The Elizabeth McClaine Thriller Boxed Set

by Catherine Lea

  Holly paused, mid-chew. “Wah Ninny.”

  “I told you, I don’t have your Lilly Lion. I’m sorry.” She watched her for a while. “I guess you’ll be home with your mom and dad soon anyway. You’ll have your Lilly Lion and you can eat strawberries every day if you want.”

  “Snoomin.”

  “Huh?”

  “Snoo-min,” Holly said again.

  “Stupid? Who says you’re stupid? You’re not stupid.”

  Holly wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “Nanny.”

  “Your nanny? Sienna? She says you’re stupid? Well, ignore her. She’s a bitch.”

  Holly’s face crumpled and she let out a wail.

  Kelsey grabbed her. “Hey, shut up, shut up. What did I just tell you? You’ll piss ’em off. Then they’ll be up here. We don’t want that, do we? No. So, just keep quiet, okay?”

  The child clapped both hands to her mouth and sat back, staring wide-eyed at the door.

  “And if Lionel said you’re stupid, ignore him, too. I told you, he’s an asshole—I mean a jackass, right?”

  Holly shook her head. “Nanny.”

  “Oh, your daddy? Your dad said you’re stupid? Well, he’s a jackass, too. Let me tell you, there’s a bunch of ’em out there. My dad took out the top prize for bein’ a … jackass. But that’s how I got my name. Money—Kelsey Money.”

  “Nangsie Mommy,” Holly said.

  “Huh?”

  “Nangsie Mommy,” she repeated and pointed to Kelsey.

  “Oh, that’s right, Kelsey Money. That’s a laugh. Never had any money, probably never will. And you know what? He wasn’t even my real dad. My name was Kelsey Terrasone. My mom married Vic Money and he adopted me. She always said she married into money. Which was a fu …” She stopped short of using the word, surprising herself, and smiled at her own reaction.

  “Well anyway, that was a hilarious joke because none of us had any money. Ever. Vic Money was about as much use as diet crack. He did one good thing, though. He taught me to fight. See this?” She sat up, pulled up her sleeve, and flexed her right arm until the bicep bulged. “Look at that. Tough, huh? I still work out, too.” She rolled the sleeve down. “I’m fit and I’m good. I can go toe-to-toe with guys way bigger than me and still put ’em on their ass. I won a medal once.” She smiled, shook her head. “Only one I can’t beat is Matt. He’s real good. Trick is, you gotta keep your guard up. Jab and move, jab and move.” She held up her fists—like Sugar Ray, ducking this way and that. She dropped her hands, massaged her fingers across the knuckles. “Anyone can move, but if you drop your guard, you’re sunk. I used to spar with Vic.”

  Kelsey’s smile faded. Her voice dropped as the memory pulled her back there. “He used my mom as a punching bag. I came home one day, he’s beating on her. I jumped in, punched him right in the kisser. Beautiful right jab,” she said, rounding her fist and demonstrating the stroke. “Broke his nose, knocked him clean on his ass. Fifteen, I was. Just fifteen years old,” she whispered. “That was hilarious. You should have seen the look on his face.”

  She could almost see it playing out right in front of her. Vic Money had gotten straight back up and punched her full in the face. She’d woken up an hour later to find Vic gone and her mother dead on the kitchen floor.

  “Stupid bitch,” she muttered, and blinked to clear her eyes. “She should’a left like I told her.” For a while, Kelsey was silent, lost in thought. When she turned back, Holly was sitting wide-eyed, mouth open, strawberry stains across her face. “Listen to me, will you—blabbering on and on. You should’a told me to shut up.” She smiled and touched the kid on the nose. “Anyway, doesn’t matter now. I got Matt. He takes care of us. He’s smart. He always knows exactly what to do.” She swung her legs around and up onto the bed, leaning back next to Holly, and pulling her in close. Holly snuggled into her side. “I’m gonna talk to him tomorrow. Find out when you can go home to your mom.”

  Just as they were settling down, there was a shout from downstairs, Matt calling her name.

  “Shit. What now? Wait here,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Downstairs, Matt was pacing the room while Lionel lounged back, eyes fixed on the TV.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  Matt stopped and dropped into a chair. “We had a visitor,” he said, like it was her fault.

