Cold Paradise (Stone Barrington 7)

“Don’t worry—the front will pass through tonight. Tomorrow will be beautiful, I promise. The greens may be a little slow, but Palm Beach is thirsty and will soak the rain right up. I’m surprised your plane was able to land.”

“It took the pilot two tries,” Dino said. “I was ready to bust into the cockpit with my gun and order them to fly back to New York.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Callie said, smiling sweetly.

Juanito came back with a tray of steaming mugs.

“We fixed you a little toddy,” Callie said. “Figured that, with the temperature thirty degrees below normal, you might need it.”

Everybody sat down, and Stone and Dino gratefully sipped their drinks, which were laced with rum.

“Well,” Dino said to Callie, “any more at home like you?”

Callie laughed. “Don’t worry, we’ve got you a date for dinner.”

“Oh?”

“Allison Manning,” Stone said. “Although she’s called Liz Harding these days; you might remember that.”

“I’ll try,” Dino said.

“Callie, have there been any phone calls for me?”

“No.”

“If anyone besides Thad, Bill Eggers, Chief Griggs or my secretary, Joan, calls, will you tell them I’ve gone back to New York?”

“Sure. Who are you avoiding?”

“Mrs. Stone Barrington,” Dino said.

She turned and looked at Stone, and her eyes narrowed. “Who?”

Dino set down his cup. “Well, I think I’ll go get into some dry clothes.”

As soon as he was gone, Stone began explaining to Callie who Dolce was. When he had finished, he waited for a comment.

“Well,” she said finally, “hanging around you is never dull.”

28

BECAUSE OF THE WEATHER, THEY HAD DINNER IN THE yacht’s dining room, which was a symphony of mahogany and teak. Juanito had set a small table for the four of them, and candlelight gleamed on fine silver, as he served the dinner Callie had cooked for them. Dino had taken a shine not only to Callie, but to Liz as well, and they to him.

“What, exactly, do you do on the police force, Dino?” Liz asked him.

“Well, you know how on the TV cop shows there’s always these two detectives who are out there busting their balls to solve the case?”

“Yes.”

“That used to be Stone and me.”

“Oh.”

“And you know how the two detectives come back to the station house and report to their lieutenant, and he criticizes them and second-guesses them and ridicules them and sends them back out onto the street to do it all over again?”

“Yes.”

“That lieutenant is me, now.”