The Consultant

by Sean Oliver

  Moore stayed silent. His eyes left them again, and then came back.

  “Why do they want to hurt the kids?” he asked.

  “They don’t,” George said. “They’re convinced they can reinvent society, and they’re starting by keeping these kids on a compound without media or information. They’ll raise them, clear them, and they’ll reemerge after a few years. Then they’ll get more to follow.”

  Moore shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

  “You don’t have to,” Deanna said.

  “Listen,” George said, “They really believe in the change—it’s been years in the making. In their minds, it’s society against them. This is their future.”

  “Those people in your building don’t seem like the do-gooders you’re making them out to be,” Moore said.

  “They’re not in this world, Mister Moore,” George said. “They’re not the people they used to be.”

  “Okay, so let’s get to the point…you in?” Deanna asked Moore. He looked at her and thought.

  “Let me get with O’Malley—”

  “No,” George said. “No cops. We can’t report a crime that didn’t happen. It’s technically still just a field trip. And if I tell them what that field trip is going to become, they’ll want to know how I know.”

  “We need to stop him,” Deanna said.

  “Who?”

  “Albrecht,” George said.

  “Why me?”

  “She said she could trust you,” George said, nodding to his daughter. “And I know first-hand you wanted to get to the bottom of all this.”

  Moore raised a finger. “I wanted to find a missing teacher.”

  “A lot more people are about to go missing, too,” Deanna said. She watched him and waited for something. He looked as ready to walk back inside as he was willing to join them. But there was something about her that he believed, ridiculous as this all was.

  Moore had been ambushed by the principal and his daughter, and his instincts told him they were on the right side of something very wrong. But he kept playing George’s taking of that girl’s laptop in his mind. After that, the camera computer going missing and his transfer back to P.S. 2. He could easily enough make an argument against George.

  But he kept reminding himself that Deanna came to him with the laptop. She’d come to him for help and handed him that piece of evidence while aware of the risk that it implicated her father. And there they both stood before him.

  “What’s your heart saying, officer?” George asked.

  “That you aren’t telling me everything,” Moore said.

  “You know as much as you can handle,” George said. Maybe that was best. Moore knew if he followed along and shit got funky with these two freaks, he could neutralize them if necessary. Either way, Moore needed to take the next step in the investigation.

  “What do you need me to do?” Moore asked.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  JARED’S CHEST WAS burning. He tried to hunch over but bumped his head on the steering wheel. The Smoke was getting more intense each time it showed up. Once it coursed through his whole body, flushing him entirely, the burning receded. It gave way to a calming sensation as it settled in him. Once you let it in, everything felt good.

  Problem was, it also took over his mind and made him do things. Jared fought that Smoke for a long time and kept it in check on many occasions. It now shot through his body so suddenly and potently that it was impossible to resist.

  That moment in his car, Jared did fight though. He knew it would eventually take him, but for the moment he suppressed it by focusing on things around him. He stared at a shopping cart in the parking lot where he’d been sleeping in his car. He studied its contours, thought about how it was made. He visualized the hot steel being molded into shape. He considered the weight and balance required to make it functional. He thought about anything at all that came to his mind about that shopping cart, and the burning subsided—like a wave rolling back out to sea.

  Keeping his mind working kept the Smoke at bay. It was just getting so much harder.

  Jared rested his head on the steering wheel once the burning left his body. He just wanted to sleep. He hadn’t been able to get any rest the night before. After Deanna bolted from the apartment, Jared left, too. He’d driven around all night and didn’t go into school the next day. At some point this morning he’d ended up in a parking spot by the big home improvement store where he now sat. The Smoke left and he’d fallen asleep for a while. He was in and out as the Smoke came and went.

  Now he was up. The clock in his car read 6:03 p.m. Teachers would be assembling at P.S. 21 over the next hour and he knew he would be getting calls. His phone was probably loaded with concerned texts asking his whereabouts. The buses were probably arriving in front of the building. The trip was at hand.

  Fuck them. If he stayed where he was they would just leave without him. They wouldn’t be able to find him unless they needed to make a last minute run to the big box store and bumped into him in that lot.

  He was aware how violently he’d attacked Deanna the night before, which meant he’d either have to go get on that bus or pick a direction and start driving—there was no going home. That damn Smoke kept trying to get into him. He was barely given five minutes between surges. The buses were scheduled to leave soon. He couldn’t keep fighting it for long.

  The next wave came and Jared, exhausted, stayed slumped over the wheel. He closed his eyes and felt the unavoidable tingle become a burn, and in ten seconds Jared was flooded with Smoke. He winced as it took him whole.

  The fire cooled all at once and his tensed muscles relaxed. It was bliss. His mind blanked as he leaned back in his seat, started the car, and put it into Drive.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  TWO SCHOOL BUSES sat parked in the lot on an unseasonably cold April night. It was just past 7:00 p.m. and George bounced between the parking lot and the school, sweaty-palmed. He was doing lots of talking to himself in his travels, which was mostly met with smiles from the staff. They knew Principal George well enough to know that high-pressure situations animated him more than usual. Though they hadn’t a clue the pressure George was under tonight.

