“Come on, Dino, a politician doesn’t waste time having lunch and talking about this and that.”

“Nevertheless,” Dino said. “What did you and Lance talk about?”

“This and that,” Stone said, and the women laughed at them.

“I hear your buddy Rawls took a hike this afternoon.”

“I think he thought there was no point in hanging around here. He will have prepared a place to disappear to—it’s his nature, not to mention his training. He told me he’d be out of the country by midnight.”

Dino looked at him sharply. “And this was after lunch?”

“A couple of hours ago.”

“After he lit out?”

“Yes. He called me on a throwaway.”

“From where?”

“Who knows? He had four or five hours to make himself scarce between the time he left and the time he called.”

“I’ll bet he’s still in the country.”

“He said he’d be out of it by midnight, remember?”

“Does he have any money?”

“His insurance company paid him half a million for his house today and wired it to an account in the Caymans.”

“Plus whatever he had before.”

“He lived as if he had some income, but not much.”

“How do he and his ex-wife get along?”

“They don’t. She died a while back, having not spoken to him since the divorce.”

“I doubt, then, that she would have left the house to him.”

“I doubt that, too, but I don’t care.”

“You don’t care that your client is a fugitive?”

“A fugitive from what? He’s not a criminal.”

“Maybe he burned his own house down.”

“Didn’t I mention he was having dinner with Holly and me at my house when it happened?”

“He’s tech-savvy enough to have done that with a timer.”

“Why would he do that? It was his only home.”

“That you know about.”

“Granted.”

“You know where I think he’d go?” Dino asked.

“Where?”

“Venezuela.”

“That’s not exactly the garden spot of the Americas these days, you know.”

“Maybe, but nobody could ever find him there.”

“Except the Venezuelan police. They wouldn’t be very hospitable to a retired CIA officer. I think he’s somewhere more comfortable. Ed strikes me as someone who likes his comforts.”

“Who doesn’t?” Holly asked. “By the way, you’re both lousy cops.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say,” Dino said, looking wounded.

“You don’t have any evidence of anything, just suppositions. You can’t find a fugitive with suppositions, especially after the big supposition, the ex-wife, is out of the picture.”

“Well,” Stone said, “he has a nice wardrobe from Brooks Brothers. He wouldn’t buy that so he could disappear into the Venezuelan jungle.”

“I’ll give you that,” Dino said.

“Thank you so much.”

“Anyway, he’s not worried about the cops, and only a little worried about the Agency. He’s worried about politics.”

“Politics?” Viv asked. “What kind of politics?”