Lifeguard

your job to nose around here a bit, make a few notes, then go back to the of?ce and ?le some report before you break for the day…”

Ellie felt the blood boil in her veins.

“But I don’t want this tossed up the chain of command in a memo that gets dropped on some regional director’s desk. I want my paintings back. Every single one of them. I want the top people in the department working on this. The money means nothing here. These paintings were insured for sixty million…”

Sixty million? Ellie smiled to herself. Maybe forty, at the most. People always have an in?ated impression of what they own. The Cezanne still life was ordinary. She’d seen it come up at auctions several times, never commanding more than the reserve. The Picasso was from the Blue Period, when he was turning out paintings just to get laid. The Pollock – well, the Pollock was good, Ellie had to admit. Someone had steered him right there.

“But what they took here is irreplaceable.” Stratton kept his eyes on her. “And that includes the Gaume. If the FBI isn’t up to it, I’ll get my own people involved. I can do that, you understand. Tell that to your superiors. You get the right people on it for me. Can you do that, Agent Shurtleff?”

“I think I have what I need,” Ellie said. She folded the inventory into her notes. “Just one thing. Can I ask who set the alarm when you went out last night?”

“The alarm?” Stratton shrugged. He glanced at his wife. “I don’t know that we did. Lila was here. Anyway, the interior alarms are always activated. These paintings were connected straight to the local police. We’ve got motion detection. You saw the setup down there.”

Ellie nodded. She packed her notes in her briefcase. “And who else knew the code?”

“Liz. Me. Miguel, our property manager, Lila. Our daughter, Rachel, who’s at Princeton.”

Ellie looked at him closely. “The interior alarm, I meant.”

Stratton tossed down his papers. Ellie saw a wrinkle carved into his brow. “What are you suggesting? That someone knew the code? That that’s how they got in here?”

He started to get red in the face. He looked over at Lawson. “What’s going on here, Vern? I want quali?ed people looking into this. Professionals, not some junior agent, making accusations…I know the Palm Beach cops are sitting on their hands. Can’t we do something about this?”

“Mr. Stratton,” the Palm Beach detective said, looking uncomfortable, “it’s not like this was the only thing going on last night. Five people were killed.”

“Just one more thing,” Ellie said, headed for the door. “You mind telling me what the interior alarm code was?”

“The alarm code,” Stratton said, his lips tightening. She could see he resented this. Stratton was used to snapping his ?ngers and seeing people jump. “Ten, oh two, eighty-?ve,” he recited slowly.

“Your daughter’s birthday?” Ellie asked, trying a hunch.

Dennis Stratton shook his head. “My ?rst IPO.”

Chapter 20

JUNIOR AGENT. Ellie seethed as the butler closed the front door behind her and she stepped onto the long pebbled drive.

She’d seen a lot of big-time houses over the years. Problem was, they were usually ?lled with big-time assholes. Just like this rich clown. She was reminded that this was what made her want to leave Sotheby’s in the ?rst place. Rich prima donnas and jerks like Dennis Stratton.

Ellie climbed into her of?ce Crown Vic and called in to Special Agent in Charge Moretti, her superior at C-6, the Theft and Fraud division. She left word that she was headed to check out some homicides. As Lawson had said, ?ve people were dead. And 60 million in art had disappeared the same night. Or at least 40…

It was only a short drive from Stratton’s over to the Brazilian Court. Ellie had actually been there once when she had ?rst moved down, for brunch at the Cafe Boulud, with her eighty-year-old aunt, Ruthie.

At the hotel, she badged her way past the police and the press vans gathered outside and made her way to room 121 on the ?rst ?oor. The Bogart Suite. It reminded Ellie that Bogart and Bacall, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Garbo had all stayed at this hotel.

A Palm Beach cop was guarding the door. She ?ashed her FBI ID to the usual look – a long, scrutinizing stare at the photo and then her again – as if the cop were some skeptical bouncer checking fake IDs.

“It’s real.” Ellie let her eyes linger on him, slightly annoyed. “I’m real, too.”

Inside, there was a large living room decorated smartly in a sort of a tropical Bombay theme: British Colonial antique furniture, reproduction amaryllis prints, palm trees waving outside every window. A Crime Scene tech was spraying the coffee table, trying to dig up prints.

Ellie’s stomach shifted. She hadn’t done many homicides. Actually, she hadn’t done any – only tagged along as part of her training at Quantico.

She stepped into the bedroom. It didn’t matter that her badge said FBI, there was something really creepy about this: the room, completely undisturbed, precisely as it had been at the time of a grisly murder last night. C’mon, Ellie, you’re FBI.

She panned the room and didn’t have even the slightest idea what she was looking for. A sexy backless evening gown was draped across the rumpled bed. Dolce & Gabbana. A pair of expensive heels on the ?oor. Manolos. The gal had some money – and taste!

Something else caught her eye. Some loose change in a plastic evidence bag, already tagged. Something else – a golf tee. A black one, with gold lettering.

Ellie held the evidence Baggie close. She could make out lettering on the golf tee: Trump International.

“The FBI training tour isn’t scheduled for another forty minutes,” came a voice from behind, startling her.

Ellie spun around and saw a tan, good-looking guy in a sport jacket with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the bedroom door.

“Carl Breen,” the jacket said. “ Palm Beach PD. Violent Crimes. Relax,” he went on, smiling, “it’s a compliment. Most of the feds who come through here look like they were stamped out of of?cers training school.”

“Thanks,” Ellie said, smoothing out her pants, adjusting her holster, which was digging into her waist.

“So what brings the FBI to our little playpen? Homicide’s still a local statute, isn’t it?”

“Actually, I’m looking into a robbery. An art theft, from one of the big estates down the road. Up the road, I guess.”

“Art detail, huh?” Breen nodded with a kind of a grin. “Just checking up that the local drones are holding up our end?”

“Actually, I was looking to see if any of these murders tied in, in any way,” Ellie answered.

Breen took his hands out of his pockets. “Tied in to the art theft. Let’s see…” He glanced around. “There’s a print over there on the wall. That the kind of thing you’re looking for?”

Ellie felt a slap of blood rush to her cheeks. “Not quite, but it’s good to know you have an eye for quality, Detective.”

The detective grinned to let her know he was just kidding. He had a nice smile, actually. “Now if you said Sex Crimes, we’d be humming. Some Palm Beach social whirl. She’s been camped here for a couple of months. People going in and out every day. I’m sure when we ?nd out who’s footing the bill, it’ll be some trust fund or something.”

He led Ellie down the corridor to the bathroom. “You may want to hold your breath. I’m pretty sure van Gogh never painted anything like this.”

There was a series of crime-scene photos taped to the tile walls. Horri?c ones. The deceased. The poor girl’s eyes wide and her cheeks in?ated out like tires. Naked. Ellie tried not to wince. She was very pretty, she thought. Exceptional. “She was raped?”

“Jury’s still out,” the Palm Beach cop said, “but see those sheets over there? Those stains don’t look like applesauce. And the preliminary on the scene indicates she was dilated like she’d had sex minutes before. Call it a guess, but I’m ?guring whoever did this was on some terms with her.”