Lifeguard

Chapter 92

FBI SUPERVISOR Hank Cole stared out at the view of the Miami skyline from his office window. Behind it, nothing but gorgeous blue sea. Sure beat the hell out of Detroit, the ADIC reminded himself. Or Fairbanks! He wondered if they even had golf courses in Alaska. Cole knew he had to salvage something out of this mess. And fast. If he wanted to keep that fancy title in front of his name, if he wanted to keep seeing this delicious view every day.

First, his office had spearheaded an all-out, national manhunt for the wrong man. Okay, that happens. Anyone could see how Kelly fit the bill. But then the lead FBI investigator on the case accuses her own boss of trying to kill her in her home to cover up that he was the trigger man in the whole thing. Then Moretti gets gunned down as the cops are taking him away.

And by whom? Cole crumpled a piece of paper tightly in his fist. By the father of the original suspect!

Oh, he was going down! ADIC Cole clenched his teeth. The press was going to have a field day. There’d have to be an internal investigation. The Bureau would tear flesh out of his throat. Cole felt a pain in his chest, thought maybe it was a heart attack. A heart attack…I should be so lucky.

“Assistant Director Cole?”

Cole turned away from the window and back to the meeting in his office.

Sitting around his conference table were James Harpering, the Bureau’s chief local counsel; Mary Rappaport, Palm Beach County DA; and Art Ficke, the new agent in charge.

As well as his own private, career torpedoer herself, Special Agent Ellie Shurtleff.

“So, what do we have,” Cole tried to ask calmly, “to back up Special Agent Shurtleff’s allegations against Moretti?”

“There’s the gun trace,” Ficke proposed. “And Moretti’s prior connection to Earl Anson. Adds up to some good detective work.” He nodded to Ellie Shurtleff. “But all about as circumstantial as you can get.”

“There’s Frank Kelly’s testimony,” Ellie said.

“The admission of a career felon? With a grudge against the deceased?” Harpering, the lawyer, shrugged. “It could stand up, if we could establish a prior connection between the two.”

“We have about forty-eight hours,” Cole sniffed, “before someone from Washington takes over. So giving some credence to Special Agent Shurtleff’s claim, how do we stand on Stratton? Can we tie him to Moretti in any way?”

“Contact between Moretti and Stratton would have been understandable,” Harpering injected. “He was the agent in charge on his case.”

“What about prior to the art being stolen?”

“Moretti was a pro, sir,” Ficke said.

“Goddammit.” Cole pushed back his chair. “If Moretti was dirty, I want it out. Stratton, too. So, for the sake of this group, Special Agent Shurtleff” – he looked at Ellie – “and your career, would you please tell us again how Special Agent in Charge Moretti happened to end up at your house?”

Chapter 93

ELLIE CLEARED HER THROAT. She was nervous. No, nervous didn’t even begin to describe how she felt. She told them again about Ned’s coming back from his brother’s funeral and what his father had said. What Liz Stratton had told them, too. How she and Ned had set up Moretti after she traced the gun.

Crazy as it was, she felt they believed her. Sort of, anyway.

“And just how long have you and this Kelly character been… cooperating on this case?” ADIC Cole asked.

“Since he turned himself in,” Ellie answered, swallowing. She dropped her head. “Maybe a little before.”

“Maybe a little before.” Cole tightened his jaw and glanced around the table as if for some kind of explanation.

Ellie cleared her throat. “I can bring him down,” she said apprehensively. “Stratton.”

“You’re on such incredibly thin ice already, Special Agent Shurtleff, your knees must be freezing cold.” Cole glared at her.

“I can bring him down, sir,” she said, more firmly.

Cole narrowed his gaze at her. She checked Harpering and Ficke to see if they were smirking. They weren’t.

“All right,” the ADIC sighed, “how?”

“He thinks we have something he wants,” Ellie said.

“This painting,” Cole said, nodding. “The…Gaume? What is it about this thing?”

“I don’t know yet,” Ellie said, “but Stratton doesn’t know we don’t know, either.”

Cole looked at Harpering and Ficke. There was stiff, evaluating silence around the table.

“You’re trained as an art investigator, aren’t you, Special Agent Shurtleff?” Cole inquired.

“Yes, sir.” Ellie nodded. He knew she was.

“So, you would think” – Cole placed his palms together – “knowing that, I’d have to be pretty much suicidal to let you run something like this after what you’ve done. We screw this up, you could basically sweep whatever’s left of my career into the trash.”

“Mine, too, sir.” Ellie looked him in the eye.

“Right,” the ADIC said. He cast a glance to Ficke and Harpering.

“The way things are right now,” the lawyer said, “Stratton walks away and we’re left with the biggest cleanup mess since the Exxon Valdez.”

Cole rubbed his temples hard. “Just for the sake of conversation, Special Agent Shurtleff, what exactly would you need to do this job?”

“I’d need it leaked that Moretti didn’t talk. That he didn’t say a word about Stratton. And that I’ve been taken off the case. That I’m under investigation.”

“That won’t be hard,” Cole said.

“And something else,” Ellie went on, since she was on such a hot streak. “What’s that?” The ADIC rolled his eyes impatiently. “This could get a little unorthodox, sir…”

“Oh, and it’s been going along so ‘by the book’ up to this point.” Cole couldn’t help but smile. Ellie sucked in a breath. “I’ll need Ned Kelly, sir.”

Chapter 94

I WAS PLAYING GIN at the house with Sollie.

We were outside, in the covered cabana by the pool. I’d been confined to Sollie’s until my role in what happened at Ellie’s house was fully resolved.

A little matter of having violated my bail agreement – possession of a firearm.

I knew Ellie was in trouble. I knew what we did could cost her her job. Everything was out now: my dad’s involvement, what Ellie had found out about Moretti, our conversations with Liz. Me.

With Liz and Moretti dead, we didn’t have much to hang on Stratton. He had orchestrated everything perfectly. That made me the angriest of all. That, and my father. Frank thought he was squaring things with the Man, but the irony was that by pulling the trigger, he had let Stratton go free.

“You keep throwing me hearts, I keep taking them,” Sol said with an apologetic sigh.

“I guess I’m not much competition today,” I said, drawing a card.

“Competition? This is rehabilitation, Ned. I promised the judge. Besides, at this rate I’ll have made back your bail by tomorrow afternoon. Then you can get the hell out.”

I smiled at the old guy. “I’m worried about Ellie, Sol.”

“I can see that, kid, but you know, I think it’ll be all right. The girl can handle herself fine.”

“She tried to help me, and I got her in trouble. I want to get Stratton, Sollie. I was sure we had him nailed.”

“I know you do, kid.” Sol laid down his hand. “And my guess is, you’ll still get your chance. Let me tell you something about guys like Dennis Stratton. You know what their weakness is? They always think they’re the biggest fish in the pond. And trust me, Ned, there’s always one a little bigger.” He was looking straight at me. “But first, there’s something more important you got to do, Ned.”

