Lifeguard

by James Patterson

  I reached around for whatever I could find. There was an aluminum baseball bat against the wall. I swung it with all my might. The goddamn bat shattered the beer lights over the pool table.

  The guy stepped back in a shower of splintering glass. He was laughing at me.

  “I don’t have the art!” I screamed.

  “Sorry, Mr. Kelly.” He started to wave the knife again. “I don’t fucking care.”

  He came at me, and the blade slashed against my forearm. Incredible pain shot up my arm, probably because I saw the cut happen. “That’s only the beginning,” he said, smiling.

  I swung the bat across his arm and managed to nail him. He grunted. The knife dropped and clattered to the floor.

  He barreled into me. I hit the wall and saw stars and bright colors. I tried to ward him off with the bat, but he was in too close. And too strong.

  He started to press the bat into my chest, increasing the pressure against my ribs, my lungs. Slowly he elevated it higher. Until it was on my windpipe.

  I started to gasp. I mean I was strong, but I couldn’t budge him. I had no air.

  I felt the veins in my face bulge. With the last of my strength, I jerked my knee upward and caught him the groin. I threw myself into him. We rolled across the room, crashing into shelves behind the pool table—toppling games, pool sticks, the VCR.

  I heard the guy groan. Jesus, maybe he hit his head. I spotted his knife across the floor. I scurried over and was back before his eyes cleared.

  I wrenched the guy’s head back and jammed his own knife under his chin. “Who sent you?” This bastard had killed my brother. It wouldn’t have taken much for me to drive the blade into his throat.

  “Who sent you? Who?”

  His eyes rolled back, all the way to the whites.

  “What the hell?”

  I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket as if I were trying to lift him into a boat, and the guy just toppled forward into my arms.

  The blade of a hockey skate was wedged in his back. I pushed him forward and he rolled over, dead.

  I was drained and exhausted. I could barely move. I just sat there, breathing hard, looking at him. Then reality hit me. You just killed a man.

  I couldn’t’ think about it—not now. I went back to my brother and knelt next to him a last time. Tears stung my eyes. I ran my hand across Davey’s cheek. “Oh, Dave, what did I do?”

  I pulled myself up and stumbled back to the art book on the couch. I ripped out the page with Portrait of Dr. Gachet.

  Then I slipped out of the basement, back into the night. My arm was bleeding, so I wrapped my sweatshirt around it like a bandage. Then I did something I was becoming very good at lately.

  I ran.

  Chapter 44

  THE CELL PHONE jolted him out of bed. Dennis Stratton hadn’t been sleeping anyway. He’d been waiting up, watching the overseas news on CNBC. He jumped up in his shorts and caught the phone on the second ring. Liz was curled up, sleeping. He checked the lit-up number. Private caller.

  He felt excited. The situation had been resolved.

  “Do we have it?” Stratton said under his breath. He wanted to wrap up this thing now. It was making him nervous. And he didn’t like feeling nervous. Dennis Stratton was a man who liked feeling in control.

  “Almost,” the caller said, hesitating. Stratton felt something change between them. “We’re going to need a little more time.”

  “More time . . .” Stratton’s lips were dry. He wrapped his robe around him and headed out to the balcony. He looked back at Liz. He thought he heard her stir in their black-lacquer chinoiserie bed.

  “There is no ‘little more time’ on this one. You said we had him. You assured me we had professionals.”

  “We do,” the caller said. “It’s just that . . .”

  “Just that what?” Stratton snapped. He stood there in his robe, staring out at the ocean, the breeze brushing back the little hairs on the side of his balding head. He was used to results. Not excuses. That’s why he paid people.

  “There’s been a glitch.”

  Part Four

  BOX!

  Chapter 45

  BACK IN THE FLORIDA OFFICE, Ellie scanned the Boston office report on the murder of David Kelly and another man two days earlier in Brockton. She felt just awful—the murders could have been her fault.

  It had been a bloody, professional job. A knife wound under the fifth, left rib, the blade viciously jerked up into the heart. Whoever did that meant for the victim to suffer. And the other guy—the one with the skate blade in his back, a career criminal named Earl Anson with roots in Boston and south Florida.

