They ran like hell.
It sounded like a balloon had popped backstage.
Kyle had just shaken hands with the president of the university and his wife. It had all the makings of a night that would go down in history, at least for his career. This was supposed to be his chance to show the world he was made for something more than a glorified intern.
He stepped on the first stair that lead backstage when he heard the pop. What had one of those college kids broken this time, he thought. Everything needed to be perfect and they could never just leave things alone. It was then that he heard two more similar pops. It wasn’t a balloon. It was much louder than a balloon.
As he peered around the corner, using the curtain as a shield, he saw the burly man again. How could he have been such an idiot. ‘That meathead reporter looks like the guy in the picture Lila sent,’ he had thought five minutes earlier. He wrote it off as one of those phenomena of when you look for a white car on the road it seems like there’s a million more than usual. He thought it was just a coincidence.
It was no coincidence. That was him. And he had given a crazy person direct access to the vice-president. Kyle stepped around the curtain and saw the carnage his naivety had wrought. Victor was on the ground in a coiled mess. There was blood all over the floor and the man was white as a sheet. The large man and the middle-aged one had already turned and ran towards the exit.
He’d already made a mistake. It was time to make it right.
Kyle followed behind them.
The pair went out the exit and straight into the quad where students milling around created pockets where the men were able to disappear. He kept after them, keeping the glint of the man’s black jacket in view.
He couldn’t think about Victor on that floor. Every time he stopped focusing on each step, the feeling of dread and devastation started to sink in. He knew he was in shock, that the gravity of what had happened was immense, but he also knew this was bigger than just one person.
As he turned a corner with the men, the sirens blasted in the distance. There was a sympathy of whining noises from the highway. This would be on the news. This would be the top story for days. He’d seen history. He’d seen the horrific history that he could have prevented if he was only thinking.
No. This was his penance. Find out where the mothership is and take it down from the inside. Lila would forgive him. He’d make things right.
They were headed towards the main parking lot. Kyle pulled out his keys and carefully kept an eye on the two as he headed towards his own car. The traffic was already congested because of the speech and the half dozen emergency vehicles were only going to slow them down more.
It was the calm before the storm. No reporters, no news trucks, not even a police car stood in his way. Kyle ran to his car with one way still on the skittering duo a hundred feet away.
The car roared to life and he poised to go the moment the time came. The large man pushed the old guy into an SUV at the edge of the parking lot. The second the door was shut, they pulled out. “I’ve got you,” Kyle said. “I’ve got you.”
Tires squealed against the parking lot as the SUV ripped around the corner and went out the entrance. Kyle weaved through bicyclists to get behind them, but he was there. With one turn, they were both on the highway.
He’d never had this much nervous energy. The only thing he saw as he changed lanes back and forth to keep pace was the back of the car. As long as he could see it, everything was okay. The SUV went ten, fifteen, miles over the speed limit and cut off cars as it recklessly threaded through congested traffic.
The silence was too much. Kyle clicked on the radio and the first thing he had heard was a breaking news report on shots being heard at Collegename. A frantic reporter spoke breathlessly as she tried to get the unbelievable words out. He switched it to music. It was too much to think of the big picture right now.
Up ahead, at the next exit, there was a jam. As far as he could see were the red brake lights glowing over the slowly setting sun. The SUV reluctantly slowed to a halt. There he was, mere feet away from a cold-blooded murderer. It took everything he had not to pound on the accelerator and crush the back of their car. Luckily, the cars scooted ahead and the SUV veered off the freeway and down the nearest exit.
His phone rang, the ringer just barely audible over the music he’d turned up to a near ear-splitting volume. As he quickly peered at the screen he saw the list of missed calls. It went on and on. Work. Hannah. Work again. An intern. Another intern. The dean. A reporter. Hannah. And that was just in the last three minutes. Right now, work was an afterthought. He clicked on Hannah’s name as he breezed through a yellow light.
It rang one burst of a ring before Hannah answered. “Are you okay?” she asked. Her voice cracked as she spoke.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“Why didn’t you answer!” she said. “I was scared to death.”
“I’m sorry. But let me tell--”
“I was watching the news and they said someone died at your school and...goddamnit Kyle. You can’t do this to me. I was terrified. Your boss thinks you’re dead or something. You have to call them.”
“Hannah,” he said. “It’s them.”
There was silence.
“Hannah?”
“What are you talking about? It was who?” she asked.
The SUV raced through an empty parking lot. Muttering obscenities to himself, he made a hairpin turn and made it, barely, into the lot. “Lila’s guys. The people. It’s them.”
Again silence.
“It’s the guy from the picture you sent me. That big guy by the SUV. He was backstage with this middle-aged guy. I didn’t recognize him at first but it was definitely him. I’m sure of it.”
“Kyle...” she started to say.
“I’m following them. I’m going to find out where they came from.”
“No,” she said. “It’s too dangerous. Let me call the police. Just don’t.”
The SUV made a quick U-turn and a sharp right. Kyle was right behind them. “It’ll be too late. This is our only chance to find out where they came from.”
