Page 79 of Unlocked

He leaned forward, and for the first time, she heard real heat in his voice. "I did not steal from those old people. That was Lebowitz. And I don't think those people were even on his radar. They weren't on any list we were given. Like I said, he was just banging the woman in charge of their retirement fund and figured it was easy money. He might as well do it, that was his thinking."

"So wait—I’m just trying to understand this." Tatum leaned back in the chair and took a sip of her coffee. "Was it really a Ponzi scheme then? You're saying you were told to get specific people to invest a specific amount. Did you give money back to them?"

Kelly hesitated. His eyes started moving around the room again, that restless, frightened scan she'd been watching him do since she walked in. "I think I've already said too much. I shouldn't say anything else."

"You should talk to me. After all, someone's beating me up too, so I'd really like to know what's going on."

He shook his head, and something in his face closed down entirely. "I've said too much. It's not worth my life. As it is, I'm living here, too terrified to leave. I can't say any more. Otherwise, they'll kill me."

Tatum scoffed, "Nobody can get in here. Not in the Society."

His face went pale in a way that told her considerably more than his words had. He shook his head slowly and wouldn't meet her eyes.

The puzzle pieces fell into place. "Society members are behind this."

Kelly raised his hands again as if to ward off her words. "I didn't say anything."

"But that's what you meant. Otherwise, you wouldn't still be terrified sitting here inside the Society."

Kelly looked away. The resignation on his face was painful to look at. He had the air of a man who had already made his peace with a bad ending and was simply waiting for it. "You're a nice kid," he said quietly. "You should stop investigating. It's not going to help anyone. The money that Lebowitz took from those people, and a few others, yeah, that's not going to come back."

"Why? Do you know where it is?" She wanted to reach across the coffee table and shake the information out of him.

He rubbed his face with both hands, a long, slow gesture that seemed to cost him something. "Okay, I'll tell you this much. Lebowitz was coloring outside the lines."

He paused. "Like I said, he did that with a few clients. He siphoned that money off. I don't know where it went. So if you want to help those retirees, concentrate on that. And just leave the rest of it alone, Tatum." He looked up at her then and his eyes were genuinely frightened in a way she felt in her own chest. "These people don't joke around."

"Who are these people, Vince?" she demanded.

"That's a good question." A voice came from the doorway.

Archer entered the room. He took in the scene in one quiet sweep, his eyes moving from Kelly to Tatum and back again, and something in his expression shifted almost imperceptibly when he looked at her. There and gone. "Who are these people? And if you're scared inside the Society, that concerns me greatly."

Vince Kelly's eyes darted between Tatum and Archer and around the room in a single panicked sweep. "I didn't say that. I didn't. I mean, I'm not⁠—"

Archer stood there in silence. He didn't move, didn't speak, didn't offer Kelly anything to hold on to. Kelly was obviously unraveling. Tatum had no urge to save him, so she waited too.

Finally, Vince said, "Oh, fuck it. I'm dead anyway."

The words dropped the temperature in the room.

"What do you know, Vince?" Archer asked, his voice quieter now. Not softer. Quieter.

"Like I told Tatum, I was given a list of names and amounts. My job was to go out and get the money from these people. For the most part, it was easy. Really easy. It was like they expected me to show up and ask them. There were a few holdouts, but it didn't take much."

Archer's eyes narrowed. "And then what happened?"

"When the money came in, I put it in the account I was told to put it in, and that was it. I got paid a percentage, and everything was fine until the Feds crashed in."

"But I thought it was a Ponzi scheme," Archer said. The same question Tatum had asked.

"Like I told Tatum, that was Lebowitz. He was banging some woman who had access to all these retirees and their retirement funds. So he started getting them to invest and then paying a little back here and there. He took that money. He had other clients, too. Some big ones who wanted in on the investment. Somebody had heard about it from somebody else, that type of thing. We were supposed to say no to that and direct them toward other things. That was the deal. But Tim didn't like leaving money on the table, so he took some of it."

"And let me guess," Archer said, crossing his arms over his chest. "He didn't put that money in the accounts you were given. He put it in his own."

"Yeah, exactly," Kelly agreed. "I don't know where that money is, but he ran it as a Ponzi scheme, and that's what got us busted."

"Lebowitz got you busted," Archer said.