  And something that disturbed her even more: Ned’s fingerprints were all over the crime scene.

  How could she have totally misjudged him? Either he was the most cold-blooded killer she had ever heard of or an incredibly cold-blooded killer was after him. Someone who knew whom he would contact in Boston. Someone who wanted something Ned had.

  Like stolen paintings, maybe.

  Ned was tied to seven murders now. He was more than the prime suspect. His face was on every police department fax machine. He was the subject of the largest manhunt in Boston since—what?—the Boston Strangler.

  No, Ellie thought as she closed the file, picturing the scene. No way it could have gone down that way. Not after how Ned had talked about his brother. No way she could see him killing Dave. No! Not possible! She pulled out the scribbled notes she’d made after her abduction:

  BC Law School. The hope of the family now . . .

  The police had found an art book at the scene with a page ripped out. Van Gogh’s famous portrait. So now Ned knew, too.

  Keep looking, Ned had begged her. Find Gachet.

  Then there was Tess. How was she connected to all of this? Because she had to be connected. The police reports had come up sketchy on her. To the point of zero. Her IDs led nowhere. Her hotel bills had always been paid in cash.

  A strange sensation tickled her brain. You ever felt yourself falling in love, Ellie?

  Get real, she told herself. Bet sane! The guy had kidnapped her and held a gun on her for eight hours. He was wrapped up in seven murders. There were as many law enforcement agents out looking for him as there were for bin Laden. Could she actually be feeling jealous?

  And why was it that in spite of all the evidence, she actually believed this guy?

  Go back to the art, Ellie told herself. The key was in the heist. That was the feeling she’d had from the beginning.

  The cable was cut—the thieves knew the alarm code. Could it be that the person behind the heist had panicked that the police would put two and two together when they realized the thieves had used the alarm code? Cut the wires in the hope of hiding the fact the code had been revealed? If Ned’s buddies never stole the art, someone else did. Who?

  The same two words. Inside job.

  Chapter 46

  ELLIE WAITED PATIENTLY as a champagne-colored Bentley convertible pulled through the opening gates and crunched toward her on a long white-pebbled driveway.

  “Agent Shurtleff.” Stratton stopped in the circular drive, acting surprised. He was wearing golf clothes, and the expression on his face showed that he was about as pleased to see her as a heavily sliced drive into the woods.

  “Nice job on the arrest up in Boston,” Stratton said, getting out of the car. “Don’t suppose, in all that time you and Kelly got to spend together, you managed to come up with anything on my art?”

  “We have lines out to dealers and police agencies all over the world,” Ellie said, trying not to scowl. “Nothing’s turned up on the radar so far.”

  “Nothing on the radar, huh?” Stratton smiled behind Oakley sunglasses. “Well, let me let you in on a little secret. . . .” He leaned close and whispered sharply in Ellie’s ear, “They’re not here!”

  Stratton headed into the house and Ellie followed. A housemaid came up and handed him a few messages. “And what about t
hat little friend of yours? The lifeguard who managed to break through my security? Is he under the radar, too?”

  “I guess that’s why I’m here,” Ellie said, her voice echoing in the huge alcove. “Truth is, we’re not certain anyone actually broke through your security.”

  Stratton turned around, exasperated. He raised his shades up on his bald brow. “I would’ve thought that having a gun held to your head by this man would have rid you of that ‘inside job’ theory. How many has he killed now? Five, six? I admit I didn’t go to detectives school, but it’s not exactly a stretch to think maybe he might have my paintings too.”

  Ellie felt her face muscles twitch. “I’ll only take a minute of your time.”

  Stratton glanced at his watch. “I have a lunch meeting at Club Collette in about twenty minutes. I guess that leaves me about one minute to hear your latest brainstorm.”

  Ellie followed him, uninvited, into his study and Stratton threw himself behind the desk into a tufted leather chair.

  “You remember I was questioning why the alarm cable was cut, even after the maid recalled that intruders had the interior code?” Ellie took a seat across from him and opened her satchel.

