Why are you wearing that suit? You’ll freeze.”

“I’m off to Palm Beach.”

Joan rolled her eyes. “Just back from LA a couple of days ago, and now off to Florida. Why don’t I ever get to go where it’s warm?”

“Someday,” he said. He looked into the envelope Thad Shames had given him; a thick stack of hundreds, at least ten thousand dollars. He counted off two thousand, stuck them in a pocket and tossed Joan the rest. “Put this in the safe for hard times.” He jotted down the address and phone number from Shames’s card and handed it to her. “This is where I’ll be.”

“How long?”

“Who knows? No more than a few days, I hope.”

“Have fun. Oh, I almost forgot.” She handed him a slip of paper. “A Mrs. Winston Harding the Third called this morning, wants to talk to you?”

Stone looked at the paper. “Who is she?”

“I’ve no idea. She sounds terribly upper class, though.

She said she needed to talk to you about an important legal matter, and that you came highly recommended.”

“Did she say by whom?”

“Nope, but she sounds like money to me. I wouldn’t waste any time getting back to her.”

Stone stuffed the paper into a pocket. “I’ll call her from Palm Beach.” He ran for the car.

At Teterboro, the car drove him up to the airstair door of a Gulfstream V, and the driver carried his bags on and stowed them.

“Mr. Barrington?” a uniformed crewman asked.

“That’s me.”

“We’re ready to taxi. Please find a seat and buckle up.”

Stone chose from a dozen comfortable chairs and fastened his seat belt. As the airplane started to move, the young woman he’d seen in Shames’s Four Seasons suite came out of a compartment and sat down near him.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Callie Hodges.”

“I’m Stone Barrington.” They shook hands.

“I heard you were coming to Palm Beach with us,” she said.

Stone looked around the airplane. “Who’s ‘us’?”

“The pilots and me. We’re all that’s aboard today.”

“What do you do for Thad?” Stone asked.

“I’m his chef and party planner. I pretty much go where he goes. I’ll fix you some lunch after the seat belt sign goes off.”

“Thanks, I haven’t eaten.”

The big corporate jet taxied to runway 24, paused for a minute, then rolled onto the runway and started moving faster. Shortly, they were climbing into a thick overcast, and in less than five minutes they broke out into sunshine and clear skies.

Callie unbuckled her seat belt. “Would you like something to drink before lunch?”

“A glass of wine with lunch will be fine.”

“Be right back.” She disappeared into the galley.