  “A visitor? Who?”

  Lionel turned his head to her, a stupid grin on his face. “Stick Clemmons,” he said.

  Kelsey stuck her hands in her pockets, said nothing. Stick was Lionel’s drug runner. Typical, she thought.

  “Home delivery,” Lionel added with a grin. “How’s that for service.”

  Matt leaned forward, palms pressed to his eyes. “So, how many fuckin’ people know we’re here now? Huh?”

  “Just Stick,” said Lionel, broadening the grin. He looked like a different person when he was high—mellow, calm, agreeable. When he was like this, you could almost trust him. Almost. He frowned briefly, held up a finger. “Oh. And Wayne. Just Stick and Wayne. That’s all.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Matt said, and rocked his head back. “You told Wayne Clemmons? You might as well have told the whole fuckin’ world.”

  “Calm down, I didn’t tell the whole world. Just Stick and Wayne, that’s all. How else am I supposed to get well? Huh?”

  Kelsey kept her mouth shut. She wanted to see how this panned out. From long experience, she knew Matt never stayed mad at Lionel for more than three minutes or so. She couldn’t understand it. No matter what the guy did, how bad he screwed up, Matt always forgave him.

  Right now Matt was leaning on his knees, massaging his temples in frustration. “You should have waited, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “For what? I gotta get fixed, don’t I? What?” he said when he saw Matt’s expression. “Okay, so you want me rolling around on the floor in agony, do you? You want me pukin’ my guts up all over the place?”

  “No.”

  “You want me completely useless? Because, you know I can’t do a fuckin’ thing when I’m like that, right?”

  “I know.”

  “And that’s what would happen.”

  Matt’s shoulders slumped. “I know, I know.”

  “You have no fucking clue what it’s like being dope-sick,” Lionel went on. “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

  “Look, it’s okay, man. I just don’t want anyone knowing where we are, is all. It’s just … it’s okay.”

  And there it was, right there: the big turnaround. Kelsey hated Lionel, hated his big mouth and his lousy attitude. But most of all, she hated the hold he had over Matt.

  They fell into an uneasy silence, Matt and Lionel watching TV, Kelsey pretending she wasn’t there. Matt turned to Kelsey, as if he’d just noticed her. “So what were you doing upstairs? You’re with that kid more than you’re with us.”

  “No, I’m not.” She slid into an adjacent chair, one foot propped on the coffee table, the other tucked up with her arm resting on her knee. “You want me to keep her quiet, don’t you? Her eyes are sore and there’s like, a million fleas in the bed. How’d you get this place, anyway? It’s a shit-heap.”

  “Doesn’t matter how I got it. It’s only one night, so quit bitchin’.”

  Lionel cut the tension with a yelp. He was laughing and pointing to the TV where an old rerun of Gilligan’s Island was playing. “Oh man, I love this show,” he squealed like a kid. “Goddamn, this shit makes me laugh. Look at it, look at it.”

  Matt grinned along with him. “We used to watch this when we were kids.”

  Here we go, thought Kelsey. Another “when we were kids” episode. She slid a little further down in the seat and waited for it.

  Lionel spread his hands. “You hear that? Now that is funny. You gotta admit, this guy is hilarious.”

  “Remember that time you ran away?” Matt said. “Now that was hilarious. Eight years old, you were gone two days. The old lady didn
’t even notice.” And he laughed.

  Lionel said nothing, just grinned at some point in front of him and shook his head.

  “And remember that time …” Matt said, and pointed at him.

  Any minute, thought Kelsey. Lorraine Purcell, any minute now.

  “… when you were playing high school football—quarterback, no less.” Matt raised both hands, as if to quiet a nonexistent crowd. “Man, you should’a seen this guy, Kelse. Top of his class and Mr. Popularity all in one. One of the teachers asked him once, she goes, ‘So, Mr. Subritzski, what are you planning to be when you leave school,’” Matt said, mimicking a woman’s high-pitched voice with a snooty accent. “And this guy turns around, looks her straight in the eye and he says, ‘God.’ Just like that, ‘God,’ he tells her.” And he burst out laughing again.

