“So how did it go?” Allison asked, looking anxious.
“If I tell you, do you promise not to go up there and kill her?”
“I promise; I’m sorry about the way I behaved. I just got to thinking about the avaricious bitch, and it got the better of me.”
“She accepted your offer.”
Allison groaned. “And how much did I offer?”
“Four hundred thousand.”
“Jesus. Did she sign something?”
Stone handed her the document and watched as she read it. “Don’t worry, it’s ironclad.”
Allison threw her arms around him. “And you saved me a hundred thousand dollars!”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Stone said.
“Well, I had expected to pay half a million.”
“Then I saved you a hundred thousand dollars.” He sat down at the table and sipped his wine. “Funny, I feel bad about it, for some reason.”
“You sure you don’t want a lamb chop?”
“I’m happy with my wine.”
She sat down across from him and dug into her dinner. “Why would you feel bad?”
“I felt sorry for her, I guess.”
“I don’t; why should you?”
“Well, she’s been struggling along for the ten years since her d
ivorce on not a hell of a lot of money from Paul, plus whatever she got for writing some column for some local paper in Palm Beach, and that’s not the cheapest place in the world to live. She said the column didn’t pay much, but it got her to all the parties. I just have this vision of her growing old in Palm Beach with nothing.”
“She’s got four hundred thousand dollars,” Allison said, savaging a lamb chop. “I don’t call that nothing.”
“You’re right; I guess she’s better off than she was before she came down here. I hope she doesn’t blow it all on high living.”
“If she does, it would serve her right, taking all that money from a poor widow.”
“A very rich widow.”
“Not very rich.”
He felt unaccountably exasperated with her. “Come on, Allison, you’re fixed for life—not like poor Libby.”
“And how do you know I’m fixed for life?” she said, pausing in her attack on the chop.
“I have my sources,” Stone said.
She cocked her head and looked at him with mock suspicion. “Stone Barrington, have you been checking up on me?”
“Checking up on people is a big part of my work,” he said.
“And just what did you find out?”