Son of Stone (Stone Barrington 21)

“You didn’t know that.”

“Does it matter? They wouldn’t have had it anyway.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Stone sipping his Knob Creek, Dino sipping his Johnnie Walker Black.

“When does Ben get home for the holidays?” Stone asked. Benito was Dino’s teenaged son.

“Tomorrow,” Dino replied. “I get him first. Mary Ann will have him for Christmas dinner at her father’s.”

“Could you bring him to dinner tomorrow night?”

Dino looked at him oddly. “Since when did you especially want to have dinner with Benito?”

“Since Arrington decided to come to New York for Christmas and bring Peter.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t know until tonight. I was just leaving the house when she called. They’re due in early tomorrow afternoon.” Stone showed Dino the photo of the boy that Arrington had given him. “This was over a year ago,” he said. “I guess he’s bigger now.”

Dino gazed at the photograph. “Amazingly like your father,” he said.

“How would you know? You never met my father.”

“I’ve met the photograph of him in your study about a thousand times,” Dino replied.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Does he know?”

“Who?”

“Peter.”

“Don’t start that again,” Stone said.

“I didn’t start it, you did; some years back.”

Stone’s shoulders sagged. “All right, all right.”

“When exactly was it? I know you know.”

Stone cast his thoughts back. “Right before we were going to the islands for the holidays, to St. Marks. The night before, actually. I had bought her a ring.”

“You never told me that. You were really going to ask her?”

“Yes, I was. That morning it started snowing. I got to the airport and got a call from her saying that she was stuck in a meeting at the New Yorker. She had written a piece for them, and she was working with the editor. She said she’d get the same flight the next day. I was pissed off, but my bags were already on the airplane, and I didn’t want to go through that a day later, so I left. As it turned out, while she was at the New Yorker they assigned her to write a profile of Vance Calder.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Exactly. Turns out I got the last flight out of the airport before they closed it because of the snowstorm. She was stuck in the city for another day. Then Vance arrived in town and they had dinner. I met the flight the following day, and she wasn’t on it, and I couldn’t get her on the phone. Finally, a few days later, I got a fax at my hotel.”

“A Dear Stone letter?”

“Right. She was marrying Vance.”

“And when did she find out she was pregnant?”

“I’m not sure. I was out in L.A. four or five months later, and. ..”