The Six: Complete Series (14 page)

“Mr. DiMarco, you are not in a position to negotiate, do you understand? You will be given your instructions. That is it.”

“I want to see my family,” he said. This was his last chance.

“Excuse me?”

“After this. I want to see them.”

The blonde woman looked at him for a moment before she broke into a friendly smile. “Okay,” she said. “After you return, you can see your family.”

“Seriously?” There was a chance. He could see them again.

“Yes,” she said. “Of course.”

He couldn’t believe it. “Thank you,” he said. The excitement welled up in his stomach. “May I see Charlie now?” he said.

She shook her head. “I need to know you agree. Do you agree, Mr. DiMarco?”

He had to, for his son’s sake. “Yes. I do.”

They took him to a small room filled with barber shop equipment and racks upon racks of clothes. There was hardly room for the two of them to walk around.

With the peaceful whir of the razor, he felt safe for the first time in days. As he shut his eyes, he saw his son’s big blue eyes as they looked up at him. He seemed so happy cradled in his wife’s arms.

Charlie was a beautiful baby. He looked just like his wife, even down to his bright blue eyes. All he wanted was to hold him once, and let him know that his dad didn’t leave him because he didn’t love him.

The little man with the scissors pointed towards a makeshift closet. “Would you like a jersey or a suit? I wasn’t sure what you would want so I made both for you,” he said as he ran a handful of gel through Dennis’ hair.

“Not a jersey,” he said, without having to think.

“Are you sure? The kids would probably love to see you in a uniform.”

“No,” he said. “Absolutely not.”

He’d spent four years in those navy pinstripes. The man in that uniform had gone down to hospitals to visit sick kids and played on the field with inner-city teenagers who desperately wanted to play baseball. Those stripes wouldn’t be tarnished. If his name was going to be dragged through the mud, it wasn’t going to be with his uniform on.

The room was pristine, even in the dark muted lighting from the single flickering fluorescent bulb above. After every snip, the man kicked the hair into a small pile by his feet. It was a painstaking ordeal that Dennis felt was elongated on his behalf. As long as he stayed in the room, they couldn’t touch him.

“You know,” he said, “I watched you play with my dad. We had season tickets a few years back. It was his 80th birthday present. We had pretty decent seats, near third base. You had a wicked arm back then.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Not too many people remember when I played third. Wasn’t our best year.”

The man laughed. “Yeah, Dad didn’t care, though. Man, you guys fell apart after Sanchez busted his knee. Definitely medicated myself on beer that year, hoo-ey.”

It was nice talking about something besides speculating on when food would be delivered and to what degree the kid in the corner was about to have a nervous breakdown. “Sorry about that. Next year was good though. We made it to the post-season.”

The man whipped the apron off of Dennis’ chest. “I didn’t get us tickets that year. Watched you guys on the TV, though. Some good games. You had real skills back then.”

“What’s your name?” Dennis said. “I’ll look you up after this is all over and take you and your dad out for dinner.”

“Fred. Fred Turner. But sir, I don’t...”

Dennis put his hand up. “When we get out, we’ll meet up. I’ll find you.” He didn’t want to hear the hopelessness in Fred’s voice. There was a way out for both of them.

The suit that Fred gave him was nice, but not too nice. He reasoned that it would be conspicuous if a middle-class former baseball player showed up in a perfectly tailored Armani jacket to an elementary school show-and-tell. As he tied the shiny brown dress shoes, he caught his reflection. Freshly shaved and coifed, he hadn’t looked this good in years. His wife wouldn’t even recognize him.

They shoved him in a car after Fred had finally let him go. They grabbed him by either arm and took him to a garage where a half dozen black SUV’s were parked. They threw him in the back seat and locked the doors. As the driver merged onto the highway, he was treated to music cranked so loud that he could hardly think.

“Hey, buddy,” he said, “do you think you could turn down the music a little?”