  On the stairway to the basement, he passed Mirabelli, the gym teacher, and Alan Sweeney on their way up, their hands full. Doris Calhoun was a step behind them, like the driver of sled dogs.

  “We almost done?” George asked her as he passed.

  “This is the last of them,” she said. That was good news. Every teacher must have complied and packed just a single 24” x 24” box they were given. George had his doubts initially.

  “One per adult?”

  “Yup.”

  “Even the cousins?” he asked.

  “They tried for more. I left all their extra boxes in the library. They won’t know until it’s too late.”

  “Well done.” George kept on down the stairs. “Where’s Albrecht?” he called out behind him.

  “Around.”

  There was an orderly calm to the building. Everyone George passed had a task and seemed busy doing it. There were smiles and pleasant faces all around.

  George entered the basement and walked down the hallway. He wiped sweat from his brow with his handkerchief. The heat was cranking that day and the basement was almost unbearable.

  Debbie, the school nurse, passed George in the hallway. She was carrying a box, as well. She reported that she’d packed heavily, as many supplies as she could, and was prepared to treat anything she usually would in the course of the school day. Allergies, bumps, cuts, sprains, rashes and the like were covered. Debbie and also Elaine Perez in guidance would handle the well-being, physically and emotionally, of the sixty children. They would guide them through maturity and all that encompassed.

  George nodded at her and motioned toward the stairway to the buses as he moved down the hall. He stopped at the empty library and poked his head in. Everything was loaded and ready to go. He could hear light chatter coming from t
he end of the corridor, in the cafeteria. There were a few more people who had to get on the buses, and a couple that needed not to. George made his way down the hall and entered the room where about a dozen teachers were having coffee and some pastries that were set up on folding tables. He threw out a couple of waves as he looked for the two people he really needed to keep an eye on.

  The two visitors were standing at the food table looking around it, but standing a couple of feet away like it might burn them.

  “Don’t be polite,” George said as he approached the man and woman, both wearing blue uniforms. “Get in there and grab a cannoli.” They smiled at him.

  “Thank you, Mr. George,” the middle aged woman said through an accent. The man, older than she, smiled and pushed up his glasses. He gave George a thumbs-up and the two stepped to the table and took paper plates.

  George slid out his phone and texted Lorenzo.

  I’m sending the teachers up.

  Mary Edison waved good-bye to Nora’s mom as they stepped on the bus together. The assembled teachers were ushering the arriving students onto the buses. Many kids grabbed a last-minute hug and adjustment of their scarf from their parents or older siblings, and were happy to climb into the warm buses. Children ranging from kindergarten through eighth grade continued to arrive.

  Lorenzo stood beside Mr. Chaudhry, a parent who had three children enrolled at P.S. 21. The father knew the office clerk well and was pleased he was going on the trip with his son.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Lorenzo said to him. “He’s going to have a great time.”

  “Yes. This is just the first time he will be away from us overnight. I know you will look after him.”

  “Before you know it, it will Sunday and he will be back, all smiles.” There was nothing left in Lorenzo to prevent him from telling a nervous father that lie. He looked through Mr. Chaudhry and everyone else he spoke to that evening. He was wiped clean, the Smoke having grabbed him earlier in the day and not relinquished him since. It would likely not relinquish him ever again.

  As they spoke, Lorenzo looked beyond the first bus and saw a familiar face coming through the gate, carrying a box. He started away from the father.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Chaudhry,” he said as he smiled and walked toward the lady carrying the embroidered, pink box. He reached out and relieved her of it.

  “Hola, guapo,” Security Officer Carmen said as she greeted him with a hug. When they released each other he looked down at her face. She smiled sweetly, and looked down.

  “You feeling okay?” Lorenzo asked. “I was worried that maybe…you know.” She looked beyond him to the windows of the bus, at the kids. She was nodding through her little smile.

  “I’m ready,” she said, looking up to meet Lorenzo’s eyes. He nodded at her.

  “Carmen, there you are,” Calhoun said as she crossed the lot.

  “Let me go say hello,” Carmen said and left Lorenzo.

  The staff members filtered onto the buses with the students. Calhoun walked Carmen to the first bus, then continued going between both buses with her ever-present clipboard, almost an extension of her body by that point. Lorenzo had been taking an informal attendance count in his head as he passed people in the lot. He’d already said hello to every teacher he could remember working with. The other staff members seemed in place, as well—Willie was helping Ruby into the bus, placing her walker to the side, picking her up, and carrying her little body up the four steps as her metal leg braces clicked into each other.

  Mariana was in place, standing beside the other bus, shooting him a glance now and again. Lorenzo checked his phone and saw the message from George. It was time. He looked over at Mariana and gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Okay, guys, heading out,” she said to those around her. “Let’s go. Just waiting on the principal.” The remainder of the teachers chose a bus and got on. Lorenzo looked around the parking lot and saw it was clear of kids. He also saw Albrecht sitting in his car, facing out, ready to follow the buses. He sat expressionless, watching them load up.

