Lifeguard

Chapter 18

ELLIE SHURTLEFF WAS KNEELING in front of the security panel in the basement of Casa Del Océano 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 office, monitoring auction sales and Interpol wires, while other agents hauled in drug traffickers 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 benefits, 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 finally stood up. At barely five-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 office 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 qualified 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 specifically 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 flitted 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 flunky from the local office 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-fitting, 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 fine.” 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 Cézanne. 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 flutist, 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 your job to nose around here a bit, make a few notes, then go back to the office and file 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 inflated impression of what they own. The Cézanne 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 qualified 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 fingers and seeing people jump. “Ten, oh two, eighty-five,” he recited slowly.

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

Dennis Stratton shook his head. “My first 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 filled 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 first place. Rich prima donnas and jerks like Dennis Stratton.

Ellie climbed into her office 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, five 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 first moved down, for brunch at the Café 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 first floor. 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 flashed 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 floor. 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 officers 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 find 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. Horrific ones. The deceased. The poor girl’s eyes wide and her cheeks inflated 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 figuring whoever did this was on some terms with her.”

“Yeah.” Ellie swallowed. Clearly Breen was right. She was probably wasting her time there.

“The tech on the scene pegged it between five and seven o’clock last night. What time your robbery take place?”

“Eight-fifteen,” Ellie said.

“Eight-fifteen, huh?” Breen smiled and elbowed her, friendly, not condescending. “Can’t say I’m much of an art expert, Special Agent, but I’m thinking, this tie-in of yours might just be a bit of a reach. What about you?”

Chapter 21

SHE FELT A LITTLE BIT like a jerk. Angry at herself, embarrassed. The Palm Beach detective had actually tried to be helpful.

As Ellie climbed back in her car, her cheeks flushed and grew hot again. Art detail. Did it have to be so totally obvious that she was out of her element?

Next was the run-down house in Lake Worth, just off the Interstate, where four people in their twenties and early thirties had been killed, execution-style. This one was a totally different scene. Much worse. A quadruple homicide always got national attention. Press vans and police vehicles still blocked off a two-block radius around the house. It seemed that every cop and Crime Scene tech in south Florida was buzzing inside.

As soon as she stepped inside the yellow shingled house, Ellie had trouble breathing. This was really bad. The outlines of three of the victims were chalked out on the floor of the sparsely furnished bedroom and kitchen. Blotches of blood and stuff Ellie knew was even worse were still sprayed all over the floors and thinly painted walls. A wave of nausea rolled in her stomach. She swallowed. This is one hell of a long way from an MFA.

Across the room, she spotted Ralph Woodward from the local office. Ellie went over, glad to find a familiar face.

He seemed surprised to see her. “What’re you thinking, Special Agent,” he asked, rolling his eyes around the stark room, “slap a few pictures on the walls, a plant here and there, and you’d never know the place, right?”

Ellie was getting tired of hearing this crap. Ralph wasn’t such a bad guy really, but jeez.

“Thinking drugs, myself.” Ralph Woodward shrugged. “Who else kills like this?”

A review of their IDs pegged the victims from the Boston area. They all had sheets – petty crimes and B-class felonies. Break-ins, auto thefts. One of them had worked part-time at the bar at Bradley’s, a hangout near the Intracoastal in West Palm. Another parked cars at one of the local country clubs. Another, Ellie winced when she read the report, was female.

She spotted Palm Beach ’s head of detectives, Vern Lawson, coming into the house. He chatted for a second with a few officers, then caught her eye. “A bit out of your field, Special Agent Shurtleff?”

He sidled up to Woodward as if they were old chums. “Got a minute, Ralphie?”

Ellie watched as the two men huddled near the kitchen. It occurred to her that maybe they were talking about her. Fuck ’em, if they are. This was her case. No one was bouncing her. Sixty million in stolen art, or whatever the hell it was, wasn’t exactly petty theft.

Ellie went up to a series of crime photos. If staring at Tess McAuliffe in the tub had made her stomach turn, this almost brought up breakfast. One victim had been dropped right at the front door, shot through the head. The guy with the red hair was shot at the kitchen table. Shotgun. Two were killed in the bedroom, the heavyset one through the back, maybe trying to flee; and the girl, huddled in the corner, probably begging for her life, a straight-on blast. Bullet and shotgun marks were numbered all over the walls.

Drugs? Ellie took a breath. Who else kills like this?

Feeling a little useless, she started to make her way to the door. They were right. This wasn’t her terrain. She also felt a need to get some air.

Then she saw something on the kitchen counter that made her stop.

Tools.

A hammer. A straight-edge file. A box cutter.

Not just tools. They wouldn’t have meant a thing to someone else, but to Ellie, they were standard utensils for a task she’d seen performed a hundred times. For opening a frame.

Jesus, Ellie started thinking.

She headed back to the crime photos again. Something clicked. Three male victims. Three male thieves at Stratton’s. She looked more closely at the photos. Something she was just seeing. If she hadn’t been at both crime scenes, she wouldn’t have noticed.

Each of the male victims had been wearing the same black laced shoes.

Ellie forced her mind back to the black-and-white security film at Casa Del Océano. Then she glanced around the room.

A dozen or so cops, guarding the scene. She looked more closely. Her heart started to race.

Police shoes.

Chapter 22

THE ROBBERS HAD BEEN dressed as cops, right? Score one for the fine-arts grad.

Ellie glanced around the crowded room. She saw Woodward over by the kitchen, still huddled with Lawson. She pushed her way through. “Ralph, I think I found something…”

Ralph Woodward had that easygoing southern way of brushing you off with a smile. “Ellie, just give me a second…” Ellie knew he didn’t take her seriously.

All right, if they wanted her to go it alone, she would.