  Lionel grinned even wider. “Yeah, I remember that. Oh, and there was the time with those two girls, huh? Remember them?”

  “Oh, yeah. Man, that was funny. They came running right over to you, right in the middle of quarter-finals. It’s like, a minute to go and both of them run up to you, pull up their tops and show you their titties—”

  “—and then they ran off.” Lionel scratched at his face. “Those were good days, brother, good days.”

  Wait for it, Kelsey thought. Any minute.

  Matt pointed to Lionel. “This guy,” he told Kelsey, like she hadn’t heard it a million times before, “he was a legend. Give him a football, and he was like, ‘Dust, assholes.’”

  Lionel said nothing, just sat there, wallowing in the reverie.

  Kelsey forced a smile. Okay, so maybe she was wrong. Maybe Lorraine Purcell would get a rest this time.

  “And that time,” said Matt, “when there was you and me—”

  Nope, thought Kelsey.

  “And Lorraine Purcell—”

  Here we go, she thought.

  “Upstairs in the bedroom. And I’m bangin’ her, but she’s like, ‘I want more, I want more …’”

  “Oh, man,” said Lionel, tipping his head back, “that woman could not get enough.”

  Kelsey kept her eyes on the TV.

  “And so I’m done, right? And she’s still yelling, ‘Gimme more, gimme more,’ so you jump in and the next thing—”

  “The door opens,” Lionel chimed in, “and there’s her old man standin’ there.”

  Kelsey had heard this stupid story so many times she could just about mouth it along with them.

  Lionel shook his head, laughing now. “And he says, ‘What’s my daughter doing here?’ and you say—”

  “And I say, ‘same as you’re doin’ to my old lady downstairs,’” Matt added, slapping his knee and doubling over with laughter again.

  Kelsey didn’t know why they had to keep bringing up the same goddamn stupid story. It wasn’t even funny. She scratched at the corner of her eye as though she had something in it. Matt’s laughter finally tailed off into a grin. When he turned to Kelsey, the grin evaporated. “What’s wrong with you now?”

  “Nothin’,” she said with a shrug. “Nothin’s wrong.”

  Matt leaned back. “I dunno, every time we start having fun, you get all shitty.”

  “I’m not shitty,” she lied.

  “You look it.”

  She did a slow head-shake, bottom lip jutting. “I’m not.”

  Lionel slipped one of Matt’s cigarettes from the pack. Women,” he mumbled.

  Sometimes Kelsey would study Lionel from across the room. She could not reconcile this dreg of humanity with the brilliant hero Matt talked so much about. She figured it must have been the drugs that had turned him into a complete waste of space.

  After almost a minute’s silence, Kelsey swiveled around in her chair, knee up. “Listen,” she said, trying to sound casual, “we need to talk.”

  Matt pulled a cigarette from the pack on the table, stuck it in his mouth and lit it. “What about?”

  “Well, when do we get the money?”

  “Tomorrow. I told you.” He tipped his head back and blew a plume of smoke in the air.

  “Yeah, but what time? And who’s taking Holly home?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m just thinking—it’s probably best if I do it.”

  “Why?” Matt said again.

  “Yeah, why?” said Lionel.

  Matt had been her life. She could trust him to the ends of the earth. Lionel was a different story altogether. He was ten people in one skin and you never knew who was up front. “Because when I was in the drugstore today, a cop came in.”

  He had grabbed the lighter off the table and started flicking it, over and over. “Oh, yeah, that’s a real good reason,” he told Matt.

  Matt took another pull on his cigarette. “So … ?”

  Kelsey shifted in her seat. “So, him and the pharmacist were talking about the kidnapping, saying how they know that some lady did it. They were saying she had like, a wig and a tattoo and stuff.”

  “Is that right?” said Matt.

  “Who told them that?” asked Lionel, still flicking the lighter.

  “He was saying there was a witness,” Kelsey told them.

  “A witness?” said Matt.

  Lionel stopped flicking. “I didn’t see nobody.”

  “Apparently some lady saw me. But I’m the only one they know about. So, they think there’s only one kidnapper.”

