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.”
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 happiest guy in south Florida. If not…well, we were both different people now.