The Elizabeth McClaine Thriller Boxed Set

by Catherine Lea

  “Is there nothing you won’t do for a vote?” Elizabeth asked her.

  Alice moved an inch closer. “You want the truth? If hiring Tarzan to lope from tree to tree with his balls swinging around his ankles meant I could secure one more vote, I’d be stringing vines instead of wasting my time talking to you.”

  Elizabeth stiffened. “Do you always have to be so crass, Mrs. Cressley?”

  “Yes, Mrs. McClaine, I do. That way people listen to me.”

  “Please excuse me.” Diana had stepped a little closer, fingering her watch to indicate time was against her. “I really must go. I’ll call by your house at eight o’clock in the morning, if that’s not too early,” she said to Elizabeth.

  “Of course.” Elizabeth forced a smile. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  Already she could see how this was going to pan out. Yet again, she would be thrust into the midst of those holier-than-thou teachers at the Special Children’s Center for the Disabled, made to feel inadequate as they went about their daily routines, proving to her once again that even without the bonds of familial attachment, they had something she so patently lacked—the ability to accept and love her own child, a child she couldn’t even—

  Elizabeth felt her entire body spasm. She swallowed hard and she placed a finger to her lips, checking furtively around to see if anyone might have noticed. If she didn’t remain vigilant against these emotions, it was only one small step to the edge. She could not fall down that hole again. Not after everything she’d done to prevent it. She lifted her head high, smiled at the few remaining malingerers, and went in search of Detective Delaney and Officer Wallace.

  She had to get home. She needed that drink. And to decide what she’d do next.

  CHAPTER TEN

  DAY ONE: 10:15 PM—KELSEY

  Kelsey drove through Cleveland’s old Brooklyn neighborhood, and after finding the Walgreens closed, she took a detour and headed to a late-night photo shop she knew along Biddulph Avenue.

  It was just as she made the first turn that she noticed the headlights behind her. She drove slowly, watching in the rearview mirror. When she stopped at the lights, she could see the outline of a guy in the car behind her, talking on a cell phone. In the occasional sweep of passing headlights, she could just make out a thin face and long strands of thin hair hanging to his shoulders. She watched him for a while, and when the light turned green, she pulled away and turned left.

  The car behind followed and her heart picked up a beat. At the next intersection, she took a right and he followed. Sweat broke across her forehead. She’d been driving for several minutes, wondering what to do, when she hit the brakes and pulled over and the car went straight past. She tracked the car to the end of the street, where it turned and disappeared out of sight.

  Kelsey blew out a breath. Tension had tightened the muscles across the back of her neck and shoulders. She rolled her head, hearing the click in her vertebrae. After a minute or so, she pulled out and hit the road again.

  When she reached the photo store, she parked in an inconspicuous slot away from the streetlights. The air was still, the streets quiet. A few cars passed, but no cops. She pulled the key from the ignition, got out, and walked quickly inside.

  The photo kiosks were situated at the back of the store. Kelsey walked past the first kiosk where a couple were sitting, laughing at the images flashing up on the touchscreen in front of them. She found a seat as far from the couple as she could, pulled the memory card from her pocket, and slid it into the slot.

  A grid of images jumped up to fill the screen. Matt had taken six photographs in all, each showing Holly holding the yellow advertising foldout in front of her like a mug shot card. Kelsey checked around again, then clicked on the last photograph taken. It opened to show Holly staring wide-eyed into the camera without expression. Exhaustion had caused her tiny frame to droop and the foldout had slipped into a position that rendered the text unreadable. The one before it was better, although this one showed her looking up with her mouth open, asking Kelsey for Lilly Lion once more. Kelsey had feigned incomprehension. And when Holly’s little chin had crumpled at her reaction, Kelsey had wanted to reach out to her and tell her that of course she was listening, that of course she understood, and that she’d get her damned Lilly Lion if she’d just be still.

  The photograph immediately before this showed everything they needed. The little face stared into the lens as instructed, eyes showing pink, tongue peeking between her parted lips. Kelsey hit the print button and closed down the shot.

  Just as she went to close down the album and extract the memory card, a splash of blue in one of the photographs caught her eye. It was among a series of shots she didn’t recognize. She clicked on the first. It showed Matt and Lionel laughing and pretending to fight each other. Wasn’t that just like them? A couple of idiots when they got on the juice together. In the next one Matt was obviously holding the camera because they were both crushed together, grinning and pulling faces when the button had clicked. The next showed them dancing among a bunch of people with the splash of a blue dress just behind them. It looked to Kelsey as though they were at a party. She checked for the date, wondering when they were taken—the 23rd. That was last Saturday. Matt had told her he was going bowling that night. Not that it made any difference, but she found herself wondering why he would lie about such a thing. He went to parties without her. It had never mattered before.

