Stuart Woods - Reckless Abandon

“Where you headed?”

“Out of town.”

“Where?”

“If I wanted to get Holly and myself killed, I’d tell you.”

There was a long silence before Lance spoke again. “That’s an odd thing to say,” he said finally.

“I suppose it is,” Stone replied, “but you’re the only person in all this who has the resources to make what’s been happening happen.”

Another long silence. “That’s not an outrageous conclusion to come to, but why do you think I would want you dead?”

“I’m still thinking about that,” Stone said. He pressed the end button on the phone and put it back into its cradle. It was dark now, and the lights of the cities and towns of the Atlantic seaboard stretched out before them. He was glad to be leaving them behind.

STONE WOKE, DISORIENTED, with the sun streaming through the windows. He was alone in bed, and he couldn’t hear anyone downstairs.

He found a robe in a closet, put his cell phone in a pocket, and walked downstairs. Nice place, he thought, looking around the living room and the kitchen. He opened the sliding glass doors and stepped outside. Dunes stretched away to his left and right, and the Atlantic Ocean was only yards away. The air was warm and soft, and the small surf made a pleasant noise.

He looked up and down the beach and found himself alone, so he shucked off the robe and ran naked into the sea, running as far as he could, then diving in and swimming away from the shore. Fifty yards out, he turned and swam back in, found his robe, and went back into the house. He found juice, cereal, and milk in the kitchen and made himself some breakfast. He was having coffee when the telephone rang. He let the machine get it.

“Stone, it’s Holly,” she said. “If you’re awake, pick up.”

Stone picked up the phone on the kitchen counter. “Hi.”

“What time did you get up?”

“Just a few minutes ago. I had a swim and some breakfast.”

“Great. Make yourself at home. Daisy and I are at work, and I’ve got a lot of mail to clear up. Did you bring a gun with you?”

“Yep, I brought the Walther.”

“Good. I don’t like to think of you being unarmed, what with all that’s happened.”

“Neither do I. Can I carry in this state?”

“Not with the word ‘retired’ on your police ID. When you get dressed, come to the station and ask for my secretary. She’ll fix you up with something.” She gave him directions. “Use my car. The keys are in a bowl on the kitchen counter.”

“Sounds good.”

“I won’t be here when you come, and I won’t be home until around seven. Can you amuse yourself?”

“I’ll try.”

“See you then.” She hung up.

Stone took a shower and dressed in light clothes, then drove into town and, following Holly’s directions, found the station and asked for her secretary.

A middle-aged woman came to the front desk to get him. “Morning, Mr. Barrington. Would you come this way, please? We’re all ready for you.”

He followed her through the squad room to the rear of the building, where she stood him before a wall and took a photograph of him with a Polaroid passport camera.

She handed him a form and a pen. “Please sign at the bottom.”

Stone signed. She went away and came back with a laminated ID card and a badge in their own wallet.

“Congratulations, you are now a consultant lieutenant with the Orchid Beach Police Department, without pay.”

“Thank you.”

He went back to the car, opened the glove compartment, and took out the Walther in a Galco Executive shoulder holster. He got into the light harness and put his windbreaker on over it. “Now I’m armed and dangerous,” he said aloud to himself.

That evening Stone, Holly, Ham, and his girlfriend, Ginny, a lovely redhead, were at a table at the Ocean Grill, in nearby Vero Beach, sipping vodka gimlets.

“Stone,” Holly said, “do you think Lance could have had anything to do with the people who’ve been trying to kill you and me?”

“It crossed my mind,” Stone said. “Certainly, he has the resources to do it.”

“I can’t think of a motive, can you?”

“Not so far. I can’t think of anything we know that we shouldn’t know. I think it’s a better guess that somebody in the FBI is talking to Trini about us, but I can’t see the FBI sanctioning the killing of two citizens. The whole thing is baffling.”

Ham spoke up. “I think it’s Trini, one way or another, and I don’t think he needs the FBI to help him. From what Holly has told me, he could have followed her to your house, so he would know about you. And just because the Feds are following you, that doesn’t mean that Trini’s people can’t follow you, as well. Lance doesn’t have any reason to kill two people who are supposed to be working for him.”

“Apart from that,” Holly said, “Lance just doesn’t strike me as the killer type.”

“There are all sorts of killer types,” Stone said.

“Too true,” Ham echoed.

Their dinner arrived and they turned the conversation to other things.

They had just arrived back at Holly’s house when Stone’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. “Hello?”

“Stone, it’s Lance.”

“Good evening.”

“Our last conversation set me to thinking. I ordered a DNA check of our three anonymous assassins, and I just got a call from my people with the results.”

“You have a database to check the results against?”

“Yes, but they’re not in our database, or the FBI’s.”

“So the tests were useless?”

“As far as identification goes, yes; but the tests turned up some other useful information.”

“What kind of information?”

“It was possible to conclude that all three men were Arab-very likely Lebanese or Syrian.”

“You can tell that from DNA?”

“Yes. Also, they were related-not brothers, but certainly cousins.”

Stone looked at Holly. “So you’re saying that the people who are trying to kill Holly and me are a family of Lebanese or Syrian assassins?”

“You make it sound like something out of The Arabian Nights. More likely, the three cousins are members of the same terrorist cell, that’s all.”

“What do you mean, that’s all? That’s more than enough. Why would a terrorist cell have an interest in Holly and me?”

“I think it’s fairly obvious,” Lance said.

“Well, you’re going to have to make it even more obvious if I’m going to get it.”

“Think about it: Trini Rodriguez is dealing with an Arab group on this money-laundering thing, right?”

“Right.”

“So he tells his contacts that you and Holly are a threat to their transaction.”

“Okay, now it’s obvious.”

“What is also obvious is that by killing three of them, you’ve probably annoyed the other members of the group, so I think you and Holly should stay in Orchid Beach until the FBI has thrown a net over these people.”

“Wait a minute. Why do you think we’re in Orchid Beach?”

“Because you filed a flight plan for Vero Beach, which is the airport serving Holly’s hometown.”

“You figured that out, huh?”

“Yes, but I doubt if your Lebanese friends did. Anyway, I thought you’d like to know that I’m not trying to kill you.”

“And do I know that? You could be making all this up.”

“Stone, use your head. The reason you should know I’m not trying to kill you is that you’re still alive.” He hung up.

Stone turned to Holly. “You’d better sit down,” he said.

HOLLY LISTENED TO Stone’s report of his conversation with Lance. When he had finished she shook her head. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”