Lifeguard

Chapter 89

THAT NIGHT Ellie put on an old wrinkled T-shirt, cleaned her face, and slid into bed about eleven.

She was tired, but also wired. She didn’t turn on the TV. For a while she leafed through a book on van der Heyden, a Dutch painter from the seventeenth century, but mostly found herself staring off into space.

She’d found out what she needed to know; now it was just a question of what to do next. She finally flicked off the lights and lay in the dark. No way she could sleep.

Ellie pulled the covers up over her shoulders. She glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes had passed. She listened to the silence in the house.

Suddenly she heard a creaking sound from out in the living room. Ellie froze. The floor groaning, or maybe someone sliding through the window. She usually left it open for the breeze.

She listened some more, eyes stretched wide, not moving a muscle. She waited for a second sound.

Nothing.

Then she heard the creaking sound again.

This time Ellie lay completely silent for a full twenty seconds. She wasn’t imagining anything. It was unmistakable.

Someone was in the house.

Jesus Christ. Ellie sucked in a breath. Her heart was racing. She reached under the pillow and wrapped her fingers around the gun that she usually kept on the coatrack but tonight, just to be sure, had by her side. Ellie carefully switched off the safety and eased the pistol out from under her pillow. She told herself to be calm, but her mouth was completely dry.

She hadn’t read it wrong. This was happening tonight!

The creaking sounds came closer. Ellie could feel someone advancing in the dark toward her bedroom. She wrapped her fingers around the gun.

You can do this, a voice said inside. You knew it was going to happen. Just wait a little longer. C’mon, Ellie.

She peeked above the covers at the door as a shape slipped through.

Then the sound that sent a tremor down her spine. The click of a gun.

Oh shit. Ellie’s heart nearly stopped. The bastard’s going to shoot me.

Ned… now!

The bedroom lights shot on. Ned was standing on the other side of the room with a gun pointed at the intruder. “Put it down, you sonuvabitch. Now!”

Ellie bolted upright with her own gun, leveling it, two-handed, at the man’s chest.

He stood there, blinded by the sudden light, his gun suspended somewhere between Ellie and Ned.

Moretti.

“Put it down,” Ellie said again. “Or if he won’t shoot, I will.”

Chapter 90

I HAD NO IDEA what was going to happen next. What would Moretti do? We were in some kind of standoff. I’d never shot anyone before. Neither had Ellie.

“One last time,” Ellie said, straightening up on her bed.

“Put it down. I will shoot you!”

“Okay,” Moretti said, eyeing both of us. He was acting calm, as though he’d been in this situation before. He slowly lowered the gun to a nonthreatening angle, then placed it gently on Ellie’s bed.

“We’ve had the house under surveillance, Ellie. We spotted Kelly coming in. Thought he might be up to something. We were worried. I know what this looks like, but I thought it would be best if I -”

“It doesn’t wash, Moretti.” Ellie shook her head, climbing out of bed. “I told you, I traced Liz’s gun. I know where it came from. A bust you were an agent on. What about this one? Was it stolen out of the Miami office, too?”

“Jesus,” the FBI man said, “you’re not actually thinking -”

“I’m totally thinking that, you slimy son of a bitch. I know! I know about you and Earl Anson. I know you ran him as a CI. It’s too late to bullshit your way out of this. I don’t have to go to Boston. Ned’s father – he already talked. He told Ned he knew you from your days up in Boston.” Moretti swallowed hard. “You had me under surveillance? So, where’s your backup, Moretti? Be my guest. Call them in.”

Tightness crept onto the FBI agent’s face. Then a shrug of resignation.

“Is this how you killed Tess McAuliffe?” Ellie picked up his gun. “Sneaking up on her in the bath, stuffing her head under?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Moretti said. “I didn’t kill Tess Mc-Auliffe. Stratton’s man did that.”

I tightened my fist on the gun. “But my friends, in Lake Worth…You did that, you sonuvabitch.”

“Anson did.” Moretti shrugged coolly. “Sorry, Neddie-boy, didn’t your mother ever tell you what happens when you take something that doesn’t belong to you?”

I started to move toward Moretti. Nothing would’ve made me happier than to break his jaw.

Ellie held me back. “You don’t get off that easily, Moretti. There were two guns used in Lake Worth. The.32 and a shotgun. One person didn’t do that killing.”

“Why?” I stared at him, my hand tightening on the gun. “Why did you have to kill them? We didn’t take the art.”

“No, you didn’t take the art. Stratton did that himself. In fact, he had the art sold before you ever heard of the job.”

“Sold?” I looked at Ellie. I was hoping she could make some sense of this.

Moretti smiled. “You had it pegged all the time, didn’t you, Ellie? Ned’s big score, it was just a cover. How does it feel, your buddies ending up getting killed for a scam?”

Moretti was gri

“You still don’t know, do you?” Moretti shook his head.

Tears were burning in my eyes.

“Something else got taken,” Moretti said. “Something that wasn’t part of the original deal.”

Ellie was staring at me now. “The Gaume,” she said.

Chapter 91

“CONGRATULATIONS,” Moretti clapped. “I knew if we stayed here long enough, somebody would say something smart.”

Ellie’s eyes drifted from Moretti to me. “The Gaume’s barely collectible. Nobody would kill for that.”

Moretti shrugged. “I’m afraid it’s lawyer time now, Ellie.” The FBI man’s haughty grin returned. “Nothing I said will be admissible. You’ll have to prove it all, if you can, which I doubt. The gun, Anson… everything you brought up before is circumstantial. Stratton will protect me. Sorry to ruin the bust, but I’ll be drinking margaritas and you’ll still be filling out case sheets for your pension.”

“How’s this for circumstantial, Moretti?” I nailed him as hard as I could in the mouth. He almost went down, blood flowing from his lip.

“That’s for Mickey and my friends,” I said. I hit Moretti again, and this time he did go down. “That one was for Dave.”

It took about five minutes for two police cars responding to the 911 to screech to a halt in front of the house. Four officers rushed in as Ellie explained who it was and what had happened. She was already on the phone to the FBI. Lights were whirling everywhere. The policemen led Moretti down the front steps. Such a sweet moment.

“Hey, Moretti,” Ellie called. He turned on the lawn. “Not half bad,” she said with a wink, “for an art agent, huh?”

I watched them take him away and I was thinking that the whole thing had to break now. It couldn’t hold together. Moretti would talk. He’d have to.

That’s when a whole new picture of horror began to unfold for me.

A man with a hand inside his jacket stepped out of a car down the street, walking onto Ellie’s lawn.

I saw what was happening. The man just walked past the flashing police cars; his hand came out of his sports jacket. He got close to Moretti, in the arms of the cops.

Two loud shots into the FBI man’s chest.

“No!” I screamed, starting to run. Then my voice got softer as I came to a horrified halt. “Pop, no…”