The man shook his head and sped up the car. One of the guards had given him a proper meal before they shipped him off to Carter Elementary. They fed him his favorites. After two servings of mashed potatoes and a medium rare bacon cheeseburger, his energy level was back to where it used to be.

All he had was his strength. It was nowhere as strong as it used to be, but it was enough. The partition was down and the driver was within arm’s reach. Years of dealing with athletes who were far bigger and far more aggressive than he had taught him to never just go for the punch. Out-thinking the brute made the fight more even.

They were driving down the freeway at seventy miles an hour. Startling the driver would result in a head-on collision. No, he needed to get the car stopped. Then he would be able to make his move.

All through high school and college, he was on buses constantly. His schools weren’t rich enough to fly them anywhere, so he endured thirty sweaty jocks crammed onto buses for hours at a time. He had traveled thousands of miles through sleet, rain, and blizzards; and their drivers never took so much as a smoke break. The only time a bus driver ever stopped was when the assistant manager had a seizure. Schedules went out the window and they pulled over for more than an hour waiting for the ambulance to come.

He knew what he had to do.

Dennis situated his body in such a way that the driver could clearly see him in the rear view mirror. He let out a little cough to get the man’s attention but it was lost in the chorus of a heavy metal ballad. This would need to be more of a production if he wanted the car stopped.

He contorted his face into a sickly grimace. “Hey,” he shouted into the driver’s ear.

When the man ignored him again, Dennis shouted even louder. “Hey!”

The music went down just enough to talk over. “What?” he said.

Dennis pointed towards his head. “I don’t feel well,” he said. “Do you think you could pull over for a minute? I need some fresh air.”

They zoomed past cars going far above the speed limit. The driver had one hand on the wheel as he casually changed from lane to lane. Dennis didn't have any time to waste. He gripped the back of the seat and leaned back. He began to wheeze and cough. "Help," he gasped as loud as he could.

The driver quickly glanced back but brought his eyes back to the road. It wasn't enough. Dennis grabbed his chest and let his eyes roll to the back of his head. His breath came out in labored gasps. His eyes fluttered before he collapsed.

He heard the driver mutter, "Shit" before the car slowed to a stop.

The music clicked off and the driver kept muttering to himself. There was little time. Dennis ran through what he'd need to do next. The driver was big, probably six-one, but all upper body strength. Getting into a punching match would end with Dennis on the ground with a black eye and a few broken ribs.

The driver would hover over him and reach for a pulse to make sure he wasn't dead. His arms would be right over his head and it would take moments to grab his wrists and strike him off-balance.

The keys were pulled out of the ignition and the front door opened. Dennis couldn't stop the act. The driver needed to believe him completely if this plan had any chance of working. He did a last contorted shudder as he heard the crunch of the driver’s shoes against the road.

The back door opened and the man's hands gripped Dennis' suit lapel. "What's wrong with you?" The driver’s cold hands pressed against Dennis' neck. His heart raced as he tried to figure out what to do next. Once he acted, he wouldn’t have long.

"Hey buddy," the driver said in a sing song voice as he gently slapped Dennis' cheek. As he felt the hands move away from his face, Dennis grabbed an arm in either hand.

"What the fuck?" The driver tried to pull away, but the vice grip tightened every time he resisted. Dennis burst his eyes open and twisted the man's arm. It doesn’t take much to break someone's arm, or pop the shoulder out of the socket and he was on the precipice of both.

"What are you doing?" the driver said. The man’s face had turned red as he kept pulling which just made it worse.

With his back against the seat, Dennis didn't have much leverage, but he did have the balance of power tipped in his direction. Half of the driver's body was dragged into the car and Dennis could snap something with a twist of his hand. The man had his foot pressed against the edge of the car and pushed against the door.

“Let me go,” he grunted.

Just holding his arms, even if he was able to break something, wasn’t enough. He was already beginning to get loose.

Dennis let one arm go and sent it straight to the driver’s throat. He dug his nails into the man’s skin until he screamed. There was a metal clang as Dennis banged the man’s head against the frame of the car.

