“Now,” Dino said quietly to Stone, “all we have to do is make sure the twins don’t kill us before Ed can kill them.”

54

Stone read for a while, then he went outside and looked at the skies. Cloudless. The sun was high. He went back inside and wondered where Primmy and Carly were. Finally, he got out his cell phone and called Primmy’s number. The call went directly to voicemail. He left her a message to call him, then hung up.

“You have no idea where they are?” he asked the Bacchettis.

“I know nothing,” Dino said, “just like you.”

“Viv, do you know where Primmy and Carly are?”

Viv ignored him. “Viv, can you hear me now?” Stone asked, raising his voice.

Viv lifted a finger to her lips for silence, then ignored him again.

Stone tried Primmy again: nothing.

Dino leaned over and said softly, “Try Ed Rawls. They could be with him.”

Stone called Rawls; no reply. “It’s as though everyone has gone on radio silence,” he said.

The phone rang, the landline. Stone picked it up, expecting to hear Primmy’s voice. “Hello?”

“Stone, it’s Billy. I just got a call from the mainland. Lightning struck the cell tower above Lincolnville, and service is out.”

“How long?” Stone asked.

“No one seems to know.”

“Thanks, Billy. Have you seen Primmy and Carly this afternoon?”

“Nope. It’s been pretty quiet around here. The rain drove everybody indoors.”

“Thanks, Billy,” Stone said, then hung up.

“What does Billy have to say for himself?” Dino asked.

“He says lightning struck the cell tower over at Lincolnville, and our service is out. Nobody knows how long.”

“Good,” Viv said.

“What?” Dino asked.

“Sometimes, a lack of cell service is a good thing,” she said. “It reminds us of the good old days.”

“You mean the good old days of the landline?”

Stone picked up the phone to call Ed Rawls on his landline, then he remembered Rawls had no landline. He had been one of the first to go all cell.

He looked up Primmy’s landline number in the local directory and picked up the phone. It was dead. “So much for the good old days of the landline,” he said. “Now it’s out, too.”

“Shush,” Viv said. “Try the good old days of reading a book. They work, even when the phones don’t.”

“Annoying, isn’t she?” Dino asked.

55

Stone finally couldn’t stand it anymore. Primmy and Carly were gone and unreachable. Ed Rawls couldn’t be phoned. And Viv wasn’t speaking to him.

“Dino,” he said finally, “I’m going to take a look around the island. You want to come along?”

Dino opened his mouth to speak, but Viv spoke first. “Dino,” she said, “I’d feel safer if you would stay here with me.”