“That’s fine. They can come to my dock—it’s one down from the yacht club’s jetty.”

“I should think they could be there in, say, two hours?”

“That’s good. You can have them call me when they’re a few minutes out, and we’ll meet them on the dock.”

“I’ll do that. Bring your mess kit and whatever else you may need.”

“We’ll do that.”

“See you for dinner, then.”

“Good.” They hung up. “The launch will be here in two hours,” he said to Holly.

“Great. Have you thought about what to do with the strong case?”

“Yes, I’m going to leave it in the safe here. Certainly I’m not going to carry it around.”

“What about Bob?” Bob’s tail began beating against the floor at the mention of his name.

“Seth and Mary will take care of him. They’re already in love.”

“I’d better go pack.” She ran upstairs.

Stone called Ed Rawls’s number and got the usual recorded message. At the beep he said, “Ed, we’re going away for a few days. You can reach me on my cell phone, if you need to.” Then he went upstairs to pack.

18

STONE SAW THE BREEZE LAUNCH coming from his back window. He checked the security system, armed it, and he and Holly left the house, locking the door behind them, and walked down to his dock. They were taken aboard with the crew’s usual dispatch, and as they settled into seats in the cabin, Stone felt his cell phone vibrate and heard a chime. That meant a text.

He checked his messages and found one with a blocked name. It read: BAD TIME TO LEAVE THE ISLAND. He showed it to Holly. “Response from Ed.”

“What do you think he means by that?” Holly asked.

“I haven’t the foggiest notion.” He texted back: TOO LATE, WE’VE DEPARTED. I’LL PROBABLY BE REACHABLE MOST OF THE TIME.

“We’ll be about an hour to North Haven,” the helmsman said. “There’s a Times and a Wall Street Journal on the table behind you.”