“All right, what happened last night?”

“Rock slide, collision with rocks, two ruined tires. After midnight a forest ranger came along in a truck and took me to the opera house. No one there, of course, and my phone was dead, so I had to walk home.” He got up and plugged in his phone to recharge.

“Poor baby,” she said, patting his hand.

“You could have given me the key last night.”

“I didn’t have the key, just an envelope, which was always where you found it this morning.”

“You might have mentioned it.”

“I didn’t know what was inside.”

“You could have guessed.”

“I was too cold to guess, after spending two hours huddled on your doormat.”

“I hope you understand that I am innocent of all blame.”

“You could have given me the house key.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t foresee that you would need it. Anyway, you could have asked.”

“All right, enough of this,” she said. “What are we going to do today?”

“First, I’m going to secure this,” he said, picking up the strong case. “Then we’ll see.” He took the case into the study, where he knew Gala had a safe, and he thought he knew the code. It worked, but the case was too large to fit into it. He went back into the bedroom.

“It wouldn’t fit in the safe, right?”

“Right.” He tried to get it under the bed, but the base that held the mechanism prevented that.

“Under the bed? That’s the best you’ve got?”

“I’m open to suggestions,” he said.

“Freezer?”

“Too obvious and the case is too big.”

“Oven?”

“The same.”

“Put it in the pool or the hot tub.”

“Is it waterproof?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re an intelligence officer, you’re supposed to be more devious than that.”

“I really don’t know if it’s waterproof.”

“I mean, devious about where to hide it.”

“Oh, why don’t we just lock it in the trunk of the car and take it with us until we can buy a bigger safe?”

“That’s a thought, except we don’t have a car. Will had the Secret Service return it, I suppose.”

“Okay, what are we going to do today?”

“We’re going to buy a car and a safe.” Stone called the American Express concierge and ordered up a car and a driver. He hung up and checked his watch. “You’ve got forty-five minutes to get beautiful.”

6

THEY PUT THE STRONG CASE into the trunk and got into the large SUV.

“Good morning,” said the driver. “I’m Dan Rivers. I see you’ve got me booked for four hours.”

“That is correct, Dan,” Stone said. “We have some shopping to do. Can you take us to the Porsche dealer?”

“In Albuquerque? Sure, it’s an hour’s drive.”

“No Porsche dealer here?”

“Nope.”

“Bentley?”

“Nope.”

“Mercedes?”

“That we have.”