Ellie dropped a badge on one of the local homicide detectives who was identified as primary on the scene. “I was wondering if you guys found anything interesting? In the closets, or the car? Police uniforms, maybe a Maglite flashlight?”

“Crime lab took the car,” the detective said. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Of course, Ellie said to herself. They weren’t really looking. Or maybe the perps ditched them. But this feeling she had was building.

There were chalk outlines and flags identifying each victim. And evidence bags containing whatever they had on them.

Ellie started in the bedroom. Victim number three: Robert O’ Reilly. Shot in the back. She held up the evidence bag. Just a few dollars. A wallet. Nothing more. Next, the girl. Diane Lynch. The same wedding ring as Robert O’Reilly. She emptied out her purse. Just some keys, a receipt from Publix. Nothing much.

Shit.

Something urged her to go on, even though she had no idea what she was looking for. The male at the kitchen table. Michael Kelly. Blown back against the wall, but still sitting in his chair. She picked up the plastic evidence bag next to him. Car keys, money clip with about fifty bucks.

There was also a tiny piece of paper, folded up. She moved it in the bag. Looked like numbers.

She stretched on a pair of latex gloves and took the piece of paper out of the bag. She let the scrap unfold.

A surge of validation rushed through her.

10-02-85.

More than just numbers. Dennis Stratton’s alarm code.

Chapter 23

I DROVE NORTH, straight through the night, pushing my old Bonneville at a steady seventy-five on I-95. I wanted to put as much distance as I could between me and Palm Beach. I’m not sure I even blinked until I hit the Georgia- South Carolina line.

I pulled off the highway at a place called Hardeeville, a truck stop with a huge billboard sign that advertised YOU’RE PASSING THE BEST SHORT STACK IN THE SOUTH.

Exhausted, I filled up the car and took an empty booth in the restaurant. I looked around, seeing only a few bleary-eyed truckers gulping coffee or reading the paper. A jolt of fear. I didn’t know if I was a wanted man or not.

A red-haired waitress with DOLLY on her nametag came up and poured me a sorely needed cup of coffee. “Goin’ far?” she asked in an amiable southern drawl.

“I sure hope so,” I replied. I didn’t know if my picture was on the news or if someone meeting my eye would recognize me. But the smell of maple and biscuits got to me. “Far enough that those pancakes sure sound good.”

I ordered a coffee to go with them and went into the men’s room. A heavyset trucker squeezed past me on his way out. Alone, I stared in the mirror and was stunned by the face looking back at me: haggard, bloodshot eyes, scared. I realized I was still in the pitted-out T-shirt and jeans I’d been wearing when I tripped the alarms the night before. I splashed cold water over my face.

My stomach groaned, making an ugly noise. It dawned on me that I hadn’t eaten since lunch with Tess the previous day.

Tess… Tears started in my eyes again. Mickey and Bobby and Barney and Dee. God, I wished I could just turn back the clock and have every one of them alive. In one horrifying night, everything had changed.

I grabbed a USA Today at the counter and sat back in the booth. As I spread the paper on the table, I noticed that my hands were shaking. Reality was starting to hit. The people I trusted most in my life were dead. I had relived the nightmare of the previous night a hundred times in the past six hours – and each time it got worse.

I started to leaf through the paper. I wasn’t sure if I was hoping I would find something or not. Mostly, a lot of articles on the situation in Iraq and the economy. The new interest-rate cut.

I turned the page and my eyes nearly popped out of my head.

DARING ART THEFT AND MURDER SPREE IN PALM BEACH

I folded back the page.

The posh and stately resort town of Palm Beach was shattered last night by a string of violent crimes, beginning with the drowning of an attractive woman in her hotel suite, followed by a brazen break-in and the theft of several priceless paintings from one of the town’s most venerable mansions, and culminating hours later in the execution-style murder of four people in a nearby town.

Police say they have no direct leads in the brutal series of crimes, and at this point do not know if they are related.

I didn’t understand. Theft of priceless paintings… Dee said the job had been a bust.

I read on. The names of the people killed. Normally, it’s just abstract, names and faces. But this was so horribly real. Mickey, Bobby, Barney, Dee… and, of course, Tess.

This is no dream, Ned. This is really happening.

The article went on to describe how three valuable works of art were stolen from the forty-room mansion, Casa Del Océano, owned by businessman Dennis Stratton. Valued at a possible $60 million, the theft of the unnamed paintings was one of the largest art heists in U.S. history.

I couldn’t believe it.

Stolen? We had been set up. We’d been set up royally.

My pancakes came, and they did look great, as advertised.

But I was no longer hungry.

The waitress filled my coffee and asked, “Everything all right, hon?”

I tried my best to smile and nod, but I couldn’t answer. A new fear was invading my brain.

They’ll make the connection to me.

Everything was going to come out. I wasn’t reasoning very well, but one thing was clear: Once the police went to Sollie, they would make my car.

Chapter 24

FIRST THING, I had to get rid of my car.

I paid the check and drove the Bonneville down the road into a strip mall, where I tossed the plates into the woods and cleaned out anything that could be traced to me. I walked back into town and stood in front of a tiny Quonset hut that was the town’s bus depot. Man, paranoia was now my middle name.

An hour later, I was on a bus to Fayetteville, North Carolina – headed north.

I guess I knew where I was going all along. At a lunch counter at the Fayetteville station, I chomped down a desperately needed burger and fries, avoiding the eyes of everyone I saw, as if people were taking a mental inventory of my face.

Then I hopped a late-night Greyhound heading to all points north: Washington, New York.

And Boston. Where the hell else would I go?

That’s where the score started, right?

