Chapter 56

“THAT WAS BAD, NED,” Ellie said, hustling around the side of Stratton’s house. “You could’ve been caught.”

“I thought that was the plan,” I said, guiding her past a couple of parking attendants at the front gate. “I get caught.”

She made a right turn onto the beach. I was half expecting her to stop, pull out her gun, and arrest me right there. Then it hit me, what I had heard up on the terrace.

“You think it’s Stratton?” I looked at her, a little dazed.

Ellie didn’t answer.

I stopped walking. “You said you were going to bust him for murder and fraud. You think it’s Stratton?”

“You got a car, Ned?” Ellie said, ignoring me.

I nodded vacantly. “In a manner of speaking…”

“Then go get it. Now. I don’t want to know you here. Meet me back in Delray.”

I blinked. She wasn’t arresting me.

She glared impatiently. “I don’t think you need directions, do you, Ned?”

I shook my head, and as I started down the street, a grin spread across my face. “You believe me, don’t you?” I called.

Ellie stopped at a navy sedan. “You believe me,” I called again.

She opened her car door. “That was stupid, Ned. What you did.” She softened. “But thanks…”

The whole drive to Delray, I wasn’t sure what Ellie really meant back there. The new, paranoid me was sure I was going to come face-to-face with a roadblock of cops and flashing lights. All she had to do was turn me in and Ellie could make a career for herself.

But there were no roadblocks. No cops jumping out at me when I pulled around the corner from her house near the beach in Delray.

By the time I knocked on the front door, Ellie had changed. Her makeup was off, the diamond earrings gone. She had on a pair of jeans, white tee, a pink waist-length sweatshirt. You know what, though, she still looked beautiful.

“Let’s get one thing straight, ” she said as I stood in the doorway. “You’re going to jail. You were involved, Ned, whether you killed those people or not. I’m going to help you with the guy who killed your friends, and then you turn yourself in. You understand? You got it?”

“I understand,” I said. “But there’s something I have to know. You and Stratton on the terrace…You were talking about Tess.”

“I’m sorry you had to hear that, Ned.” She sat on a stool at the kitchen counter. She shrugged. “She and Stratton. They were seeing each other. They were lovers.”

Those words slammed into me.

Tess… and Dennis Stratton. A hollow feeling rose in my chest. I guess I’d kidded myself a bit. Why someone like Tess would want someone like me. But Stratton? I sank onto the couch. “For how long?”

Ellie swallowed. “I think until the day she was killed. I think he was with her after you.”

The sinking feeling was starting to simmer now – into anger. “The police know this? They know, Ellie, and they’re after me?”

“Seems nobody wants to take on Stratton. With the possible exception of, say, me.”

All of a sudden things started to become clear. What I’d heard up on Stratton’s terrace. Why Ellie hadn’t turned me in. Why I was there. “You think he did it, don’t you? You think he set up my friends? That’s he’s Gachet?”

Ellie came over and sat on the coffee table in front of me. “What I’m starting to think, Ned, is if your friends didn’t steal Stratton’s art, who did?”

A smile crossed my lips. I felt this weight draining out of my shoulders. For a moment I wanted to take Ellie by the hand, or hug her. But the joy quickly faded. “But why Tess?”

“I don’t know yet.” Ellie shook her head. “Did she ever say anything to you? Maybe she knew about you and your friends beforehand. How did the two of you meet?”

“On the beach. Near where I worked…” I thought back.

I was the one who had gone up to her. Could it be possible that she was in on it? That I’d been set up? No, that was crazy. It was all crazy. “Why would Stratton want to steal his own art?”

“The insurance maybe. But it’s not like he needs the money. Maybe to cover up something else?”

“But if that’s the case, where was the art when Mickey and the guys went to take it?”

A light blinked in Ellie’s eyes. “Maybe someone beat them to it.”

“Someone else? Who? Tess?” I shook my head defiantly. “No way.” But one thing I couldn’t put away, and it didn’t make any sense to me. “If Stratton set up his own heist, if he has the paintings – why did he need to send a guy to kill Dave? Why is he still coming after me?”

We looked at each other. I guess we came to the answer at the same time.

Stratton didn’t have the art. Someone had double-crossed him.

Chapter 57

I HAD A SUDDEN sinking feeling. This was going to be bad. “Listen, Ellie,” I said, “I haven’t been entirely truthful with you.”

Here eyes narrowed. “Oh no. What is it?”

I swallowed, uneasily. “I think I might know someone who was involved.”

“Okay,” she said, “and you were going to share this with me when, Ned? Another old friend?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Actually… my father.”

Ellie blinked a couple of times. I could see her trying to remain calm. “Your father! I know he has a record, Ned. But just how in the hell is he involved with seven murders?”

I cleared my throat. “I think it’s possible he knows who Gachet is.”

“Oh,” Ellie grunted, staring incredulously at me, “I thought it was something important, Ned. Is it possible you could maybe have told me this, say, before I threw my career away by bringing you here?”

I told her how Mickey never made a move without him, my conversation with him at Fenway Park.

“Your father knew you were going to visit Dave?” Ellie asked, wide-eyed.

“No,” I said. The thought was too gruesome. Even for Frank.

“You know, from what you’re telling me,” Ellie said, “we’re going to have to bring him in.”

“It won’t do any good,” I said. “First, the guy’s a pro, Ellie. He’s spent a quarter of his life in prison. Second, there’s nothing to play against him. He’s sick, Ellie. Dying of some kidney disorder. He’s not going to roll over. He was willing to let his own son take the fall.

“Anyway, he’d never have killed them. Mickey was like a son to him. Now he’s lost two because of his messes.” The image of Dave’s body came back to me. “Not to mention me.”

Ellie kept surprising me. She reached out and took hold of my hand. “I’m sorry, Ned, I truly am, about your brother.”

I wrapped my fingers around hers. I looked into her face and braved a smile. “You know I don’t have those paintings, don’t you, Ellie? You know I didn’t kill any of those people. Mickey, Tess, Dave…”

“Yes,” Ellie said, nodding, “on all counts.”

Something changed for me as I looked into those soft blue eyes. Maybe it was the way I had seen her at Stratton’s party. Adorable but so brave, standing up to him. Or what she was doing for me now. The risk she was taking. It felt so good, after so long, to have someone on my side.

“Ellie?” I said.

“Yes,” she murmured. “What now?”

“Don’t arrest me for this…”

I placed a hand on her cheek and kissed her gently on the lips.