“What’s that?” I grinned. “Deal?”

“No, I’m talking about your father, kid…”

“My illustrious father is the reason we’re in this mess,” I said, picking my hand back up. “Without him, we’d have someone to testify against Stratton. Don’t think for a second he was acting nobly.”

“I think he was doing things the only way he knew how. The guy’s sick, Ned. Jesus, kid, fours…”

“Huh?”

“You passed on my four of spades. You’re not thinking, Ned.”

I looked at my hand and saw the jumbled mess I was playing and realized my mind was a million miles away.

“Take care of your own business, son,” Sol said, still talking about my dad. “This Stratton thing, it’ll work itself out. But while we’re on it,” he said, fanning out his cards and catching my eye. “I might be able to help you a bit.”

“What are you talking about, Sol?”

“Discard, kid… It’s all about the fish. We’ll talk later.”

I tossed out a ten of diamonds.

“Rhythm!” Sollie eyes lit up, laying down his cards. “This is too easy, kid.” He pulled in the score sheet. His third straight gin. “If this is the way it’s gonna be, I’m gonna let you go back to jail.”

Winnie, Sollie’s Filipino housemaid, came out, announcing that we had a visitor.

Ellie followed a few steps behind.

I jumped up out of the chair.

“Your ears must be burning, dear.” Sollie Roth smiled. “Look at your boyfriend. He’s so worried about you, he can’t keep score.”

“He’s right,” I said, and gave her a hug. “So, how’d it go?”

She shrugged, sitting down at the table. “Between getting Moretti killed and hanging out with you, I’m what you call an Agent’s Manual disaster. The ADIC took the appropriate action. Until we work this out, I’m on disciplinary review.”

“You get to keep your job?” I asked hopefully.

“Maybe.” Ellie shrugged. “Pending one thing…”

“What’s that?” I swallowed, figuring it was some sort of drawn-out procedural review.

“Us,” she said. “Taking down Dennis Stratton.”

I didn’t know if I had heard her right. I sat there, looking at her a bit quizzically. “You said us?”

“Yeah, Ned,” Ellie said, the tiniest of smiles peeking through. “You and me. That would be us.”

Chapter 95

ELLIE HAD some digging to do first. In the art world, of all places. What the hell was it about this piece? The Gaume.

There were countless ways to do research on a painter, even one she had barely heard of, who had died a hundred years before.

She went online, but she could find hardly a thing on Henri Gaume. The painter had lived a totally unremarkable life. They were no biographies. Then she looked him up in the Benezit, the vast encyclopedia of French painters and sculptors, translating from the French herself. There was virtually nothing. He was born in 1836 in Clamart. He painted for a while, in Montmartre, exhibiting between 1866 and 1870 at the prestigious Salon de Paris. Then he disappeared off the artistic map. The painting that was stolen – Stratton hadn’t even put in an insurance claim on it – was called Faire le ménage (Housework). A housemaid gazing into a mirror over a basin. She couldn’t find a provenance on it; it wasn’t listed.

Ellie called the gallery in France where Stratton claimed he had bought it. The owner could barely remember the piece. He said he thought it came out of an estate. An elderly woman in Provence.

It can’t be the painting; Gaume is as ordinary as they come.

Was there something in it? A message? Why did Stratton want it so badly? What could be worth killing six people for?

Her head began to ache.

She pushed away the large books on nineteenth-century painters. The answer wasn’t there. It was somewhere else.

What was it about this worthless Gaume?

What is it, Ellie?

Then it struck her, not with a wallop but like a little bird lightly scratching away at her brain.

Liz Stratton had told her as Stratton’s men took her away. That resignation in her face, as if they would never see her again. You’re the art expert. Why do you think he calls himself Gachet?

Of course. The key was in the name.

Dr. Gachet.

Ellie pushed back from her desk. There had always been rumors, apocryphal, of course. Nothing had ever turned up. Nothing in van Gogh’s estate. Or when his brother went to sell his work. Or the artist’s patrons, Tanguy or Bonger.

One of the art books on her desk had van Gogh’s portrait of the doctor on the cover. Ellie pulled it in front of her and stared at the country doctor – those melancholy blue eyes. Something like this, she was thinking, would be worth killing for.

Suddenly Ellie realized she was talking to the wrong people, looking in the wrong books. She stared at van Gogh’s famous portrait. She’d been poring over the wrong painter’s life.

Chapter 96

“YOU READY?” Ellie made sure, handing me the phone.

I nodded, taking it as though someone were handing me a gun that I was going to use to kill somebody. My mouth was as dry as sand, but that didn’t matter. I’d been dreaming of doing this since I first got that call from Dee and an hour later found Tess and my buddies dead.

I sank into one of Sollie’s chairs out on the deck. “Yeah, I’m ready…”

I knew Stratton would speak to me. I figured his heart would be pounding as soon as he heard who it was. He was sure I had his painting. He had killed for it, and this was clearly a man who operated on the assumption that his instincts were right. I punched in the number. The phone started to ring. I leaned back and took a deep breath. A Latino housekeeper answered.

“Dennis Stratton, please?”

I told her my name, and she went to find him. I told myself that it was all going to end soon. I’d made promises. To Dave. To Mickey and Bobby and Barney and Dee.

“So, it’s the famous Ned Kelly,” Stratton said when he finally came on the line. “We get a chance to speak. What can I do for you?”

I’d never talked to him directly. I didn’t want to give him a second of phony bullshit. “I have it, Stratton,” was all I said.

“You have what, Mr. Kelly?”

“I have what you’re looking for, Stratton. You were right all along. I have the Gaume.”

There was a pause. He was evaluating just how to react. Whether I was telling the truth, or screwing with him. Setting him up.

“Where are you, Mr. Kelly?” Stratton asked.

“Where am I?” I paused. This wasn’t what I expected.

“I’m asking where you’re calling from, Mr. Kelly? That too difficult for you?”

“I’m close enough,” I replied. “All that matters is, I have your painting.”

“Close enough, eh? Why don’t we put that to the test? You know Chuck and Harold’s?”

“Of course,” I replied, looking nervously at Ellie. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Chuck & Harold’s was a bustling, people-watching watering hole in Palm Beach.

“There’s a pay phone. Near the men’s room. I’ll be calling it in, let’s say, four minutes from now. And I mean exactly, Mr. Kelly. Are you that ‘close enough’? Make sure you’re there to pick it up when it rings. Just you and me.”

“I don’t know if I can make it,” I said, glancing at my watch.

“Then I would scoot, Mr. Kelly. That’s three minutes and fifty seconds from now, and counting. I wouldn’t miss my call if you ever want to discuss this matter again.”

I hung up the phone. I looked at Ellie for a split second.

“Go,” she said.