  Lorenzo walked to the open door of the bus he’d been standing beside. Marianna jumped into the bus ahead of his, and pulled the door closed. He took a step up but was stopped by a boy standing on the steps blocking his path to the driver’s seat.

  “Mr. Lorenzo,” Amir said. “My teacher isn’t here.”

  Lorenzo thought for a moment but was interrupted by Calhoun’s bark.

  “Wait,” she called to him. Lorenzo looked back out the door toward her and her clipboard, bounding toward his bus. He didn’t even have to wait for anything to come out of her mouth.

  “Jared Arden,” Lorenzo said to her. She nodded.

  SEVENTY-THREE

  DEANNA PULLED HER phone out five times in about ten minutes. There was still nothing from Jared. She would not lower herself to reaching out to him, not after last night. She could never admit to George that she wanted to hear from Jared—not after his having tried to kill his daughter. But his daughter still needed to know about one thing—Trisha.

  Her fiancé had taken the time, the painstaking time, to print and cut a thousand pieces of paper. It mocked Trisha’s disappearance and was ultimately designed to terrorize Deanna. What did that suggest about his role in the abduction? She knew. The answer lay in his face when he said Trish was gone.

  But it wasn’t his face. Staring into that mirror and watching him calmly admit to heinous deeds had felt like she was talking to someone else. Deanna was not ready to accept that Jared—the Jared she knew—was doing these things, even her attempted murder. Jesus, of all the things, that was what she was focusing on the least. The past few months shone a light on Deanna’s life, on Trisha and her place in it. Oddly, the bathrobe belt around her throat was not the scene that kept playing out in her head.

  Moore sipped his coffee and kept tapping to that awful smooth jazz shit on the radio. Deanna tried to manage her nerves and stay focused on their part of the job, but it was impossible as this guy tapped his steering wheel to the department-store approved music. It made her jittery, yet it also worked to pull her thoughts out of the darkness.

  Deanna looked straight ahead, straining her eyes to see through the school gates, past the gigantic building, and into the parking lot on the other side. Moore’s sedan was positioned just outside the rear gate to the school property. There was the main gate to the parking lot on the other side of the building, then the rear gate, which they had covered.

  “What are we doing with him?” she asked Moore.

  “Ain’t thought that far ahead,” he said.

  “We just blocking the gate?”

  “For now.” He tapped. Tenor sax…thick bass line…snare drum.

  “So we block him. What then?”

  Moore shrugged.

  “What if he—” She stopped short at the sight of the .45 caliber handgun Moore pulled out of his coat.

  “I wouldn’t worry,” he said. Moore stopped bopping and looked over at her face. She was wide-eyed. “Don’t be nervous now.”

  “Screw that. Do I get one?”

  He looked a little longer. She was something.

  “Forget it.” He slid the gun back into his coat. They sat looking toward the opening in the gate as their serenade trailed off and a whisky-throated DJ piped up.

  “Ah, give me some Walter Beasley as I watch a sunset any day. Let’s keep it going… Here’s a great cut from Bud Revels off his debut recording—”

  “Oh, c’mon man,” Deanna started, “no more of this sleepy shit.”

  “You haven’t even heard the cut.”

  “I don’t need to.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because a dude named Bud is gonna sound exactly like the last song and I almost dozed off.”

  Moore lowered the volume and shook his head.

  “No appreciation,” he said.

  Their bickering was put on pause as a vehicle slowed to a stop behind Moore’s double-parked car. Headlights hit the r
earview mirror, forcing Moore to reach up and adjust it.

  “What the hell?” he asked. Deanna looked into her side mirror. No one got out of the car—it just sat idling. She waited to see a deliveryman jump out and head to the apartment buildings behind them. But no one did.

  Deanna saw Moore perk up and slide his hand into his jacket as he checked the rearview again.

  “Look,” Deanna said, breaking his concentration. She pointed to the rear of the school where the loading doors were opening. George came out with a man and woman.

  “Don’t shoot my father, please,” Deanna said as she tapped Moore’s arm tucked inside his coat.

  “Who are they?” Moore asked.

  “I don’t know. What are those uniforms?”

  Moore did recognize the blue transportation department uniforms they were wearing.

  “Bus drivers,” he said.

  “I apologize again,” George said to the woman who he thought was named Olga. She’d told him, but retention was impossible on that night. “Look at it this way—you don’t have to do a two-hour drive tonight. Go home and relax.” The man and woman laughed as they passed Moore and Deanna in the car, who were purposely averting their eyes. They got to the car with the Uber placard in the window, idling behind Moore’s. The driver rolled his window down.

  “George?” he asked.

  “That’s me. Two drop-offs, right?” George asked. The driver confirmed.

  “That stinks for the kids,” Olga said.

  “Yeah, we will send them again.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to go out front and try and look at buses?” the male driver asked through a Spanish accent. “Maybe I can fix.”

  “I’m just doing what your boss wanted,” George said. “Just got off the phone with him. Said to leave them here. They shouldn’t have even been sent off the lot. Glad they caught it before we left, actually. Might have been dangerous.”