Six: Complete Series Page 18