There must have been something in her voice that Dino could hear, but he was deaf to, Stone decided. “Oh, the hell with them,” Stone muttered to himself.

“What was that you said?” Viv asked.

“Never mind, I was just talking to myself.”

“Why don’t you just calm down, sit down, and read a book.”

“Dino,” Stone said. “Do you have any idea what’s going on here?”

Dino looked at him dolefully, then put a finger to his lips.

Stone got his shoulder holster and pistol from Dick Stone’s little office, put them on and grabbed some ammunition magazines, and shoved them into his bush jacket pocket. He struggled into that and walked across the living room toward the front door. “Good afternoon to you,” he said putting on a straw hat to keep the sun off.

“Bye,” Viv replied. Dino said nothing, apparently having been switched off by Viv.

Stone walked into the garage and found it empty. He remembered that Seth had gone into Camden for something and had taken the station wagon, but the MG was gone, too. Primmy’s car was apparently at her house, so he was stranded.

Then Stone remembered that he had legs and that there were feet attached to them. He started walking.

It took him twenty minutes to get to the village and the store. He looked inside and saw Billy seated at his desk, as usual; otherwise, the store was empty.

“Hey, Stone,” Billy said.

“Any word on the cell service?”

“I got a call on the landline saying that the repairmen were on the way from Augusta, then the landline went down. I don’t know why.”

“Will you do me a favor, Billy?”

“Sure.”

“Call me on my cell when the service is restored?”

“Sure, glad to, Stone.”

Stone continued up the road toward Ed Rawls’s house.

—

A few minutes earlier, Sally had come out onto the porch where Ed Rawls was reading the papers. “The girls are on the move,” she said.

“Okay, thanks.” Ed got up, went inside, got into his shooting vest, and stuffed magazines into his pockets. He mounted the scope to his rifle and attached a shoulder strap, then he went into a closet and got out the pair of strap-on lineman’s blades, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and took his binoculars to the window and surveyed the twins’ property. All was quiet, and so was the Jackson property.

“Ed, I don’t often say this to you,” Sally said, “but you need to be extra careful today. It’s going to be dangerous out there.”