The Six: Complete Series

by E. C. Richard

  The lawyer scooted towards the middle of the seat with the same stunned look that Eduardo had seen fifty times. It was that look of attempting processing such a gigantic amount of information that the brain desperately is trying to filter out. The gun was in the front seat as was the envelope of phony credentials so he had that to look forward to handing over. There was something strange about this guy. It was that same vacant stare that was there when he had grabbed the lawyer from his bedroom. There hopeless and there was this. This was beyond saving and it scared the shit out of him.

  Eduardo turned the music down enough to talk over it. He’d seen that look only one time before and it was in his own eyes before he merged in front of that pick-up.

  “Hey man. You okay?”

  The lawyer stared out on the road with unblinking eyes.

  Eduardo tapped the small camera they had implanted, unbeknownst to him, on the rearview mirror. “Don’t try anything. They’re watching everything. It’s not worth it.”

  He sat with his hands pressed in his lap and his lips pursed tight.

  The heavy lunch he’d just finished still sat leadened in the pit of his stomach. As much as he tried to jolt a reaction out of the guy by swerving between lanes and scraping right up against massive trucks, the guy hardly blinked much less screamed.

  David had removed the partition from Eduardo’s car after Dennis tried to pull a fast one on him. It was his punishment for being tricked easily. But not it left him vulnerable to the whims of desperate people.

  As he made one last swooping turn which jolted the lawyer from his seat and tipped him over at 20 degree angle. He made no motion to pull himself up. The seatbelt kept him buoyed at a slight tilt, like a statue that had been knocked askew by an earthquake.

  It was then he saw both of the lawyer’s hands creep from either side of his body. It was like they moved independently of the torso they were attached to. One moved towards the seatbelt and the other towards the door. They slithered to either end and snapped like a cobra devouring a small mouse.

  He heard the click of the seatbelt first and the ka-chunk of the door attempting to open.

  Eduardo leapt for the lock controls and pounded them down. Of all the times to forget to lock the doors.

  It was too late. The lawyer had already tucked his head down and was ready to roll out of the swinging door. A gust of air rushed into the car as a row of vehicles sped past them.

  “Stop!” Eduardo screamed as he made a sharp left turn into the next lane. It was just enough force to push the lawyer from the edge to a foot inside the car and force the door to close. But he was too quick. The lawyer put out his hand just in time to keep it open just an inch.

  He knew he had to get the car stopped or the guy was going to jump out. If he lost a guy, then who knows what would happen to his father or his brother. There was heavy traffic in the far right lane but it didn’t matter. He needed to get this psycho in the car and in one piece.

  He didn’t signal. Hell, he didn’t even look. If there was a God and he loved him even a little bit after all the shit he’d done, there would be a spot for their car. In a Hail Mary merging of lanes, Eduardo turned the car sharply to the right. He waited for the crunch of metal and explosion of glass as cars rammed into him.

  Nothing.

  He had gotten in the lane. He quickly looked behind him to see a small blue Honda stopped, completely stopped, in the lane behind him. There was no time to think. A miracle. That’s the only possible reason.

  The lawyer still pawed at the door and tried to get his bearing. It’s too late, Eduardo thought as he zoomed onto the shoulder and slammed on his brakes.

  He couldn’t contain the adrenaline that coursed through his body at that moment. His joints ached as he clenched the steering wheels. “What the f*ck is wrong with you?” he shouted.

  The lawyer furrowed his brow. “I need to...” he pointed towards the door.

  “Hell no,” Eduardo said as he slammed down the locks. Four simultaneous prison bars fell all around them.

  “Please,” the man said, “just let me do this.”

  “No! You’re not going to just jump out of my f*cking car. I’ve got a job to do and you’re going to do your part whether you like it or not.”

  The man’s face was pale, a certain shade of pale he’d only seen on sick patients in TV shows and his eyes were like stone, lifeless and grey. Eduardo spun around the front seat and pointed towards the seat belt. “Get buckled in so we can go.”

