“The boathouse,” Rawls said.

“That’s where they kept her,” Stone replied.

The path had been cleared and the walkway repaired. As they approached, the boathouse looked inviting, with its fresh coat of paint.

“Second floor,” Stone said, and they went upstairs gingerly. The rooms were unfurnished, but clean. There were new kitchen appliances. “Not here,” Stone said.

“Let’s check around the dock,” Ed suggested, and they went back downstairs. Still nothing.

They went back to the house, and as they entered Stone saw, down the center hallway, a flash of green drove past on the road.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“Could have been the MG, but I couldn’t see the occupants,” Dino replied. “It was too fast.”

“Come on!” They got back into their vehicles, got turned around, and headed down the road to the village. They were past the store when Stone saw the MG turn into his driveway. He skidded through the turn and followed it.

When they arrived at the house, Primmy and Carly were climbing out of the MG, cheerfully waving at them.

“Where the hell have you two been?” Stone asked, exasperated.

“Wherever the hell we wanted to go,” Primmy replied in the same tone.

“Everybody calm down!” Viv said. “We’ve been searching for you, Primmy, and we were scared.”

“We went down to see Ed for a while,” Primmy said. “Then we drove down to the point and took a walk. It’s nice down there.”

Stone took a deep breath. “Primmy,” he said, “new rules.”

“What are they?”

“No one leaves the house without either Dino or me,” he said. “And we all go armed. Come inside. We have some things to tell you.”

They marched into the living room, where Mary was setting the table for lunch.

“First, the Snickers bars,” he said.

“Snickers bars? You’ve gone absolutely bonkers,” Primmy replied.

43

Everybody was quiet at lunch, until Primmy spoke up, interrupting everybody’s half-nap. “Why are Ed and Sally not joining us?” she asked.

“In the circumstances,” Stone replied, “he wants to stick close to home.”

“Why is he safer there than here?” she asked.

“There, he knows that when he walks through the front door, there won’t be two guys with shotguns waiting for him.”

“I see. What’s Ed’s story? I heard you or somebody say ‘ex-CIA,’ but that’s all.”

“That’s correct. Ed had thirty years or so, as an operative and station head. One of the best, by all accounts. Then he made a mistake.”

“I’ll bet ‘mistake’ is spelled ‘w-o-m-a-n.’”

“You’d win money on that bet.”

“Details, please. And dirt, too.”

“Okay, after a long and extraordinary career, Ed was serving his out-the-door-and-into-his-pension posting as station chief in Stockholm.”

“Uh-oh, Swedish woman.”

“That would have been too smart,” Stone replied. “Ed took up with a senior Russian diplomat’s wife, true love and all that.”

“Oops.”