Lifeguard

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 of?ce 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 ?fth, 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 ?ngerprints 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 ?le, 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.