Lifeguard Read online

  Copyright © 2005 by James Patterson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  Little, Brown and Company name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: July 2005

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-1428-7

  Contents

  Copyright

  Part One: THE PERFECT SCORE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part Two: ELLIE

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Part Three: GACHET

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Part Four: BOX!

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Part Five: ART’S BOOMING

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Part Six: ONE THING PENDING

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Part Seven: MEET DOCTOR GACHET

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Epilogue

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  About the Authors

  The Novels of James Patterson

  FEATURING ALEX CROSS

  London Bridges

  The Big Bad Wolf

  Four Blind Mice

  Violets Are Blue

  Roses Are Red

  Pop Goes the Weasel

  Cat & Mouse

  Jack & Jill

  Kiss the Girls

  Along Came a Spider

  THE WOMEN’S MURDER CLUB

  4th of July (and Maxine Paetro)

  3rd Degree (and Andrew Gross)

  2nd Chance (and Andrew Gross)

  1st to Die

  OTHER BOOKS

  Honeymoon

  santaKid

  Sam’s Letters to Jennifer

  The Lake House

  The Jester (and Andrew Gross)

  The Beach House (and Peter de Jonge)

  Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas

  Cradle and All

  Black Friday

  When the Wind Blows

  See How They Run

  Miracle on the 17th Green (and Peter de Jonge)

  Hide & Seek

  The Midnight Club

  Season of the Machete

  The Thomas Berryman Number

  For more information about James Patterson’s novels, visit www.jamespatterson.com

  Thanks—Sunny and Don Sweeney, natives of Brockton, and friends. Jennifer Genco and the staff of the Breakers in Palm Beach. And Steve Vasblom of Auckland, a crazy Kiwi, but one whose feet get more on the ground with every year.

  Part One

  THE PERFECT SCORE

  Chapter 1

  “DON’T MOVE,” I said to Tess, sweaty and out of breath. “Don’t even blink. If you so much as breathe, I know I’m gonna wake up, and I’ll be back lugging chaise longues at poolside, staring at this gorgeous girl that I know something incredible could happen with. This will all have been a dream.”

  Tess McAuliffe smiled, and in those deep blue eyes I saw what I found so irresistible about her. It wasn’t just that she was the proverbial ten and a half. She was more than beautiful. She was lean and athletic with thick auburn hair plaited into a long French braid, and a laugh that made you want to laugh, too. We liked the same movies, Memento, The Royal Tenenbaums, Casablanca. We pretty much laughed at the same jokes. Since I’d met her I’d been unable to think about anything else.

  Sympathy appeared in Tess’s eyes. “Sorry about the fantasy, Ned, but we’ll have to take that chance. You’re crushing my arm.”

  She pushed me, and I rolled onto my back. The sleek cotton sheets in her fancy hotel suite were tousled and wet. My jeans, her leopard-print sarong, and a black bikini bottom were somewhere on the floor. Only half an hour earlier, we had been sitting across from each other at Palm Beach’s tony Café Boulud, picking at DB burgers—$30 apiece—ground sirloin stuffed with foie gras and truffles.

  At some point her leg brushed against mine. We just made it to the bed.

  “Aahhh,” Tess sighed, rolling up onto her elbow, “that feels better.” Three gold Cartier bracelets jangled loosely on her wrist. “And look who’s still here.”

  I took a breath. I patted the sheets around me. I slapped at my chest and legs, as if to make sure. “Yeah,” I said, grinning.

  The afternoon sun slanted across the Bogart Suite at the Brazilian Court hotel, a place I could barely have afforded a drink at, forget about the two lavishly appointed rooms overlooking the courtyard that Tess had rented for the past two months.
>
  “I hope you know, Ned, this sort of thing doesn’t happen very often,” Tess said, a little embarrassed, her chin resting on my chest.

  “What sort of thing is that?” I stared into those blue eyes of hers.

  “Oh, whatever could I mean? Agreeing to meet someone I’d seen just twice on the beach, for lunch. Coming here with him in the middle of the day.”

  “Oh, that . . .” I shrugged. “Seems to happen to me at least once a week.”

  “It does, huh?”” She dug her chin sharply into my ribs.

  We kissed, and I felt something between us begin to rise again. The sweat was warm on Tess’s breasts, and delicious, and my palm traveled up her long, smooth legs and over her bottom. Something magical was happening here. I couldn’t stop touching Tess. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to feel this way.

