James Patterson - The Beach House

And as the networks and cable stations turned The People v. Barry Neubauer into more grist for the mill, the FBI poured into the Hamptons. In their styleless rubber-soled brogans, bad haircuts, and generic domestic sedans, they looked as out of place as someone on food stamps.

"IF I'M NOT REAL CAREFUL, I could get used to a place like this," said Macklin, running one long, bony finger along the aged mahogany wainscoting that made the room seem as if it had been lifted from a stone manse in some British PBS miniseries. We were sitting in the corner library, just off the more austere space we'd turned into our courtroom. Mack and I parked ourselves on the polished oak floors and sat facing the long, tall window that looked out onto the empty beach. I felt as if I'd just lived through the world's first hundred-hour day.

"I've been thinking about Marci and Fenton and Hank," I said. "We shouldn't have let them get involved."

"It's a little late for that, Jack. Besides, they wanted to be here," said Macklin impatiently. "And I hope you've more in your hand than you showed today."

"How about Jane's testimony?" I asked him.

"It was the best you had. But it didn't implicate Neubauer. Not in the least. Where's the hard evidence Jack?"

"You can't skip steps, Mack," I told him. "As Fenning, my old trial tactics instructor, put it, you got to 'build the boat.' "

"Well, build the frigging thing already, and make sure it floats. Now help me up, Jack. I've got to get into my sleeping bag. I shouldn't be talking to you anyway."

I grabbed a huge gnarled hand and pulled hard. While I had him there, I gave him a long, stout hug. I felt I was grabbing a bag of bones.

"Don't get old on me, Macklin," I said. "I need you too much."

"I feel like I've aged ten years in the last ten hours. That's not too good when you start the day at eighty-seven."

THE LIBRARY HAD ITS OWN BALCONY, and once Mack hobbled off, I slid open the glass door and stepped outside. I knew I shouldn't be out there, but I needed to clear my head. I wanted to think everything through one more time, especially the main reason I hoped we might actually get away with it.

The deck was angled out from the corner of the house. Whether you looked east toward the lighthouse or west toward town, you didn't see another man-made structure. In its vast cold-blooded beauty, a Montauk night can make you feel as insignificant as a fly jammed up on the wrong side of a windowsill. But that night the dwarfing scale was comforting. And the stars were dazzling.

One of the many happy side effects of perspective and clear thinking is that it helps you sleep. I stretched out on the cedar planks, and in seconds I was out.

I was jarred from sleep by footsteps at the end of the deck.

It was too late to run. I sat up and stared blindly into the dark. Maybe the FBI. Some deep, scary voice about to order me to roll over on my stomach and put my hands behind my back.

We had made it clear, I hoped, that we weren't going to harm any hostages. There was no need to shoot me on sight. I almost said out loud, "No need to shoot."

I smelled Pauline's light perfume before I saw her. "Coming back here was insane," I said when she stepped out of the darkness.

But I didn't say it with much conviction. I figured she'd been thinking the same thing I had, that it might be our last night together for a long time.

"So, I'm insane," she said.

"Well, you've come to the right place."

Pauline lay down and leaned into me, and for a few minutes I forgot about everything except how right she was for me. The thought filled me with anguish.

"I didn't mean it, Paulie girl. I'm really glad you came back from New York."

"I know, Jack. So give the girl a kiss."

AN HOUR OR SO LATER, Pauline and I were still out on the deck beneath the canopy of a thousand glittering stars.

"Did you get the blood work back from Jane?" she asked softly. For a second I was somewhere so far away that I didn't know what she meant.

"Not till tomorrow. Early, I hope. How about you? How'd it go out there in the big, bad world?"

"I did good," said Pauline with her loveliest cat-that-swallowed-the-canary grin. "Real good, jack. You're going to be happy."

"How many could you track down?"

"Twelve," she said, "out of twelve."

"And how many signed?"

"All of them. Every single one, Jack. They hate that son of a bitch Neubauer as much as we do."

"Looks like I hired the right investigator," I said, and kissed her again.

"You have an eye for talent. Oh, by the way, Jack, you're famous."

"Good famous? Or bad famous?"

"Depends on the channel, and the commentator. The guy on Hardball says you and Mack should be dragged into the town square and hanged."

"It would make powerful television."

"Ten minutes later Geraldo compared you to heroes in the American Revolution."

"I always felt Geraldo never got the respect he deserves."

"Since when?"

"Since tonight."

"And this weatherwoman on Fox, I think she wants to have your baby."

"Someone should tell her I'm taken."

"Good answerback. You're learning."

"It's true. If there's any baby-making involving me, it's going to be done with a non-weatherwoman with the musical name of Pauline Grabowski."

There was a sweet pause.

"Pauline?"

"What's that, lawyer boy?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too. That's why I'm here," she whispered. "It's probably why we're all here, Jack."

"I love you more than I ever thought I could love anybody. I worship you, actually. You surprise me, in good ways, just about every day we're together. I love your spirit, your compassion, that sweet, funny laugh of yours. I never get tired of being with you. I miss you terribly when you're away." I stopped and looked into her eyes. Pauline stared back, didn't blink. "Will you marry me?" I whispered.

This time the silence was frightening. I was afraid to move.

I finally propped myself up on one elbow and leaned over her. Her face seemed to be broken into a million shimmering pieces. She looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her.

When she nodded through her tears, the riddle of my life was solved.

TWENTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Ames sat tall behind the tapered windscreen of his jet-powered Blackhawk 7000 helicopter and felt as if the night were his own private video game. He was on duty, searching for the missing millionaires, but his heart wasn't in it. He didn't much like any of the millionaires he'd met. All three of them.

Eighteen miles northeast of Montauk was Block Island. Ames had spent the day flying back and forth over every square inch. Zilch. He wasn't really surprised.

Now he was racing back to Long Island, hotdogging it slightly, but nothing to get court-martialed for. He took a glance at the speed indicator: 280. Hell, it felt twice that. He was flying less than fifty feet above the cement-hard whitecaps.

At the Montauk lighthouse, Ames juked left and followed the steep, jagged coastline. In the moonlight, it seemed to be crumbling into the surf.

He figured he'd ride the cliffs for a few miles before tacking inland to MacArthur Airport. That's when he spotted the dark, low-slung mansion in the dunes.

He'd been scoping out multimillion-dollar vacation homes all day, but this one was over the top, even by the lofty standards of waterfront real estate in these parts. Sleek and serpentine, it went on forever along the cliffs.

Still, on the first big weekend of the summer, there wasn't a single light on. Strange, and a goddamned waste. Somebody ought to be using this spread.