Unnatural Acts (Stone Barrington 23)

Holly stirred beside him. “Groan here, too. What were we drinking last night?”

“Bourbon and Dom Perignon,” Stone said, “and I think there was some red wine in between.”

“My head remembers them all,” Holly said. “Aspirin?”

“In your medicine cabinet,” he replied, and Holly padded across the bedroom to her bathroom. “Bring me three,” Stone called out. “And some water.”

Holly returned with the aspirin bottle and a glass of water, and they both partook.

“A good breakfast will chase away the hangover,” Stone said, picking up the phone and buzzing Helene

, his housekeeper. He ordered eggs scrambled with cheese, bacon, English muffins, orange juice, and coffee, then hung up.

“Thank God we don’t have to fix breakfast,” Holly said.

“Or go out for it. Dino does that every day-goes to some diner near his apartment.”

“Couldn’t face it.” Holly pulled the covers over her head.

“Didn’t we have some sort of conversation with Dino last night? Something about Shelley Bach?”

“Groan again,” Holly said, her voice muffled. “Don’t want to know.”

“There’s been a nationwide APB out for her for what-nine, ten months? How can she elude law enforcement for that long in this day and age?”

“Can’t be done,” Holly said, still muffled.

Stone pulled down the covers far enough to expose her lips, then kissed her. “Tell me how you’d do that, if you were Shelley.”

“Well,” Holly said, “she was an assistant director of the FBI, after all. That means she knows how law enforcement finds fleeing felons. Also, she had access to equipment and computers that would allow her to make fake IDs, driver’s licenses, et cetera-probably even passports. We know she switched cars early in the chase-she probably bought a car under a false name-and she must have had some sort of hideout ready, something out of the way and quiet. She’s got to be calling Dino from a throwaway cell phone-the greatest aid to criminal conduct since the blackjack. The FBI would have to be very lucky indeed to catch her.”

“You have a point,” Stone said.

“I have many points.”

“She’s such a striking woman that it’s a wonder she could move around in public without being spotted by some citizen. After all, her face was all over TV last summer and fall.”

“Yeah, but the only photo they had was the one on her FBI ID,” Holly said, “just a straight-on, washed-out black-and-white shot, no better than a mug shot, really, and her hair was short when that picture was taken. Hair dye and makeup can work wonders for a girl these days.” She held up a strand of her auburn hair. “Look at this.”

The bell on the dumbwaiter rang, and Stone got out of bed and brought back the big breakfast tray, complete with the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Stone took the front page of the Times and handed the rest to Holly.

“I can’t face the news without something in my stomach besides champagne,” she said.

Stone went to the bar fridge, came back with a half bottle of Schramsberg Blanc de Blanc, and popped the cork. “Hair of the dog,” he said, pouring half a glass and adding orange juice.

“A mimosa,” she said. “Just the thing.”

“A Buck’s Fizz, the Brits call it. I like that better.”

Holly took a long draft. “Whatever you call it, it hits the spot.”

They dug into breakfast.

Dino finished breakfast at his local diner then got out his cell phone and speed-dialed FBI headquarters, in Washington.

“Deputy Director Kerry Smith,” he said to the operator. “Lieutenant Dino Bacchetti, NYPD, calling.”

“Deputy Director Smith’s office,” a secretary said. “Lieutenant Bacchetti?”