Chapter 39

HOLLY LET HERSELF INTO Dick Stone’s hidden office, inserted her data card into the computer and logged on. There was an encrypted e-mail waiting for her, asking her to contact Lance Cabot soonest. She called the Barn, the code name her unit used for their offices, and was told that Lance was out until 3:00 p.m. and was not available on his cell phone. She asked that he call or e-mail her when he returned.

With Stone gone for lunch, she had nothing pressing to do, so she changed clothes, strapped on her 9 mm and went for her daily run. Since Lance was not reachable by cell phone, she left her own in the study.

She did her stretching exercises, then turned left out of the Stone driveway and began running at a steady clip, keeping to the left, so that she faced oncoming traffic.

As she warmed up, she increased her pace, taking longer strides and breathing deeply. Holly was not a big fan of running, but it seemed to be the only thing that would keep both her ass tight and her weight down.

She came around a curve into a straight stretch and saw a car coming toward her. She had allowed herself to stray in to the middle of the road, and she moved left to give the car plenty of room to pass.

Oddly, the car seemed to follow her movement. She moved off the pavement to continue running on the firm dirt of the shoulder until the car passed. It appeared that it was going to come uncomfortably close to her, and it was slowing. The sun was reflecting off the windshield, and she could not see the driver.

Holly put her hand on her gun holster for reassurance and continued to run. The car came within a couple of feet of her as it passed, and she was conscious of someone beginning to lean out the window.

Then, as she began to turn to look over her shoulder, she heard the squeal of brakes, and something hard struck her in the head.

STONE RETURNED FROM the yacht club to the house to find Holly gone and reckoned she was out running. After the news he had been given, he hoped she had remembered to go armed. The doorbell rang.

“Afternoon,” Sergeant Young said when Stone opened the door. “Have you heard the news?”

“Yes, but no details. Come on in.”

The two men went into the study and sat down.

“Tell me,” Stone said.

“Two young housewives, Joan Peceimer and Terry Brown, played golf together late yesterday afternoon and left in the same car, telling someone they were having dinner together at Brown’s house. This morning, Brown’s car was found abandoned in a dirt lane, and we started a search. Joan Peceimer’s body was found in the water, in Dark Harbor, much like Janey Harris’s.”

“And the other woman?”

“Still missing.”

“Good God. Two of them?”

“Just between you and me, I don’t think there’s much chance of seeing Terry Brown alive again.”

“Then what we’ve got here is a full-blown serial killer,” Stone said.

“No doubt about it,” the sergeant replied. “And he’s accelerating the pace of killings.”

“They had to know him,” Stone said.

“You think so?”

“Otherwise it would have been very difficult for him to kidnap two women. They must have recognized him when he approached them.”

“Well, that’s not a startling conclusion, given that everybody on this island knows just about everybody else.”

“What steps are you taking?”

“Peceimer’s body is on its way to the M.E. in Augusta. My partner has organized a search party of volunteers, and they’re covering every inch of the island. I’ve got half a dozen more sergeants on the way here. There’s not much more I can do.”

“I had a conversation with Ed Rawls and his buddies yesterday,” Stone said. “They think that Dick’s family and Don Brown were killed by one man, and Janey Harris by another. They have a point.”

“That had occurred to me,” Young said. “If you accept that premise, then it seems to me that the idea of the Stone family’s murder is probably related to Dick’s work.”

“I don’t know, Sergeant. It’s hard for me to accept that we’ve got some European assassin and a serial killer on this small island so close together in the time line.”

“I’ve seen weirder, and I expect you have, too,” Young replied. “Frankly, I don’t know what to think, and my superiors in Augusta are all over me. The papers are going to have a field day, too; there’s already a reporter from Boston here, and we can expect TV crews when word gets out about these two women.”

“The Old Farts’ principal suspect is Caleb Stone,” Stone said. “I’ve just had lunch with him, and we went through his alibi thoroughly.” Stone read Young his notes, then tore out the page and handed it to him. “If you can substantiate all this, then Caleb is in the clear.”

Young read through the notes again. “We already have substantiated it,” he said, “point by point. Caleb’s in the clear, as far as I’m concerned.”

“If the alibi checks out, then I’m with you,” Stone said. “Nothing about Caleb strikes me as guilty. The only thing he wouldn’t talk about was his last meeting with Dick, when Dick was passing through Boston on his way back to Washington. He says it was family business and deeply personal, and he wouldn’t talk about it. He told me to tell you he wouldn’t talk about it to you, either.”

“Do you think what they talked about might be relevant to all these killings?”

“I can’t think of anything they might have said that would precipitate the situation we have now. Certainly not the murders of Janey Harris and Joan Peceimer and possibly Terry Brown.”

“Doesn’t seem likely,” Young said. He got up. “Well, I’d better get back to work. Thanks for having a go at Caleb; you’ve saved us some time. Where’s Holly?”

“Out for her run, I expect.”

Young’s eyebrows went up.

“Don’t worry, she’s armed, and she’s very, very capable of taking care of herself.”

“She gives that impression,” Young said.

They shook hands, and the sergeant left.

Chapter 40

STONE SAT DOWN in the study with a book to await Holly’s return. Over the years he had found that if he distracted himself from a problem for a while, his subconscious seemed to work on it in the background, and it would become clearer.

He read on for half an hour, then became drowsy. He rested his head on the back of the chair for a moment, and shortly he was sound asleep.

When he awoke, the shadows were long outside, and he looked at his watch: nearly seven o’clock. Mabel Hotchkiss came into the room.

“Excuse me, Stone, but will you and Holly be dining in tonight?”

“Yes, I think we will,” Stone said, standing up and stretching. “I was asleep for a while. Did Holly come back from her run?”

“I’ve been in the kitchen, so I haven’t seen her,” Mabel replied.

Stone sat down, picked up the phone and pressed the page button. “Holly? Are you in the house?” He could hear the echo of his voice around the place. “Holly?”

He hung up, then picked up the phone again and called her cell phone. He was shunted immediately to her voice mail.

“It’s Stone,” he said. “I’m worried about you. Please call me the minute you get this message. If I’m not in, try my cell phone.” He hung up.

Holly had been gone way too long, he reckoned. He grabbed his cell phone from the desk, then went and backed the MG out of the garage. At the end of the driveway, he stopped and wondered which way she had gone. A right turn would take her toward the village; he turned left, assuming she would want empty roads.

He drove along the road at a steady twenty miles an hour, checking every driveway as he passed. As he came around a curve he saw Holly down the road, running toward him, apparently just returning home. Where the hell had she been?