Стюарт Вудс - Wild Card

“Have we got time for a tour of the island?” she asked.

Stone glanced at his watch. “Sure, lunch isn’t until one.”

“Are there other guests?”

“Bob Cantor and a woman who’s on the run from the Thomases.”

“Why?”

“She worked there, near where the bomb went off, and she was suspected of being involved. She was not, but they shipped her up to a Thomas house near Rockland. I think she might have disappeared if she hadn’t escaped and called Bob.”

“Did Bob set the bomb?”

“We don’t ask that question. When you know the answer to an awkward question, sooner or later somebody you don’t want to lie to will ask you about it.”

“Got it,” she said.

Stone drove her around the periphery of the island, showed her the lighthouse and where a couple of movie stars lived, then took her home and installed her in the master suite. “Lunch in half an hour,” he said, leaving her to unpack.

Stone settled into a chair in the living room and answered his cell phone.

“It’s Joan.”

“Hi, any calls of importance?”

“Maybe. I’ve followed instructions and said you were unavailable. You might want to call Dino back.”

“Dino has my cell number. Anybody else?”

“Somebody who said he was a stockbroker — sounded like a cold call. He called twice.”

“Give me the number,” he said, and wrote it down. “Talk to you later.”

Jamie came down, then Bob appeared with Sherry from the direction of the hidden office. He introduced Sherry to Jamie.

“That’s some computer setup in there,” Bob said. “There was a password next to the machine, so I wandered around in there for a while. It’s like a cross between the Library of Congress and FBI headquarters. You can find out just about anything.”

The landline rang, and Stone picked it up. “Yes?”

“Who’s speaking, please?”

“You, first.”

“This is the communications center at Langley. I’m Evan Tilley, the duty officer. We’ve seen some activity on your computer station. Are you Stone Barrington?”

“Yes. I’ll be in the house for a few days, and I might use it again.”

“I’ll make a note of that for the next shift,” the man said.

Stone thanked him and hung up. Then Mary called them to lunch.

Halfway through their mussels, Stone said, “Bob, Sherry, I’d appreciate it if you would stay inside the house for the next couple of days, until I get a sense of who’s on the island.”

“This seems like a pretty out-of-the-way place,” Sherry said.

“It is, but it has a rich assortment of summer residents and visitors, and you never know who you might run into. You should especially avoid the yacht club and the village shops, and even the back porch, until I’ve had a report.”

“A report from who?” Jamie asked.

“A friend, Ed Rawls, who lives on the island. Bob and Sherry met him last night for a drink. He’s old-school CIA, and although he’s been retired for some years, he still likes to think of himself as on the job. He makes the rounds, and if there’s anybody on the island he doesn’t know or who doesn’t fit, we’ll hear about it.”

“That’s handy,” Bob said.

“It can be,” Stone replied. “Sherry, what’s the name of the caretaker at the Thomas house?”

“Hurd, and his wife is Heather.”

“Last name?”

Sherry stared at the ceiling for a moment. “Parker,” she said finally. “He introduced himself when he met me at the Rockland Airport.”

“Was there anything about him to make you think he was something other than a caretaker?”

“No, not really. They both did the chores around the house, and Heather cooked.”

“Well...”

“Wait a minute,” Sherry said. “Hurd wore a wide, thick belt, the kind that you see around shooting ranges, and there was kind of an indentation on the left side, where a holster might go.”

“Did you ever see a gun?”

“No.”

“Was he right- or left-handed?”

She thought again. “Right-handed, I think. He wrote my name down when I got there, and he used his right.”

“So, if it’s a gun belt, he uses a cross-draw.”

“Yes, if I’m right.”

“What about Heather? Anything unusual?”

“She was a fairly husky woman. She didn’t seem fat, just strong. I wouldn’t want to tangle with her.”

“You know,” Stone said, “I think the rock was a good idea. Do you have a lot of throwing experience?”

“High-school softball,” Sherry replied. “I played on a Thomas team in Central Park, too.”

“You seem to have a lot of relevant skills,” Stone said. “I hope you won’t need them again.”

Everybody scattered around the house after lunch. Bob and Sherry said they needed naps and disappeared upstairs. Stone suspected they were napping together.

“What should I do with myself?” Jamie asked, settling on the sofa beside him.

“Work on your autobiography,” Stone suggested.

“Too much like work.”

“What are you in the mood for?”

She placed a hand on the inside of his thigh.

“Listen, you nearly crippled me last time,” Stone said. “Give me another day to restore my health.”

The doorbell rang.

“Saved,” she said. He went to the door, came back with Ed Rawls, and introduced him to Jamie.

“I saw your piece on the Thomases in the Times ,” Rawls said to her. “Good job.”

“Thank you,” Jamie replied. “Stone, I think I’m going to like him.”

“Don’t worry, the Pulitzer’s yours,” Rawls said. “Stone, there are a couple of people on the island I don’t like the look of.”

“Where did you see them?” Stone asked.

“At the village store, eating ice cream.”

“That sounds pretty innocuous,” Jamie said.

“They’re not innocuous,” Rawls replied. “The man is six-three, two-forty, mostly muscle. The woman is a little smaller, but she looks like she knows how to handle herself.”

“Did the man have a bandage on his forehead?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Sherry threw a rock at him yesterday, knocked him out cold.”

“Good girl.”

“She took a cab yesterday,” Stone said, “and gave the Lincolnville Ferry as her destination. She got off in Camden instead, but the police would have talked to the driver.”

“Looks like Sherry’s boss thinks she’s worth the trouble of killing,” Rawls said.

“Killing?” Jamie asked, appalled.

“They didn’t hunt her down to spank her,” Rawls replied.

“Maybe if we leave them alone, they’ll get the next ferry back,” Stone said.

“Dream on,” Rawls came back. “That Cessna of yours is at the airfield. They could know it from Rockland. They know you’re on the island, and pretty soon they’ll know where.”

“What’s your advice?” Stone asked.

“I’d kill ’em and put ’em at the bottom of the bay,” Rawls said, “but I know you’re not going to do that.”

“They’d just send somebody else,” Stone pointed out.

“Good point.”

Jamie spoke up. “I can’t believe you two are standing around talking about killing people.”

Rawls sat down. “There, is that better?”

Stone sat down, too. “Are the state police on the island today?”

“Nope, not until the weekend. If you had a good enough reason, you could call them, and they’d chopper in.”

“Were the two people packing?”

“The man was. I don’t know about the woman. Women hide things.”

“He’s probably got a Maine carry license,” Stone said.

“Probably. You could wait until they take a shot at you, then kill ’em,” Rawls said. “Trouble is, they might kill you first.”