Cold Paradise (Stone Barrington 7)

“Nope, but she sounds like money to me. I wouldn’t waste any time getting back to her.”

Stone stuffed the paper into a pocket. “I’ll call her from Palm Beach.” He ran for the car.

At Teterboro, the car drove him up to the airstair door of a Gulfstream V, and the driver carried his bags on and stowed them.

“Mr. Barrington?” a uniformed crewman asked.

“That’s me.”

“We’re ready to taxi. Please find a seat and buckle up.”

Stone chose from a dozen comfortable chairs and fastened his seat belt. As the airplane started to move, the young woman he’d seen in Shames’s Four Seasons suite came out of a compartment and sat down near him.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Callie Hodges.”

“I’m Stone Barrington.” They shook hands.

“I heard you were coming to Palm Beach with us,” she said.

Stone looked around the airplane. “Who’s ‘us’?”

“The pilots and me. We?

?re all that’s aboard today.”

“What do you do for Thad?” Stone asked.

“I’m his chef and party planner. I pretty much go where he goes. I’ll fix you some lunch after the seat belt sign goes off.”

“Thanks, I haven’t eaten.”

The big corporate jet taxied to runway 24, paused for a minute, then rolled onto the runway and started moving faster. Shortly, they were climbing into a thick overcast, and in less than five minutes they broke out into sunshine and clear skies.

Callie unbuckled her seat belt. “Would you like something to drink before lunch?”

“A glass of wine with lunch will be fine.”

“Be right back.” She disappeared into the galley.

Stone picked up a New York Times and leafed through it. On the front page of the business section there was an article about Shames’s coming press conference, with speculation about the announcement.

Callie returned with a tray bearing a large lobster salad and a glass of white wine, then she went and got a tray for herself. “I’ll join you, if you don’t mind.”

“Please do. How long have you worked for Thad?”

“A little over a year,” she said. “You?”

Stone looked at his watch. “Less than three hours. I’m doing a legal investigation for him.”

“Thad’s a character,” she said. “You’ll like working for him.”

“I hope so. I don’t know much about him, except that he’s in computer software, in a pretty big way, I gather.”

She smiled. “A pretty big way, yes. The last Forbes 400 put his net worth at five point eight billion dollars.”

Stone blinked. He had spent a lot of time around the rich, but not that rich. “So this new venture of his is a pretty big deal, then?”

“I hope so,” she said, “because I’ve got a nice little bundle of stock options.”