“I’d like to visit Caleb’s house,” Stone said.

“Me, too,” Young replied.

Ham stood up. “I’m coming, too.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, Mr. Barker,” Young said. “You just stay here, and let me do my job. You, too, Stone.”

“As you wish, Sergeant,” Stone replied.

“I’ll call you after I’ve talked to Caleb-and his sons, if they’re there.”

“Be careful,” Stone said.

Young left the house.

“You shouldn’t get too excited about this, Ham,” Stone said.

“No?” Ham replied. “If these twins are here, why are they establishing an alibi for themselves in Nantucket?”

“I don’t know, but they may actually be in Nantucket, and we still don’t have anything to connect them with Holly.”

The doorbell rang, and Stone went to answer it. Ed Rawls stood on the doorstep.

“Come on in, Ed.”

“Thanks. Anything new?”

“I’m not sure. We’ve just learned that Caleb Stone’s twin sons have gone to some lengths to make the police believe that they’re in Nantucket, but we’ve learned that they’re not.”

“We haven’t learned that yet, Stone,” Lance pointed out. “All we know is that the Nantucket cop looking for them hasn’t seen them yet.”

“And,” Dino pointed out, “we’ve got these thermal scans that show four people sleeping in Caleb’s house last night.”

“So, what if they are here?” Rawls asked. “Have you got anything to connect them to any of the murders?”

“Not really,” Stone said, “but I find it very suspicious that they seem to be trying to create a false alibi.”

“I see your point,” Rawls said.

“Sergeant Young has just gone over to Caleb’s house to see if they’re there,” Stone said. “I’ll be interested to hear what he finds out.”

SERGEANT TOM YOUNG pulled up to the Stone house, a rambling shingled house sagging with age in places. He walked up onto the front porch and rang the bell.

After a long wait the door opened. “Yes?”

“Mr. Caleb Stone?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Sergeant Young of the Maine State Police. We spoke on the phone yesterday. I’d like to speak to your sons, Eben and Enos, please.”

“I gave you their cell phone number yesterday, Sergeant,” Caleb replied. “It hasn’t changed.”

“Yes sir, and I spoke to one of them, but I haven’t bearable to confirm their whereabouts.”

“Well, I’m sorry about that, Sergeant, but I don’t see how I can help you. The boys are not here.”

“Sir, we have information that four people slept in your house last night. I assume that two of them were your wife and yourself. Who were the other two?”

“We, ah, had houseguests. They left this morning.”

“Did they take the ferry?”

“No, they came and left by boat; they’re cruising the coast and just stopped in for the night.”

“May I ask their names?”

“Bill and Julie Robertson.”

“And the name of their boat?”

“I don’t really know the boat’s name,” Caleb replied. “It’s a sailing boat, pretty good size, but I don’t know its name.”

“How can I contact the Robertsons?”

“Why do you want to contact them?”

“I need to verify their presence here last night.”

“Well, I suppose you’ll have to wait until they return to Boston in the fall. They’re cruising all summer.”

“Mr. Stone, would you mind if I had a look around your house?”

“What for?”

“I’d like to see for myself if your sons are here.”

“All right. Go ahead,” Caleb said, standing aside and holding the door open.

Sergeant Young stepped inside the house, and he heard the door close firmly behind him.

Chapter 53

STONE FINISHED HIS LUNCH and pushed back from the table. “I’m going to look for Sergeant Young,” he said.

“Take it easy, Stone,” Lance said. “He’s only been gone for an hour, and we know where he went. Relax and have some dessert.”

Stone tried to relax. “Ginny, how are you coming with Esme’s diary?”

“Slowly,” she replied. “I can go faster, if you don’t care if I destroy it.”

“Please do it as you see fit, Ginny.”

“It’s just that it’s all these thin sheets, and they’ve been mashed together by water and the pressure of the cover. If I use the heat from the hair dryer too much, they dry too fast and crumble.”

Lance spoke up. “Ginny, if it’s too difficult, I can send it back to Langley and let the experts have a go at it.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Stone said.

“You mean Holly doesn’t have time for that,” Ham said. It was the first time he had spoken during lunch.

“I can do it, Lance,” Ginny said, “but it has to be done slowly, and I don’t think your people at Langley could do it any faster. I know it would be nice to do this in a lab, to better preserve the diary as evidence, but we have a different priority here, and that’s to get Holly back as quickly as possible.”

Stone stood up. “I’m going to go call Tom Young and see if he’s all right.” He left the room.

Ham watched him go. “I think Stone is almost as tightly wound as I am.”

Stone came back. “I got his voice mail. I’m going to wait another half an hour, and then I’m going over to Caleb’s house.” He sat down and tried to eat the apple pie in front of him.

“There are dead spots on this island,” Lance said. “Maybe Tom is in one of those.”

The doorbell rang, and Stone got up and went to the front door. A moment later he came back into the kitchen with Sergeant Young.

“What happened over there?” Lance asked.

“Let’s take a look at those thermal images,” Young said.

Stone went to get them and spread them on the kitchen table.

“I searched the whole house,” Young said. “Caleb didn’t give me a hard time; he seemed to be happy for me to look around.” He tapped a finger on two of the sleeping figures. “This is the twins’ room,” he said, “and it would appear that they’re sleeping there. However, there’s a guest room one floor up, directly over the twins’ room, and Caleb says they had people sleeping there last night.”

“Who?” Stone asked.

“A couple named Bill and Julie Robertson from Boston. I checked, and there’s a phone listing there, and I got an answering machine. Caleb says they’re spending the whole summer cruising the coast in their sailboat and that they came in by sea yesterday and left the same way early this morning. He didn’t have the boat’s name or description, so I can’t ask the coast guard to look for it. I’ve got somebody checking the Massachusetts yacht registry for the information we need to launch a search.”

“So, we’re back where we started?” Stone asked.

“I wish to God we could nail down the twins on Nantucket and confirm the past four days of their alibi. I’m beginning to get the feeling we’re wasting valuable time on those boys.”

“Funny,” Stone said, “I’m getting the feeling that they are less and less of a waste of our time.”

HOLLY JERKED AWAKE, feeling pain. She felt it again; somebody had slapped her sharply across the face. Then she heard an odd, mechanical-sounding voice.

“Listen to me carefully,” it said. “I have decided to accept your offer for your freedom. I’m going to remove the tape over your mouth, and I want you to answer my questions. Say nothing else, just answer. Do you understand me?”

Holly nodded.

“My question is, what do you need to accomplish the transfer of funds?”

The tape was ripped off. Holly panted for a moment.

“Answer me.”

“I need a computer and an Internet connection.”

“That’s it?”

“That and for you to find a way to convince me, beyond any doubt, that the moment I complete the transaction, I will be freed.” She heard the rip of duct tape being torn, and a fresh strip was slapped over her mouth.

“I don’t know if I can convince you of my intentions,” the voice said, “but I will promise you this: If we can’t make this happen quickly, you will be dead in less than twenty-four hours.” She felt the man leave the room.