Barton poured for them. “So, Holly Barker, are you a Connecticut girl?”
“Nope, army brat, but I live in Virginia these days.”
“What brings you up here?”
“A little vacation. Stone offered me his house.”
Barton was about to reply when a tiny electronic beeping began. “Excuse me,” he said, moving quickly away from the coffee and toward a door. On his way he reached into a drawer and came out with a semiautomatic pistol. He closed the door behind him.
“What should we do?” Holly asked.
“He didn’t ask for help,” Stone replied.
14
They were still drinking their coffee when two gunshots interrupted them.
“Are you armed?” Holly asked.
“No.”
“I am,” she said. “Come on.”
Stone followed her, wondering how she had concealed a weapon under her tight jeans and close-fitting sweater. She stopped before going out the kitchen door, lifted a leg and removed a tiny semiautomatic pistol from a holster strapped to her right ankle. She looked out the kitchen window for a moment, then stepped outside. “Follow me, and stay behind me,” she said.
They were halfway to the barn when Barton Cabot stepped out from behind it, the pistol still in his hand. “Raccoon,” he said. “Missed him.”
Holly tucked the little pistol back into its ankle holster. “How do the neighbors feel about the gunfire?”
“Oh, they’ll think it’s a bird hunter in a field nearby,” Barton replied.
“Barton,” Stone said, “will you show Holly the secretary? Anyway, I’d like to ask you some questions about it.”
“All right. Holly, where are you from?”
“Virginia.”
“Virginia?” Barton said. “Do you work with my brother?”
“I work for your brother,” Holly said.
“So you’re a spy?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did he send you here to spy on me?”
Stone spoke up. “No. Lance sent her here to help me find your lost secretary. And she’s working on her own time.”
“Oh.” Barton looked doubtful.
“Holly has already been very helpful. She knows everything I know about the situation, and I’d like both of us to know more.”
Barton nodded, seeming satisfied. He went to his safe, got out the key, opened the large cabinet and, with Stone’s help, slid out the rear wall to expose the secretary. Then he switched on the lights in the cabinet.
“Oooh, that’s beautiful,” Holly said.
“Do you know anything about American furniture?” Barton asked.