“Sort of.”

“Sort of how?”

“He’s becoming jealous of you.”

“Why has he even heard of me?” Stone asked.

“I’ve mentioned you a few times as being an old friend. He latched onto your name immediately, and began making little digs about you.”

“I can handle little digs,” Stone said.

“He turned up at the hospital in Charlottesville yesterday and intimated to the nurse at the desk that he was some sort of intimate of mine, and they let him into my room. An argument ensued, not our first.”

“Was his behavior an escalation over what you’ve seen in the past?”

“Yes. He very nearly became violent, but a doctor walked into the room at just the right moment.”

“What do you think he would have done?”

“I’m not sure, but recently I heard that he had beaten up a woman he’d been seeing last year, and that he was just off probation for that incident. Then, when he had gone a nurse came into my room when I was alone and warned me about him.”

“Warned you how?”

“She told me that he had been seeing her older sister earlier this year, while he was still on probation, and he had been violent with her, had broken her nose. The nurse called him and said if he saw her sister again, she’d report him and he’d be sent to prison for breaking his probation. He responded that, if she did that, he would kill both her sister and her.”

“This is not good,” Stone said.

“No, it’s not. I felt lucky to have gotten out of the state without further trouble from him.”

“I think it might be best if I speak to him,” Stone said.

“Oh, no, Stone! That might just roil the waters.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve handled this sort of thing before for clients, and you’re my client. He just needs to be reminded of what he has to lose. He’s a professor at UVA; he’s a respected architect, well known in the community. If he behaves badly, that could all go away. Requesting a protective order from the court could make that happen, once the locals heard about it.”

“If you think that’s the way to go, then fine, but I’m just afraid that he’s become more irrational the past few months, and I don’t want you to push him over the edge.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be very lawyerly,” Stone said. “I won’t yell at him or make overt threats.”

Arrington took his hand. “Then I’ll trust you to handle him,” she said.

14

Stone called Dino and invited him and Ben to join them for dinner, and by eight-thirty they were about to be seated at Elaine’s.

Peter tugged at Stone’s sleeve. “Dad, may Ben and I have our own table?”

Stone looked at Arrington and she nodded. Stone arranged it, two tables down, then the three adults took their seats.

“I’m glad they’re getting along,” Dino said. “Ben doesn’t warm to a whole lot of people.”