“Where are you going?” Tim asked. He seemed calmer now.

“To New York.”

“Why?”

“Family business.”

“You don’t want to tell me?”

“Not really. It’s none of your business. Eat your breakfast; I want you gone before Peter comes down.”

He made a stab at the food. “How long will you be gone?”

“Through Christmas,” she said.

“We’ll have to talk about the finishing touches on the house.”

“You can reach me on my cell phone,” she said.

“I had hoped we could spend Christmas together,” he said. “The three of us.”

“Tim, there isn’t going to be any three of us. Peter is visiting his father in New York.”

“I thought his father was dead.”

“That was his stepfather.”

He looked puzzled. “Vance Calder wasn’t Peter’s father?”

“He was not.”

“Then who is?”

“Please don’t concern yourself with my private life,” Arrington said. She stood up and put her dishes in the sink. “I have to finish packing now. We’ll be leaving soon.” She heard Peter coming down the stairs.

“Please leave quickly by the back door,” she said, taking his halfeaten breakfast and scraping it into the garbage disposal.

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said, getting into his coat.

“Not unless it’s something about the house,” she replied.

He gave her an angry look, then he walked out the kitchen door.

Peter came into the kitchen. “What’s for breakfast?” he asked. He was fifteen now, big and mature for his age.

“What would you like?”

“Oh, I’ll just toast myself a muffin,” he said, opening the fridge.

“Will you be ready to go in half an hour?” she asked.

“I’m ready to go now, but my muffin isn’t.”

“The crew has the airplane ready. Thirty minutes.”

“I’m with you,” he said.

“Peter, I’m sending you ahead alone,” she said. “I have an appointment in Charlottesville, and it’s going to take the whole day. The airplane will come back for me.”

Peter shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

Arrington went back upstairs to close her cases. Everything was so good right now, except for this thing with Tim Rutledge. She would put an end to that over Christmas.

3

Stone spent the morning actually working. Since his elevation to full partnership at Woodman & Weld, and since his appointment to the boards of Strategic Services and Centurion Studios, he had been required to read—and even understand—every bit of financial paper sent to him by the law firm and by both companies, so that he could intelligently discuss them at meetings. Today, he and Mike Freeman, chairman and CEO of Strategic Services, who also served on the Centurion board, would be meeting Leo Goldman, Jr., the CEO of the studio appointed a year before, when Rick Barron, longtime head of the studio, retired and became merely chairman.

Stone had taken only one accounting course in college, and he thanked God that he had not slept through it. Soon he could read a balance sheet with the best of them.

He had a sandwich at his desk, anticipating the arrival of Arrington Calder and her son, Peter. He buzzed his secretary, Joan Robertson.