Mostly I just slept and tried to figure out what I was going to do when I got there. I hadn’t been home in four years now. Since my Big Fall from Grace. I knew my father was sick now, and even before, when he wasn’t, he wasn’t exactly the Rock of Gibraltar. Not if you count convictions of everything from receiving stolen goods to bookmaking, and three stints up at the Souz in Shirley.

And Mom… Let’s just say she was always there. My biggest fan. At least, after my older brother, John Michael, was killed robbing a liquor store. That left just me and my younger brother, Dave. You won’t be following in anybody’s footsteps, Ned, she made me promise early on. You don’t have to be like your father – or your big brother. She bailed me out of trouble half a dozen times. She picked me up from the Catholic Youth Organization hockey practices at midnight.

That was the real problem now. I didn’t look forward to seeing her face when I sneaked my way home. I was going to break her heart.

I changed buses twice. In Washington and New York. At every sudden stop my heart would clutch, freeze. This is it, I figured. There was a roadblock, and they were going to pull me off! But there never were any roadblocks. Towns and states passed by, and none too fast for me.

I found myself daydreaming a lot. I was the son of a small-time crook, and here I was returning – wanted, a big-time screwup. I’d even outdone my old man. I’d have surely been in the system growing up, just like Mickey and Bobby, if I didn’t know how to skate. Hockey had opened doors for me. The Leo J. Fennerty Award as the best forward in the Boston CYO. A full ride to BU. More like a lottery ticket. Until I tore up my knee my sophomore year.

The scholarship went with it, but the university gave me a year to prove I could stay. And I did. They probably thought I was just some dumb jock who would drop out, but I started to see a larger world around me. I didn’t have to go back to the old neighborhood and wait for Mickey and Bobby to get out of jail. I started to read, really read, for the first time in my life. To everyone’s amazement, I actually graduated – with honors. In government. I got this job teaching eighth-grade social studies at Stoughton Academy, a place for troubled youths. My family couldn’t believe it. They actually pay a Kelly to be in the classroom?

Anyway, that all ended. In a single day – just like this.

Past Providence, everything began to grow familiar. Sharon, Walpole, Canton. Places where I had played hockey as a kid. I was starting to get really nervous. Here I was, back home. Not the kid who’d gone off to BU. Or the one who’d been practically run out of town – and wound up in Florida.

But a hunted man, with a collar on a whole lot bigger than my old man ever managed to earn.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I was thinking as the bus hissed to a stop at the Atlantic Avenue terminal in Boston. Even when you throw it.

Even when you throw it as far as you can.

Chapter 25

“SPECIAL AGENT SHURTLEFF put the whole thing together,” Ellie’s boss, George Moretti, said, and shrugged, like, Can you believe it? to Hank Cole, the assistant director in charge. The three of them were in his top-floor office in Miami.

“She recognized implements at the murder scene that could be used for prying open picture frames. Then she found numbers in the victims’ personal effects that matched Stratton’s alarm code. We located the stolen uniforms a short time later, stuffed in a bag in a car down the street.”

“Seems you finally put that art degree to some real use, Special Agent Shurtleff,” ADIC Cole said, beaming.

“It was just having access to both crime scenes,” Ellie said, a little nervous. This was the first time she had been in front of the ADIC for any reason.

“The victims were all acquainted, from the Boston area with minor rap sheets.” Moretti slid a copy of the preliminary report across his boss’s desk. “Nothing like a crime of this magnitude ever before. There’s another member of this group who lived down here who’s apparently missing.” He pushed a photo over. “One Ned Kelly. He didn’t show up for his shift at a local bar last night. Not surprising – since police up in South Carolina found an old Bonneville registered to him in some strip mall just off of I-95, four hundred miles north of here…”

“Good. This Kelly have a record?” the ADIC inquired.

“Juvie,” Moretti said, “expunged. But his father’s a different story. Three stints on everything from bookmaking to receiving stolen goods. As a matter of routine, we’re gonna flash the kid’s photo around that hotel in Palm Beach, where that other incident took place. You never know.”

“I actually took a look at that scene,” Ellie volunteered. She told her bosses that the times of death didn’t match up. Also, the Palm Beach police were treating the murder as a sex crime.

“Seems our agent here has designs on being a homicide detective as well,” Hank Cole said with a grin.

Ellie caught herself and took the dig, her cheeks coloring. They wouldn’t be anywhere on this case without me.

“Anyway, why don’t we just leave something for the local authorities to clean up.” Cole smiled at her. “So it seems this Ned Kelly may have ripped off his old buddies, huh? Well, he’s sure graduated to the big time now. So whatya think, Special Agent,” he said, turning to Ellie, “you ready to fly up North and put yourself on this guy?”

“Of course,” Ellie said. Whether they were condescending or not, she loved the attention of being on the A team for once.

“Any ideas where he’d be headed?”

Moretti shrugged. He went over to a wall map. “He’s got family, roots up there. Maybe a fence, too.” He pushed in a red pin. “We figure Boston, sir.”

“Actually,” said Ellie, “ Brockton.”

Chapter 26

KELTY’S, ON THE CORNER of Temple and Main in south Brockton, usually closed around midnight. After the Bruins’ postgame report or Baseball Tonight, or when Charlie, the owner, finally pushed the last jabbering regular away from his Budweiser.

Tonight, I was lucky. The lights dimmed at 11:35.

A few minutes afterward, a large guy with curly brown hair in a hooded Falmouth sweatshirt yelled, “Later, Charl,” and closed the door behind him as he stepped onto the sidewalk. He started to head down Main, a knapsack over his shoulder, leaning into the early April chill.

I followed on the other side of the street, a safe distance behind. Everything had changed around there. The men’s store and the Supreme B Donut Shop where we used to hang out were now a grungy Laundromat and a low-end liquor store. The guy I was following had changed, too.

