Swimming to Catalina (Stone Barrington 4)

“Maybe later.”

“I’ll send Vance in when he gets here.”

“All right.” She closed the door.

Stone wanted very badly to follow her, but he didn’t. He sat down weakly and put his face in his hands.

Vance arrived a few minutes later, loaded down with suitcases; he hadn’t bothered with a bellman.

“I think she’s awake,” Stone said.

Vance knocked, then he went into the bedroom, carrying suitcases, and closed the door behind him.

Stone took the coffee pot out onto the terrace and sipped it until it was cold. Vance was in the bedroom with Arrington for more than an hour, and he could hear nothing.

Finally Vance emerged from the bedroom, looking tired and drawn. “Arrington wants to talk to you,” he said.

Stone went into the bedroom and closed the door. Arrington was taking things out of suitcases and putting them into another.

“Please sit down,” she said.

Stone sat on a sofa and waited for her to begin.

She came and sat next to him. “First, you need to ask me some questions about the last couple of weeks; let’s get that out of the way, then I have some things to say to you.”

Stone nodded. “All right.” Then he began to ask the questions.

54

She was terribly calm, he thought, considering what she had been through. She sat looking at him, waiting for his questions. “How were you taken?” he asked, finally.

“I was shopping on Rodeo Drive; I went back to the parking lot to get my car, and two men pushed me into a van. They taped my eyes and mouth and hands, and I heard them going through my handbag, talking about my car keys. I think one of them drove my car.”

“Where did they take you?”

“I don’t know. They moved me every day; sometimes they took off the blindfold when I got there; sometimes they untaped my hands. I got to a phone in some back room somewhere and tried to call you. Twice.”

“I figured that out,” Stone said. “You were in the storeroom of a restaurant. I found the matchbook.”

She smiled. “Good detective.”

“Did anyone ever tell you why you were taken?”

“A couple of times, one of them said, ‘Don’t worry; we’re not going to hurt you. When your husband comes through, we’ll take you home.’I asked what they meant by ‘comes through,’ but they wouldn’t say. I assumed they meant ransom.”

“But you talked to Vance every day.”

“Yes, but they would only allow me to say that I was all right. They wanted me to beg him to get me back, too. I tried not to do that.”

“Did anyone ever tell you who had ordered your kidnapping?”

“No. I asked, but they wouldn’t tell me. I heard an occasional reference to ‘the boss.’”

“When did they take you to the yacht?”

“I was on two boats, at different times; I was on the big yacht twice.”

“Did they take you there by boat?”