I ran through the house and into the front courtyard. I hopped into Ellie’s work car. She and the two FBI agents ran behind, climbing into another car. I shoved it into gear and took off through the gate, screeching in a wide arc onto County. I sped the six or seven blocks down to Poinciana as quickly as I could. I took the corner at about forty and screeched to a stop right in front of the place.

I glanced at my watch. Four minutes on the nose. I knew the way to the men’s room. I used to hang out at the bar.

Just as I got there, the phone started ringing.

“Stratton!” I answered.

“I see you are resourceful,” he said, as though he were enjoying the hell out of this. “So, Mr. Kelly, just you and me. No reason to have other people listening on the line. You were saying something about a painting by Henri Gaume. Tell me, what do you have in mind?”

Chapter 97

“I WAS THINKING of handing it over to the police,” I said. “I’m sure they’d be interested in a look.” There was silence on the other end. “Or we could strike a deal.”

“I’m afraid I don’t deal with suspected murderers, Mr. Kelly.”

“That gives us something in common already, Stratton. Usually, neither do I.”

“Nice,” Stratton chuckled. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“I don’t know. Just sentimental, I guess. I heard somewhere it was your wife’s favorite.”

This time Stratton didn’t make a sound. “I am looking for a piece by Henri Gaume. How do I know that what you claim to have is even the right one?”

“Oh, it’s the one. A washerwoman staring into a mirror over a sink. Wearing a simple white apron.” I knew anyone could have gotten ahold of the police report. That description wasn’t exactly proof. “It was in your bedroom hallway the night you had my friends killed.”

“The night they robbed me, Mr. Kelly. Describe the frame.”

“It’s gold,” I said. “Old. With filigree trim.”

“Turn it over. Is there anything written on the back?”

“I don’t have it in front of me,” I said. “Remember, I’m at Chuck and Harold’s?”

“Now that wasn’t very smart, Mr. Kelly,” Stratton said, “for the kind of discussion you have in mind.”

“There’s writing on it,” I said. I knew I was about to reveal something good. “To Liz. Love forever, Dennis. Very touching, Stratton. What a crock.”

“I wasn’t asking for your commentary, Mr. Kelly.”

“Why not? It comes with the piece. Same price.”

“Not a very savvy strategy, Mr. Kelly. To piss off the person you’re trying to sell to. Just to hear you out, what sort of price is it that you have in mind?”

“We’re talking five million dollars.”

“Five million dollars? That piece wouldn’t sell for more than thirty thousand to Gaume’s own mother.”

“Five million dollars, Mr. Stratton. Or else I drop it off with the police. If I remember right, that was the sum you and Mickey had originally agreed to?”

Stratton went silent. Not the kind that suggested he was thinking. The kind where he wanted to wring my neck. “I’m not sure what it is you’re talking about, Mr. Kelly, but you’re in luck. I do have a reward out on that piece. But just to be completely sure, there’s something else on the back. In the right-hand corner of the frame.”

I closed my eyes for a second. I tried to remember everything I’d been told about this painting. He was right. There was something else on the frame. I was about to reveal something that made me feel dirty. As if I had betrayed people. People I loved.

“It’s a number,” I whispered into the phone. “Four-threesix-one-oh.”

There was a long pause. “Well done, Ned. You deserve that reward for how you’ve handled everybody. Including the police. I’ll be at a charity function tonight, at the Breakers. The Make-A-Wish Foundation. One of Liz’s favorite causes. I’ll take a suite there under my name. How about if I excuse myself from the party, say, around nine?”

“I’ll be there.”

I hung up the phone, a dull beat thudding in my chest. When I walked out of the restaurant, a black car was waiting at the curb. Ellie and two FBI agents were looking at me expectantly.

“We’re in business,” I said. “Nine o’ clock tonight.”

“We got some work to do before then,” one of the agents said.

“Maybe later,” I said, “there’s something I have to do first.”

Chapter 98

A GUARD SEARCHED ME and led me back into the holding cells in the Palm Beach County Jail. “What is it with you Kellys?” he asked, shaking his head. “In the blood?”

My father was lying on a metal cot in a cell, staring off into space.

I stood watching for a while. In the dingy light, I could almost make out the faded facial lines of a younger man. A scene from my childhood flashed: Frank, arriving home with this grand entrance, carrying a big box. Mom was at the sink. JM and Dave and I were sitting around the kitchen table after school, eating snacks. I was maybe nine.

“Evelyn Kelly…” My father spun Mom around, and said like the game show announcer, “Come on down!”

He thrust out the box, and I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face as she opened it. Out came this gorgeous fur coat. Frank draped it on her and twirled her around like a dancer. My mother had this flushed, shocked look on her face, something between elation and disbelief.

My father dipped her back like a ballroom dancer, winking to us. “Just wait till you see what’s behind door number three!” My father could charm the gun off a beat cop when he wanted to.

“Hey, Pop,” I said, standing there by his cell.

My father rolled onto his side. “Neddie,” he said, and blinked.

“I didn’t know what to bring, so I brought these…” I showed him a bag filled with Kit Kat chocolate bars and Luden’s wild cherry cough drops. My mother used to bring them every time we visited him in prison.

Frank sat up, grinning. “I always told your mom, I’d put a hacksaw to better use.”

“I tried. Those metal detectors make it a sonuvabitch, though.”

He smoothed down his hair. “Ah, these new times…”

I looked at him. He was thin and slightly yellow, but he seemed relaxed, calm.

“You need anything? I could probably get Sollie to fix you up with a lawyer.”

“Georgie’s got it covered,” he said, shaking his head. “I know you think I messed up again,” my father said, “but I had to do it, Ned. There’s a code, even among shits like me. Moretti broke it. He killed my flesh and blood. Some things, they don’t go unattended. You understand?”

“You wanted to do something for Dave, it was Dennis Stratton you should’ve shot. He ordered it done. What you did messed up our best chance to get him.”

“So how come I’m feeling like I finally did some good?” My father smiled. “Anyway, I’ve always been a small-picture guy. I’m glad you’re here, though, Ned. There’s some things I want to say.”

“Me, too,” I said, my palms resting on the bars.

Frank reached over and poured himself a glass of water. “I’ve never been very good at seeing you for who you are, have I, son? I never even gave you what you deserved after you got cleared on that prep school thing. Which was just to say, I’m sorry, Ned, for doubting you. You’re a good kid – a good man.”

“Listen, Pop. We don’t have to go over those things now…”

“Yes, we do,” my father said. He struggled to his feet. “After John Michael died, I think I couldn’t face up to the truth that it was me that got him killed. Some part of me wanted to say, See, my boys are the same, the same as me. It’s the Kelly way. When you got that job at Stroughton, the fact was, I was pretty goddamn proud.”

I nodded that I understood.

“That day, back home… that was the worst day of my life.” My father looked in my eyes.

“Burying Dave.” I nodded, then exhaled. “Me, too.”

