D.C. Dead (Stone Barrington 22)

Holly consulted the file. “Bought used, at a gunshop in Richmond, Virginia, the year before last. Buyer named G. B. Smith, whose address was a phony.”

“Virginia is notorious for phony gun

sales,” Dino said. “We see the results on the streets of New York all the time.”“We’re knocking ourselves out for nothing,” Stone said. “The March Hare is careful, we already know that.”

“Tell you the truth, I thought Fair was our woman,” Dino said. “I didn’t like her attitude yesterday.”

“I never thought so.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dino said, “she was too nice.”

“No, just too straightforward. She had a full life—she didn’t have time to go around murdering people.”

“So,” Dino said, “we’ve got a very careful serial killer.”

“Looks that way,” Stone said. “And that’s all we’ve got.”

47

TEDDY FAY AND LAUREN CADE LAY NAKED ON THE BEACH AT Gay Head, on Martha’s Vineyard. It was Sunday afternoon. Most of the other nudists, all locals, with beach parking permits, had gone. Teddy and Lauren had sneaked down the trail from the parking lot and had managed to blend in with the couples and families who had been enjoying the sun on their bodies. They had enjoyed a long weekend in a B and B in Edgartown.

They packed their dirty dishes into the picnic hamper, folded their blanket, then got back into their clothes. It was a bit of a hike up the cliffs, and they were puffing a bit when they got to the car.

Teddy got the rental started and they began driving to the airport.

“You know,” Lauren said, “this island might make a better place to live than D.C. It’s lovely here.”

“It is,” Teddy agreed, “but remember, it has a New England winter, and what with one airport and a ferry to deal with, it’s a hard place to get out of, should we have to leave in a hurry.”

“You’re right,” she said. “But let’s find a place that has a good climate year-round, and where escaping our pursuers isn’t such a problem.”

“We had a place like that in La Jolla,” Teddy said. “The San Diego weather was great year-round, but we were run out of there.”

“But you did say they aren’t pursuing us anymore,” Lauren pointed out.

“That’s what they agreed to,” Teddy said. “Now we have to find out whether they really meant it, and to do that without getting caught we have to be ready to move on a moment’s notice.”

“For how long?”

“A year, maybe.”

“Or we could just go now,” Lauren said.

“If we went now, where would you want to go?”

“How about Asheville, North Carolina?” she asked. “I was there once, and they seem to have a good year-round climate, not too hot in the summers or too cold in the winters.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Teddy said. “Maybe we could fly down there next weekend, if the weather cooperates, and take a look at it.”

“That would make me feel as if we’re doing something,” Lauren said, “not just waiting for something terrible to happen.”

“Nothing terrif we’re ble is going to happen,” Teddy said. “Not if we go on being careful.”

“I just can’t get over the feeling that we’re living too close to the Agency, that sooner or later we’re going to bump into someone from your past that we’d rather not see.”

“I know, baby,” Teddy said, patting her on the knee. He pulled into the little Vineyard airport. They parked the car in a rental slot and left the contract and the keys with the rental car agency. They stowed their luggage in the airplane, and Teddy did his usual careful preflight inspection of the airplane.

They took off to the south, headed back to Clinton Field, in D.C., and their comfortable hideout hangar. Teddy figured to be on the ground there before dark.