He was one of those thick, strong-shouldered dudes with a cocky smile who could break your wrist arm wrestling if he wanted to. His picture was up in the local high school. He’d once been district champ at 180 pounds for Brockton High.

You better plan how you’re going to do this, Ned.

He made a left on Nilsson, crossing over the tracks. I followed, maybe thirty yards behind. Once, he looked back, maybe hearing footsteps, and I huddled in the shadows. The same rows of shabby, clapboard houses I’d passed a thousand times as a kid, looking even shabbier and more run-down now.

He turned the corner. On the left was the elementary school and Buckley Park, where we used to play Rat Fuck on the basketball courts for quarters. A block away on Perkins was the ruin of the old Stepover shoe factory, boarded up for years. I thought back to how we used to hide out in there from the priests and cut classes, smoke a little. When I turned at the corner, he wasn’t there!

Ah, shit, Neddie, I cursed myself. You never were any good at getting the jump on somebody.

And then I was the one being jumped!

Suddenly, I felt a strong arm tighten around my neck. I was jerked backward, a knee digging deep into my spine. The sonuvabitch was stronger than I remembered.

I flailed my arms to try and roll him over my back. I couldn’t breathe. I heard him grunting, applying more pressure, twisting me backward. My spine felt as if it were about to crack.

I started to panic. If I couldn’t spin out quickly, he was going to break my back.

“Who caught it?” he suddenly hissed into my ear.

“Who caught what?” I gagged for air.

He twisted harder. “Flutie’s Hail Mary. The Orange Bowl. 1984.”

I tried to force him forward, using my hips as leverage, straining with all my might. His grip just tightened. I felt a searing pain in my lungs.

“Gerard… Phelan,” I finally gasped.

Suddenly, the vise hold around my neck released. I fell to one knee, sucking in air.

I looked up into the smirking face of my younger brother, Dave.

“You’re lucky,” he said, grinning. Then he put out a hand to help me. “I was going to ask who caught Flutie’s last college pass.”

Chapter 27

WE HUGGED. Then Dave and I stood there and took a physical inventory of how we’d changed. He was much larger; he looked like a man now, not a kid. We slapped each other on the back. I hadn’t seen my baby brother in almost four years. “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” I said, and hugged him again.

“Yeah,” he said, grinning, “well, you’re making my eyes sore now.”

We laughed, the way we did when we were growing up, and locked hands, ghetto-style. Then his face changed. I could tell that he’d heard. Surely everyone had by now.

Dave shook his head sort of helplessly. “Oh, Neddie, what the hell went on down there?”

I took him into the park and, sitting on a ledge, told him how I had gone to the Lake Worth house and saw Mickey and our other friends being wheeled out in body bags.

“Ah, Jesus, Neddie.” Dave shook his head. His eyes grew moist, and he lay his head in his hands.

I put my arm around his shoulder. It was hard to see Dave cry. It was strange – he was younger by five years, but he was always so stable and centered, even when our older brother died. I was always all over the place; it was as though the roles were reversed. Dave was in his second year at BC Law School. The bright spot of the family.

“It gets worse.” I squeezed his shoulder. “I think I’m wanted, Dave.”

“Wanted?” He cocked his head. “You? Wanted for what?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe for murder.” This version I told him everything. The whole tale. I told him about Tess, too.

“What’re you saying?” Dave sat there looking at me. “That you’re up here on the run? That you were involved? You were part of this madness, Ned?”

“Mickey set it up,” I said, “but he didn’t know the kind of people who could pull it off down there. It had to have been directed from up here. Whoever it was, Dave, that’s the person who killed our friends. Until I prove otherwise, people are going to think it was me. But I think we both know” – I looked into his eyes, which were basically my eyes – “who Mickey was working with up here.”

“Pop? You’re thinking Pop had something to do with this?” He looked at me as if I were crazy. “No way. We’re talking Mickey, Bobby, and Dee. It’s Frank’s own flesh and blood. Besides, you don’t know – he’s sick, Ned. He needs a kidney transplant. The guy’s too sick to even be a hood anymore.”

I guess it was then that Dave squinted at me. I didn’t like the look in his eyes. “Neddie, I know you’ve been down on your luck a little…”

“Listen to me” – I took him by the shoulders – “look into my eyes. Whatever you may hear, Dave, whatever the evidence might say, I had nothing to do with this. I loved them just like you. I tripped the alarms, that’s all. It was stupid, I know. And I’m going to have to pay. But whatever you hear, whatever the news might say, all I did was set off a few alarms. I think Mickey was trying to make up for what happened at Stoughton.”

My brother nodded. When he looked up, I could see a different look in his face. The guy I had shared a room with for fifteen years, who I had beaten at one-on-one until he was sixteen, my flesh and blood. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing. You’re in law school.” I rapped him on the chin. “I may need your help if this gets bad.”

I stood up.

Dave did, too. “You’re going to see Pop, aren’t you?” I didn’t answer. “That’s stupid, Ned. If they’re looking for you, they’ll know.”

I tapped him lightly on the fist, then threw my arms around him and gave him a hug. My big little brother.

I started to jog down the hill. I didn’t want to turn, because I was afraid that if I did, I might cry. But there was something I couldn’t resist. I spun around when I was almost on Perkins. “It was Darren.”

“Huh?” Dave shrugged.

“Darren Flutie.” I grinned. “Doug’s younger brother. He caught Doug’s last pass in college.”

Chapter 28

I SPENT THE NIGHT in the Beantown Motel on Route 27 in Stoughton, a few miles up the road from Kelty’s bar.

The story was all over the late news. Brockton residents killed. The faces of my friends. A shot of the house in Lake Worth. Hard to get any sleep after that.

