Stone sat down, picked up the phone and pressed the page button. “Holly? Are you in the house?” He could hear the echo of his voice around the place. “Holly?”

He hung up, then picked up the phone again and called her cell phone. He was shunted immediately to her voice mail.

“It’s Stone,” he said. “I’m worried about you. Please call me the minute you get this message. If I’m not in, try my cell phone.” He hung up.

Holly had been gone way too long, he reckoned. He grabbed his cell phone from the desk, then left and backed the MG out of the garage. At the end of the driveway, he stopped and wondered which way she had gone. A right turn would take her toward the village; he turned left, assuming she would want empty roads.

He drove along the road at a steady twenty miles an hour, checking every driveway as he passed. As he came around a curve he saw Holly down the road, running toward him, apparently just returning home. Where the hell had she been?

He slowed to a stop and pulled over, letting her run on toward him, vaguely angry with her for having worried him. As she ran, she pushed her sweatshirt hood off her head, and she wasn’t Holly. She was a teenaged boy. He flagged the boy down.

“Evening,” he said. “My name is Stone Barrington.”

“Oh, yes,” the boy said, “from the Stone house. I’m Tyler Morrow.” They shook hands. He appeared to be sixteen or seventeen.

“Have you seen another runner along your route?” Stone asked.

“A couple of them,” Tyler replied. “A man and a woman; I didn’t know either of them, which is unusual around here.”

“Were they together?”

“No. I saw them separately.”

“Can you describe the woman?”

“Oh, let’s see: mid-twenties, dark hair, five-three or-four, slim.”

Not Holly. “Are you sure you didn’t see another woman? I’m looking for a friend of mine who runs out this way.”

“Nope. Just the two.”

“Thanks very much, Tyler. If you should encounter a woman in her late thirties or early forties, five-nine, a hundred and thirty pounds, medium brown hair, will you please ask her if her name is Holly, and if it is, ask her to call Stone on his cell phone right away?”

“Sure. Be glad to.” With a wave, Tyler Morrow continued on his way.

Stone put the car in gear and began his search anew. He drove all the way to the southern tip of the island, checking every side road and driveway, seeing no sign of Holly. He turned the car around and got out his cell phone. No signal, low battery.