Growing and Kissing (36 page)

Oh Jesus.
She was sitting there doing the schoolwork I set her. All that work. I’d made her life a misery because I was
so
determined that she’d get well and go back to school. I grabbed her and hauled her out of her chair, hugging her to me. Then the tears really started, floods of them, my shaking body jolting hers along with me.

At first, she just grabbed uncertainly at my upper arms, trying to comfort me. Then her muffled voice piped up, “Is it Sean? Did the two of you have a fight?”

My heart tore in two. Everything that was going on and she was worried about
me.
It killed me to shake my head, but I slowly did it.

Her hands gripped me harder. Then harder still. I felt the realization go through her in a cold wave. She didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to ask the question. Her tears started, mingling with mine, and we hugged each other tighter and tighter until, finally, she pushed back from me and stared up with red eyes. “We’re not going to Switzerland, are we?” she asked.

My voice was so raw, so tight with guilt, that I barely sounded like myself. “No.”

She didn’t say anything. She just mashed herself into me as hard as she possibly could, scrunching her eyes shut and trying to find comfort in my warmth, in the bigger, stronger body that was meant to protect her.

I’m sorry,
I thought.
I’m so, so sorry.

And then I let her go, turned and walked out of the apartment.

I knew what I had to do.

Downstairs, I walked straight past my car and towards the street. I’d failed as a sister and as a stand-in mother. There was only one thing I could do now, one way I could make things right. I had life insurance—not nearly enough for Switzerland, but it would ensure Kayley had the best possible care for her last few weeks.

All I had to do was make it look like an accident.

With the rain pounding down, it wasn’t difficult. Big semi-trucks thundered right past our apartment and, in the wet, they wouldn’t be able to stop. I’d run across the street at the last minute, pretend to trip...it would all be over in a heartbeat.

The next truck approached. I took a deep breath in.

Headlights turned the street into a shining silver strip. Visibility was down to maybe fifty feet. He’d barely have time to see me, never mind stop.

I exhaled. Inhaled…

And ran.
Don’t look. Don’t look.
Headlights blazed across my vision from the left. The asphalt was slick with rain. I barely had to twist my foot and then I was sprawling, hands scraping on the street, knee going numb as it banged down hard. I rolled onto my side, rain filling my mouth, headlights turning my vision pure white. An airhorn blared—

Something huge and solid grappled me under the arms and dragged me out of the way. We sprawled together on the sidewalk as the truck roared past and I looked up, blinking rain and tears, into Sean’s face.

“You stupid bloody mare!” he spat through the rain coursing down his face. And then he pulled me to him and hugged me like he meant to never let me go again.

“It’s over,” I sobbed into his ear. “It’s over. I screwed it all up.”

He pushed me back to arm’s length so he could glare at me. “You need to learn some stuff. You came to me because I was a criminal—right?” When I didn’t answer, he shook me. “
Right?”

“Yes!”

“Yeah, because you don’t know a fuckin’ thing about it. You know what we do when someone steals our stuff?
We go and get it back.”

“
How?”
I asked. “It’s Malone! He’s got an army!”

“That’s why I can’t do this without you.” He swept my sodden hair back from my temples and then sank his fingers into it, his skin warming where the rain had chilled me. “I need that big fucking brain of yours. I need us to be a team. I need
you
because I’m in fuckin’ love with you. I did it all for you!”

My sobbing stopped but the tears kept coming, welling up and making my vision swim. “I—I’m in love with you, too,” I croaked, knowing the truth of it the moment I said it. “But I can’t—Sean, once this is over, I can’t have all this in my life.” I imagined people like the Serbians, coming to our apartment in the dead of night. “I can’t have it in Kayley’s life.”

He gripped my shoulders. “We sort this out and save Kayley,” he said, “and I’ll go fuckin’ straight. I’ll leave all this shit behind, if that’s what it takes to be with you.”

I gaped up at him. “Wh—
What?
But that’s
who you are!
You said you didn’t know anything else!
”

He lifted his head just a fraction, challenging me. “Thought you said I could learn?”

I felt my jaw drop open and then I was grabbing hold of him and pressing my soaked body against his, sobbing with relief and fragile hope into his chest.

Louise

Sean took me back to my apartment so I could comfort Kayley. When I thought of how I’d broken down in front of her, my stomach knotted. I was supposed to be her mom, unshakeable and stoic. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “Sorry you had to see me—”

She punched me surprisingly hard in the chest. “You idiot,” she said. “Whoever said you weren’t allowed to
cry?”
And she hugged me, the warmth of her body chasing away some of the rain’s chill.

When she let me go, she scrunched up her forehead and said, “So now you two have to go and fix things?”

Sean and I looked at each other. “Yeah,” I said. “We have to come up with a plan.”