Eight o’clock the next morning I had a cab drop me off on Perkins, a couple of blocks from my parents’ house. I had on jeans and my old torn BU sweatshirt. I tucked my head under a Red Sox cap. I was scared. I knew everyone there, and even after four years, everyone knew me. But it wasn’t just that. It was seeing my mom again. After all these years. Coming home this way.

I was praying the cops weren’t there, too.

I hurried past familiar old houses, with their tilting porches and small brown yards. Finally, I spotted our old mint green Victorian. It looked a whole lot smaller than I remembered. And a lot worse for wear. How the hell did we all ever fit in this place? Mom’s 4Runner was in the drive. Frank’s Lincoln was nowhere around. I guess Thomas Wolfe was right about going home, huh?

I leaned against a lamppost and stared at the place for several minutes. Everything looked all right to me, so I snuck around to the back.

Through a kitchen window I saw my mom. She was already dressed, in a corduroy skirt and some Fair Isle sweater, sipping a cup of coffee. She still had a pretty face, but she looked so much older now. Why wouldn’t she? A lifetime of dealing with Frank “Whitey” Kelly had worn her down to this.

Okay, Ned, time to be a big boy… People you loved are dead.

I knocked on the glass pane of the back door. Mom looked up from her coffee. Her face turned white. She got up, nearly ran to the door, and let me in. “Mother of God, what are you doing here, Ned? Oh Neddie, Neddie, Neddie.”

We hugged and Mom held me as tightly as if I’d come back from the dead. “Poor kids…” She pressed her face against me. I could feel tears. Then she pulled back, wide-eyed. “Neddie, you can’t be here. The police have been around.”

“I didn’t do it, Mom,” I said. “Whatever they say, I swear to God. I swear on JM’s soul, I had nothing to do with what happened down there.”

“You don’t have to tell me.” My mother put her hand lightly on my cheek. She took off my cap and smiled at my mess of blond hair, the Florida tan. “You look fine. It’s so good to see you, Neddie. Even now.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Mom.”

And it was – to be back in the old kitchen. I felt free for a moment or two. I picked up an old Kodak print taped to the fridge. The Kelly boys. Dave, JM, me on the field behind Brockton High. JM in his red and black football jersey. Number 23. All-Section safety his junior year…

When I looked up, my mother was staring at me. “Neddie, you’ve got to turn yourself in.”

“I can’t.” I shook my head. “I will, eventually. But not yet. I have to see Pop. Where is he, Mom?”

“Your father?” She shook her head. “You think I know?” She sat down. “Sometimes I think he even sleeps at Kelty’s now. Things have gotten worse for him, Neddie. He needs a kidney transplant, but he’s past the age when our coverage is gonna pay for it. He’s sick, Neddie. Sometimes I think he just wants to die…”

“Trust me, he’ll be around long enough to bring you more misery,” I snorted.

Suddenly we heard the sound of a vehicle pulling up to the curb outside. A car door slamming shut. I was hoping it was Frank.

I went over to a window and pulled back the blinds.

It wasn’t my father.

Two men and a woman were coming up the driveway toward the house.

My mother rushed to the window. There was worry in her eyes.

We’d seen my father taken off to jail too many times not to recognize the law.

Chapter 29

BOTH OF US STARED wide-eyed at “twenty to life” in prison coming toward the house.

One of the agents, a black guy in a tan suit, peeled away from the other two and headed around back.

Shit, Neddie, think! What the hell do we do now…?

I’ve never felt my heart pounding the way it did for those seconds it took the agents to make their way up the stairs. It was useless to run.

“Neddie, turn yourself in,” my mother said again.

I shook my head. “No, I’ve got to find Frank.” I took my mother by the shoulders, a pleading glimmer in my eye. “I’m sorry…”

I pressed up against the wall next to the front door, not knowing what the hell I would do next. I didn’t have a weapon. Or a plan.

There was a knock at the door. “Frank Kelly?” a voice called. “Mrs. Kelly? FBI!”

My imagination was running wild but coming up with nothing that could help me. Three agents, one a woman. The female was tanned, which probably meant she’d come from Florida.

“Mrs. Kelly?” They knocked again. Through the blinds I could see a husky guy in front. My mother finally answered. She looked at me sort of helplessly. I nodded for her to open the door.

I closed my eyes for half a second. Please, don’t do the stupidest thing of your entire life.

But I went and did it anyway.

I barreled into the agent as soon as he walked through the door. We rolled onto the floor. I heard the guy grunt, and when I looked up, his handgun had slid out of his hand and was about four feet away. We both fixed on it. He, not knowing if a vicious killer had just gotten the jump on him. I, knowing once I made a move for that gun, my life as I knew it was over. I didn’t care about the woman, or the guy sneaking around to the back. I just went for the gun. There was no other way.

I rolled off him and wrapped both hands around the gun.

“Nobody moves!”

The agent was still on the floor. The woman – who was small and cute, actually – fumbled under her suit jacket for own weapon. The third agent had just made it through the back door.

“No!” I shouted, and extended the gun. The woman looked at me, her hand on her holster.

“Please… Please, don’t pull that out, now,” I told her.

“Please, Neddie,” my mother was begging me, “put the gun down. He’s innocent.” She looked at the agents. “Ned wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“I don’t want to hurt anybody,” I told them. “Now put your guns on the floor. Do it.”

They did what I asked, and then I scurried around, picking up the guns. I backed over to the sliding door and hurled them into the woods behind my house. Now, what the hell to do? I looked at my mom and gave her a half-hearted smile. “Guess I need to borrow the car.”

“Neddie, please…” My mother was begging again. She had already lost one son in a shoot-out. Poor John Michael.

