Worst Fears Realized (Stone Barrington 5)

“You didn’t ask.”

“Am I ever going to get to know all the nooks and crannies of your devious mind?” she asked.

“God, I hope not.”

“I’m going to have to start looking for furniture and fabrics.”

“Listen, Sarah,” he said, “we still have to be very careful.”

“With money?”

“With your safety.”

“Why? Hasn’t your suspect flown the coop?”

“Yes, but we don’t know where he’s flown to. You can’t tell anybody about this place for the time being, and maybe not for a long time.”

“But I want to tell everybody.”

“I’ll tell you when it’s okay. As far as decorating goes, I think we should buy a bed and some other necessities in the city, then furnish the place from the shops and antique shops around here. There are a lot of them.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Something else.”

“What?”

“I’m worried about your show. I know it would be difficult, but do you think you could cancel, or at least, postpone it?”

“Are you insane? Bergman has sent out a thousand invitations, at the very least.”

“I drove past the gallery yesterday; it’s very exposed, opening right onto Madison Avenue. I’d feel better if it were on a side street.”

“Stone,” she said, “understand me clearly: I am not going to have my life ruled by some maniac who wants to harm us. I’ll tell you a story: I lived in London at the height of the IRA bombings a while back. I was having dinner with my parents at a little restaurant in Chelsea, when someone set off a car bomb next door. We all hit the floor, of course, but when the smoke had cleared, my father ordered another cup of coffee to replace the one that had blown away, and he sat there and finished it. ‘Never,’ he said, ‘never let people like that cause you to alter your existence in the slightest.’ Since that time, I never have, and I never will. I wouldn’t have left my friends’ apartment if I hadn’t been so anxious to get into bed with you.”

“Well, that was an awfully good reason,” Stone said.

“So you understand that I will not cancel my show.”

“I understand. I hope you understand that I’m going to do whatever I can to make it as safe a show as possible.”

“I’ll be happy to introduce you to Bergman; the two of you can discuss that.”

“I’ll be happy to meet him.”

They reached the inn and went upstairs to dress for dinner.

“It was an awfully nice day,” Sarah said, as she ran her bath.

“I suppose there are worse ways to see a place than with a real-estate agent who knows her stuff.”

She got into the tub. “Join me?”

“You betcha.” He climbed into the tub with her, but his mind was on the Bergman Gallery.

23

M R. AND MRS. HOWARD MENZIES ARRIVED at their Park Avenue apartment building for the first time and got out of a taxi. Mrs. Menzies was an attractive woman in her early fifties, dressed in a Chanel suit and very good shoes, her graying hair carefully coifed. Mr. Menzies was perhaps two or three years older than his new wife and was dressed in a gray, pin-striped suit that was, though of good quality, a little out of fashion.