Ham was in the darkened house immediately, his flashlight on, his gun hand cradled on his left wrist. They were in a kitchen, and another door was ahead. He peeped through that and saw a light down a hallway. He could hear the voices clearly now, without the cell phone.

“We have a search warrant, Mrs. Stone,” Young was saying. “You sit down over there and don’t interfere, or I’ll arrest you and handcuff you.” The woman’s voice stopped. “Ham, you and Lance take the upstairs; Ed and I will take this floor.”

Ham went into the main entrance hall and ran lightly up the stairs, gun and flashlight at the ready. All he found were empty rooms, neatly kept. He switched on the ceiling light in what was obviously the twins’ room. It was as neat as all the others. He and Lance went through it, checking every closet or cabinet large enough to hold a man, until they were satisfied there was no one on the second floor. They went back downstairs.

Young and Rawls came out of a bedroom. “Nobody but Mrs. Stone in the house. Where are your husband and your sons, Mrs. Stone?” She appeared to be drunk.

“I was sleeping,” she said.

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know. Aren’t they in bed? My boys flew into Rockland tonight.”

“Let’s get to the boathouse,” Young said, and they all headed for the Range Rover.

STONE PUSHED THE door open with his foot, gun before him, and stepped into the room. He saw a double bed, a table, an old sofa, a couple of seedy, overstuffed chairs and not much else. He could see the top of the head of what was apparently a sleeping man sitting in one of the armchairs, his back to them.

Stone switched on his flashlight and approached. “Wake up,” he said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.” Then he saw the pistol on the floor, near the man’s dangling right hand, and he knew what else he was going to see.

THEY WERE GATHERED in the boathouse, looking at the dead body of Caleb Stone, a bullet through his right temple.

“They did a better job on Caleb’s suicide than with Dick’s,” Stone said. “At least, the angle is right.”

“The computer was on that table in the corner,” Holly said, “along with a little printer and a briefcase.”

“The twins think they have a million two in a Singapore bank,” Stone said, “and that had to be them in the boat that passed us when we were on the way in. I wonder where they’re headed.”

Young spoke up. “Their mother said they flew into Rockland.”

“We’ll never catch them in the boat,” Stone said. “Come on, Ed. Drive me to the Islesboro airstrip, and maybe we can beat them to Rockland.”