I was dying inside, knowing how much I was hurting her. I went over to the pretty FBI agent. I could almost pick her up with one arm. As much as she was trying to look brave, I could see she was scared. “What’s your name?”

“Shurtleff.” The agent hesitated. “Ellie.”

“I’m sorry, Ellie Shurtleff, but you’re coming with me.”

The agent on the floor rose up. “No way. You’re not leaving with her. You take anyone, take me.”

“No,” I backed him down with the gun. “It’s her. She’s coming.”

I took her by the arm. “I’m not going to hurt you, Ellie, if this goes right.” Even in that crazy moment, I gave her the edge of a smile.

“I know this doesn’t mean much,” I said, turning back to the guy on the floor, “but I didn’t do what you came here to get me for.”

“There’s only one way to prove that,” the FBI man said.

“I know,” I said, nodding, “that’s why I’m doing this. I’ve got something to prove – I’m innocent.”

I took Agent Shurtleff by the arm and shoved open the door. The two other agents hung back as if they were suspended in midair. “I just want five minutes,” I said. “That’s all I ask. You’ll have her back as good as new. Her clothes won’t even be wrinkled. I didn’t kill those people down there. What happens next is up to you.”

I turned to my mom. “Guess it’s fair to say I won’t be around for dinner anytime soon.” I winked a good-bye. “Love you, Mom.”

Then we backed out the door, my arm locked on Agent Shurtleff’s. I took her down the steps. The FBI guys were already at the windows, one of them pulling out his phone. I opened the door to the 4Runner and pushed her in. “I’m just praying the keys are there.” I actually smiled. “Usually, they are.”

They were, thank God! I backed out the driveway. A few seconds later we were careening down Perkins, across the tracks, onto Main.

No lights yet. No sirens. There were a few ways out of town, and I figured the best way was north on Route 24.

I glanced behind and breathed a sigh of relief.

Nice work. You’ve just added kidnapping a federal agent to your résumé.

Chapter 30

“YOU SCARED?” this thug Ned Kelly turned and asked her, gunning the 4Runner north on Route 24. He held the gun loosely in his lap, pointed her way.

Scared? Ellie hesitated. The guy is wanted for questioning in a quadruple homicide!

Her mind ran through the hostage scenarios. There was probably some textbook thing she should say. Stay calm. Start a dialogue. She was sure there was an APB out on the car already. Every cop within fifty miles of Boston would be on the lookout. Finally, she just went with what she felt.

“Yeah, I’m scared,” Ellie said with a nod.

“Good,” he said, nodding back, “’cause I’m scared, too. Never done anything like this before. But you can relax. Honest. I’m not going to hurt you. I just needed to get out of there. I’ll even unlock the car. You can jump out the next time we stop… I’m not kidding. Good as my word.”

To Ellie’s amazement, she heard the automatic locks lift. There was an exit approaching, and he slowed at the upcoming ramp.

“Or” – he looked sort of helpless – “you can stick around for a while longer. Help me figure out how I’m going to get out of this mess.”

Kelly brought the car to a stop and waited for her to move.

“Go on. I figure I’ve got, what, about three minutes before every exit on this highway is covered with cops?”

Ellie looked at him, a little stunned. She placed her hand on the door latch. You’re being handed a gift, said a voice inside her. Take it! She’d been to the house in Lake Worth. She’d seen the blood and the slaughtered bodies. This guy was connected to the victims. He’d fled.

But something held her back. The guy had this scared, fatalistic smile.

“I wasn’t lying, what I said back there. I’m no killer. I had nothing to do with whatever went on down in Florida.”

“Taking a federal agent hostage doesn’t exactly strengthen your case,” Ellie said.

“They were my friends, my family. I’ve known all of them my whole life. I didn’t steal any paintings and I didn’t kill anyone. All I did was set off some alarms. Look”-he waved the gun – “I don’t even know how to use this fucking thing.”

It did look that way, Ellie thought. And she did recall a series of house alarms being triggered at mansions around town just prior to the theft. They assumed it was a diversion.

“Go on, get out.” Kelly took a look back. “I’m expecting company.”

But Ellie didn’t get out. She just sort of held there, looking at him. He didn’t seem so crazy all of a sudden. Just confused, scared. In way, way over his head. And somehow she didn’t feel so threatened. Cops were on their way. Maybe she could talk him in. Jesus, Ellie… This is a long way from the Rare Prints Department at Sotheby’s!

“Two,” Ellie looked at him, slowly releasing the door handle. “You’ve got about two minutes. Before every cop car south of Boston is here.”

Ned Kelly’s face seemed to brighten. “Okay,” he said.

“You tell me everything that happened down there,” Ellie said. “Maybe I can do something. Names, contacts. Everything you know about the robbery. You want to get out of this mess? That’s the only way.”

A halting smile crossed Ned Kelly’s face. In it, Ellie didn’t see some cold-blooded killer, just a guy who was as nervous as she was, who had dug himself a very deep hole he might never pull himself out of. She thought maybe she could gain his trust. Talk the guy in, with no one getting hurt. If the cops caught up to him now, she wasn’t sure what would happen.

“Okay,” he said.

“And if I were you, I’d keep that gun pointed at me every once in a while,” Ellie said. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. “They do teach us ways to disarm someone, you know.”

“Right.” Ned Kelly grinned nervously. He gunned the 4Runner up the ramp. “First thing we’d better do is ditch my mom’s car.”

Chapter 31

WE SWITCHED THE 4RUNNER for a Voyager minivan left running in a supermarket parking lot.

An old maneuver. Growing up, I’d watched Bobby pull it off a dozen times. The owner was just wheeling her shopping cart back to the market. With everything that was going on, I figured I had at least an hour before anyone would respond to the call.