“Yeah.” His eyes rounded with sadness. ”But I was talking about that day at Fenway. When I let you walk away and take the heat for what I’d done. That’s when I think I realized what a mess I’d made of my life. How big a man you were, and how small I’d become. Nah, how much of a punk I’d always been. I was always a two-bitter, Neddie. But you aren’t.”

Frank shuffled, weak-kneed, over to the bars. “This is long overdue, Ned, but I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry for the way I’ve let everybody down. ” He clasped his hand over mine. “I know it’s not enough to say that. I know it doesn’t make anything right. But it’s all I have.”

I felt tears burning at the back of my eyes. “If Dave’s up there watching,” I said, trying to laugh, “I bet he’s thinking, Man, I sure could’ve used that particular bit of wisdom a few days earlier.”

Frank grunted a laugh, too. “That was always the rap on me – big ideas, shit timing. But I’ve left things okay. For your mother. And you, too, Ned.”

“We’re going to get this guy, Pop.” I squeezed him back. Now I was crying.

“Yeah, son, you get him good.” Our eyes met in a wordless, glistening embrace. And Sol was right. I forgave him there. For everything. I didn’t even have to say a word.

“I gotta go, Pop.” I squeezed his bony fingers. “You may not see me for a while.”

“I definitely hope not, son,” he chuckled. “Not where I’m going, at least.” He let go of my hand.

I took a step back down the cell row. “Hey, Pop,” I said, and turned, my voice catching.

Frank was still standing at the bars.

“Tell me something. Mom’s fur coat. The one you brought home that day. It was stolen, right?”

He fixed on me a second, the sunken eyes suddenly hardening, like, How can you ask me something like that? Then a smile creased his lips. “Course it was stolen, kid.”

I backed down the corridor and smiled at my father for the last time.

Chapter 99

THE FBI MAN fitted a wire around me.

“You’ll be miked at all times,” Ellie said. We were at Sol’s, which we’d been using as a sort of base. “Our people will be all around. All you have to do is say the word, Ned, and we’ll be all over Dennis Stratton.”

There was a whole team of agents now. Moretti’s replacement was a thin-lipped guy with slick, dark hair and horn-rimmed glasses who was calling the shots. Special Agent in Charge Ficke.

“Here are the ground rules,” Ficke said. “First, you don’t make a move without Stratton. No intermediaries. You don’t bring up Moretti’s name. I don’t want him to think there’s a chance he divulged anything. Don’t forget, Stratton probably never met Anson. He never met your father. Get him talking about the heist if you can. Who set it up? Ask to see the check. The check is enough to get him. Are you up to doing this?”

“I’m up to it, Agent Ficke. How do we handle the painting?”

“Here… Check it out.”

A female agent brought out a bundled, heavily taped package. “What’s in it?” I asked.

“A lot of trouble for you if they get to open it,” Ficke replied. “So, ask to see the check before they do. If they give you a hard time, we’re coming in to get you.”

I looked at Ellie. “You’ll be there?”

“Of course I’ll be there.”

“There’ll be backup on every level,” Ficke said. “Once you get what we need, or they open the goods, we’ll break down the door. You’ll be okay.”

I’ll be okay. I eyed him. Like some expendable private being waved out to test a minefield. Go ahead, you’ll be okay. One thing everyone in the room knew: Stratton had no intention of letting me leave that hotel room alive.

“I want to talk to Ellie,” I said.

“She’s not running this show,” Ficke said rather sharply. “Any questions, address them to me.”

“I don’t have any questions. I need to talk with Ellie. And not here. Alone. Outside.”

Chapter 100

WE WENT OUT on the pool deck. I saw Ficke watching us through the blinds, so I led her down the steps to the beach, my office, as far away from him as possible.

Ellie rolled up her pants and left her shoes on the stairs. Then we walked out onto the sand. The sun was starting to set. It was going on six.

I took Ellie by the hand. “Nice out here, huh? Kind of makes me miss my old lifeguard days. Didn’t know how good I had it then.”

I held her by the shoulders, and brushed a wisp of hair out of her eyes. “You trust me, Ellie, don’t you?”

“You don’t think it’s a little late to be asking me that question, Ned? I didn’t arrest you when I had the chance. We stole a car. Withheld information, kidnapped a material witness… In my book, that goes as trust.”

I smiled. “You should’ve gotten out of that car when I told you to. Things would be a whole lot different.”

“Yeah, you’d probably be in jail, or dead. And I’d still have pretty good job security. Anyway, as I recall, I didn’t have much choice at the time. You did have a gun.”

“And as I recall, the safety was on.”

I pulled her close and I could feel her heart beating forcefully against my chest. Neither of us knew what was going to happen tonight. And afterward, the whole world would be different. I had felony charges waiting for me. I’d have to do time. Afterward, I’d be a felon and she’d still be an FBI agent.

“What I’m asking, Ellie, is for you to keep trusting me. Just for a while longer now.”

She eased away from me and tried to read what was in my eyes. “You’re scaring me, Ned. We can nab him. This whole thing’ll be over. Please, just for once, play this one by the book.”

I smiled. “You gonna be there for me, Ellie?”

“I told you,” she said, looking at me with resolve in her eyes, “I’ll be right outside. I wouldn’t let you go in there alone.”

I know you wouldn’t. I pulled her against me again and looked beyond her at the setting sun.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her I meant afterward.

Chapter 101

JUST TURNING ONTO the long drive leading up to the Breakers took you back to another world.

The twin majestic towers awash in glowing light, probably Palm Beach ’s best-known sight. The stately loggia of arches welcoming visitors to the lobby, the rows of light-kissed palms. Once, Flaglers and Mellons and Rockefellers went there in lavish private rail cars. Now it was people who were trying to act like them.

Tonight I was going to crash it for a while.

I pulled Ellie’s Crown Vic behind a Mercedes SL 500 and a Rolls in the redbrick circle leading to the lobby doors. Couples stepped out in tuxes and fancy gowns, adorned with glittering jewels. I was in a pair of jeans and a green Lacoste shirt, which was hanging out. Even the parking attendant gave me a look as if I didn’t belong.

I’d heard about these society galas, even waited at a couple when I first came down. They were near the center of the Old Guard social life down there. For this and that charity, the invitations read. More like so a few doyennes could show off their jewels and parade around in stylish gowns, eating caviar and sipping champagne. Who knows how much actually made it to the “cause” being celebrated? I remembered hearing somewhere that a woman whose husband died suddenly kept him on ice for weeks until the party season ended.

Here goes nothing, Ned…

I tucked the thick wrapped bundle the feds had given me under my arm and went inside the lobby. Lots of people were milling about, some in formal attire, others in the red jackets of hotel personnel, a few in casual wear. I figured any of them could be Stratton’s men watching me. Or FBI.

The FBI was probably freaking out about now, wondering what the hell was going on.