Before he knew it, they were in veering up the hills of Grental. He’d only been up here for business meetings with the heads of departments and visiting dignitaries. A shack in Grental Hills cost a million dollars. The homes were meticulously maintained and sprawled across half an acre of land with a dignified posture. Smiling nannies with exuberant and well-dressed children skipped down the sidewalk as he drove past them. It was impossible to turn off the adrenaline that had compounded in his system.
The SUV made one last turn and then bounded down a driveway.
It was home.
Kyle inched past the home and saw the vehicle disappear into an enveloping garage. It slid inside and the door shut behind it with a gentle thud. He pulled out his phone and took pictures as fast as his fingers could press the shutter. He got everything: the mailbox, the flowers, the front door. Nothing was insignificant.
He sent the photo of the front door to Hannah along with the address.
Here. 1943 Crest St.
What he didn’t add was the next step.
He didn’t tell her that he was going in.
BOOK 6
Irene prayed. She prayed for the first time in four years. It wasn’t for peace or even to make him love her again. She had given up on that comfort long ago. No, she wanted an end. As she shut her eyes, she heard Dennis all over again. His screams rattled in her brain and she hadn’t been able to sleep.
David had shown her the video tape of the senator’s body being rolled out, and the horrified college students shaking from the shock of what had happened just feet away from them. There was a national day of mourning. The president had gone on TV to lament the horrific violence.
And then there was poor Benjamin. David had delighted in grabbing a man at his wit’s end, when he had no other options but his own death. “No,” she had told him, “you
can’t do this to a person. He’s made a decision.”
But David had dug up the dirt. He knew that Benjamin had connections to dirty lawsuits that were questionable at best, illegal at worst. He showed her what the man had done to his daughter and how it had driven her to insanity. “He has to pay,” David said. “I don’t care if he’s desperate. That’s what we need for big job. We need someone who has nothing to lose.”
No more. Irene put on her slippers and left the room. She needed fresh air and a moment to forget what she’d just seen. As she opened the door and walked down the hallway, she was tempted to run. There was nothing holding her here. She had done nothing wrong. It was him. It was all David.
But no. She couldn’t leave. Those people down there only had her as an ally. There was no telling what he would do to them and the next people, for that matter, if she was to leave.
The front of the house was like any other. He had built a fake facade, just a small foyer and the hint of a living room so anyone peeking through windows or handing out flyers wouldn’t know the sophistication behind the artifice. That was all this was. It was the aura of justice when all it had become was a dirty parade of horror and pain. He began this to right wrongs and create a world that looked at what it had done to itself. And now it had become what it fought against. David stopped caring about whom he hurt. Now he was a voyeur in his own ghoulish sport.
Irene walked through the side door that opened into the artificial foyer. There the house seemed warm and inviting. She could see, in another life, welcoming people through the door and showing off her beautiful home. David would be on her arm and a galloping golden retriever would pounce around the living room. They could have been happy. But now there was no possibility. This was the end and she was just as trapped as those people downstairs.
As she stepped outside, the cool spring air filled her lungs. It’d been almost two days since she’d been out of the house and the last gasps of sunlight tickled her skin. The stoop was bare and the tulips that she had planted near it last year had long since been pulled out by his gardeners.
Across the street was the familiar minivan carrying the McArthur twins, Nelly and Nicole. Every night she heard their little giggles and shouts from her window as they bounded out of the car and down the path to the front door. David didn’t know, but she had been over to their house a number of times. Teresa McArthur was a warm woman who let a nervous neighbor into her home and fed her coffee and cookies. She’d shown Irene around her house and they’d chatted about old movies and their mutual love of Indian food. As she sat on the comfy couch and bit into a warm biscotti, her heart sank. She knew that if he was aware she’d left the house she would be locked in her room. He’d probably have Eduardo stand at the door, ordered to shoot if she dared to try to get out. But he was too distracted now. All he cared about was the escalation. He didn’t care who he hurt along the way.
As she stood on the stoop, Irene heard rustling in the bushes. Just a cat she figured. A rush of air went through the trees and shook the newly grown branches like tambourines. Then there was another blunt movement against the bush.
She turned her head just enough to see the fleeting sight of a black shoe disappearing around the corner.
Her first thought was that it was one of the men from downstairs. Somehow they’d gotten out. She wasn’t sure whether to pray that they’d been taken out or that it was a cop ready to take them all away. Either way, she was screwed.
Irene tiptoed off the stoop and after the fleeing man. With her back pressed against the wall, she inched towards the corner. With just the slightest turn of her head she peered at where he must have run. At first there was nothing. She took one more step and crunched her heel into a particularly crunchy leaf. It cracked under the pressure and she winced in the hopes that he wouldn’t be spooked away.
With the extra vantage point, she could see the edge of his figure. He wore a white button-down shirt and black slacks. He was kneeling on the ground in front of a piece of glass. His fingers dug at the wall and he grunted with each fruitless attempt.