  Split aces, they call it, back where I’m from. South of Boston, Brockton actually. Taking a doubleheader from the Yankees. Finding a forgotten hundred-dollar bill in an old pair of jeans. Hitting the lottery.

  The perfect score.

  “You’re smiling.” Tess looked at me, propped up on an elbow. “Want to let me in on it?”

  “It’s nothing. Just being here with you. You know what they say: for a while now, the only luck I’ve had has been bad luck.”

  Tess rocked her hips ever so slightly, and as if we had done this countless times, I found myself smoothly inside her again. I just stared into those baby blues for a second, in this posh suite, in the middle of the day, with this incredible woman who only a few days before hadn’t been conceivable in my life.

  “Well, congratulations, Ned Kelly.” Tess put a finger to my lips. “I think your luck’s beginning to change.”

  Chapter 2

  I HAD MET TESS four days before, on a beautiful white sand beach along Palm Beach’s North Ocean Boulevard.

  “Ned Kelly” is how I always introduced myself. Like the outlaw. Sounds good at a bar, with a rowdy bunch crowded around. Except no one but a couple of beer-drinking Aussies and a few Brits really knew whom I was talking about.

  That Tuesday I was sitting on the beach wall after cleaning up the cabana and pool at the estate house where I worked. I was the part-time pool guy, part-time errand runner for Mr. Sol Roth—Sollie, to his friends. He had one of those sprawling, Florida-style homes you can see from the beach north of the Breakers and maybe wonder, Whoa, who owns that?

  I cleaned the pool, polished up his collection of vintage cars from Ragtops, picked up mysteries specially selected for him by his buddies Cheryl and Julie at the Classic Bookshop, even sometimes played a few games of gin with him around the pool at the end of the day. He rented me a room in the carriage house above the garage. Sollie and I met at Ta-boó, where I waited tables on weekend nights. At the time I was also a part-time lifeguard at Midtown Beach. Sollie, as he joked, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

  Once upon a time, I went to college. Tried “real life.” Even taught school for a while back up North, until that fell apart. It would probably shock my pals here that I was once halfway to a master’s. In social education at BU. “A master’s in what?” they’d probably go. “Beach management?”

  So I was sitting on the beach wall that beautiful day. I shot a wave to Miriam, who lived in the large Mediterranean next door, who was walking her Yorkies, Nicholas and Alexandra, on the beach. A couple of kids were surfing about a hundred yards offshore. I was thinking I’d do a run-swim-run. Jog about a mile up the beach, swim back, then run hard up and back. All the while watching the ocean.

  Then like some dream—there she was.

  In a great blue bikini, ankle-deep in surf. Her long reddish brown hair knotted up in a twist with a flutter of tendrils.

  Right away, it was as if there was something sad about her, though. She was staring vacantly at the horizon. I thought she was dabbing her eyes.

  I had this flash: the beach, the waves, the pretty, lovelorn girl—like she was going to do something crazy!

  On my beach.

  So I jogged down to her in the surf. “Hey . . .”

  I shielded my eyes and squinted into that gorgeous face. “If you’re thinking what I think you are, I wouldn’t advise it.”

  “Thinking what?” She looked up at me, surprised.

  “I don’t know. I see a beautiful girl on a beach, dabbing her eyes, staring forlornly out to sea. Wasn’t there some kind of movie like that?”

  She smiled. That’s when I could see for sure she’d been crying. “You mean, where the girl on a hot afternoon goes in for an afternoon swim?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a shrug, suddenly a little embarrassed, “that’s the one.”

  She had a thin gold chain around her neck, and a perfect tan. An accent, maybe English. God, she was a knockout.

  “Guess I was just being cautious. Didn’t want any accidents on my beach.”

  “Your beach?” she said, glancing up at Sollie’s. “Your house, too, I guess?” She smiled, clearly toying with me.

  “Sure. You see the window above the garage? Here, you can see it.” I shifted her. “Through the palms. If you lean this way . . .”

  Like an answer to my prayers, I got her to laugh.

  “Ned Kelly.” I stuck out my hand.

  “Ned Kelly? Like the outlaw?”

  I did a double take. No one had ever said that to me. I just stood there with a dumb-ass, starstruck grin. Don’t think I even let go of her hand.

  “Sydney. New South Wales,” she said, displaying her Aussie “Strine,” her accent.

  “Boston.” I grinned back.

