Dead in the Water (Stone Barrington 3)

He kissed her again, and left her yacht for his own.

He wrote Arrington what was, for him, a long letter; the longest he had ever written anybody—two pages. He apologized for being incommunicative and told her about Allison’s case, though he knew she would have seen the papers. Then he got romantic—unusual for him—and by the time he had signed the letter, he began worrying about faxing something so personal to her L.A. hotel; he didn’t want some clerk reading it. Then he had a better idea. He would take care of it in the morning.

Some time after he had fallen asleep he stirred, hearing footsteps on the dock; Allison returning from the inn, he guessed. Then he fell asleep again and heard nothing else.

Chapter

29

When Stone woke it was seven-thirty, and he jumped out of bed and into some clothes; he didn’t want to miss Libby’s departure, still harboring a lingering fear that she might not, after all, leave. He grabbed the letter to Arrington and ran toward the inn, zipping up his trousers. He arrived at the bar in time to see Thomas disappear around a corner, going toward the parking lot with some suitcases. “Thomas,” he called, “where do you keep the Federal Express packaging?”

“Under the bar,” Thomas called back. “See you later; I’ve got to get Mrs. Manning to the airport. We’re running late.”

“Just give me a minute to address…” But Thomas was gone. Stone grabbed a FedEx envelope and ran after him. Thomas was pulling out of the parking lot when he flagged down the car and jumped in the backseat. “Morning, Libby,” he said. “I’ll come to the airport with you, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, why not?” she said. She was wearing the straw hat in which she had arrived.

“Thomas, have you got a pen?”

Thomas handed one back to him.

“Libby, I’d appreciate it if, when you get to Miami, you’d drop this into the nearest Federal Express bin for me. I want it to be in California tomorrow.”

“Sure, glad to,” she replied.

“Nothing you can fax?” Thomas asked.

“No, I want it delivered.” He sealed the letter into the envelope and handed it to Libby, who put it into her large handbag. “You’re sure this is no trouble?”

“Of course not; it’s like mailing a letter—they have those bins all over the airport.”

“I appreciate it,” Stone said.

“Do you always drive this fast?” Libby asked Thomas, fastening her seat belt.

“No, but we’re running late, and I don’t want Chester to leave you behind. He has to keep to a schedule.”

“We were half an hour late arriving in St. Marks,” she said. “Chester owes me. Besides, if you hadn’t been delivering breakfast to somebody or other, we wouldn’t be late. I was on time.”

“I didn’t know you offered room service, Thomas,” Stone said.

“I took Jim Forrester up some food; took him his dinner last night, too, but he couldn’t keep it down.”

“He’s sick?”

“As a dog. I tried to get him to let me call the doctor, but he said he’d be all right. He did look a little better this morning, but not much.”

“He said something yesterday about not feeling well.”

“At least he cleaned up after himself,” Thomas said. “The maids hate it when folks get sick all over the place.”

“Is there a bug going around?”

“He ate some conch from one of those street vendors in the capital yesterday. Don’t you ever do that, Stone, not unless I point out the good ones.”

“I promise.”

They raced into the airport and across the tarmac, where Chester was waiting next to his airplane with the baggage compartment standing open. There was one other passenger, a black woman, already aboard. Thomas hustled Libby’s bags into the airplane and locked the compartment, then shook hands with Libby.