“Everything’s fine,” Stone said. “My board meeting is tomorrow morning. Shall we go back to Santa Fe tomorrow afternoon?”

“Fine with me.” She left.

Billy spoke up. “Don’t you think it’s about time you dealt more positively with Tirov?”

“Perhaps it is. How would you advise handling it?”

“Let me give it some thought. I’ll call you.”

46

Teddy drove home, angry that Tirov had not taken him seriously. That night, he revisited his house and found the place deserted. Next day, he made some phone calls and learned that Tirov was shooting a Western at a place called the Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch, in New Mexico; the woman he talked to said the shoot was for five weeks. He didn’t feel like going to New Mexico, so he decided to wait until Tirov returned.

Stone attended his board meeting in a hotel conference room; his friend Marcel duBois attended from Paris via video. He had lunch with the board, then he and Gala took off from Santa Monica at four o’clock. They picked up a big tailwind and were in Santa Fe in little more than an hour.

By the time they got to the house it was six o’clock and the sun was low in the sky. Stone stopped Gala’s Range Rover out front. “Hang on here,” he said, “and keep Bob with you. I want to have a look around the house before you come in. I’ll call your cell when I’m done.”

He carried their bags inside and set them by the front door, then as quietly as possible he checked out the master suite and the kitchen. All was in order; no visits from bears or ex-husbands. He called Gala. “The coast is clear. Come on in.”

Stone fed Bob and built a fire in the kitchen hearth, and they had a drink before Gala fed him.

“You never told me what was in the box from Boris,” she said.

“It was a homemade bomb,” Stone replied.

“Are you serious?”

“Very serious. Billy disposed of it.”

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

“Because it would have kicked up a lot of dust, and nothing would have come of it. He would have denied everything, and we would have had no evidence that he sent it. He’s not dumb enough to leave fingerprints or DNA on the box or the bomb.”

“But why would he ask us to lunch one day, then send us a bomb the next?”

“I think that if we had left the Arrington, even for the short drive to the Bel-Air, something would have happened to us on the way. When we declined his invitation, he turned to other means. That’s my best guess, anyway.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet. I know what I’d like to do, but you don’t need to hear that.”