James Patterson - The lawyer lifeguard

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I hope you enjoy The Lawyer Lifeguard.

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James Patterson

P.S.

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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Copyright 2017 by James Patterson
Cover design by Kapo Ng; photograph by Hiroyuki Matsumoto / Getty Images
Cover copyright 2017 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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ISBN 978-0-316-55446-6

E3-20170516-NF-DA

It was a clear afternoon on the Lake Huron shore during the last weekend in May, so there werent many swimmers. Whitecaps slapped against the sand, goosed in by a mild breeze. Gulls keened in the sky overhead.

Down the beach, a kid was throwing a softball for his dog. The big yellow Lab was having a blast, splashing through the shallows, snapping up the ball, and fetching it back to the boy.

Farther out, three teens were waist deep in the breakers, tossing a Frisbee around. A lifeguard in a tower chair was on dutysort of. He seemed to be more interested in chatting up a gaggle of summer girls in micro-bikinis.

It was a gorgeous afternoon on the darkest day of my life.

And it was going to be my last.

I was sitting on a low sand hill behind my familys beachfront cottage, still dazed, dressed for court in a three-piece Armani pinstripe suit. It was scorched and torn, and spattered with blood.

I had a pistol in my lap.

I wasnt sure whose blood was on me. My fiances? Or mine? It didnt matter. The blood was on me.

Hours ago, my fiance died in a car bombing. Id managed to escape, yet I knew one thing for certain. Her death was my fault.

And I couldnt live with myself because of it.

Immediately after the accident, I came here. As a boy, the Port Vale shore was my favorite place on the planet. I spent my summers here, swimming, running with my buds, and combing the beach for soda cans to earn ten cents a pop.

In high school, I was a lifeguard. It was a magical job. I got twelve bucks an hour to tone my tan, and scope out the summer girls from my tower chair. At sunset, I enjoyed beers and bonfires on the beach. I was Lord of the Shore in those days.

They were the best times of my life.

And this was the perfect place to finish things up.

I looked down at the pistol again. It was a battered Japanese Nambu automatic my grandfather brought home from Vietnam. Imagine the stories it could tell, he used to say. Now it would have one more.

Except

Guns leave a god-awful mess. My first week as an assistant DA, I was called to an Iraq vets suicide. The poor guy did his best to go out clean. He parked a kitchen chair on a tarp in the middle of his garage, then wrapped himself in a plastic sheet before putting the muzzle of a 12 gauge in his mouth

But

Hed overlooked the laws of physics. The blast sprayed the garage ceiling with his blood and brains. The cops, the coroner, the EMTs, and I, all had to do our jobs in a steady drip, drip, drip of red goo and gray matter.

I burned my suit afterwards.

Here on my hill, the sand would soak up most of the blood, buta bodys an awful thing for a little kid to find.

So.

Forget the gun. The surf would do. Id walk out in the breakers, slip under and breathe in deep.

Maybe theyd never find me at all.

Laying the pistol aside, I rose on shaky legs, swaying slightly. I couldnt focus. I knew I was forgetting something big. Was it the laws of physics? No. But something just as important. My head was thumping like a bass drum. I couldnt remember

Drawing a ragged breath, I took a last look down the shore

And in that moment, I swear I saw Death. Not the guy with the scythe, wearing the cowl. More like a dark distortion, hovering above the waves, in deep water.

Crouched, poised, ready to strike.

Waiting

But not for me.

The boys softball had splashed down near one of the Frisbee players, who tossed it farther out. Naturally, his Lab chased after it, dog-paddling into deeper water, and into deep trouble.

As she lunged for the ball, a wave broke over her. And with the ball in her jaws, she couldnt close her mouth.

Gagging, in a panic, the Lab thrashed about wildly, attempting to keep her head above water, and then she slipped below the surface.

Thats when something in me snapped.

On pure reflex, I went reeling down the beach, barely able to keep steady on my feet. I staggered into the surf after the drowning dog.

The kid was screaming now. The lifeguard looked up, baffled by the racket. He clearly had no freaking idea what was happening.

After splashing through the shallows, I plunged into the surf, swimming desperately toward the spot where the Lab went under. The icy water cleared my foggy mind as I bulled through the waves, fighting the breakers and the drag created from my sodden business suit.

When I popped my head above the water, Id lost sight of the dog. Shed disappeared completely.

Damn it! If shed sunk to the bottom, there was a chance Id never find her

Suddenly, she exploded to the surface of the water. She was hacking and gagging, but she still had the damned ball clamped in her jaws.

Desperate to reach her before she went down again, I sprinted toward her. But the dog started frantically snapping her head back and forth, trying to spot the shore. She kept paddling farther out and as I raced after her, I felt my strength fading fast. With a last, despairing surge, I lunged for the Labs collar.