  He circled his hand impatiently. “Surely we’ve gone beyond that one?”

  “We will,” Ellie said, producing a manila envelope. “Once we can figure out what to do with this.”

  She pulled out a plastic evidence bag and placed it on the desk in front of him. Inside was a flattened-out piece of paper. Stratton looked at it, and the cocky smirk on his face melted away.

  10-02-85. His alarm code.

  “It’s not exactly a stretch, is it,” Ellie said, biting her lip, “for us to be puzzled why your thieves had such an avid interest in the date of your first IPO?”

  “Where did you find this?” Stratton’s face grew taut.

  “On one of the bodies of the people murdered in Lake Worth,” Ellie replied. “I think I asked you before if you could provide a list of everyone who had access to your alarm code. I believe you mentioned a caretaker, the housekeeper, your daughter, Mrs. Stratton, of course. . . .”

  Stratton shook his head, as if amused. “You really fancy yourself a hotshot detective, don’t you, Agent Shurtleff?”

  Ellie felt her spine tighten. “Sorry?”

  “You have a degree in art,” Stratton said. “Your job is to assist other agents in matters of provenance, I believe, and authenticity. I imagine it must be very difficult for you to have such an admiration for beauty and have to spend your life chasing down the wonderful objects that other people own?”

  “My job is to uncover fakes,” Ellie said, shrugging. “Whether they’re on canvas or not.”

  There was a knock on the door. Liz Stratton stuck her head in. “Excuse me.” She smiled at Ellie, then a little dully to Stratton. “Dennis, the tent people are here.”

  “I’ll be right there. . . .” He looked up at her and smiled. Then back to Ellie: “I’m afraid our money-wasting moment is over now, Agent Shurtleff.” He stood up. “We’re getting the house ready for a little gathering Saturday night. The Shoreline Preservation League, wonderful cause. You should come. We just got our settlement from the insurance company. There’ll be all sorts of new art on the walls. I’d like your opinion.”

  “Sure,” Ellie said. “You overpaid.”

  Stratton kept looking at her with a smug smile. He put his hand in his trouser pocket and came out with a wad of bills, credit cards, some change and left it on the desk. “As long as we understand: one of my jobs, Agent Shurtleff, is to protect my family from people making accusations about our private affairs.”

  Ellie scooped up the evidence bag and was about to put it back in the envelope. Something made her stop and stare.

  “You a golfer, Mr. Stratton?”

  “Play at it, Agent Shurtleff.” Stratton smiled. “Now if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  Among the wad of bills and loose change Stratton had dumped on his English leather desk was a black golf tee.

  Chapter 47

  WHEN I LEFT PHILLY’S, I jumped in Dave’s Subaru. I figured I had some time before the bodies were detected—a day, at most—and by then I had to be miles away. But miles where?

  I drove wildly, seeing over and over again the horrible image of my brother sitting there like some kind of gutted animal. Knowing I had dragged him into this. Seeing his stuff all over the car—schoolbooks, a pair of beat-up Nikes, CDs, Dave’s Muzak.

  I ditched the car in some podunk town in North Carolina and found some salesman in a used-car lot who sold me a twelve-year-old Impala for $350, no questions asked. I went into the men’s room of a roadside diner and dyed my hair. Then I carefully sheared most of it off.

  When I looked in the mirror, I was a different person. My thick blond hair was gone. Along with a lot of other things.

  I thought about ending my life on that trip. Just making a turn off some remote stop on the highway, driving this old ruin of a car off a cliff, if I could find a cliff. Or a gun. That actually made me laugh. There I was, wanted for seven murders and I didn’t have a gun!

  And I might have—ended it on that trip. But if I did, everyone would think I was guilty and had killed the people I loved. And if I did, who would look for their murderer? So I thought maybe I’d just go back to Florida, where it all had started.

  In a twisted way it made sense. I’d show them. The cops, the FBI, the whole world. I didn’t do it, didn’t kill anyone—well, except that one murderer up North.