  “I...” the man started to say.

  “You what?” Eduardo asked. “What do you need? You want coffee or something ‘cause we can do that but otherwise we’re on a bit of a time crunch. Now let’s go.”

  He turned back around to start up the car when he felt the metallic edge of a pair of hair-trimming scissors against his throat. A brief glance at the rearview mirror revealed the lawyer perched against the back seat with the scissors held wide open.

  “Shit,” Eduardo muttered as he put his hands up in surrender.

  The lawyer’s head tilted side to side like a restless iguana. “Open the doors.”

  “I can’t,” Eduardo said. “Don’t make me.”

  He pressed the scissors in closer. “Open. The doors.”

  “And then what?” he asked. “What are you going to do?”

  “I can’t do this anymore,” he said. “When you took me from my home, I was at the end. I’d lived forty-six years trying to fix what was so broken and it was a fools game. The rug was pulled from under me every single goddamn time. No more. You’re going to open this door and you’re going to let me finish what you stopped.”

  As much as he wanted to stay strong and aggressive, Eduardo couldn’t help the tears that burrowed in his chest. “Please. They’ll kill my family.”

  The lawyer pressed the scissors in even harder. “I’m sorry but I can’t be thinking about you right now. This is my only chance. I have to...”

  “You don’t have to do anything. Please, just don’t do this.”

  He sighed but he didn’t let up. “Sorry I can’t. Open the doors.”

  If he opened the doors, the lawyer would be gone. If he didn’t, then the lawyer would kill him and open the doors himself. Eduardo looked up at the blinking light and prayed there was a compassionate soul behind it who would stop this. “David,” he said, “please. If you’re there...do something.”

  Hannah pulled the car up in front of an understated but beautiful ranch house on the corner of an elegant suburban street. It was the kind of house she’d always imagined raising her three kids and two dogs in as a kid. There were apples trees and playing children within eyeshot and not an ambulance or a train whistle to be heard. When they got married and settled down, this was where they needed to go.

  It had been hard, but she’d been able to track down Dennis’ house. She recognized it from the news. Even after all this, the lawn was still meticulously trimmed and the flowers bloomed in their orange beauty.

  “This is it?” Kyle asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah. You’re coming with me, right?”

  He squeezed her hand. “Of course. I’m not going to make you do this by yourself.”

  “Thank you,” she said quietly as grabbed the small sheet of questions she’d prepared out of her pocket. She assumed Mrs. DiMarco was exhausted by the sheer amount of questions asked of her so Hannah made sure these were to the point so they could get the ball going on her theory.

  “It’ll be fine. You’re trying to help her find her husband. How can she turn that down?”

  Hannah still held her breath. It didn’t matter how much he tried to reassure her, this was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done and she was terrified of making an already devastated woman more upset. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s just do it and get it over with.”

  Kyle didn’t say another word but bounded out of the car and opened her door. He put out his hand and helped her out of the front seat and didn’t let go as they
walked towards the house. All that kept her from running back to the car were his fingers wrapped around hers.

  Their footsteps mixed with the gentle hum of a lawnmower and the chirp of songbirds on the quiet street. They turned down the pebbled-lined pathway from the gate to the front door. As she stood at their stoop, Hannah paused. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” she said. “What if she doesn’t want to talk to us?”

  Kyle shook his head. “If you’re right, then this is good news. She needs some hope right now.”

  Even so, she didn’t have the courage to knock on the door. Kyle didn’t have to ask. He raised his fist and knocked.

  The noise echoed bluntly around them. There was no scuffling of feet to get to the front door and why should there be? “Try again,” she said.

  Kyle knocked again. And again there was no attempt at answering.

  “We should go,” she said as she pulled at his sleeve.

  Kyle shook his head. “No,” he said. “We need to talk to her.”

