“There’s no way of knowing that, but I’m working on finding out where he is on the island. If we find out where he is, we can go back and, ah, meet with him there.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Gino said. “You do that, and let’s deal with the hick cops.”

“If this goes like I want it to go, we won’t have to deal with any cops at all,” Frank said. “Now, I have to get on this.”

“You go get on it,” Gino said. “And if you find him, it’s okay to charter the plane again.”

“Thank you, Gino.” Frank left the office and walked back to the car, where Charlie was waiting for him.

“He didn’t shoot you on the spot?” Charlie asked, surprised.

“He listened to reason,” Frank replied. “Now we have to find out where Barrington is on the island, then we can go back.”

“Go all the way back to Maine?”

“If that’s where he is, that’s where we’ll go.”

“How we going to find out where he is?”

“I’m gonna call my nephew, who works in real estate, and have him do a search of the property records on the island.” Frank got out his phone and tapped in a number. “It’s ringing,” he said.

“How’s he going to search the property records? It’s Saturday.”

“Real estate agents work on Saturdays,” Frank said. “So do computers. Hello, Eddie? It’s Uncle Frank.”

Chapter 16

On Sunday morning, at the crack of dawn, Frank and Charlie set out for Essex County Airport in New Jersey. Frank carried a large briefcase that held what he liked to think of as tools, plus a large-scale map of Islesboro with the location of Stone Barrington’s house marked. They were met at the airport by their new friend, the pilot, and paid him in advance for the charter, plus an extra hundred for flying on Sunday.

“The weather’s a little iffy,” the pilot said, as they buckled into their seats.

“What exactly do you mean by ‘iffy’?” Charlie asked.

“Scattered thunderstorms in the area of the island. Don’t worry, I have radar and Nexrad.”

“What’s Nexrad?”

“It’s the weather you see on TV. Helps us fly around the bad stuff.”

“Don’t worry, Charlie,” Frank said, “he can deal with it.”

They took off and headed northeast. They were half an hour out of Islesboro when they flew into clouds.

“I can’t see anything!” Charlie shouted.

“Shut up, Charlie!” Frank shouted back. “You don’t need to see anything. Everything’s under control.”

Charlie tried to tighten his seat belt, but it wouldn’t move; he unfastened it to get a better grip. Suddenly, it got dark in the airplane, and there was a flash of lightning. The airplane dropped fifty feet like a stone, and Charlie banged his head on the ceiling.

“Fasten your seat belt, Charlie!” Frank shouted.