“Well, the tone is a little Dickensian— I guess that’s what you get when you’re dealing with his great-great-grandfather’s will.” Stone stopped flipping. “Holy shit,” he said.

“That much?”

“That much. It would be a breach of attorney-client confi dential ity to tell you how much, but I think you’d be impressed.”

“This is getting easier and easier. Where are we staying?”

“Good question.” Stone got out his cell phone and called his twenty-four-hour-a-day travel agent. He explained himself and waited for a moment. “Sounds good,” he said. “A week, I guess. What’s the address?” He jotted some notes, thanked the woman on the line and hung up.

“Find something?”

“Place called the Marquesa. It sounds comfortable, and it has a good restaurant, too.”

“All I’m eating is shrimp and conch.”

“Conch? That spiral shell thing you find on the beach?”

“Something lives inside that shell thing, and there are lots of ways to cook it, and it’s really, really good.”

“If you say so.”

“Native-born Key Westers call themselves Conchs, too.”

“You’re a mine of information, Dino; what else do you know about Key West?”

“They have nice sunsets, and you can see the Green Flash, if you’ve had enough margaritas.”

“I can do that,” Stone said.

3

3

STONE WOKE AND looked out his bedroom window. The gardens inside the U-shaped row of Turtle Bay Townhouses sat, resplendent, under six inches of fresh snow, made glaring by bright sunshine. He picked up the phone and called Jet Aviation, at Teterboro Airport, in New Jersey.

“I’d like my inboard and outboard caps topped off with JetA with Prist and the airplane deiced,” he said. He received an affi rmative answer, then went to his computer and created two fl ight plans, one for each leg, for the trip south, then called Flight Services for a weather forecast, which was highly favorable, even sporting a tailwind, unusual when flying north to south. The downstairs doorbell rang on the telephone system, and Stone picked up the phone. “Dino?”

“Yeah?”

“You have a key, use it.”

“I didn’t want to come in unannounced and interrupt something.”

“Fat chance,” Stone said. “Put your bags in the car. I’ll get a shower and meet you in the kitchen. Tell Helene what you want for breakfast.”

Twenty minutes later, Stone stowed his bags in the car with Dino’s, then joined him in the kitchen.

“I made you eggs and bacon,” Helene said, as he took a seat.

“You’re psychic,” Stone said, sipping his freshly squeezed orange juice.

“How long a flight?” Dino asked.

“We have a bit of a tailwind, so around five hours, plus one fuel stop in South Carolina,” Stone said, gazing out the window.

“I can stand that, I guess. You’re looking at Tatiana’s house.”

“I wasn’t looking at anything in particular,” Stone lied, “just out the window.”