“I can’t believe I just did that.” Ellie Shurtleff blinked, amazed, as a minute later we were cruising back on Route 24. The look on her face read, It’s one thing to stay with this guy, another thing entirely to be part of stealing someone’s car.

An evergreen car freshener was dangling from the rearview mirror. A yellow notepad fastened to the dash. On it was scribbled, Groceries. Manicure. Pick up the kids at 3:00. A bag of groceries bounced up in the back. Pizza puffs. And Count Chocula.

We looked at each other and almost laughed as the thought hit us at the same time: a wanted killer driving a minivan.

“Some getaway car,” she said, shaking her head. “A real Steve McQueen!”

I had no idea where to go next. But I figured the safest place was my little motel room back in Stoughton. Fortunately, it was a motor lodge, so I could get around to the room without going through the lobby.

I locked the door to the room behind us and shrugged. “Look, I have to pat you down.”

She rolled her eyes at me, like, What, are you kidding? Now?

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I never take advantage of an FBI agent on the first date.”

“You think if I was trying to apprehend you, I wouldn’t have done it by now?” Ellie Shurtleff said.

“Sorry,” I said, a little embarrassed. “Just a formality, I guess.”

I was lucky that if I had to abduct an FBI agent, I had stumbled onto Ellie Shurtleff and not some Lara Croft type who would’ve had my arm twisted out of its socket by now. Truth was, I would never have pinned her for a fed. An elementary-school teacher, maybe. Or some MBA. With wavy, short brown hair and a couple of freckles on her cheek, a button nose. And nice blue eyes, too, behind the glasses.

“Arms up” – I waved the gun – “or out to the side, whatever it is.”

“It’s up against the wall,” she said turning, “but what the hell…”

She extended her arms. I knelt, patting her pants pockets and thighs. She was wearing a tan pantsuit with a white cotton T-shirt underneath, which she filled out pretty nicely. Some kind of green, semiprecious stone hanging from her neck.

“You know, it wouldn’t exactly take much to drive an elbow into your face right now.” I could see she was losing patience. “They do teach us stuff like that, you know.”

“I’m not exactly a pro at this.” I edged away from her. I didn’t like that “elbow to the face” comment.

“You might as well check the ankles while you’re down there. Most of us keep something strapped there when we’re in the field.”

“Thanks.” I nodded.

“Just a formality,” Ellie Shurtleff said.

I didn’t find anything, except some keys and breath mints in her purse. I sat down on the bed. All of a sudden I realized what I’d just done. This wasn’t a movie. I wasn’t Hugh Jack-man and this wasn’t Jennifer Aniston, and this scene wasn’t exactly moving toward a happy ending.

I placed my forehead in my hands.

Ellie sat on a chair, facing me.

“What do we do now?” I asked. I flicked on the tinny TV, just to hear the news. I tried to moisten my mouth, but it stayed as dry as the Sahara Desert.

“Now,” Ellie Shurtleff said with a shrug, “now we talk.”

Chapter 32

I TOLD ELLIE SHURTLEFF everything.

Everything I knew about the art heist down in Florida. I left out nothing.

Except the part about meeting Tess. I didn’t know how to tell her about that, and have her believe me about everything else. Besides, I found it really hard to even think about what had happened to Tess.

“I know I’ve done some stupid things in the past few days,” I said looking at Ellie, earnestly. “I know I shouldn’t have run back in Florida. I know I shouldn’t have done what I did today. But you have to believe me, Ellie… killing my friends, my cousin…” I shook my head. “No way. We didn’t even take that art. Someone set us up.”

“Gachet?” Ellie asked, making a few notes.

“I guess,” I said, frustrated. “I don’t know.”

She looked at me closely. I was praying she believed me. I needed her to believe me. She switched gears. “So why did you come up here?”

“To Boston?” I put the gun down on the bed. “Mickey didn’t have connections down there. At least, not the kind who could set up that kind of heist. Everyone he knew was from up here.”

“Not to locate a fence for the art, Ned? You know people up here, too.”

“Look around, Agent Shurtleff. You see any art here? I didn’t do those things.”

“You’re going to have to come in,” she said. “You’re going to have to talk about whoever your cousin knew and worked for. Names, contacts, everything, if you want my help. I can soften the blow on the abduction thing, but that’s your only way out. You understand that, Ned?”

I nodded resignedly. I had a sour taste in my mouth. Truth was, I didn’t know Mickey’s contacts. Who was I going to give up, my father?

“So how’d you know where I was headed, anyway?” I asked. I figured Sollie Roth had called the police when I ran.

“There aren’t that many old Bonnevilles out there,” Ellie said. “When we found it in South Carolina, we had a pretty good idea where you were headed.”

No shit, I said to myself. Sollie never turned me in.

We ended up talking for hours. It started out about the crimes, but Ellie Shurtleff seemed to want to go through every detail of my whole life. I told her what it was like growing up in Brockton. The neighborhood and the old gang. How my ticket out had been the hockey scholarship to BU.

That seemed to surprise her. “You went to BU?”

“You didn’t know you were talking to the 1995 Leo. J. Fennerty Award winner. Top forward in the Boston CYO,” I grinned with a self-deprecating shrug. “Graduated,” I said. “Four years. A BA in government. You probably didn’t figure me for the academic type.”

“Somehow when you were trolling around the supermarket parking lot, searching for a car to steal, I just never went there.” Ellie smiled.

“I said I didn’t kill anyone, Agent Shurtleff.” I smiled back. “I never said I was a saint!”

That actually made Ellie Shurtleff laugh.