  Her heart beat fast. In the hard light of day, this seemed like an idiot’s errand. Why would this heartbroken woman want to talk to two random people who walked up to her door. What they would say to her was insane.

  He knocked on the door again. “Mrs. DiMarco? Please, we’re not press. We think we have news about your husband. Good news.”

  Behind the door there was the scuffling of hesitant footsteps.

  Hannah couldn’t contain herself anymore. “We know he didn’t do it. I mean that he didn’t want to do it. Please just let us talk to you for a minute.”

  The footsteps grew closer and there was the crunch of a key going into the lock. As the door opened they saw the tired gaunt face of a woman who had been trapped in her home alone with a baby for weeks. “I have my phone. If you’re lying to me...” Her distrustful eyes said everything. They were probably the tenth people trying to make their way into her home with the promise of good news.

  “We’re not,” Kyle said. “Hannah lost someone, too. She thinks she knows what’s going on.”

  Grace DiMarco looked Hannah up and down and slowly pulled the door open. “Just a few minutes,” she said.

  “Of course,” Kyle said.

  They walked inside the meticulously cleaned home. It smelled of baby wipes and Febreze. Grace was dressed in yoga pants and an oversized Giants sweatshirt that hung far past her hips.

  She walked to the dark living room, a byproduct of having every curtain shut. The TV was on quietly, showing a perky middle-aged woman dice a lemon in preparation for a roasted chicken dish. Hannah followed closely behind Kyle who seemed energized with the news for Grace. She held his hand like an obedient child and sat next to him on the cushy leather coach.

  Grace sat across from them in an oversized lounge chair that presumably belonged to her husband. The sleeves of her sweatshirt were pulled up past her hands and she gripped them in a fist. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Hannah?” Kyle said.

  She bolted up and grabbed the bag that contained all her research. First she pulled out the letter and began the story about Lila. She explained Lila’s backstory and how she had gone missing for almost two weeks before she showed up in the coffee house. She spoke about Lila’s strange behavior leading up to the moment that Hannah found her.

  “She was lying on the floor so peacefully, like she was sleeping. There was this bag behind her, this black bag that someone had given her. The police found out it had a bomb in it. Lila would never do something like that, I knew it the moment they told me about it. And then I found this near her body.”

  Hannah pulled out the letter and handed it to Grace.

  As she poured over the letter, Grace’s eyes grew wide and tears started to well up. “Oh my god,” she said.

  “I know,” Hannah said. “And I think that’s what happened with Dennis. He would never leave you voluntarily.”

  “Never,” she said.

  “And he’s not violent.”

  “So gentle.”

  Hannah got up from her seat, sat on the arm of the chair and embraced the tearful Grace. “I think there are others. They’re making them do these terrible things and we have to stop them before someone else gets hurt.”

  She dabbed at her eyes. “I don’t know. I mean you said that your friend...”

  Hannah knew what she was about to say. “She had problems but she wouldn’t have done this as a joke.”

  “What do we do?”

  It was just then that the cooking show was interrupted by a news alert. Hannah didn’t even notice the change but Kyle pointed towards the screen. “Look!” he said.

  It was the governor standing at a podium with his eyes red from crying. Even with the sound low they got the whole story in a matter of a few jump cuts. The footage went from the governor to a photo of his daughter to a shell-shocked college student to a stock photo of another twenty-something with sandy blonde hair.

  “Oh my god,” Grace said. “That poor man.”

  “What happened?” Hannah asked.

  Kyle motioned towards the remote. “You mind?”

  Grace nodded and the volume went up. “...a nightclub on Oakridge Avenue. Clubgoers said they saw Powell there the night of her disappearance.”

  It cut to the college student. “There was this guy who was with her all night and then he beat up my buddy. He seemed crazy and he took her in this car.”

  The newscaster came back. “Police have identified the man from this footage as Simon Archer of Peteville. Archer was the victim of an abduction himself in the late 90’s at the hands of a neighbor.”

