Cold Paradise (Stone Barrington 7)

Stone followed and discovered a gap in the hedge, concealed by a quick left turn, followed by a right. He caught up with Thad, who had stopped and, with his hands on his hips, was staring ahead.

“Isn’t that lovely?” Thad said softly.

Stone looked and saw a beautiful swimming pool, completely surrounded by the high hedge. Beside it, perhaps thirty feet away, lay two women, asleep on their backs, naked.

Thad motioned them back through the gap in the hedge. “Let’s give them a little warning,” he said. “Callie? Liz?” he called out loudly.

“Yes?” Callie’s voice replied. “We’re out here.”

Shames led them through the hedge a second time. Callie and Liz were tying robes around themselves. “There you are,” he said. “I thought you had both decamped.” He pecked Callie on the cheek, then embraced Liz at more length.

“Not likely,” Callie said. “We thought we’d be safe here.”

“Where’s the crew?” Stone asked.

“I gave them the afternoon off. We weren’t expecting you, Thad.”

“And why are all the doors on the yacht open?”

“I thought it would be good to air out the cabins; keeps the mildew down.”

“You gave us a scare,” Stone said.

Callie reached into a pocket of her robe and produced the 9mm automatic. “We’re perfectly all right,” she said, handing the weapon to Stone. “Come on, let’s go back to the yacht.”

The group returned to Toscana, and Callie got drinks for everybody, except Liz, who excused herself to change. Callie followed her.

“Oh, Callie?” Thad called after her.

She turned. “Yes, Thad?”

“Book us a table someplace gaudy tonight. We’ll celebrate my return.”

Callie nodded and went toward her cabin.

“Where have you come from?” Stone asked.

“California. I’ve been sort of barnstorming LA and San Francisco and Silicon Valley, talking up the new company.”

“I hope it went well.”

“It did. How are things going here?”

“It’s gotten complicated,” Stone said. “Let me bring you up to date.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

Stone told him, in detail, everything that had happened in his absence. When he was through, he stopped talking and waited.

“And you still don’t know if this guy is really Manning?”

“No,” Stone said. “Not even Liz can be sure.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Shames said.

“So do I, but that’s the way it is. She saw him only briefly in Easthampton, and something about the way he moved made her think the man she saw was Paul Manning. But she can’t be sure that Paul Bartlett is Manning.”

“And this guy Bartlett is a friend of Frank and Margaret?”