Kayley nodded firmly. “Then sit down,” she said. “I’ll get you towels and coffee.”

I started to gently push her into a chair. “No. I can do that.”

“Damnit, Louise,
let me help!
I get why you won’t let me be involved. But I can make a freaking cup of coffee for you while you think! Why do you never, ever, let me do
anything?”

I stood there opening and closing my mouth for a few seconds, then looked at Sean. He was no help—he just exchanged a look with Kayley and then nodded at me firmly.

I sat down. “I guess...I just wanted you to be able to be a kid,” I said in a small voice.

“Well...thanks. Really. But I think you need all the help you can get today. Okay?” And she stomped off into the kitchen.

“God…” I said, stunned.

“She reminds me of someone,” rumbled Sean. “Now let’s sort this out.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Even if, by some miracle, we
can
get the drugs back off Malone, what the hell do we do with them? No one’s going to want to touch them once they’ve been stolen from him.
And
he’ll be after us.”

Sean put his hand on mine. “One thing at a time,” he said. “First, we need to find out where our drugs are
.
”

“How do we do
that?”

Sean thought about it while we toweled ourselves dry and changed clothes, then sipped the coffee Kayley brought us. “Malone’ll want to split up the crop and sell it. He’s probably already called the bigger dealers. I could ask them.”

“Why would they tell you?”

Sean looked at me seriously. “Because I’m going to be fuckin’ persuasive.” That same look came into his eyes, the one that scared the ever-living-
fuck
out of people. The one that had scared the hell out of me, when I first met him. But now, knowing that cold rage was fueled by me, by the need to get justice for me...was it wrong that it made a little flash of heat go through me?

I stood up and headed towards the door. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Sean blocked my path. “Where are
you
going?
I’m
going to talk to him. I’ll call you.”

“No way. You’re not sidelining me now. We’re in this together.”

“This’ll be dangerous. I’m not having you hurt.”

“I’ll stay close,” I told him. “I’ll do what I’m told—”

“That,
I fuckin’ doubt.”

“—but I’m not staying here.” I stared him down, even though it meant looking up.

He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Alright,” he said at last. “Let’s go break stuff.”

Louise

I gazed at the house, astonished. “I knew dealers had money,” I mumbled. “But….”

The place was
huge.
Seven or eight bedrooms, a pool, and there were three cars outside: a big old Lincoln town car, a Porsche and an SUV.

“This whole business is soaked in money,” Sean told me. “And Lennie’s only a dealer. Think how much Malone makes. But the money falls off
fast
after the top few rungs.” He opened the trunk of my car and took out his sledge hammer.

I looked up at the iron gates. The place wasn’t just big, it was tasteless. Everything was fake: reproduction stone columns that were vaguely Roman mixed with lion statues straight out of Japan. It was as if Lennie had browsed a catalog and stabbed his finger at anything he thought represented wealth. But none of that made the gates any less solid. “How do we get in?” I asked.

Sean raised the hammer. “We knock,” he said. “Stay behind me.”

And he swung the hammer at the center of the gates as hard as he could. They probably would have stood up to a car trying to ram through them...but they couldn’t cope with all that energy concentrated in exactly the right place. The lock shattered and the gates creaked inward. Sean was marching forward before they were fully open and I scuttled after him.

An alarm started to sound. The first guy, a blond heavy in a suit, ran out to meet us as we got to the front door. Sean swung the hammer low, catching him in the ankles with the shaft and knocking him face-first to the ground, then giving him a good whack on the back of the head with the handle to keep him there.

As we reached the hallway, two more guards appeared. Sean swung the hammer’s handle up, catching one of them under the chin, then punched the other one right in the face. They dropped to the floor almost at the same time, landing in one crumpled heap.

A shot rang out, and a chip of wood flew from the door frame a foot away from Sean. I screamed.

Lennie, a thin guy with long, greasy dark hair, was standing in the living room, a handgun gripped in his shaking hands. “Stay there!” he yelled.

Sean marched forward.

“I’ve got a fucking gun!” yelled Lennie, going pale.

“I’ve got a fuckin’ hammer,” said Sean. And swung it right at the gun. There was a crack of breaking bones, a scream and the gun clattered against the far wall. Then Sean pushed Lennie into a reclining armchair and tipped it all the way back, until he could rest a booted foot next to Lennie’s head to keep the chair in place. “Where’re our fuckin’ drugs?” he roared.

Lennie shrank back in the chair...but didn’t speak.

I came closer and looked around. Like the outside of the house, the inside was all about showing off. There were exotic plants in pots, but all of them were sickly and dying because Lennie didn’t have any idea how to look after them properly. There were vases and statues from around the world, but I had a feeling he’d never been to any of those places. There was even a glossy black grand piano in the corner, but there was no music on the music stand. “Answer him,” I said, trying to make my voice hard.