James Patterson - Lifeguard

And now I had it. I had my million dollars. More. I had the palm trees and the cove. I could buy that yacht, or at least rent one. In a twisted, ironic way, everything had come true. I could do anything I wanted in life.

And I didn’t feel a thing.

I sat there at the desk, and that’s when my eye fixed on something else right in front of me.

Something I’d been staring at, more like staring through, next to the ripped-open envelopes. Hesitantly, I picked it up.

It was one of those old Matchbox toys, a replica of a car. Except this one wasn’t a car at all.

It was a little Dodge minivan.

“YOU KNOW HOW HARD it is to find a real one of those down here?” Ellie’s voice came from behind me.

I spun around. She was standing there, nicely tanned, in a denim skirt and a pink tank top. She was sort of squinting into the sun that was setting behind me, her freckles almost bouncing off her cheeks. My heart flared, like an engine starting to rev.

“The last time I felt like this,” I said, “an hour later, my whole life fell apart.”

“Mine, too,” Ellie said.

“You didn’t come,” I said, pretending to be hurt.

“I said I was going to be out of the country,” Ellie said. “And here I am.” She took a step toward me.

“I had to ride two hours back to Palm Beach with Champ doing wheelies in a classic twenty-year-old Caddie. You know what torture that is? Worse than prison.”

She took another step. “Poor boy.”

I held out the little minivan in my palm. “Nice touch,” I said. “It, uh, just doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Oh, yes, it does, Ned,” Ellie said, her eyes liquid and wide. She cupped her hands over her heart. “It goes right here.”

“Jesus, Ellie.” I couldn’t hold back any longer. I reached out and put my arms around her. I hugged Ellie as tightly as I could. Her heart was beating like a little bird’s. I bent down and kissed her.

“This isn’t going to play very well with the Bureau,” I said when we came apart.

“Screw the Bureau,” Ellie said. “I quit.”

I kissed her again. I stroked her hair and pressed her head close to my chest. I wanted to tell her about Sol. What I’d seen at the house. His masterpieces. The missing Gachet. It was killing me. If there was anyone on this earth who deserved to know, it was Ellie.

But as Sol said, I was good at taking advice.

“So, what’re we going to do now?” I asked her. “Bank on my master’s degree?”

“Now? Now we’re going to take a walk on the beach, and I hope you’re gonna do something romantic, like ask me if I want to marry you.”

“Do you want to marry me, Ellie?”

“Not here. Out there. And then maybe we’ll talk a bit about how we’re gonna spend the rest of our lives. Straight talk, Ned. No games, not anymore.”

So we took a walk on the beach. And I asked her. And she said yes. And for the longest time we didn’t say another word. We just walked in the surf and watched the setting sun in paradise.

And the thought crept into my head that it might be pretty cool for a guy like me to be married to an ex-special agent of the FBI…

Of course, I was thinking Ellie might be thinking the same thing, about Ned Kelly… the outlaw.

TWO YEARS LATER…

The ring of the phone caught me just as I was rushing out the door. I had ten-month-old Davey the Handful in my arms and was about to plop him, all twenty-two pounds, into the waiting arms of Beth, our sitter.

Ellie was already at work. She opened up a gallery. In Delray, where we settled in a quaint little bungalow a couple of blocks off the beach. She specializes in nineteenth-century French paintings and sells them in New York and up in Palm Beach. In our living room, over the mantel, we even had an Henri Gaume.

“Ned Kelly,” I answered, cradling the receiver in my neck.

I was late to work. I still took care of pools. Except this time, I bought the company, Tropic Pools, the largest in the area. These days I serviced all the fanciest ones from Boca to Palm Beach.

“Mr. Kelly,” an unfamiliar voice replied, “this is Donna Jordan Cullity. I’m a partner at Rust, Simons and Cullity. We’re a law firm in Palm Beach.”

I mouthed to Beth under my breath that Ellie would be back around 4:30. “Uh-huh,” I said into the phone receiver.

“You’re acquainted with a Mr. Sol Roth?” the lawyer inquired.

“Uh-huh,” I said again.

“Then I’m sorry to inform you that Mr. Roth has died.”

I felt the blood rush to my head, my stomach plunge. I sat down. I knew Sol had been ill, but he was always making light of things. I’d gone to visit him less than a month before. He joked that he and Champ were gearing up to crash a Harley roundup near the Grand Canyon. I felt as shocked and weak-kneed as when my own father had died. “When?”

“About a week ago,” Ms. Cullity said. “He knew he had cancer for a long time. He died peacefully in his sleep. In accordance with his desires, he didn’t want anyone but his family to know.”

“Thank you for letting me know,” I said, this empty feeling crawling inside. I flashed to the image of the two of us standing in his vault, staring at those paintings. God, I was gonna miss Sol.

“Actually, Mr. Kelly,” the lawyer said, “that’s not why I called. We’ve been retained to handle some of Mr. Roth’s wishes, in the matter of his estate. There are some issues that he didn’t want publicized. He said you would understand.”

“You mean the payments he’s been making into a Caymans account?” I could understand why Sol wouldn’t want that to come to light. Now that he was dead, I guessed the balance would be paid in full. “You can handle it any way you like, Ms. Cullity. I’ll always be eternally grateful to Sol.”

“Actually,” Cullity said after a pause, “I think we should meet, Mr. Kelly.”

“Meet?” I leaned back against the wall. “Why?”

“I don’t think you understand, Mr. Kelly. I’m not calling about any payments. It’s a matter of Mr. Roth’s estate. There’s an item he wanted you to have.”

SPLIT ACES, wasn’t that what I called it a couple of years ago?

No, it’s a helluva lot more than split aces… It’s like hitting the lottery, mate, as Champ would say. It’s like the kick that wins the Super Bowl with no time left. You kick it over and over. The ball sails through. You can’t miss.

What do you do when the most valuable piece of art in the world falls into your hands?

Well, first you stare at it. Maybe a million times. A man in a white cap with his head tilted at a table and a melancholy look.

You stare at it until you know every stab of color, every line of the weary face. Trying to figure out how something so simple could be so magical. Or why it came to you.

Or if you ever wanted that kind of money.

Maybe a hundred million dollars, the lawyer estimated.

Then you tell your wife. You tell her everything. Everything you were sworn not to. Hell, Sollie’s secret was safe now anyway.

And after she yells at you for a while and wants to punch you, you bring her in and watch her see it for the first time. You see something beautiful in your wife’s face amid the astonishment and the awe. “Oh my God, Neddie…” Like watching a blind man discovering color for the first time. The magical caress of her eyes. The reverence. It takes your breath away, too.

And you bring in your ten-month-old baby and you hold him in front of it and say, One day, Davey, you’ll have a helluva story to tell.