I glanced at my watch – 8:40. I was twenty minutes ahead of schedule.

I headed straight to the front desk. An attractive desk clerk named Jennifer greeted me. “I think there’s a message for me,” I said, “under Stratton.”

“Mr. Kelly,” she said with a smile, as if expecting me. She came back with a sealed hotel envelope. I showed her ID and ripped open the flap. Written on a hotel notecard were just two words: Room 601.

Okay, Ned. Let’s get it done. I held my breath for a second and tried to calm my nerves.

I asked Jennifer where the Make-A-Wish dinner was being held, and she pointed toward the Circle Ballroom, down the ornate lobby corridor and to the left.

I tucked the wrapped package, “the Gaume,” under my arm and followed two couples in formal dress, who I was sure were headed to the ballroom.

Suddenly a voice scratched in my earpiece. Ficke, and he was pissed. “Goddammit, Kelly, what are you doing? You’re twenty minutes ahead of the plan.”

“Sorry, Ficke. Plan’s changed.”

Chapter 102

I PICKED UP MY PACE until I could see the Circle Ballroom up a set of stairs beyond the lobby bar.

There was a small crowd gathered at the door, people in tuxedos and evening gowns giving their names and presenting their invitations. Not exactly airline security. The kind of band music you swear you’ll never dance to was coming out of the ballroom. I just sort of melted in behind.

A white-haired woman looked at me as if I were Sponge-Bob SquarePants. The diamond pendants in her ears were about as large as Christmas ornaments. I squeezed past her, and then I was inside. “Sir!” I heard, but I ignored it.

You better make this work, Neddie.

The room was actually breathtaking, filled with fresh flowers, and this incredible chandelier hung from the coffered ceiling. The band was playing “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” done cha-cha style. Every woman I passed was dripping in diamonds – necklaces, rings, tiaras. The men wore crisply pressed tuxedos, with white kerchiefs folded perfectly. One man was in a kilt.

I started looking feverishly for Stratton. I knew I looked about as out of place as a Maori tribesman at the queen’s tea party.

Suddenly someone lifted me by the arm from behind, edging me away from the crowd. “Deliveries are in the back, Mr. Kelly,” the person spat into my ear.

I spun around. It was Champ, grinning. “Had you going for a second, didn’t I, mate!”

He was dressed like the perfect waiter holding a silver tray of caviar blinis. Except for the orange hair, he fit right in.

“Where’s Stratton?” I asked him.

“In the rear – where else would the asshole be?” Champ nudged me. “He’s the one wearing the tux… Relax, mate” – he put up his palm apologetically – “just trying to ease the mood.”

I caught a glimpse of Stratton through the crowd. Then I checked around for his goons.

“Ned,” Champ said, putting down his tray and squeezing my shoulder, “this is gonna work. Course, I say that before every jump and I’ve got a couple of permanently rearranged vertebrae that might tend to disagree.” He gave me a wink and knocked his fist against mine. “Anyway, no worries, mate… Friends are in the house. I’ve got your rear.”

“Ned!” A voice crackled in my earpiece. Ellie. “Ned, what’re you doing? Please…”

“Sorry, Ellie,” I said, knowing she must be panicking now. “Just keep tuned in. Please. You’re gonna get your man.”

In the crowd, I spotted faces I recognized. Henry Kissinger. Sollie Roth, chatting with a couple of prominent business types. Lawson.

Then, I spotted Stratton in back. He was holding a champagne glass and chatting up some blonde in a low-cut gown. A few people around him were laughing. The joke was, Liz was barely in the ground and now he was the most celebrated bachelor in Palm Beach.

I sucked it up and started toward him.

As Stratton caught me approaching, his eyes grew wide. There was a sudden moment of surprise, then his composure returned, a nasty little smirk appearing on his face. Stratton’s friends looked at me as if I were delivering the mail.

“You’re a little early, Mr. Kelly. Weren’t we supposed to meet up in the room?”

“I’m right on time, Stratton. Plan’s changed. It occurred to me, why waste this wonderful event? I thought you and your friends might be interested to hear us conduct our business right here.”

Chapter 103

UPSTAIRS IN ONE of the hotel suites, Ellie was panicking. She kept shouting into the microphone, “Ned, what’re you doing?” but Ned wasn’t answering.

“Abort,” Ficke was saying. “We’re calling this fiasco off.”

“We can’t do that,” Ellie said. She pulled herself up from her listening post. “Ned’s in the ballroom. He’s meeting with Stratton. He’s going through with it, now.”

“If we go down there, Special Agent Shurtleff,” Ficke said, glaring at her, “you can be damn sure it’ll be to pick him up, not help him. Show’s over.” He ripped off his headset. “I’m not getting the Bureau dragged down over this cowboy.” He nodded to the ops man. “Cut it off.”

“No,” Ellie said, shaking her head. “Give me two guys. We can’t just walk away from him. We promised. He’ll still need backup. He’s going through with it. He’s meeting with Stratton.”

“Then by all means stay and listen, Special Agent Shurtleff,” the agent in charge said at the door. “Tape’s rolling.”

Ellie couldn’t believe it. He was just folding it all up. Ned was down there. With no backup.

“He said he was going to bring us Stratton, and he’s doing it,” Ellie said. “We promised. We can’t just walk away from him. We’re going to get him killed.”

“You can take Downing,” Ficke said. “ And pick up Finch in the lobby.” He looked at her sort of indifferently. “He’s your asset, Special Agent Shurtleff. He’s your problem.”

Chapter 104

“DO OUR BUSINESS HERE?” Stratton said with that smug, unflappable smile of his, even though I knew he must be wondering what the hell was going on.

I met his smile with one of my own. “You killed my brother, Stratton. You didn’t think I was going to let you off without a little pain?”

A few heads turned. Stratton glanced around, clearly off guard.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Kelly, but for a man who’s currently under arrest and facing federal charges, I don’t see how you’re in any position to be hurling accusations at me.”

“He killed Liz, too,” I said, loud enough so that anyone nearby turned to hear. “And covered it up in that ridiculous affair because she was about to turn him in. He stole his own art and resold it, then had those people killed in Lake Worth to make it seem like a theft gone bad. But he’s been searching for something. Something that wasn’t supposed to be taken. Right, Mr. Stratton?”

I held out the wrapped shipping box.

Stratton’s eyes widened. “Oh, Mr. Kelly, whatever in the world do you have there?”

I had him. I had him nailed. I could see that always-incontrol veneer begin to crack and sweat form on his brow.

I spotted Lawson edging closer through the crowd. And worse, Stratton’s henchman, Ponytail.

“Too bad, then, that Moretti was killed by your own father,” Stratton said. “Why not tell everybody that? I think it’s you who’s doing the covering up. You’re the one out on bail. You don’t have the slightest proof.”