He was clearly not a cop; he didn’t have the finesse of a trained professional. Instead he seemed like a dumb kid trying to get inside a nice house. David would have him killed before he got a foot inside.
“Hello?” she said quietly at first.
The man didn’t move.
“Excuse me?” she said louder. “What are you doing?”
His entire body froze at the sound of her voice. His fingers slowly moved back from the wall and he turned his head like a misbehaving puppy at his angry master. She reached her hand out as if to calm him but he turned on his heels about to run.
“Wait,” she said. “Don’t run.”
He didn’t listen. He ran and she ran after him.
The man looped around the back of the house but there was nowhere for him to go. David had the back blocked off with a ten foot high fence and one way in and out. Once he went through the gate, he’d have to be able to jump six feet just to get back out. He was trapped.
She raced to get to him before anyone else found him. “Wait!” she shouted. Her heels dug into the mud and kicked up small droplets as she got to the back yard. The man pounded against the fence and clawed at the door but he was stuck.
He turned with his hands up and his head bowed. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Irene looked all around. There was no camera in the back, at least not one he monitored very often. She beckoned him over. “Come.”
He looked at her perplexed. “Just let me. I shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry.”
She put a finger to her lips to quiet him down. Though David wasn’t watching, this man’s shrill nervous voice surely would carry. “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re not in trouble.”
“Don’t call the cops on me. I’m sorry,” he said. He kept apologizing and she heard his voice tremble as he spoke. The man was terrified. Why was he so scared?
“I’m not going to do anything. Just... just keep your voice down, okay?”
The man pointed at the house. “Is this yours?”
“Is this my what?” she asked.
“Your house,” he said. “Do you own it?”
David wasn’t supposed to exist. He’d dropped off the face of the Earth seven years ago. On all the papers, she was the owner. “Yes,” she said as she fished for an explanation. “Why do you ask?”
He stepped closer. Gone was the doe-eyed terror. It was replaced with an accusing finger and a cell phone that began to snap her picture. “I followed you,” he said with a smirk.
“What are you talking about?”
“I was running the lecture with Victor Trayhorn. I saw your goon and the guy you made shoot him. I know this sick ass game you’re playing and I know they’re here.”
Her mind went blank as he spoke his last few words. There was no plan for this. David had made it foolproof. No one could find the cars and there were no loose ends. The panic rose through her muscles and to her face. There was no hiding the panic from him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered.
“Don’t bullshit with me,” he said. “I followed your car here.”
It was then that she wanted to run. Instead, she looked at him with quiet desperation. “It wasn’t my car,” she whispered.
“Then whose was it?”
She almost said his name. Almost.
As she was about to speak the syllables, she saw his eyes go wide in surprise. There was no time to react before she felt the poke in her back. As the world faded quickly into darkness, a figure came up behind the man and got him, too. Immediately he fell to the ground in a heap.
David had seen.
Simon had had enough. Every muscle was sore from leaning against the wall. The tiny piece of concrete stuck into the side of his head and poked his cheek. All the fear had worn his system down. All he wanted now was to go outside, even if it meant going to jail. Anything was better than this.
/>
Without a word he got up and began to walk over to the door. His gait was wobbly as he hadn’t put any weight on his feet in days. But he stumbled to the door and ran his hand along its edges.
“What are you doing?” Milo asked.
He had escaped before. Edwin Harpton was never going to let him go. If he hadn’t fought back then he would have died down there. There was always a way out.
“We have to trick them,” he said.
As he looked at their confused faces and finally saw the room from the cold light of the hanging bulb. His area had been his own but the rest of the room was stained and cluttered with days of rotten food and bits of bodily waste that hadn’t made it into the small toilet they’d installed in the corner. It was revolting. They needed to get out.
“Trick them how?” Milo said.
Marie gestured toward herself. “Simon, what are you talking about?”
“Get them to come down here. Pretend that one of us is sick. They’ll have to take us upstairs and we can get out of here.”
Milo shook his head. “It won’t work. They don’t give a shit about us.”
He was about to argue back but he saw Dennis shake in the corner. He had been looking worse every minute. His stitches were about to break and he’d already bled through sections of his shirt. Screw pretending. Someone needed to help him out.
“Screw you guys. I’m getting Dennis help.”
Milo put his hand out to protest but it was met with blind eyes. Simon pounded on the door with his fist and started to shout. “We need help! He’s dying! Please! Hurry up!”
As his voice faded away, Simon listened for the hurried footsteps behind the door. Instead there was the thud of silence of people who had abandoned them.
“See,” Milo said, “they’re not listening. Just sit down and save your energy.”
He’d had enough of Milo’s smug face. “What’s your game?”
Milo shrugged. “What are you talking about?”
“What did you have to do? I mean out there. What did they make you do?” Simon asked.
Simon stepped closer and closer towards the huddled figure in the corner. Of all of them Milo still looked fresh. After all these days he never once seemed more than surly. Never scared. He never seemed scared.
The Six: Complete Series Page 24