Lifeguard

“LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT.” Special Agent in Charge Moretti stood up at his desk, staring at Ellie. His jaw had dropped in something between shock and disbelief. “You want me to bring in Dennis Stratton for questioning for murder?”

“Look,” Ellie said, taking out the evidence bag containing the black golf tee from Tess McAuliffe’s room. “You see this, George? When I questioned Stratton at his home, he took the same black golf tee out of his pocket. They’re from the Trump International Golf Club. Stratton’s a member there. It ties him to the scene.”

“It ties in a couple of hundred other people,” Moretti said, blinking. “I hear Rudy Giuliani’s a member. You want to bring him in too?”

Ellie nodded. “If he was having a relationship with Tess McAuliffe, George, yes.”

Ellie opened her ?le, placing Dennis Stratton’s photo on his desk. “I went back to the Brazilian Court and showed this around. He knew her, George. He more than knew her. They were having an affair.”

Moretti stared right through her. “You went around to a crime scene that’s not even our jurisdiction with a picture of one of the most prominent men in Palm Beach? I thought we had an understanding, Ellie. You don’t get to look into the dead people. You get to trace the art.”

“They’re tied together, George. The art, Stratton, Tess McAuliffe too. A waiter recognized him. They were having an affair.”

“And what would you like me to charge him with, Special Agent? Cheating on his wife?”

Moretti came around the desk and shut his door. Then he leaned on the edge of his desk, towering over her, like a reproving school principal.

“Dennis Stratton isn’t some punk you slap up against the wall without real evidence, Ellie. You went back to the Brazilian Court, overriding my orders, on a case that’s not even ours? You’ve been baiting this guy from the beginning. Now you want to bring him in. For murder?”

“He had a relationship with the victim. How do we not look into it?”

“I don’t quite get you, Ellie. We’ve got a suspect who put a goddamn gun to your head in Boston, whose prints are all over two murder scenes. Whose brother turns up dead and who turns out to have been with this McAuliffe gal the day she was killed. And it’s Dennis Stratton you want me to bring in?”

“Why would Kelly kill the girl? He was falling for her, George. Stratton’s lying, George. He didn’t come clean about knowing the victim. He didn’t mention it when the Palm Beach police were there.”

“How do you know he didn’t mention it to the Palm Beach PD?” Moretti asked. “Have you checked their depositions on the case?” Moretti blew out a frustrated breath. “I’ll run it by the PBPD. I give you my word. How’s that, okay? You’re just going to have to learn to trust that the agencies assigned to see these cases through are doing their job. Just like you have to do, right? Your job.”

“Yeah.” Ellie nodded. She had taken it as far as she could.

“Just one more thing…” Moretti added, putting his arm around Ellie’s shoulder as he ushered her to the of?ce door. “You ever go around me again on something like this, your next job’ll be investigating ‘going out of business’ sales for fraud in the stores down on Collins Avenue.

“Now that sure would be a waste of that fancy degree of yours, wouldn’t it, Special Agent Shurtleff?”

Ellie tucked the evidence folder under her arm. “Yes, sir,” she said, nodding, “it would be a waste.”

Chapter 51

ELLIE ROLLED HER KAYAK through a cresting wave, righting the craft as the next wave started to swell.

It was a beauty, and she held the kayak in a tight draw, climbing, anticipating the moment, as the wave peaked.

Then she hit the sucker hard. For a second Ellie hung there in stationary bliss, then released into the curl as though she were shot out of a rocket, cold spray slapping her face.

She was inside it, almost as if there were a tube. This is a ten. In the stillness, waiting for the wave to crash, she felt a hundred percent alive.

Finally the wave collapsed over her. She shot up, the kayak bucking in the air. She rode it for a few strokes, gliding in toward shore. Another wave bumped her from behind. Then Ellie slid up onto the beach. She shook the salt spray off her face.

A ten!

She thought about one more ride, then dragged the ?berglass craft out of the surf. She tucked it under her arm and headed back to the pink two-bedroom bungalow in Delray she rented, a block away.

These late-afternoon rides, after work, when the tide was high, were the only time Ellie could feel alone and free enough from the rest of the world to think. Really think. It was a bonus to moving down there: her own little world when something was troubling her. And it seemed as if everything were troubling her right now.

She knew Moretti wasn’t going to do crap about Stratton’s connection to Tess. They already had Ned wrapped up with a yellow ribbon. Fingerprints, a connection to the victims, kidnapping a federal of?cer.

Be a good little agent, Ellie said to herself. As Moretti said, this Tess McAuliffe thing, it wasn’t even their case.

Something drifted into her mind, something her grandfather used to say. He was one of those self-made men who had battled mobsters in the thirties. He called the bad guys “crumb-bums.” And he had built a small blouse factory into a large sportswear ?rm.

When life boxes you in a corner, he would always say, box back!

Ellie was sure that bastard Stratton was involved somehow. In the theft of his own art, maybe in Tess’s murder. The way he laughed at her, it was almost as if he were egging her on. Find something on me. I dare you.

So ?nd something, Ellie. She dragged the ?berglass kayak up to her porch.

Box back!

Like that’s so easy, right? Still in her tight-?tting neoprene suit, Ellie rinsed the salt off the craft’s hull.

She was in the FBI, not the blouse business. There was a chain of command. She had this well-de?ned job. Someone she reported to. This wasn’t just some hunch she was following up on. This was going over people’s heads.

It was her career.

Ellie leaned the kayak against the wall and peeled off her rubber river shoes, shaking the spray out of her hair. That sure would be a waste of that fancy degree of yours, wouldn’t it? Moretti had sniffed. She was losing ground with him every day. And Ned? Why was she doing this?

“What’re you trying to do,” she muttered, shaking her head, exasperated, “let this guy destroy your career?”

She heard a voice from behind, scaring the wits out of her. Ellie spun around.

“Be careful what you wish for, Ellie…You never know what the tide will roll in.”

Chapter 52

“JESUS, NED!” Ellie’s eyes grew wide.

Or at least it looked like Ned, with his hair short and darker, and a four-day growth on his chin.

“Don’t be scared.” Ned put up his hand. “No abductions this time, Ellie. I swear.”

Ellie wasn’t scared. Just angry and aware this time. Her training kicked in. Her eyes darted to her holster on the coat-rack just inside the kitchen. This time, she was thinking, she was going to be the one in control.

She bolted toward the kitchen. Ned ran after, catching her by the arm. “Ellie, please…”