“The proof…” I looked at him and smiled. “The proof’s in the painting.” I held out the package. “The one you asked me to bring here tonight, Mr. Stratton. The Gaume.”

Stratton eyed the bundle, wetting his lips, a damp, nervous sheen bubbling up on his brow.

Hushed whispers trickled through the gathering crowd. People were crowding closer, trying to hear what was going on.

“This… this is absurd,” he started to stammer, searching for a friendly face. People were waiting for an answer. I was almost gleeful.

Then he turned back to me, but instead of unraveling, his face began to regain its accustomed control. “This pathetic act might actually work,” he said, his eyes lighting up, “if you actually had that painting in the box. Right, Mr. Kelly?”

The ballroom was suddenly silent. I felt as if every eye had turned to me. Stratton knew. He knew I didn’t have the goods. How?

“Go on, open it. Show the world your evidence. Somehow, I don’t think this is going to play very well when it comes to your sentencing.”

How did he know? In that instant I flashed through the possibilities. Ellie… no way! Lawson…he wasn’t in the loop. Stratton had another mole. He had someone else in the FBI.

“I warned you, Mr. Kelly, didn’t I,” Stratton said, smiling icily, “not to waste my time?”

Ponytail grabbed hold of my arm. I noticed Champ pushing through the crowd, wondering what he could do.

I glared back at Stratton. All I could do was spit out one helpless question: “How?”

“Because I told him, Ned,” said a voice in the crowd.

I recognized it instantly. And my heart began to sink. Everything I trusted, every certainty, fell away from me.

“Ned Kelly,” Stratton said, grinning. “I believe you know Sol Roth.”

Chapter 105

“SORRY, NEDDIE-BOY,” Sol said, and slowly stepped out of the crowd.

It was as if I had been slapped in the face. I know I turned white, stunned, taken totally by surprise. Sol was my secret weapon, my ace in the hole tonight.

All I could do was stare at the old man, dumbfounded, dazed – a massive weight crashing floor by floor through the planks of my heart. I’d seen my brother killed. My best friends brutally murdered. But until that moment I didn’t really know what I was fighting. The rich banding with the rich. It was a club. I was on the outside. I felt my eyes sting with tears.

“You were right,” Sol sighed guiltily, “I brokered a private sale between Dennis and a very patient Middle Eastern collector. He has the art safely in a vault where it will sit quietly for twenty years. Quite lucrative, if I may say so myself…”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Every word out of his mouth was like a lance jabbed deeper. I hope you appreciate it, Sol. And that you spend it well. That money bought the deaths of my brother and best friends.

Stratton nodded to Ponytail. I felt a blunt object jab me in the ribs. A gun.

“But what I never counted on, you greedy son of a bitch” – Sol’s tone suddenly changed and he turned toward Stratton – “was that all those people were going to die.”

Stratton blinked, the smirk on his lips gone.

“Or that you were capable of killing Liz, whose family I’ve known for forty years, you sick, conspiring fuck.”

Stratton’s jaw tightened, uncomprehending.

“We sat by while you sucked the life out of her, you monster. We watched you, so all of us bear some blame. If I’m ashamed of anything in this godforsaken mess, it’s that. Liz was a good woman.”

Sollie reached inside his jacket pocket. He came out holding a Baggie. In it there was some kind of key. A hotel key. The Brazilian Court. Just as we had planned. Tess’s key. He turned to Ponytail, who still had a gun stuck in my ribs. “You left this in your pocket, big fella. Next time, you oughta be more careful who goes through the wash.”

Stratton stared, mesmerized by the key, his face turning a shade of gray. Every person in the Circle Ballroom could see comprehension forming on his face.

Liz.

Liz had found Tess’s key. She had screwed him from the grave.

I don’t know which was better, watching Stratton start to come apart in front of his society friends or thinking how Dave and Mickey would have loved how we set him up. Sol shot me a wink, like, How’s that, Ned? But all I was thinking was Jesus, Dave, I hope you’re watching. I hope you’re eating this up.

Then Sollie turned around. Not to me, but to Lawson. “I think you have the evidence you need…”

The detective stepped forward and took Stratton by the arm. No one in the room was more shocked than I was. Ellie and I were sure he was Stratton’s man.

“Dennis Stratton, you’re under arrest for the murders of Tess McAuliffe and Liz Stratton.”

Stratton stood there, lips quivering at Sollie, totally aghast.

Then everything started to come apart. Ponytail took the gun off my ribs and, grabbing me as cover, thrust it toward the Palm Beach cop. Champ dove out of the crowd and barreled into him, sending the punk reeling across the room. They wrestled for a second, Geoff rolling him onto his back.

“Hate to do this to you, mate, but you owe me a chrome side grille for my Ducati.” Champ head-butted Ponytail in the forehead. With a loud crack, the thug’s head went back.

That was when his gun went off.

At first there were screams, people pushing frantically toward the entrance. “Someone’s shooting!”

I looked at Stratton, Lawson, Sollie…As a last resort, my eyes drifted to Champ. He hung there, straddled over Ponytail. A disbelieving smile slowly crept onto his lips. At first I thought he was saying, See, I told you I had your back, mate. But then I could see it was more like shock. Blood began to seep through his white shirt.

“Geoff!” I yelled. He had started to reel. I lunged and caught him, bringing him gently down to the floor.

“Shit, Neddie,” he said, looking at me, “bastard owes me a whole new bike for this one.”

Another crack rang out, and then mayhem. Stratton’s other bodyguard was shooting. I saw Lawson go down. Everyone else hit the floor.

A slug ripped into the bodyguard’s chest and he fell back through a window, dragging embroidered curtains off giant rods and onto the floor. Then I caught sight of Stratton, free of Lawson’s grasp. He was backing away, slinking toward the kitchen door.

I was shouting into the mike for Ellie. “Champ’s down. He’s hit!” But she wasn’t answering. I had changed the plan on everyone. Now what?

“Jesus, mate, go,” Champ said. He wet his lips. “For God’s sake, I’ve got everything under control down here.”

“You hold on.” I squeezed his hand. “Cops’ll be here soon. Pretend you’re waiting for a goddamn beer.”

“Yeah, I could use one of those about now.”

I reached for Ponytail’s gun. Then I headed after the man who had ordered my brother killed.

Chapter 106

THE SHOOTING WAS OVER when Ellie and the two other FBI agents got down to the ballroom. Shell-shocked people in tuxes and gowns were milling about outside. Seeing the FBI jackets, everyone pointed inside. “There’s been a shooting. Someone’s been hit.”

Ellie ran into the ballroom, gun drawn. Hotel security personnel were already on the scene. The room was mostly cleared of people. Chairs and tables were overturned, flowers on the floor.

This was bad.

She saw Lawson propped against a wall, a red stain on his shoulder. Carl Breen was kneeling next to him, shouting into a radio. Three other bodies were down. Two looked like Stratton’s men. One was wrapped in a curtain, and looked dead. The other was Ponytail, the pig who had chased Ned. He was out cold and wasn’t going anywhere.