  A meek girl came on the screen identified as a co-worker. “I saw him the day he went missing. He came to work. He’s a really nice guy. He’d never do this.”

  The press conference continued. “Our lovely daughter will be missed,” the governor said. “She was the light of my life and will always shine in my heart and in the heart of my family.”

  Kyle turned towards them. “I think this is part of it. That Simon Archer kid...I bet he’s part of this, too.”

  “You think?” Hannah said.

  “I saw him on some talk show not that long back. He seemed like a gentle guy. Why would he snapped and kill someone for no good reason?”

  Grace looked at the screen with confusion and shock. “I think you’re right. What if we find out how he got away. Couldn’t we trace that car or something? I mean there has to be a way to find out...”

  Kyle nodded. “There’s cameras everywhere, especially when there’s a huge celebrity at a bar. I bet you anything one of those kids has a picture of that car. We find that and we can tell the cops.”

  It seemed hopeless. The police barely cared when they saw a bomb and a confession letter. They would laugh at the threadbare thoughts of a desperate people. But still, it was better than nothing. “Let’s at least try.”

  Kyle had written down the name of the guy who was at the bar. “Let’s start with the kid and work our way back.”

  “Anything,” Grace said. “Anything to get him back.”

  Benjamin didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to hurt Dennis but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go to that auditorium and do something so horrific. All that would happen would be the inevitable guilt compounded on a lifetime of pain. He couldn’t live another second with that pain. This driver was the only thing between him and relief.

  The scissor handles dug into his fingers.

  “Please,” the driver. “Just stop.”

  He wasn’t letting up and he wasn’t unlocking the doors. As much as he didn’t want to hurt this man, there was only so long he could wait. That camera wasn’t for show and those people on the other side weren’t messing around. Something would happen, whether it be to him or Dennis.

  “Now! Or I slit your throat.”

  He could do it. He felt the strength inside. The point of the scissor dug into his neck and a tiny droplet of blood burst against the metal. The driver winced as his hand went fro
m the steering wheel towards the door.

  “You don’t understand...” he started to say but Benjamin dug the scissor point in further.

  A thread of formed and started to drip down his neck. “I’m serious.”

  Eduardo looked up at the camera with tears in his eyes. “Please don’t hurt them,” he said as he pressed a button and the locks burst open.

  Benjamin threw the scissors to the side and rushed to his back door. They were still on the freeway. It would only take a few seconds to get from inside to the right lane. It would be over before he could blink.

  He burst through the door and hurled his body out of the car. Benjamin’s feet twisted in the doorway and he fell to the ground, flat on his face. The concrete and asphalt scratched his cheek as he kicked and hoisted himself up his knees. On the tips of his toes, he bounded towards the back of the car and towards free way.

  As he stood near the trunk, he watched the hundreds of car rush past him at sixty miles an hour. Just a jump. Just one leap would move him from the safety of the ground to the hood of a car. It wouldn’t take much.

  His foot crossed over the first line and a car rushed past so quickly the air pushed him backwards. In his bedroom he hadn’t come close enough to the edge to feel this. There were pills and vodka but they had been sitting on his table for the previous three hours. Every time his hands went for the Vicodin he almost felt a slap backwards. His daughter, his little girl, had been rash. She’d been at college for one month and was homesick and angry. After she got pregnant her junior year of high school, he had acted in her best interest. When his wife begged him to let her to get rid of the baby before she got too far along, he refused. No daughter of his would be a murderer and he demanded that she carry the baby until the end and she could give it up for adoption if that was what she wanted when it was all said and done.

  He didn’t anticipate the pain he’d caused Stephanie that year. A straight-A student until she conceived, her grades plummeted to C’s and D’s because she was too ill to go to school half the time. Her pregnancy, which ended up being twins, was hard on her body. Many days the former track star barely had the energy to get out of bed, much less study for her exams.