Dead in the Water (Stone Barrington 3)

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied, closing the safe and putting some papers into her late husband’s briefcase.

“What time?” he asked again.

She began going through the drawers next to the chart table, apparently looking for something.

Stone walked into the aft cabin and looked around. He opened a closet door and found only a few things hanging there, along with a lot of empty hangers. He walked back into the saloon. “What time are you leaving?” he asked a third time.

She looked at him for a long time without expression. “Sometime after midnight,” she said finally.

Chapter

39

Stone sat down on the sofa opposite the chart table. “You can’t do it,” he said. “You know the penalty if you’re caught running. You’ll be judged guilty without even the formality of a trial, and they’ll hang you.”

“They’re going to hang me anyway,” she said.

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“Stone,” she said. “Can?

??t you see the way this is headed? They’ve stacked the deck against me in every possible way. The jury will probably be stacked against me, too. Sutherland wants my hide on his wall, and he’s going to get his way.”

“Allison, listen to me. We’ve got a shot at an acquittal, really we have.”

“And if I’m not acquitted?”

“Then we turn on the pressure on the prime minister. Sutherland has already heard from both Connecticut senators and God knows who else. If they try to hang an American citizen under these circumstances, the world will fall on them. The pressure on the prime minister will be unbearable; he’ll have to cave in.”

“These people can do whatever the hell they want,” she said. “They’re in this insular little world of theirs, and nobody has ever cared about what went on here.”

“Until now. Do you know that you’re already very nearly world famous? Every television station on the planet has run a story about you. On American television you’re right up there with Princess Di for air time.”

“I’m the flavor of the week, that’s all,” she sighed. “And probably half the people who heard about it think I’m guilty. Anyway, there would only be forty-eight hours between a conviction and an execution. That’s not enough time to build outrage and get some sort of intervention. Don’t you think I’ve thought about this? I’ve hardly thought of anything else.”

“But if you run and are caught, you’ll appear guilty and you’ll lose all that support. People will say, ‘Well, she killed her husband and she got what she deserved.’ Is that what you want?”

“I’m not going to get caught. That boat over there is the fastest thing afloat between here and Miami. We’ll be in international waters fifteen minutes after we leave the harbor. They don’t have anything that can stop us.”

“Sutherland will go after you and extradite you.”

“I can fight that in the American courts.”

“And by the time the lawyers are finished with you, all the money will be gone. All of it, Allison, the house, the yacht, and the twelve million in insurance money will have gone right down the legal drain. Then, even if you win, you can never travel abroad. The minute you arrive in another country, Sutherland can start extradition proceedings all over again. You’d be hounded for the rest of your life.”

“I’m hounded now; what’s the difference? At least I’ll have a life. They won’t catch me, Stone; they’ll have to find me first.”

“So you’re going to change your identity and hide out somewhere, give up who you are and worry every day about being caught. You don’t want to live as a fugitive, Allison, believe me.”

This seemed to have an effect. Tears welled up in her eyes, and when she reached for a tissue her hands trembled. “It’s better than dying on this godforsaken island,” she managed to say.

“They’ll think I helped you,” Stone said. “I’m an officer of the court, you know; I’m obliged to prevent you from committing another crime, and to attempt to escape is a crime.”

“You’ll talk your way out of it, Stone. After all, you didn’t suspect anything until now.”

“They won’t know that. They’ll know that I had a drink in the bar with the captain of that yacht and that we talked for quite a while, and that I went down and took a tour of the yacht.”

“Come with me, then; we’ll both get out of here.”