Lifeguard - James Patterson [89]
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.”
Part Seven
MEET DOCTOR GACHET
Chapter 112
EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER . . .
The gate of the federal detention center up in Coleman buzzed open, and I walked out into the Florida sun a free man.
All I carried with me was my BUM Equipment bag containing my things, and a computer case slung over one shoulder. I stepped out into the courtyard in front of the prison and shielded my eyes. And just like in the movies, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do next.
I’d spent the past sixteen months in Coleman’s minimum-security block (six months reduced for good behavior) among the tax cheats, financial scammers, and rich-boy drug offenders of the world. Along the way, I had managed to get most of the way to a master’s degree from the University of South Florida in social education. Turns out I had this talent. I could speak to a bunch of juvies and social misfits about to make the same choices I had, and they actually listened to me. I guess that’s what losing your best friends and your brother and sixteen months in federal prison give you. Life lessons. Anyway, what the hell was I going to do with myself? Go back to being a lifeguard?
I scanned the faces of a few waiting people. Right now, there was only one question I wanted answered.
Was she there?
Ellie had visited regularly when I started serving my term. Almost every Sunday she’d drive up, with books and DVDs and cute notes, marking off the weeks. Coleman was only a couple of hours’ drive from Delray. We made this date: September 19, 2005. The day I’d be getting out. Today.
She always joked she’d come pick me up in a minivan, like the day we met. It didn’t matter that I was going to have this record and she was still working for the FBI. It would distinguish her, Ellie said with a laugh. Make her stand apart from the organizational clutter. She’d be the only agent dating a guy she had put away.
You can count on it, Ellie said.
Then the Bureau actually offered her this promotion. They transferred her back to New York. Head of the International Art Theft office there. A big move up. A lot of overseas travel. The visits started going from every week to every month. Then last spring, they sort of came to a stop.
Oh, we e-mailed each other a few times a week and talked on the phone. She told me that she was still rooting for me and that she was proud of what I was doing. She always knew I’d make something of myself. But I could detect a shift in her voice. Ellie was smart and a winner and had even been on the morning news shows after the case. As September grew close, I got this e-mail that she might have to be out of the country. I didn’t want to push it. Dreams change. That’s what prison does. As the days wound down I decided, if she was there, well, that’s where I would pick up from. I’d be the