The third Ellie recognized by his orange hair.

Champ!

“My God,” Ellie said, and rushed over. Geoff was lying on his back, with a knee raised. His left side was matted with blood; his face was white, his eyes a little glassy.

“Oh, Jesus, Champ…” Ellie knelt down.

A security man was barking into a radio, calling for EMS. Ellie leaned over and looked Geoff in the eye. “Hang on. You’re gonna be all right.” She put her hand on the side of his face. It was sweaty and cold. She felt her eyes glisten with tears.

“I know, there’s gonna be hell to pay,” Geoff said, managing a smile, “me impersonating a waiter and all.”

Ellie smiled back. She gently squeezed his hand. Then she looked around the ballroom.

“He went after him, Ellie,” Geoff whispered. He shifted his eyes in the direction of the kitchen. “Ned took Ponytail’s gun.”

“Oh, shit,” Ellie said.

“He had to, Ellie.” The Kiwi wet his lips.

“That’s not what I meant,” Ellie said. She checked her weapon, then squeezed Champ’s hand one more time. “I’ve seen Ned with a gun.”

Chapter 107

I BOLTED THROUGH the ballroom’s kitchen doors. The frightened kitchen staff, hearing gunshots outside, were just about hugging the walls, staring at me, unsure who was chasing whom.

I looked at a black guy in a chef’s hat. “A man went through here in a tuxedo. Which way did he go?”

“There’s a door in back,” the chef finally said, pointing. “It leads into the lobby. And upstairs. The main hotel.”

Room 601, I remembered.

I found the stairs and started up. It was worth a chance. Two teenagers appeared, coming down.

“You see a man in a tuxedo, running?” I asked.

They both pointed up the stairs. “Guy has a fricking gun!”

Six flights up, I pushed open a heavy door and came out in a red plush-carpeted hallway. I listened for Stratton’s footsteps. Nothing. Room 601 was to the left, toward the elevators. I headed in that direction.

I turned the corner and saw Stratton myself. He was down at the end of the hall, struggling to jam a plastic key into a door. I didn’t know what was inside. Maybe more help.

“Stratton!” I yelled, pointing the gun at him. He turned and faced me.

One thing almost made me smile, his cool, always-incontrol demeanor twisted into a frantic glare. Stratton’s arm jerked upward and he fired his gun. Flashes careened off the wall near my head. I pointed my gun but didn’t fire. As much as I hated him, I didn’t want to kill him.

But Stratton saw my gun – and he ran down another corridor.

I went after him.

Like a cornered prey, Stratton started trying doors around the elevator landing. They were locked. There was a balcony there, but it led nowhere but outside.

Then a door finally opened – and he disappeared.

Chapter 108

THE STRANGEST THOUGHT flashed through my mind as, gun in hand, I made my way up a darkened concrete staircase, following Dennis Stratton.

Years ago. Back in Brockton. I was wrestling with Dave.

I think I was fifteen; he must’ve been ten. He and one of his goofy buddies had been making idiotic chimp noises while I was trying to make out with this girl, Roxanne Petrocelli, in Buckley Park, just down from our house. I chased him down by the jungle gyms, and had him pretty good, maybe the last time I could ever take Dave. I had his arms and neck pinned back in a kind of full nelson. I kept saying, “Uncle? Uncle?” hoping he’d give up. But the tough guy wouldn’t budge. I kept pushing harder, watching him grow redder in the face. I thought if I pushed any more, I would kill him. Finally Dave cried out, “Okay, Uncle,” and I let him go.

For a second he just sat there, breathing heavily, the color coming back to his cheeks; then he charged at me with all his might and knocked me on my back. As he rolled on top of me, Dave was smirking. “Uncle Al thinks you’re a dumb sonuvabitch.”

I don’t know why that popped into my head as I climbed after Stratton. But it did. One of those weird connections in the brain when you feel in danger.

The stairs rose right up into one of the Breakers’ enormous towers. The stairwell was dark, but outside, huge floods sent chasms of brilliant light shooting into the night. I didn’t see Stratton anywhere – but I knew he was up there.

I kept hearing, like a distant drumming in my head, Uncle Al thinks you’re a dumb sonuvabitch.

I pushed open a metal door and came out onto the concrete floor of the hotel roof. The scene was almost surreal. Palm Beach laid out all around. The lights of the Biltmore, the Flagler Bridge, apartment buildings over in West Palm. Huge floods, arranged like howitzers, channeled massive beams of blinding light at the towers and the hotel’s facade.

I looked around for Stratton. Where the hell was he? Tarps and storage sheds and TV dishes, all in shadow. I felt a chill shoot through me, as though I were exposed.

Suddenly a gunshot rang out, a bullet ricocheting off the wall just over my head. It had missed me by inches.

“So what is it, Mr. Kelly? Have you come for revenge? Is it sweet?”

Another shot cracked into the tower wall. I squinted into the beams of light. I couldn’t find him anywhere.

“You should’ve done what you promised. We’d both be in a better spot. But it’s that thing about your brother, isn’t it? That’s what you Kellys seem to have in spades. Your stupid pride.”

I crouched low and tried to find him. Another shot rang out, clipping the tarp above my head.

“Getting closer to the end,” Stratton cackled, almost laughing. “Seems we did have one thing in common, though, right, Ned? Funny how our conversation just never got around to her.”

My blood started to boil. Tess.

“She was one sweet piece of ass. Now, those friends of yours and your brother – that was just business. But Tess… That one I regret. You, too, I bet. Ahhh, she was just another whore.”

If he was trying to get me mad, it was working. I jumped out from behind the cover and fired two angry rounds in the direction of Stratton’s voice. A floodlight shattered.

A shot rang back. I felt a searing pain lance my shoulder. My hand shot to the wound. The gun slid out of my hand.

“Oh, jeez, Ned” – Stratton showed himself from behind a light trestle – “careful there, buddy.”

I stared at the bastard. He had that supercilious grin I’d grown to detest, along with his shiny bald brow.

And that was when I heard it. The faintest thwack-thwakthwak beating in the distance. Coming closer, getting louder.

Then off in the sky, a set of flashing lights was approaching, pretty fast. A chopper.

“Wrong again, Mr. Kelly.” Stratton smiled. “Here comes my ride.”

Chapter 109

ELLIE CLIMBED the stairwell leading from the kitchen doors.

She ran into a waiter hurrying down, babbling about this guy who was chasing some lunatic, headed up to the sixth floor. Ned. Ellie told him to grab the first cops or FBI agents he could find and send them after her. Exiting on six, she encountered a freaked-out concierge, shouting into a phone for security. She said that two men, with guns, were up on the roof!

Ellie checked her weapon one more time and stepped into the stairwell tower.