  An unspoken message ran between Matt and Lionel. Then Matt said, “But they don’t think anyone else is involved, right? Like, they didn’t see me and Li in the car?”

  “No, of course not,” said Kelsey. “So, I’m thinking that if they don’t know about you and Lionel, then I should be the one to take her back. Y’know, in case shit goes down.”

  Lionel went back to flicking the lighter again. “If … we take her back.”

  “What do you mean if we take her back?” said Kelsey. “That was the plan, Matt. That’s what you said.” She got to her feet and took a step back.

  “Sit down and shut up,” Matt said. “Everything’s under control.”

  “The plan is,” Lionel said, like he was explaining it to a two-year-old, “if her old man doesn’t pay up, I pop her—boom! Pwah.” He made a gun of his fist then splayed it like an explosion bursting in slow motion from the side of his head. “Then it’s the big cement swim.” And he grinned and held his nose like he was descending into deep water.

  “Now, hold on a minute …” Kelsey said.

  “Will you both just shut up?” Matt said. “We stick to the plan. They pay, the kid goes home.” He let it hang, and Lionel shrugged.

  Now Kelsey was starting to realize just how little she knew about the plan. Well, that was Matt’s department, wasn’t it? She couldn’t have planned something like this. She wouldn’t know where to begin. But now there were questions. Like …

  “So, how do we get the money?” she asked. “Like, it can’t be cash. I mean, that’s a lot of cash.”

  Lionel huffed. “What’s your problem? You think he’s stupid all of a sudden?”

  “It isn’t that,” she said.

  Matt was making out like he wasn’t listening, but now they were both staring expectantly at him. He did a double-take and groaned. “Okay, okay. Listen up and shut up, because I’m not explaining it twice.” He waited it a beat, then said, “The money gets transferred into a bank account, right? The reason we’re doing this in two stages is that if we give them the account number, the cops will be on that account in like, two seconds and then they’ll suck the money back out before it’s even settled.”

  Kelsey nodded. That made sense.

  “And then …” Matt paused to stub out his cigarette. “It gets transferred into an off-shore account.” Then he settled back again, eyes on the TV.

  This time both Kelsey and Lionel sat up.

  “Off-shore?” Lionel asked. “You mean like, another country off-shore?”

  Matt drew an exasperated breath, clapped both hands to his face and growled i
n frustration. “No. Out in the fuckin’ lake off-shore,” he said, gesturing vaguely off towards the door. “Off-shore to Kelly’s Island off-shore. Three fuckin’ feet off-shore,” he said and shook his head. When he saw the confusion on Lionel’s face, he reined in his anger and said, “Yes, of course another country.”

  “You didn’t say nothin’ about any other country,” said Lionel.

  “Well, that’s how this kind of shit goes. I’m the one planning it all, remember?”

  “Yeah, you’re the one planning it,” Lionel said, “but where’s the money going after that?”

  Matt bit his lip, hesitating. “Okay, so … I was going to open an account in Mexico, right?” Kelsey and Lionel said nothing, just blinked at him. “But then Raul down at Stacy’s Gym told me that the U.S. government can get illegal American money out of the banks down there.”

  Kelsey and Lionel shared a look that suggested they both had the same question. “So where’s it going now?” she asked.

  Matt stalled a few seconds. Then he licked his lips, and said, “Well, I got …” They waited. “Somalia,” he said at last and snatched up the cigarette pack.

  “What?” Kelsey and Lionel both said at once.

  “Somalia?” said Lionel. “They’re goddamn pirates over there—like, for real pirates. Those assholes will steal anything that ain’t nailed down.”

  “Listen. I’m not stupid. I asked Delmar about it. He’s a Somalian. He’s got family back there. They’re the ones that set up the account.”

  “You told Delmar about the plan?” said Lionel.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Matt told him. “I told him everything. I told him where we got the kid, how we got her. I even showed him my dick. What do you think I am? A half-wit? You wanna do this; you wanna do all the planning, be my guest. You tell me where else you put ten million dollars of ransom money. America’s got agreements with every other fucking country in the world so if money from any kind of illegal shit goes there, the American government can just go in and suck it straight back out.” He dipped his head and raked a hand through his hair. “Satisfied?”