  The next photograph back showed a slim black man she recognized as Delmar, the Somali refugee who was arranging the bank account for Matt. She still couldn’t believe the money would go there. She was convinced it would never come back. The next showed Delmar in conversation with Lionel. The subject must have been serious. Neither of them was smiling. Kelsey flicked back a couple more, wondering where the party was and why they wouldn’t have asked her along, when an image of Matt and a girl stopped her short. She tapped the thumbnail on the screen and the image leapt up to fill the space in front of her.

  “Maria fucking Puentez.” She glared at the screen. Maria had long flowing hair with a splash of bleached blond in the front, brilliantly white teeth, eyes painted up and blazing like the Fourth of July. In this shot, she was wearing a low-cut azure blue dress, her plump round breasts straining against the satin fabric, nipples puckered beneath. Matt had always called her a whore. He said she probably carried diseases medical science didn’t even know about. But in this picture, she was clinging to Matt like a star-struck lover, and he didn’t look like he was objecting. The next shot showed Lionel pointing towards whoever was holding the camera and laughing in the foreground, but behind him the image showed Matt and Maria locked in a passionate embrace and kissing. The next had Maria, Matt and Lionel all toasting, the next … well, it didn’t matter. Kelsey couldn’t look at any more. She felt as though Maria Puentez had leaned out of that screen and scratched her heart out.

  Had she missed the signs? Was there something she had or hadn’t done? Kelsey was no genius—even she was the first to admit that, but Matt had only ever referred to Maria as an empty space on legs. Nothing he’d said or done had given Kelsey any indication he was interested in her. She wondered what kind of explanation he would come up with if she confronted him about it. Not that she could, because then he’d know she had been snooping through his photographs.

  Numb inside and cursing herself for being so goddamn foolish, Kelsey popped the card from the slot and replaced it in her pocket. The couple behind her let out a shriek of laughter. The girl had her arm around the guy, pulling him in and teasing him over the images on their screen.

  With tears prickling in her eyes, Kelsey collected up the photograph and took the envelope from her pocket, then realized she was handling it without the gloves.

  Shit!” She hurriedly folded the photograph printout. Those images had knocked her off-balance. All she could see was Maria’s perfect face and gleaming white teeth grinning at her, the whore.

  Suddenly, she was furious. Her
cheeks flashed hot and a shot of rage scorched through her. She hated slutty Maria Puentez for forcing herself on Matt; she hated Matt for letting her, and she hated Lionel for … well, for being the asshole that he was. But most of all, she was furious with herself—furious for being so stupid she didn’t even see what was going on; furious for being dumb enough to handle the envelope without the gloves. With her mouth pressed into a thin line, and fighting back the tears, she shoved the folded print into the envelope so savagely it tore it down the side. She ripped it out, unfolding the note so she could refold it with the photograph, when her eye caught the words. When she unfolded it, the first line she saw was:

  “… do not have the money by 3pm tomorrow, the kid dies …”

  “Three? What?” She said it loud enough that the couple behind her went quiet and the girl whispered something in the guy’s ear. Kelsey swiveled around with her back to them and read the note through again.

  Matt had lied to her. Okay, he had probably told her they would give them the twenty-four hours just to shut her up, but that wasn’t the point. Now, she found herself wondering what else she didn’t know about. Of all the years they had been together, they had always been on the same side—watching each other’s back. It was only since Lionel had come back into his life that this had started. Now she felt like a kid who finds out that nothing her mother ever told her was true. She felt like a fool. She hadn’t seen what had been right in front of her the whole time—Lionel had torn Matt away from her.

  Hollow inside, and using fingers too numb to work properly, she unfolded the photograph, lining it up with the note so she could refold the pages into the envelope. Then she caught a glimpse of the picture again—those tired, swollen eyes, the innocent expression, the questioning face staring from the photograph, trustingly holding the foldout as she’d been told to.

  But Kelsey now knew what she had to do.

  She roughly folded the sheets of paper and stuffed them back into the envelope. It didn’t matter about fingerprints or identification or whatever. The witness the police found had probably already identified her. Now, she had to think; she had to come up with her own plan. A glance at her watch told her the deadline was seventeen hours away. She didn’t want to wait that long. For now she would play along with the boys; do whatever Matt wanted. He had to trust her. But, when the time came and the opportunity arose, she would take Holly. And she’d run.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  DAY ONE: 11:21 PM—KELSEY

  The Roadster was still parked in the driveway outside the McClaines’ house, but someone had put the top up. Kelsey parked the SUV two doors down, cut the ignition, killed the lights, and slid down in the seat with her arms folded. From here she could just see the house. Lights shone out across the enormous front yard, highlighting a row of ornamental trees in the front garden that cast elongated shadows across the lawn. Beyond the downstairs windows she could see the pale glow of an interior light somewhere inside the house. She glanced at her watch and settled back to wait.

  After three minutes, a late model Crown Victoria cruised by. It couldn’t have been more obvious that it was a cop car if it had the precinct lettered across the side and blue and red lights on the roof. Kelsey wondered why they didn’t just send a black and white. The car slowed past the house, then sped up and disappeared around the corner. She checked her watch again and unwrapped a stick of gum and stuck it in her mouth. Hugging herself against the cold, she slid a little further down in the seat again and waited. Five minutes later the car reappeared, cruising slowly past the house, then accelerating to the corner again.