  So about a day later I rumbled my clunker over the Okeechobee Bridge into Palm Beach. I parked across from the Brazilian Court. I sat staring at the yellow-hued building, smelling the breeze off the gardens, realizing I’d come to the end of my journey—right where it all had started.

  I closed my eyes, hoping some karmic wisdom would hit me about exactly what to do next.

  And when I opened my eyes, I saw my sign.

  There was Ellie Shurtleff coming out the front door.

  Chapter 48

  THERE WERE A couple of ways she could play it, Ellie decided.

  Turn what she had found over to Moretti and let him handle it. After all, the Tess McAuliffe homicide wasn’t even their case. Or toss it in the lap of the Palm Beach PD. But Ellie had already seen the star treatment Stratton seemed to get from them.

  Or she could do what every cell in her body was crying out to do.

  Take it a step forward. Just one or two more steps . . . What could that hurt?

  She had the assistant she shared at the office print a photo of Stratton from the Internet and jammed it in her purse. She left word for Moretti that she was headed out for a few hours. Then Ellie climbed in her office Crown Vic and headed up the highway, back to Palm Beach.

  She knew Moretti would have a coronary, and a smile crossed Ellie’s lips: Fuck the art!

  Crossing over the bridge on Okeechobee, she headed for the Brazilian Court. It was a whole lot quieter now than a few days before.

  Ellie went into the lobby. An attractive blond guy was behind the reception desk. Ellie flashed the FBI badge hanging loosely around her neck. She showed the man Dennis Stratton’s picture. “Any chance you’ve seen this person around here?”

  The desk clerk studied it for a second and then shrugged no. He showed it to a colleague. She shook her head. “Maybe you want to show it to Simon. He works nights.”

  Ellie flashed the photo around to the door staff and then the restaurant manager. She showed it to a couple of waiters. Everybody shook his head, no. It was a long shot, Ellie reminded herself. Maybe she’d come back at night and try Simon.

  “Hey, I know that dude,” one of the room-service waiters said. She’d found him in the kitchen. His eyes lit up as soon as he saw the face. “That’s Ms. McAuliffe’s friend.”

  Ellie blinked. “You’re sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure,” the waiter, Jorge, exclaimed. “He comes around here every once in a while. Good tipper. Gave me twenty buc
ks to pop a bottle of champagne.”

  “You’re saying they were friends?” Ellie asked, feeling her pulse come alive.

  “You could call them friends.” Jorge tossed a smile. “Like, I gotta learn how to get me some friends like that, too. Hard to figure, short bald dude with someone who looked like that. Gotta figure he had bucks, right?”

  “Yeah.” Ellie nodded. “Lotta bucks, Jorge.”

  Chapter 49

  I TURNED THE IMPALA into a half-full lot on Military Trail south of Okeechobee. Next to Vern’s Tank and Tummy and Seminole Pawn, a long way from the mansions on the beach.

  The place looked more like some run-down shipping office or one of those whitewashed stucco huts that housed seedy, ambulance-chasing lawyers. Only the handful of retuned Vespas on the sidewalk and the cracked Yamaha sign in the window gave it away.

  Geoff’s Cycles. NATIONAL MINI RACING CHAMPION. 1998.

  I parked the car and stepped inside. No one at the counter. I heard the sound of an engine being revved in the back. I wedged through shelves of helmet boxes into the garage. I saw a half-finished bottle of Pete’s Wicked Ale on the floor and pair of beat-up Addidases sticking out from under a gleaming Ducati 999. The engine revved again.

  I kicked the sneakers. “That thing run like an old lady having a coughing fit, or does it just sound like one?”

  An oily face wheeled out from under the blocks. Close-cropped orange hair and a fuzzy smile. “Dunno, mate. Guess that depends on how fast the old bag can run.”

  Then his eyes bulged as wide as if I’d crawled out of a crypt in Dawn of the Dead. “Holy Shit, Ned!”

  Geoff Hunter dropped the wrench and hopped to his feet. “It is you, Ned. Not some body double for Andrew Cunanan?’

  “It’s me,” I said, taking a step forward. “Whatever’s left.”