“Two,” Ellie looked at him, slowly releasing the door handle. “You’ve got about two minutes. Before every cop car south of Boston is here.”

Ned Kelly’s face seemed to brighten. “Okay,” he said.

“You tell me everything that happened down there,” Ellie said. “Maybe I can do something. Names, contacts. Everything you know about the robbery. You want to get out of this mess? That’s the only way.”

A halting smile crossed Ned Kelly’s face. In it, Ellie didn’t see some cold-blooded killer, just a guy who was as nervous as she was, who had dug himself a very deep hole he might never pull himself out of. She thought maybe she could gain his trust. Talk the guy in, with no one getting hurt. If the cops caught up to him now, she wasn’t sure what would happen.

“Okay,” he said.

“And if I were you, I’d keep that gun pointed at me every once in a while,” Ellie said. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. “They do teach us ways to disarm someone, you know.”

“Right.” Ned Kelly grinned nervously. He gunned the 4Runner up the ramp. “First thing we’d better do is ditch my mom’s car.”

WE SWITCHED THE 4RUNNER for a Voyager minivan left running in a supermarket parking lot.

An old maneuver. Growing up, I’d watched Bobby pull it off a dozen times. The owner was just wheeling her shopping cart back to the market. With everything that was going on, I figured I had at least an hour before anyone would respond to the call.

“I can’t believe I just did that.” Ellie Shurtleff blinked, amazed, as a minute later we were cruising back on Route 24. The look on her face read, It’s one thing to stay with this guy, another thing entirely to be part of stealing someone’s car.

An evergreen car freshener was dangling from the rearview mirror. A yellow notepad fastened to the dash. On it was scribbled, Groceries. Manicure. Pick up the kids at 3:00. A bag of groceries bounced up in the back. Pizza puffs. And Count Chocula.

We looked at each other and almost laughed as the thought hit us at the same time: a wanted killer driving a minivan.

“Some getaway car,” she said, shaking her head. “A real Steve McQueen!”

I had no idea where to go next. But I figured the safest place was my little motel room back in Stoughton. Fortunately, it was a motor lodge, so I could get around to the room without going through the lobby.

I locked the door to the room behind us and shrugged. “Look, I have to pat you down.”

She rolled her eyes at me, like, What, are you kidding? Now?

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I never take advantage of an FBI agent on the first date.”

“You think if I was trying to apprehend you, I wouldn’t have done it by now?” Ellie Shurtleff said.

“Sorry,” I said, a little embarrassed. “Just a formality, I guess.”

I was lucky that if I had to abduct an FBI agent, I had stumbled onto Ellie Shurtleff and not some Lara Croft type who would’ve had my arm twisted out of its socket by now. Truth was, I would never have pinned her for a fed. An elementary-school teacher, maybe. Or some MBA. With wavy, short brown hair and a couple of freckles on her cheek, a button nose. And nice blue eyes, too, behind the glasses.

“Arms up” – I waved the gun – “or out to the side, whatever it is.”

“It’s up against the wall,” she said turning, “but what the hell…”

She extended her arms. I knelt, patting her pants pockets and thighs. She was wearing a tan pantsuit with a white cotton T-shirt underneath, which she filled out pretty nicely. Some kind of green, semiprecious stone hanging from her neck.

“You know, it wouldn’t exactly take much to drive an elbow into your face right now.” I could see she was losing patience. “They do teach us stuff like that, you know.”

“I’m not exactly a pro at this.” I edged away from her. I didn’t like that “elbow to the face” comment.

“You might as well check the ankles while you’re down there. Most of us keep something strapped there when we’re in the field.”

“Thanks.” I nodded.

“Just a formality,” Ellie Shurtleff said.

I didn’t find anything, except some keys and breath mints in her purse. I sat down on the bed. All of a sudden I realized what I’d just done. This wasn’t a movie. I wasn’t Hugh Jack-man and this wasn’t Jennifer Aniston, and this scene wasn’t exactly moving toward a happy ending.

I placed my forehead in my hands.

Ellie sat on a chair, facing me.

“What do we do now?” I asked. I flicked on the tinny TV, just to hear the news. I tried to moisten my mouth, but it stayed as dry as the Sahara Desert.

“Now,” Ellie Shurtleff said with a shrug, “now we talk.”

I TOLD ELLIE SHURTLEFF everything.

Everything I knew about the art heist down in Florida. I left out nothing.

Except the part about meeting Tess. I didn’t know how to tell her about that, and have her believe me about everything else. Besides, I found it really hard to even think about what had happened to Tess.

“I know I’ve done some stupid things in the past few days,” I said looking at Ellie, earnestly. “I know I shouldn’t have run back in Florida. I know I shouldn’t have done what I did today. But you have to believe me, Ellie… killing my friends, my cousin…” I shook my head. “No way. We didn’t even take that art. Someone set us up.”

“Gachet?” Ellie asked, making a few notes.

“I guess,” I said, frustrated. “I don’t know.”

She looked at me closely. I was praying she believed me. I needed her to believe me. She switched gears. “So why did you come up here?”

“To Boston?” I put the gun down on the bed. “Mickey didn’t have connections down there. At least, not the kind who could set up that kind of heist. Everyone he knew was from up here.”

“Not to locate a fence for the art, Ned? You know people up here, too.”

“Look around, Agent Shurtleff. You see any art here? I didn’t do those things.”

“You’re going to have to come in,” she said. “You’re going to have to talk about whoever your cousin knew and worked for. Names, contacts, everything, if you want my help. I can soften the blow on the abduction thing, but that’s your only way out. You understand that, Ned?”

I nodded resignedly. I had a sour taste in my mouth. Truth was, I didn’t know Mickey’s contacts. Who was I going to give up, my father?

“So how’d you know where I was headed, anyway?” I asked. I figured Sollie Roth had called the police when I ran.

“There aren’t that many old Bonnevilles out there,” Ellie said. “When we found it in South Carolina, we had a pretty good idea where you were headed.”

No shit, I said to myself. Sollie never turned me in.

We ended up talking for hours. It started out about the crimes, but Ellie Shurtleff seemed to want to go through every detail of my whole life. I told her what it was like growing up in Brockton. The neighborhood and the old gang. How my ticket out had been the hockey scholarship to BU.

That seemed to surprise her. “You went to BU?”

“You didn’t know you were talking to the 1995 Leo. J. Fennerty Award winner. Top forward in the Boston CYO,” I grinned with a self-deprecating shrug. “Graduated,” I said. “Four years. A BA in government. You probably didn’t figure me for the academic type.”

“Somehow when you were trolling around the supermarket parking lot, searching for a car to steal, I just never went there.” Ellie smiled.

“I said I didn’t kill anyone, Agent Shurtleff.” I smiled back. “I never said I was a saint!”

That actually made Ellie Shurtleff laugh.

“Want another surprise,” I said, leaning back on the bed, “as long as I’m doing the résumé? I actually used to teach for a couple of years. Eighth-grade social studies, at this middle school for troubled kids, here in Stoughton. I was pretty good. I may not have been able to give you chapter and verse on every constitutional amendment, but my kids could relate to me. I mean, I’d been there. I’d faced the same choices.”