“Want another surprise,” I said, leaning back on the bed, “as long as I’m doing the résumé? I actually used to teach for a couple of years. Eighth-grade social studies, at this middle school for troubled kids, here in Stoughton. I was pretty good. I may not have been able to give you chapter and verse on every constitutional amendment, but my kids could relate to me. I mean, I’d been there. I’d faced the same choices.”

“So, what went wrong?” Ellie asked, putting down her notepad.

“You mean, how does a hotshot like me end up as a lifeguard down in Palm Beach? That’s the million-dollar question, right?”

She shrugged. “Go on.”

“My second year, I took an interest in one of my students. A girl. She was from south Brockton, same as me. Dominican kid. She was running with a rough crowd. But she was smart as a whip. She tested well. I wanted her to do well.”

“What happened?” Ellie leaned forward. I could see this wasn’t about Florida anymore.

“Maybe I scared her, I don’t know. You have to understand, teaching that class meant everything to me. She accused me of something. A grade for a favor, that sort of thing.”

“Oh, no.” Ellie pulled back. She looked at me warily now.

“There was nothing to it, Ellie. Maybe I did a few stupid things. Like drive her home a couple of times. Maybe she got trapped in a lie about me, and it just snowballed. All of a sudden her story grew. Suddenly I had accosted her. In my classroom after school, right on school grounds. They gave me a hearing. But that kind of thing – it doesn’t go away. They gave me a chance to stay, in some sort of lesser capacity, an admin job. I quit, walked away.

“A lot of people gave up on me. My dad…”

“Your father’s got a record, right?” Ellie injected.

“A record? More like his own cell up at the Souza Correctional Center in Shirley permanently on reserve. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I remember him saying, like I proved him right. Imagine, he was the one who gave up on me. A few years before, he got his own goddamn son killed. My older brother. You know what the real joke was, though?”

Ellie shook her head

“About a month after I left, the girl recanted. I got a nice letter of apology from the school. But by then, the damage was done. I couldn’t be a teacher.”

“I’m sorry,” Ellie said.

“But you know who didn’t give up on me, Agent Shurtleff? My cousin Mickey didn’t. And Bobby O’Reilly. Or Barney or Dee. For a bunch of Brockton losers, they understood how that teaching job meant everything to me. And you think I’d kill those guys…” I tapped my chest, close to my heart. “I’d kill myself if it would bring them back. Anyway” – I smiled, feeling that I’d gotten a little emotional – “you think if I had sixty million in stolen art, I’d be talking to you in a fleabag motel like this?”

Ellie smiled, too. “Maybe you’re more clever than you look.”

Suddenly a news bulletin interrupted the TV show. Breaking news… A report of today’s abduction. My eyes got wide. Here we go again. My face was on the screen. Jesus Christ… My name!

“Ned,” Ellie Shurtleff said, seeing the panic on my face, “you’ve got to come in with me. It’s the only way we can work this out. The only way.”

“I don’t think so.” I took the gun and grabbed her by the arm. “C’mon, we’re getting out of here.”

Chapter 33

I TOSSED MY FEW BELONGINGS into the back of the minivan. I’d managed to locate a screwdriver in a tool kit and switched the Massachusetts plates with Connecticut ones off another car in the lot.

And I had to get rid of the van now, too. They would’ve found the 4Runner by now. And I had to ditch Ellie Shurtleff. But what I couldn’t do was turn myself in. Not until I found out who’d set us up and murdered my friends. Not until I found fucking Gachet.

I hopped in the van, nervously driving around. “Where we going?” Ellie asked, sensing that everything had changed.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You want me to help you, Ned,” Ellie said, “you have to let me take you in. Don’t do something even more stupid than you’ve already done.”

“I think it’s too late for that,” I said. I was searching for a place I could drop her.

I found a quiet section on Route 138, between a granite yard and a used-car dealership. I turned off the main road and pulled up to a quiet spot hidden from view.

Ellie was getting alarmed. I could see it in her eyes. It was clear we weren’t headed where she thought we were. What was I going to do?

“Please, Ned,” she said. “Don’t do something stupid. There’s no other way.”

“There’s one other way.” I put the van in park. I nodded – like Go on, out the door.

“They’re going to find you…” she said. “Today. Tomorrow. You’re going to get yourself killed. I’m serious, Ned.”

“Everything I told you is true, Ellie.” I looked into her eyes. “I didn’t do these things. And I didn’t do some other stuff you may eventually hear about. Now, go on, get out.”

I popped the locks. I reached across her body and flung open the door.

“You’re making a mistake,” Ellie said. “Don’t do this, Ned.”

“Well, you heard my story. I’ve been making them for years.”

Call it the Stockholm syndrome in reverse, but I had grown a little attached to Special Agent Ellie Shurtleff. I knew she truly wanted to help me. She was probably the last, best chance I had. So I was sorry to see her go.

“Not a wrinkle in your clothes, just like I promised.” I smiled. “Be sure and tell your partner that.”

Ellie looked at me, with a combination of disappointment and frustration. She slid out of the van.

“Answer me one question,” I said.

“What’s that?” She stood, looking at me.

“How come you weren’t wearing an ankle weapon, if you were in the field?”

“My department,” she said, “it doesn’t call for it.”

“What department is that?” I looked at her, confused.

“Art Theft,” Agent Shurtleff answered. “I was following up on the paintings, Ned.”

I blinked. It was sort of like Marvelous Marvin Hagler had stunned me with a short right to the chin. “I’m about to hand my life over to an FBI agent and she’s in Art Theft? Jesus, Ned, can you ever get it right?”

“You still could,” Ellie said, standing there, looking incredibly sad.

“Good-bye, Ellie Shurtleff,” I told her. “I have to admit, you were pretty damn brave. You never thought I was going to shoot you, did you?”

“No.” Ellie shook her head. I caught her smile. “Your gun. It’s been on safety the whole time.”