  And that was how it started. We chatted a little more, about how she’d been living there for a couple of months and how she’d take long walks on the beach. She said she might come back this way the next day. And I said there was a chance I might be there, too. As I watched her walk away, I figured she was probably laughing at me behind those $400 Chanel sunglasses.

  “By the way,” she said, suddenly turning, “there was a movie. Humoresque. With Joan Crawford. You should check it out.”

  I rented Humoresque that night, and it ended with the beautiful heroine drowning herself by walking into the sea.

  And on Wednesday Tess came back. Looking even hotter, in this black one-piece suit and a straw hat. She didn’t seem sad. We took a swim and I told her I would teach her how to bodysurf and for a while she went along. Then as I let her go she hopped the right wave and crested in like a pro. She laughed at me from the shore. “I’m from Australia, silly. We have our Palm Beach, too. Just past Whale Beach, north of Sydney.”

  We made a “date” for lunch at the Brazilian Court in two days. That’s where she was staying, one of the most fashionable places in town, a few blocks off Worth Avenue. Those two days were like an eternity for me. Every ring of my cell phone I figured was her canceling. But she didn’t. We met in Café Boulud, where you have to make a reservation a month in advance unless you’re Rod Stewart or someone. I was as nervous as a kid going out on his first date. She was already sitting at the table in a sexy off-the-shoulder dress. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. We never even made it to dessert.

  Chapter 3

  “SO, I’M THINKING this was one of the top ten afternoons of my life.” I folded my arms behind my head and tickled Tess playfully with my toes. Both of us were spread-eagle on the king-size bed in her hotel suite.

  “So, you were a lifeguard on Midtown Beach,” she was saying. “Before you became a kept man. What does a lifeguard do—in Palm Beach?”

  I grinned, because Tess was so obviously tossing me a softball. “A good lifeguard is a true waterman,” I said with a twinkle in my eye. “We watch the water. Is it glassy, choppy? Are there riffs? Smooth flashes warning of riptides? We warn the sleepy snowbird to roll over and fry the other side. Douse the occasional jellyfish encounter with a splash of vinegar. Stuff like that.”

  “But now you’re a kept man?” She grinned.

  “Maybe I could be,�
� I said.

  She turned. There was glimmer in her eye that was totally earnest. “You know what I said about your luck changing, Ned. Well, maybe I’m starting to feel the same way, too.”

  I couldn’t believe that someone like Tess McAuliffe was actually saying this to me. Everything about her was first-class and refined. I mean, I wasn’t exactly Average Joe; I knew if I was on the show, I’d be one of the hunks. But holding her, I couldn’t help wondering what in her life had made her so sad. What she was hiding in her eyes that first day on the beach.

  My eyes slowly drifted to the antique clock on the fold-out writing desk across from the bed. “Oh, Jesus, Tess!”

  It was almost five. The whole afternoon had melted. “I know I’m going to regret these words . . . but I’ve got to go.”

  I saw that sad look from the other day come over her face. Then she sighed, “Me, too.”

  “Look, Tess,” I said, putting a leg into my jeans, “I didn’t know this was going to happen today, but there’s something I have to do. I may not see you for a couple of days. But when I do, things are going to be different.”

  “Different? How different?”

  “With me. For starters, I won’t have to keep people out of trouble on the beach.”

  “I like you keeping people out of trouble on the beach.” Tess smiled.

  “What I mean is, I’ll be free. To do anything you want.” I started buttoning my shirt and searching around for my shoes. “We could go somewhere. The islands. That sound good?”

  “Sure, it sounds good.” Tess smiled, a little hesitantly.

  I gave her a long kiss. One that said, Thank you for an amazing afternoon. Then it took everything I had to get out of there, but people were counting on me.

  “Remember what I said. Don’t move. Don’t even blink. That’s exactly how I want to remember you.”

  “What’re you planning to do, Ned Kelly, rob a bank?”

  I stood at the door. I took a long look at her. It was actually turning me on that she would even ask something like that. “I dunno,” I said, grinning, “but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

  Chapter 4

  NOT A BANK, I was thinking as I hopped into my old Bonneville convertible and headed onto the bridge to West Palm, floating on cloud nine. But Tess was close. A one-shot, can’t-miss deal that was going to change my life.

  Like I said, I’m from Brockton. Home of Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Rocky Marciano. Ward Four, Perkins Avenue, across the tracks. There are neighborhoods, anyone from Brockton will agree, and then there’s the Bush.