“Then you can do it again.” Stone stood up and pulled her to her feet. “You have to go home, now.” He walked her slowly toward the door, his arm around her. She was still crying. On the way to the door, Stone grabbed a handful of tissues from a box on an end table.

At the open door, she turned and faced him. “Don’t send me away; please don’t do that.”

“You have to go,” he said.

“You don’t really want me to go.” She sobbed.

He dabbed at her eyes with the tissues. “What I want doesn’t matter anymore.”

She took the tissues and blew her nose loudly. “Kiss me goodbye?”

He took her face in his hands and kissed her lips lightly. “Goodbye, sweet girl,” he said.

She turned and ran for the Range Rover parked in his drive. In a moment, she had driven away.

Stone walked back into the house and closed the door, trying hard to swallow the lump in his throat. Then he heard a car door slam outside. Oh, God, he thought, she’s come back, and I won’t be able to send her away again.

He went and opened the front door, ready to take her in his arms. Vance Calder stood on the little porch. “Hello, Stone,” he said.

“Hello, Vance,” Stone said weakly. “Will you come in?”

“No,” Vance replied. “I just want to know if I have anything to worry about from you.”

Stone shook his head. “No, Vance, you don’t.”

Vance took a deep breath. “Thank you for that,” he said.

“Just try to find a way to make her happy.”

Vance nodded, squeezed Stone’s shoulder, went back to his car, and drove away.

Stone went back inside, hoping that every Sunday morning in Connecticut was not going to be as hard as this one.

49

STONE LOCKED UP THE HOUSE, GOT INTO his car, and drove away. He wasn’t sure he’d done the right thing about Arrington, and it was killing him. He kept thinking about what it would be like to have her back again; then he would think about her son and his father and come back to the same place. When he had reached Pleasantville, he called Dino.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s Stone.”

“Where are you?”

“On the Saw Mill River Parkway. Can you meet me at P.J. Clarke’s in an hour?”

“What’s up?”

“I’ve got a lead.”

“From where?”

“Don’t ask, just be there, and for Christ’s sake, be sure you aren’t followed.”

“Awright in an hour at Clarke’s.”

He was in Yonkers when the car phone rang. “Hello?”

“Stone, it’s Bill Eggers.”

“Hi, Bill.”

“We have to talk, and we can’t do it on a car phone.”

“What’s up?”

“Let’s meet somewhere; when are you due back in the city?”