“Let me go,” Dennis said through gritted teeth.

His eyes bugged out and he gasped for air. “I can’t.”

Dozens of car sped past them as the driver’s body began to grow limp.

“Why not?”

The man’s eyelids fluttered. “They’re... watching.”

Dennis loosened his grip. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s... a camera. They’ll kill... you,” he said between gasps for air.

Of course there was. He should have figured as much. Dennis looked up at where the driver pointed. There was a small piece of plastic that jutted out from the top of the rearview mirror.

Dennis let go.

“They’ve killed for a lot less than this,” the driver said as he massaged his aching neck.

There was no escape. Murder was his only option. Sickened, he backed away from the enraged man in front of him. He raised his arm, ready to punch Dennis, but held back. Instead, he slammed the door behind him as hard as he could.

It was useless. The heavy metal came back on, this time played as loud as the car speakers could handle. The driver swerved between cars and drifted next to semi-trucks, nearly letting Dennis’ side scrape against the other vehicles.

There was no stopping this. He had to do this for Charlie.

He needed to stay strong for his son.

Marie couldn’t imagine what her brother was going through right now. After he won the election, everyone had been so proud. Jacob had worked so hard, and for so long, and he deserved every bit of the accolades. Decades of exhausting internships and mindless dinner parties resulted in a brilliant campaign for governor.

His daughter, his little Brianna, was what kept him going. It took his wife three years to get pregnant and Brianna was born right as they were about to give up. She was their little miracle.

And now she was gone.

That monster had killed her.

Marie hadn’t seen her niece in a few months, since Christmas. She was a sweetheart in her core, but there was a lot about her personality that rubbed the family the wrong way. The last time she ever spoke to her was to reprimand Brianna for blowing off the summer, when she could be interning or taking classes. It was an unnecessary argument brought on by one too many glasses of wine and a long day with a difficult client. Her last words were “I’m just disappointed” which made Brianna start to cry. The night ended with both of them walking away, bitter with each other.

If only she had one more chance to make things right.

Before all this, she’d felt bad for Simon. She’d long ago diagnosed the boy, especially after Benjamin filled her in on his background. A part of her had recalled the story, but she had been in the throes of her dissertation back then, so the name Simon Archer had settled into her tabloid subconscious.

He had acute anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder; she was sure of that. The mental and physical overload of being in the same situation that caused the original trauma had shut down his system. He came back in shock and now he barely spoke. When he did venture to speak, it was with a complete detachment to what he had done. If he had come into her office, she’d revel in the challenge of unraveling such a complex case. But she didn’t care a bit about this kid.

Any other client who came to her in grief would get the lecture on the stages. She’d told weeping patients hundreds of times that they needed to move past the anger and process what happened. But, she was having trouble taking her own advice. Not many people had to sit ten feet away from the person who murdered a family member. It made forgiveness that much harder.

It took so much energy to hate, and she wanted to feel better again. Grieving was so exhausting. All she could do was sprint through the process and get back to her life.

Every time she felt like she was getting better, the image of her brother going through this all alone tore up her heart. His current wife, Gloria, would be useless. She was a piece of arm candy that he married shortly after Brianna’s mother passed away. Brianna’s mother had been a good woman, and great for her brother.

Gloria was more interested in the parties and notoriety that came with being the governor’s wife. She campaigned for him, unless someone forced her to make a speech or mingle with the common folk. Brianna, even though she was just a kid and busy as hell, went to every rally, and went out of her way to get her face out there so her dad could win.

No, her brother would be alone to grieve. Without Marie, he had no one else.

She wasn’t shy about crying. Every wail echoed through the room. It should hurt. She wanted Simon to feel what he’d done and how Brianna’s death wasn’t all about him. His actions had affected others, too.

Milo squirmed with each cry but she didn’t care. She had wasted hours talking to him and trying to get to bottom of his anger. It wasn’t just the situation. He was on the brink and she was afraid he’d attack them in the middle of the night.