Lifeguard by James Patterson Read Free Book Online Page A

stepped onto the long pebbled drive.
    She’d seen a lot of big-time houses over the years. Problem was, they were usually filled with big-time assholes. Just like this rich clown. She was reminded that this was what made her want to leave Sotheby’s in the first place. Rich prima donnas and jerks like Dennis Stratton.
    Ellie climbed into her office Crown Vic and called in to Special Agent in Charge Moretti, her superior at C-6, the Theft and Fraud division. She left word that she was headed to check out some homicides. As Lawson had said, five people were dead. And 60 million in art had disappeared the same night. Or at least 40…
    It was only a short drive from Stratton’s over to the Brazilian Court. Ellie had actually been there once when she had first moved down, for brunch at the Café Boulud, with her eighty-year-old aunt, Ruthie.
    At the hotel, she badged her way past the police and the press vans gathered outside and made her way to room 121 on the first floor. The Bogart Suite. It reminded Ellie that Bogart and Bacall, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Garbo had all stayed at this hotel.
    A Palm Beach cop was guarding the door. She flashed her FBI ID to the usual look—a long, scrutinizing stare at the photo and then her again—as if the cop were some skeptical bouncer checking fake IDs.
    “It’s
real.
” Ellie let her eyes linger on him, slightly annoyed. “I’m real, too.”
    Inside, there was a large living room decorated smartly in a sort of a tropical Bombay theme: British Colonial antique furniture, reproduction amaryllis prints, palm trees waving outside every window. A Crime Scene tech was spraying the coffee table, trying to dig up prints.
    Ellie’s stomach shifted. She hadn’t done many homicides. Actually, she hadn’t done any—only tagged along as part of her training at Quantico.
    She stepped into the bedroom. It didn’t matter that her badge said FBI, there was something really creepy about this: the room, completely undisturbed, precisely as it had been at the time of a grisly murder last night.
C’mon, Ellie, you’re FBI.
    She panned the room and didn’t have even the slightest idea what she was looking for. A sexy backless evening gown was draped across the rumpled bed. Dolce & Gabbana. A pair of expensive heels on the floor. Manolos. The gal had some money—and taste!
    Something else caught her eye. Some loose change in a plastic evidence bag, already tagged. Something else—a golf tee. A black one, with gold lettering.
    Ellie held the evidence Baggie close. She could make out lettering on the golf tee: Trump International.
    “The FBI training tour isn’t scheduled for another forty minutes,” came a voice from behind, startling her.
    Ellie spun around and saw a tan, good-looking guy in a sport jacket with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the bedroom door.
    “Carl Breen,” the jacket said. “Palm Beach PD. Violent Crimes. Relax,” he went on, smiling, “it’s a compliment. Most of the feds who come through here look like they were stamped out of officers training school.”
    “Thanks,” Ellie said, smoothing out her pants, adjusting her holster, which was digging into her waist.
    “So what brings the FBI to our little playpen? Homicide’s still a local statute, isn’t it?”
    “Actually, I’m looking into a robbery. An art theft, from one of the big estates down the road.
Up
the road, I guess.”
    “Art detail, huh?” Breen nodded with a kind of a grin. “Just checking up that the local drones are holding up our end?”
    “Actually, I was looking to see if any of these murders tied in, in any way,” Ellie answered.
    Breen took his hands out of his pockets. “Tied in to the art theft. Let’s see….” He glanced around. “There’s a print over there on the wall. That the kind of thing you’re looking for?”
    Ellie felt a slap of blood rush to her cheeks. “Not quite, but it’s good to know you have an eye for quality, Detective.”
    The detective