Lifeguard - James Patterson [29]
“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.