Cold Paradise (Stone Barrington 7)

“I don’t understand it,” Stone said. “The weather was glorious, until you decided to come.”

“Oh, right, I brought the weather with me; it’s all my fault.”

“Thank you for pointing that out. So, how are things at home?”

“Oh, just great. Dolce is out.”

Stone nearly wrecked the car. “What do you mean, ‘out’?”

“Out. She set a fire in her room, which set off the alarm, and while her nurses were preoccupied with that, she got out of the house, took one of Eduardo’s cars and vanished into the world.”

“When did this happen?”

“This morning, apparently. Mary Ann called me on my pocket phone just as I was getting on the airplane. Eduardo is going nuts.”

“She won’t get far. Eduardo will have her back in no time. What, is she running around in her nightgown?”

“She packed three bags, according to the housekeeper, who counted the luggage. I’d say she has clothes for any occasion. Dolce is nothing if not organized.”

“But she doesn’t have any money or credit cards; she can’t travel.”

“Dolce has money of her own, you know, and quite a lot of it. Eduardo settled two million bucks on each of the girls when they turned twenty-one. And she took her purse, too—credit cards, even her passport. There’s nowhere you can run.”

“Oh, shit,” Stone said, his heart sinking. He dug out his cell phone and pressed the speed dial button for his office.

“The Barrington Practice,” Joan said.

“Hi, it’s me. You might get a call from Dolce sometime soon. Can you recognize her voice?”

“Sure I can. I heard it less than ten minutes ago.”

“What did she want?”

“You, I expect.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That you were out of town.”

“Did you tell her where?”

“No.”

“Thank God for that.”

“Bill Eggers told her that.”

“What?”

“As soon as she hung up I called Bill’s office, but he was on the phone. I held, and when he came on the line, he told me Dolce had called, and they’d had a nice chat. I take it Bill isn’t fully informed about Dolce’s condition.”

“Wonderful. If she calls back, try and get a number where I can reach her.”

“Okay.”

Stone hung up and punched the button for Bill Eggers’s office at Woodman & Weld.

“Bill?”