Lifeguard by James Patterson; Andrew Gross

Author:James Patterson; Andrew Gross
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery, Suspense, Adult, Thriller, FIC022000
ISBN: 9780759514287
Publisher: Little, Brown and Co.
Published: 2005-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

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.

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