  The instant it was gone, Kelsey got out of the car, locking it with the key so the automatic lock wouldn’t bleep, and crossed the street. Chewing rapidly on the gum, she hurried down the side of the house and in through a side gate, closing it quietly behind her.

  An enormous pool and barbecue area stretched across the back of the property. She moved quickly through the shadows to the rear of the house and dropped into a crouch by a set of French doors. From here, she checked the area for security cameras. Sure enough, she spotted one mounted to her left that was panning across the yard from right to left and back, covering as far as the back of the pool area; a second above her head, securing the remaining area.

  The camera above her head had probably caught her as she entered the gate.

  “Shit.”

  If it did, it was too late. She removed the gloves and the glass cutter from her jacket pocket, and the wad of gum from her mouth. She pressed the gum onto the window next to the latch, forming it into a peak in the center. With a steady hand, she traced an arc around it with the glass cutter. It wasn’t the perfect solution, but it worked. The biggest problem was if you left saliva on the glass. Leaving saliva behind would score you first place on the suspect list in three minutes flat.

  But none of that mattered now.

  Kelsey used the butt of the cutter to tap the outer edge of the hand-hole and removed the glass using the gum as a grip. She checked her watch. In one minute the cop would cruise past. Then she’d have to go like hell. The alarm would sound ten seconds after she got inside. From then on, she had five minutes to get up the stairs, get the eye cream, grab Holly’s toy lion and get back to the car. It would be touch and go, but it was possible. She watched the second-hand on her watch come around …

  … three, two, one …

  At the distant sound of a car speeding up, she tapped the glass out, stuck her hand through the hole and unlocked the door. She pushed it open and was halfway across the vast dining area before she noticed that the alarm hadn’t gone off. She paused, looking all around—nothing.

  Cautiously, she tiptoed to the nearest door, pressed herself in close by the doorframe and peered out into a hallway. There was no sign of movement. She moved on into the house, tiptoeing toward the front. And stopped. She could hear water running. At first she thought someone had left a faucet turned on. But when she came to a wide hallway at the front of the house, she found an expansive entranceway featuring an entire wall of slate with water cascading down it. Kelsey reversed up three steps so she could view it in its entirety. She couldn’t believe anyone would have a wall of water in their house. She had lived in places where the water flowed freely down the walls, but it wasn’t intentional.

  “The rich. What the hell next?” When she turned to move on, she noticed a marble hallstand set with a crystal bowl. Inside the bowl was a set of keys. She hesitated, hand hovering over them, then picked them up. The key ring had a Mercedes badge attached. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said and put them back. She took two steps, reversed, retrieved the keys and tucked them into her pocket.

  The next doorway on her left opened into a vast marble-floored foyer where an enormous stairway curved in two directions to the second floor. She stepped across, feeling like Alice in Wonderland, and let out a low whistle that echoed faintly in the expansive area.

  Where to now?

  The bedrooms were probably on the second floor, so she headed straight up the stairs, pausing briefly to peer over the side and wonder what it would be like to live in a place like this.

  The first door on the left was a bedroom. So was the next. The third was obviously the McClaines’ own room. A king-sized bed stood beneath a four-poster frame that was draped with heavy burgundy-colored fabric. To her left stood a large, mirrored dressing table, with a matching wooden dresser positioned on either side of it. To her right were twin doors leading to two large walk-in closets. Kelsey stepped across to the nearest closet and flipped on the lights to find row upon row of men’s suits. In the second were racks of dresses down one side, pants and suits on the other. A blue silk cocktail dress had been hung on the back of the door as if someone had been trying it on. Kelsey lifted the hem, feeling the fabric smooth and silky between her fingers, and wondered what it would be like to dress in clothes like this instead of wearing jeans every day. Out of nowhere, the image of Maria Puentez flashed into her mind. She ca
st the fabric aside like she’d been stung, switched off the light and closed the door. She didn’t have time for screwing around. The alarm might not have activated, but Holly was still alone with Matt and Lionel. She had to get back. She flipped off the bedroom light and went straight to the bathroom.

  At the very back of the bathroom cabinet, she found a small bottle of Tobramycin complete with eye dropper. The directions for use read, “one drop three times a day to the affected eye,” and it was in Holly’s name so she figured that was what she was looking for. After inspecting the rest of the medicines and finding nothing else useful, she tucked the bottle into her pocket, closed the cabinet and went in search of Holly’s bedroom.

  Five doorways down, at the very rear of the house, she found it. The bed was made with a Dora the Explorer motif comforter, matching curtains at the windows. Toys of various sorts were placed with care on shelves that Holly would never have been able to reach, while a toy box sat with a pile of clothes flung on top.

  And there, sitting on the pillow in pride of place, was a ragged lion a little larger than her fist. It had one button eye and a thread of cotton where the other should have been. She walked straight over and picked it up. “Lilly Lion, I presume.” And that’s when she heard it …