Chapter 43
I COULDN’T BREATHE. My neck and head were jerked back by a very strong man. The edge of a sharp blade dug into my rib cage.
“The art, Mr. Kelly,” the voice said again, “and unless I start hearing about the paintings in the next five seconds, that’s about all the time you have left in this world.”
Just to make his point, the guy let me feel the edge of the blade again.
“Last chance, Mr. Kelly. See your brother over there? Sorry about the mess, but he just didn’t know anything about you coming here. It’s just not gonna go so easy for you.” He stretched my head farther back and pressed the tip of the blade under my chin. “No one fucks the people I work for.”
“I don’t have any paintings! You think I’d lie about it – now?”
He scraped the serrated edge of the blade against my neck. “You think I’m a complete imbecile, Mr. Kelly? You have something that belongs to us. About sixty million dollars’ worth. I want to start hearing about the art. Now.”
What was I supposed to tell him? What could I tell him? I didn’t know a thing about the missing art.
“Gachet!” I shouted, twisting my head. “Gachet has it. Find Gachet!”
“Sorry, Mr. Kelly, I’m afraid I don’t know any Gachet. I gave you to five and now it’s one.” He squeezed tighter. “Say hi to your brother, asshole…”
“No!”
I yelled, expecting to feel the blade dig into my neck, and then my legs lifted off the ground. Maybe he was giving me a last chance to talk. I knew whatever I told him, I wasn’t leaving there alive.
I slammed my elbow with everything I had into the guy’s rib cage, heard a deep exhalation of air. His grip loosened enough for my feet to hit the ground, and his other arm dropped for just a second. Then I rolled forward, lifting him across my back. He flailed with the blade and I felt a slash against my arm. I slammed him as hard as I could against the wall.
Suddenly the guy was on the floor.
He looked about forty, bushy dark hair, wearing a nylon jacket, built like a brick, a bodybuilder. No way I could take him. He still had the knife and spun quickly into a crouch. I had about one second to find a way to save my life.
I reached around for whatever I could find. There was an aluminum baseball bat against the wall. I swung it with all my might. The goddamn bat shattered the beer lights over the pool table.
The guy stepped back in a shower of splintering glass. He was laughing at me.
“I don’t have the art!” I screamed.
“Sorry, Mr. Kelly.” He started to wave the knife again. “I don’t fucking care.”
He came at me, and the blade slashed against my forearm. Incredible pain shot up my arm, probably because I saw the cut happen. “That’s only the beginning,” he said, smiling.
I swung the bat across his arm and managed to nail him. He grunted. The knife dropped and clattered to the floor.
He barreled into me. I hit the wall and saw stars and bright colors. I tried to ward him off with the bat, but he was in too close. And too strong.
He started to press the bat into my chest, increasing the pressure against my ribs, my lungs. Slowly he elevated it higher. Until it was on my windpipe.
I started to gasp. I mean I was strong, but I couldn’t budge him. I had no air.
I felt the veins in my face bulge. With the last of my strength, I jerked my knee upward and caught him the groin. I threw myself into him. We rolled across the room, crashing into shelves behind the pool table – toppling games, pool sticks, the VCR.
I heard the guy groan. Jesus, maybe he hit his head. I spotted his knife across the floor. I scurried over and was back before his eyes cleared.
I wrenched the guy’s head back and jammed his own knife under his chin. “Who sent you?” This bastard had killed my brother. It wouldn’t have taken much for me to drive the blade into his throat.
“Who sent you? Who?”
His eyes rolled back, all the way to the whites.
“What the hell?”
I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket as if I were trying to lift him into a boat, and the guy just toppled forward into my arms.
The blade of a hockey skate was wedged in his back. I pushed him forward and he rolled over, dead.
I was drained and exhausted. I could barely move. I just sat there, breathing hard, looking at him. Then reality hit me. You just killed a man.
I couldn’t’ think about it – not now. I went back to my brother and knelt next to him a last time. Tears stung my eyes. I ran my hand across Davey’s cheek. “Oh, Dave, what did I do?”
I pulled myself up and stumbled back to the art book on the couch. I ripped out the page with Portrait of Dr. Gachet.
Then I slipped out of the basement, back into the night. My arm was bleeding, so I wrapped my sweatshirt around it like a bandage. Then I did something I was becoming very good at lately.
I ran.
Chapter 44
THE CELL PHONE jolted him out of bed. Dennis Stratton hadn’t been sleeping anyway. He’d been waiting up, watching the overseas news on CNBC. He jumped up in his shorts and caught the phone on the second ring. Liz was curled up, sleeping. He checked the lit-up number. Private caller.
He felt excited. The situation had been resolved.
“Do we have it?” Stratton said under his breath. He wanted to wrap up this thing now. It was making him nervous. And he didn’t like feeling nervous. Dennis Stratton was a man who liked feeling in control.
“Almost,” the caller said, hesitating. Stratton felt something change between them. “We’re going to need a little more time.”
“More time…” Stratton’s lips were dry. He wrapped his robe around him and headed out to the balcony. He looked back at Liz. He thought he heard her stir in their black-lacquer chinoiserie bed.
“There is no ‘little more time’ on this one. You said we had him. You assured me we had professionals.”
“We do,” the caller said. “It’s just that…”
“Just that what?” Stratton snapped. He stood there in his robe, staring out at the ocean, the breeze brushing back the little hairs on the side of his balding head. He was used to results. Not excuses. That’s why he paid people.
“There’s been a glitch.”
Part Four. BOX!
Chapter 45
BACK IN THE FLORIDA OFFICE, Ellie scanned the Boston office report on the murder of David Kelly and another man two days earlier in Brockton. She felt just awful – the murders could have been her fault.
It had been a bloody, professional job. A knife wound under the fifth, left rib, the blade viciously jerked up into the heart. Whoever did that meant for the victim to suffer. And the other guy – the one with the skate blade in his back, a career criminal named Earl Anson with roots in Boston and south Florida.
And something that disturbed her even more: Ned’s fingerprints were all over the crime scene.
How could she have totally misjudged him? Either he was the most cold-blooded killer she had ever heard of or an incredibly cold-blooded killer was after him. Someone who knew whom he would contact in Boston. Someone who wanted something Ned had.
Like stolen paintings, maybe.
Ned was tied to seven murders now. He was more than the prime suspect. His face was on every police department fax machine. He was the subject of the largest manhunt in Boston since – what? – the Boston Strangler.
No, Ellie thought as she closed the file, picturing the scene. No way it could have gone down that way. Not after how Ned had talked about his brother. No way she could see him killing Dave. No! Not possible! She pulled out the scribbled notes she’d made after her abduction:
BC Law School. The hope of the family now…