Lifeguard

“You can’t” – I dropped my head – “help. No one can now.” I wanted to run up and give him a hug, but I was so nervous and all mixed up. I had to get out of there. “I want to thank you,” I said. I hopped in the Bonneville and turned the ignition. ”For trusting me, Sol. For everything…”

“Neddie,” I heard him call. “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. No problem is too big to solve. When a man needs friends, that’s not the time to run off…”

But I was at the gates before I could hear the rest. I saw him in the rearview mirror as I swung out of the driveway, driving off.

I was almost crying as I hit the Flagler Bridge. Leaving everything behind. Mickey, my friends, Tess…

Poor Tess. It was killing me, just remembering how we’d been together only hours before, when I thought things were ?nally working out for me. A million dollars and the girl of my dreams.

Your luck’s returned, Neddie-boy. I couldn’t help but laugh. The bad luck.

As I headed toward the Flagler Bridge, I could make out the shining towers of the Breakers lighting up the sky. I ?gured I had a day at most before my name surfaced. I didn’t even know exactly where I was going to go.

Someone had killed my best friends. Dr. Gachet, I don’t know what the hell kind of doctor you are, but you can be sure I’m gonna make you pay.

“ Split aces,” I muttered again grimly as I crossed the bridge, the bright lights of Palm Beach receding away. The perfect score. Yeah, right.

Part Two. ELLIE

Chapter 18

ELLIE SHURTLEFF WAS KNEELING in front of the security panel in the basement of Casa Del Oceano and shining a light on the clipped coaxial cable in her gloved hand.

Something didn’t make sense at this crime scene.

As the special agent in charge of the FBI’s new Art Theft and Fraud department for the south Florida region, she’d been waiting a long time for something like this. Sixty million in art reported stolen last night, right in her own backyard. Truth be told, Ellie was the department.

Since leaving New York eight months ago – and the assistant curator thing at Sotheby’s – Ellie had basically sat around the Miami of?ce, monitoring auction sales and Interpol wires, while other agents hauled in drug traf?ckers and money launderers. She was slowly starting to wonder, like everyone else in her family, if this had been a career move or a career disaster. Art theft wasn’t exactly a glamour assignment down there. Everybody else had law degrees, not MFAs.

Of course, there were bene?ts, she constantly reminded herself. The little bungalow down by the beach in Delray. Taking her ocean kayak out in the surf – year-round. And surely at the ten-year reunion get-together for the Columbia MFA class of 1996, she’d be the only one packing a Glock.

Ellie ?nally stood up. At barely ?ve-two and 105 pounds, with her short brown hair and tortoiseshell frames, she knew she didn’t look like an agent. At least, not one they let out of the lab much. The joke around the of?ce was that she had to get her FBI windbreaker from the kids’ department at Burdines. But she’d been second in her class at Quantico. She’d lit the charts in crime scene management and advanced criminal psychology. She was quali?ed with the Glock and could disarm somebody a foot taller.

It just happened she also knew a little about the stylistic antecedents of cubism as well.

And a bit about electrical wiring. She stared at the sheared cable. Okay, Ellie, why?

The housekeeper had speci?cally overheard the thieves putting in the alarm code. But the cable was cut. Both the interior and outside alarms. If they knew the code, why cut the cable? They had access; the house was shut down. The Palm Beach police seemed to have already made up their minds, and they were very good at this kind of thing. They’d dusted for prints. The thieves had been in the house for only minutes; they’d known exactly what to take. The police declared the three intruders in their stolen police uniforms brazen, professional thieves.

But no matter what the local cops thought, or how that asshole upstairs, Dennis Stratton, was ranting about his irreplaceable loss, two words had begun to worm their way into Ellie’s head:

Inside job.

Chapter 19

THE DENNIS STRATTON was sitting, legs crossed, in a well-cushioned wicker chair in the lavish sunroom overlooking the ocean. Multiple calls were lit up on the receiver and a cell phone was stapled to his ear. Vern Lawson, Palm Beach ’s head of detectives, was hovering close by, along with Stratton’s wife, Liz – a tall, attractive blonde in cream slacks and a pale blue cashmere sweater wrapped around her shoulders. A Latino housemaid ?itted in and out with a tray of iced tea.

A butler led Ellie into the room. Stratton ignored them both. Ellie was bemused by how the rich lived. The more money they had, the more padding and layers of swaddling they seemed to put between themselves and the rest of us. More insulation in the walls, thicker fortress bulwarks, more distance to the front door.

“Sixty million,” Dennis Stratton barked into the phone, “and I want someone down here today. And not some ?unky from the local of?ce with an art degree.”

He punched off the line. Stratton was short, well built, slightly balding on top, with intense, steely eyes. He was wearing a tight-?tting, sage green T-shirt over white linen pants. Finally he glared at Ellie as though she were some annoying junior accountant with a question about his taxes. “Find everything you need down there, Detective?”

“Special Agent,” Ellie said, correcting him.

“Special Agent.” Stratton nodded. He craned his neck toward Lawson. “Vern, you want to see if the ‘special agent’ needs to see any other part of the house.”

“I’m ?ne.” Ellie waved off the Palm Beach cop. “But if you don’t mind, I’d like to go over the list.”

“The list?” Stratton sighed, like, haven’t we already done this three times before? He slid a sheet of paper across a lacquered Chinese altar table Ellie pegged as early eighteenth century. “Let’s start with the Cezanne. Apples and Pears…”

“ Aix-en Provence,” Ellie interjected. “1881.”

“You know it?” Stratton came alive. “Good! Maybe you can convince these insurance idiots what it’s really worth. Then there’s the Picasso ?utist, and the large Pollock up in the bedroom. These sons of bitches knew just what they were doing. I paid eleven million for that alone.”

Overpaid. Ellie clucked a little. Down there, some people tried to buy their way into the social circuit through their art.

“And don’t forget the Gaume…” Stratton started to leaf through some papers on his lap.

“Henri Gaume?” Ellie said. She checked the list. She was surprised to see it there. Gaume was a decent postimpressionist, moderately collectible. But at thirty to forty thousand, a rounding error next to what else had been taken.

“My wife’s favorite, right, dear? It was like someone was trying to stab us right through the heart. We have to have it back. Look…” Stratton put on a pair of reading glasses, fumbling on Ellie’s name.

“Special Agent Shurtleff,” Ellie said.

“Agent Shurtleff.” Stratton nodded. “I want this perfectly clear. You seem like a thorough sort, and I’m sure it’s