Cold Paradise (Stone Barrington 7)

STONE STARED AT THE ARMED YOUNG WOMAN. “MY money or my life?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, handing him the gun. “Thad wanted you to have this. I can’t imagine why. What’s happened?”

“Nothing serious,” he replied. He checked that the safety was on, then tossed the gun onto the bed.

“May I come in for a minute?” she asked.

“Sure.” He stood back and allowed her to enter.

She went and sat on the sofa before the fireplace. “Would you like a fire?” she asked. “It’s cool tonight.”

“All right.” He went and sat on the sofa beside her, keeping some distance between them.

She found a box of long matches, checked to be sure the flue was open and lit the fire. The kindling caught, and the fire blazed cheerily. She switched off the ceiling light and sat down on the sofa again. “I want to apologize to you for my behavior today.”

Stone didn’t say anything. He was still annoyed with her.

“I was interfering in your life without any idea of the consequences. I hope having Arrington here didn’t make things worse between you.”

“They were already pretty bad,” he replied. “I suppose I had a chance to make it up with her, but I didn’t like the terms.”

“You accept my apology?”

“I do,” he said, his voice softening, “and I appreciate it.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me. I don’t have the right to ask.”

“I’ll explain anyway,” Stone said. “I told you about my trip to the islands, where I met Allison Manning, now Liz Harding, but I didn’t tell you that, at the time, Arrington and I were living together in New York. We were supposed to fly down together, but she was delayed and missed the flight, and then there was a snowstorm, and she was stuck there for another day. She was a magazine writer, and The New Yorker asked her to do a profile of Vance Calder, whom she already knew. She accepted, and the next thing I knew, she had gone back to California with him, and they were married, almost overnight.”

“That must have come as a shock.”

“It did. A bigger shock came later, when she told me she was pregnant.”

“With your child or Vance’s?”

“She didn’t know. It could have been either of us. In due course, she had the child, I supplied a blood sample, and so did Vance. She called to say that the boy was Vance’s, and that was that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s more. When Vance died, I went out to help Arrington handle the situation, and in so doing, I learned that Vance may have been in control of the test results.”

“So, you’re the father?”

“It may be that the results showed that Vance really was, but if not, he could have had the report changed.”

“So you may be the father and you may not?”

“Right.”

“So why don’t you do the test again?”

“Arrington doesn’t want it done.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’d think she’d want to know for sure who the father of the child is.”