What the hell are you doing, Ned?

Ellie brushed beads of sweat off her cheek. She heard voices on the roof. She clutched her Glock with both hands.

Ellie quickly made her way to the top of the stairs. She looked out. Floodlights illuminated the tower ceiling. The lights of Palm Beach stretched out below. She leaned against the heavy door. Now what? She knew Stratton and Ned were outside. Stay calm, Ellie, she exhorted herself. It’s like training. You stay out of the line of fire. You size up the situation. You wait for backup.

Except in training, you didn’t have some guy you probably loved screwing up the situation.

She told herself she knew how to do this. She twisted the handle on the door and took a deep breath.

Then she heard two sharp bangs echoing on the rooftop. That changed everything.

Shots were being fired.

Chapter 110

I HAD SCREWED UP things like the complete amateur I was. The thought that Stratton would get away after murdering Mickey, Dave, his own wife, was killing me more than anything else.

“Don’t be so glum, Ned,” Stratton said expansively. “We’re both going on a trip. Unfortunately, yours will be a little shorter.”

He shot a glance at the chopper’s progress and motioned me along the roof with a wave of his gun. I didn’t want to give in to him, to give him the satisfaction of seeing me afraid – but I knew my only chance was to go along. The FBI was in the building. Someone had to be up there soon. Just wait him out somehow.

There was a narrow stone ledge in front of me, all that separated us from a six-story drop.

“Come on, Mr. Kelly,” Stratton said with derision in his voice. “Time to take your big bow. This is how you’ll be remembered.”

The wind kicked up and now I was starting to get really scared. Stratton’s helicopter was executing a narrowing circle, angling in toward the roof. The lights of Palm Beach stretched out before me.

Stratton stood five feet behind me. His gun was pointed at my back. “How does it feel, Ned – knowing you’ll be dead while I’ll be sipping mai-tais in Costa Rica, reading over that fancy nonextradition treaty? Almost doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

“Go to hell, Stratton.”

I heard the chilling click of his gun.

I clenched my fists. No way. No way you’re going over for him. If he wanted to kill me he’d have to pull the trigger. If he could.

“Come on, Neddie-boy, be a man.” Stratton moved in closer. The deafening thwack-thwak of the chopper echoed against the hotel walls. I heard Stratton’s voice, mocking me; “If it makes you feel any better, Ned, with the kind of clout I have, I would’ve beaten it in court, anyway.”

He took a step closer. Don’t make it easy on him, Ned.

Now…!

I clenched my fists and was about to spin, when I heard a voice shouted above the copter’s roar.

Ellie’s voice.

“Stratton!”

Chapter 111

WE BOTH TURNED. Ellie was about twenty feet away, partly hidden by the glare of lights on the roof. She had her arms extended in a firing stance.

“You’re going to put the gun down, Stratton. Now. Then I want you to move away from Ned. Otherwise, I’ll put a bullet in your head. So help me God.”

Stratton paused. He still had the gun pointed at me. A stream of sweat started to trickle down my temples.

Man, I stood perfectly still. I knew he wanted to kill me. All he had to do was nudge me and I’d go over the edge.

He glanced sideways at the ’copter. It was hovering about thirty feet above. A side door opened and someone threw down a rope ladder.

“I don’t think so,” he shouted to Ellie. He grabbed me by the back of the collar and jammed the gun against my head. “I don’t think you want your boyfriend to take a bad spill. Anyway, Ellie, you’re an art investigator. I doubt you could put a bullet in The Last Supper if they stretched it out on the side of a barn.”

“I said put the gun down, Stratton.”

“I’m afraid I’m the one giving the orders,” Stratton said, shaking his head. “And what we’re going to do now is make our way over to that ladder. You’re going to let us, because it’s the only chance you have of keeping him alive. And while all this is happening, I want you to be very careful, Ellie, very careful, that no one in the ’copter up there takes a shot at you.”

“Ellie, get back!” I shouted.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Ellie said. “The second you move a foot away from him – for any reason – I’m going to blow his head off. And, Stratton, just so you know – MFA and all – I could put a bullet through a disciple’s eye on The Last Supper from this distance.”

For the first time I felt Stratton become nervous. He glanced around, evaluating how he was going to pull this off.

“This way, Ned,” he barked in my ear, the gun pressed into my skull, “and don’t do anything foolish. Your best chance is to let me get to that rope.”

We took two steps back, skirting along the ledge. The chopper was veering in closer, the roar deafening, dangling the ladder about ten feet above our heads.

I was looking at Ellie, trying to read in her eyes what she wanted me to do. I could try to barrel into him. Give Ellie some firing room. But we were really close to the ledge.

Stratton had his gaze fixed on the swaying ladder. It was only a few feet out of his grasp.

“Ellie,” I said, looking at her, thinking, God, I hope you get what I’m doing now.

I edged a step to the left, and Stratton had to move, too. Suddenly he was in the beam of one of the powerful floods. He grabbed for the ladder, now only inches away.

“Ellie, now!”

I pushed him, and Stratton spun, gun extended, blinded in the full glare of the floodlight. He screamed, “Aagh…!”

Ellie fired! An orange spark in the night. A thud in Stratton’s chest. Ya! Stratton staggered back, the impact jerking him close to the ledge. He teetered for a second, looking down. Then somehow he caught himself and reached. The ladder seemed to find him, his fingers desperately wrapping around the lowest rung.

The chopper lifted away.

Stratton swayed there for a second. Then miraculously, he began to hold on. There was a smirking grin on his face, like, See, Ned, I told you, didn’t I? He raised his free arm. I was so mesmerized by what had happened, I almost didn’t see what was happening.

He was leveling his gun at me. The bastard was going to kill me after all.

A shot rang out. Stratton’s white tuxedo shirt exploded into bright red. His gun fell away. Then his fingers slipped, grasping frantically for rope, clutching only darkness.

Stratton fell. His garbled, frantic scream faded into the night. I hate to admit it, but I liked that scream a lot.

I ran to the ledge. Stratton had come to rest on his back in the parking circle at the hotel’s front entrance. A crowd of people in tuxedos and hotel uniforms rushed over to him.

I looked back at Ellie. I couldn’t tell if she was all right. She was sort of frozen there, her arms extended. “Ellie, you okay?”

She nodded blankly. “I never killed anyone before.”

I wrapped my good arm around her and felt her gently sink into my chest. For a second we just stayed motionless on the Breakers’ roof. We didn’t say a word. We just swayed there, like, oh, I don’t know like what, like nothing most people ever get to experience, I guess.

“You changed the deal on me, Ned. You son of a bitch.”

“I know.” I held her close. “I’m sorry.”

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too,” I replied.

We sort of rocked there for another second in the suddenly quiet night. Then Ellie said softly, “You’re going to jail, Ned. A deal’s a deal.”

I wiped a tear off her cheek. “I know.”