Cold Paradise (Stone Barrington 7)

Stone turned over and fluffed his pillow. “Then go back to sleep.”

“Stone, get out of the fucking bed right now and come with me.”

Stone turned over and tried to focus on Dino, then he realized that his friend had a gun in his hand. He sat bolt upright, now fully awake. “What’s wrong?”

“Put your pants on and come with me.”

Stone got out of bed and put his pants on, then padded along behind Dino as he led the way to the afterdeck.

“Look,” Dino said, waving an arm.

“Look at what?”

“Look at the shore.”

“What about the shore?”

“We aren’t tied up to it anymore.”

“Huh?” Stone looked quickly toward where the seawall behind Thad Shames’s house should have been. It wasn’t there. “We’re adrift,” he s

aid.

“That’s the word I was looking for,” Dino said. “Adrift!”

“Why?”

“How the hell do you think I know? What do I know about boats?”

“This is crazy,” Stone said. “The engines aren’t running. Where’s the crew?”

“Ashore, probably drunk,” Dino said. “What do we do?”

Stone grappled with that problem for a minute. “We stop the yacht,” he said.

“Great. How do we do that?”

“Come on,” Stone said, “let’s get up to the bridge.”

“The bridge,” Dino said, following Stone at a trot. “I like that. It sounds real nautical.”

56

STONE RAN UP TO THE BRIDGE, WHICH WAS COMPLETELY dark. “Find a light somewhere,” he said to Dino.

“I’m looking, I’m looking.”

Stone began feeling along the bulkheads for a switch. Suddenly, the lights came on, but dimly.

“I found it, but it’s not very bright,” Dino said.

“That’s okay, it won’t ruin our night vision.”

“What do we do now?”

“We’ve got to get the engines started,” Stone said. “Look for the ignition switch.”

“Right here,” Dino said, pointing. “Trouble is, there’s no key in it.”