Dead in the Water (Stone Barrington 3)

“I had a little cry; now I feel better. Come over and have some dinner with me?”

“Sure, I’d like that.”

She held up a finger. “One condition: no talking about my problems; I’ve put them out of my mind until tomorrow.”

“Agreed. Give me time for a shower? I’ve been asleep, and I’m a little groggy.”

“I hate a groggy date,” she replied. “See you in half an hour.”

Stone hunted down his razor, then squeezed himself into the tiny head and turned on the cold-water shower. In St. Marks, it wasn’t all that cold.

He rapped on the deck of the big blue yacht and stepped aboard.

“Come on down,” she called out from below.

Stone walked down the companionway ladder, which, on a yacht this size, was more a stairway. Allison was at work in the galley, and the saloon table had been set for two, side by side. Whatever she was wearing was mostly concealed by a large apron.

“Can you make a decent martini?” she asked.

“I believe I can handle that.”

“The bar’s over there.” She pointed. “Just open those cabinet doors.”

Stone followed her instructions and found a handsome bar setup, nicely concealed. He found a cocktail shaker, two glasses, and ice cubes, then the gin and vermouth. “You sound awfully cheerful,” he said as he mixed the drinks. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“It’s a gift,” she said. “For my whole life, when faced with something awful, I do as much as I can, then I put it out of my mind. I mean really right out of my mind. Then I find that the next day, things seem clearer.”

“That’s a great gift,” he said.

“You can cultivate it if you work at it.”

He handed her a martini. “I’ll start right now.”

She was sautéing chicken breasts in a skillet on the four-burner gas range, which was large for a yacht.

“When did you find time to get to the grocery store?” he asked.

“I didn’t. I provisioned in the Canaries, and I’ve got lots of cold storage here, plus a large freezer. There won’t be a salad, though; sorry about that.”

They clinked glasses. “Better times,” Stone said.

“I’ll drink to that.” She took a swig of her martini. “Expert,” she said.

“A misspent youth. I tended bar in a Greenwich Village joint one summer, during law school.” He leaned against a galley cabinet and sipped his drink. “Tell me about you,” he said.

“That’s easy,” she replied. “Born in a colonial village in Litchfield County, Connecticut, father a country lawyer, mother a volunteer for this and that; went to local private schools, then Mount Holyoke, in Massachusetts; did a graphics course at Pratt, in Brooklyn, worked as an assistant art director for an ad agency in Manhatta

n, met Paul, married Paul; lived…well, lived. What about you?”

“Born and raised in the Village, father a cabinetmaker, mother a painter; NYU undergrad and law school. NYPD for fourteen years, eleven of them as a detective.”

“Why’d you quit?”

“A very bad boy put a twenty-two slug in my knee, and the force quit me, gave me their very best pension. That’s the short version; I won’t bore you with the long one, which involves a lot of department politics and a very strange case I worked on. Anyway, once off the force, I crammed for the bar, and an old law school buddy hooked me up with Woodman and Weld.”

“How much money do you make?”

The bald question stopped him for a moment, then he recovered. “I made about six hundred thousand last year,” he said. “My best year so far.”