Wild Card (Stone Barrington #49)(4)

“You fucked her on the furniture?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it.”

“Do you know who Felicity would really like to fuck?”

“Craig? Who could blame her?”

“You.”

“What?”

“Felicity occasionally expresses an attraction for someone of her own gender—and you’re just her type.”

“I . . . ? ‘Her type’?”

“Ask her, if you don’t believe me.”

Jamie lay back in bed and thought about that. “I wonder if she’s my type.”

“Oh? Do you also have the occasional attraction to someone of your own gender?”

“Well, not since college, and then just once. Maybe twice.” She sat up in bed. “Wait a minute, you’re violating our contract. No judge would allow that.”

“I would tell a judge that you opened the door, making it a subject for questioning.”

“‘Opened the door’? Is that a euphemism for sex?”

“Sometimes.”

“Why do you think Felicity is attracted to me?”

“Did she place her hand on your knee at dinner?”

“I thought that was Craig.”

“That would have been your other knee.”

“There were hands on both my knees.”

“Then you are very popular.”

“I have an awful lot to think about,” Jamie said.

“Sweet dreams,” Stone replied.



* * *



? ? ?

    Stone was already in the basement gym the following morning when Craig Calvert arrived with a short, muscular man in his fifties with a broken nose and short-cropped gray hair. “Good morning, Craig,” Stone said.

“Good morning, Stone,” Craig replied. “May I introduce Mick O’Leary?”

Stone shook his hand. “Good to meet you, Mick. Are you Craig’s trainer?”

“He’s more of my restrainer,” Craig said. “I tend to get a little too enthusiastic at times, and Mick is here to see that he can deliver me to the set, undamaged, on the day.”

“Dat’s right,” Mick said.

“You’re not Irish, are you, Mick?” Stone asked. Everybody laughed.

“Well,” Craig said, “Mick and I had better get to work. Just ignore us.” The actor stripped off his sweat suit to reveal a physique that, while trim, Stone found intimidating.

“How much time do you spend in the gym, Craig?” he asked.

“Ordinarily, two hours a day, but the month before I start a film I do four hours a day.”

“God, I’m glad I’m not an actor,” Stone muttered. He went to the weight system and started his routine of lifts, pull-downs, curls, and sit-ups. It didn’t last very long.

Mick put Craig through a long regimen of stretching, then Craig got back into his sweat suit. “We’re going to do a little run before I start on the weights,” Craig said. “Join us?”

“Sure,” Stone said, retying his shoelaces.

They left the house and Stone pointed them toward a route away from the country hotel next door that would keep the guests from hanging out the windows, staring at Craig. Mick followed in one of the estate’s golf carts. Every couple of minutes, Craig would run a hot sprint, and then return to Stone and Mick. “I’ll have to do a lot of that in the film,” Craig said, having rejoined them. “These days, there are as many chases on foot as in cars.”

“Well, you never have to run more than thirty yards,” Mick said. “It’s in your contract. More than that, they have to bring in a stunt double.”

“For which I am grateful,” Craig said, “especially when it’s over rooftops. I’m terrified of heights.” He pointed ahead. “Is that an airstrip?”

“It is,” Stone said. “It was originally built during World War II as a testing ground and a runway for light bombers carrying explosives or Special Air Service commandos to France. The ancestral owner of the place kept it up for his airplanes after the war, and I land my own airplane there.” He pointed at the open hangar, where the nose of the Latitude could be seen.

They were almost at the hangar when Craig yelled and fell to one knee. Mick drove alongside and pushed him all the way down as he jumped out of the golf cart to cover Craig’s body with his own.

“Shit!” Craig yelled. “I’ve been shot!”

Stone got down on the ground, too, and looked around. “I didn’t hear anything.” Half a mile away, an unmarked van crossed a meadow and left the estate. Stone got out his phone. “I’ll call the police and an ambulance,” he said.

“You’ll call neither,” Mick said. “I’ll handle this.”

Stone took charge of the golf cart, while Mick hustled Calvert onto the rear seat.

“I don’t think we’ll be shot at again,” Stone said. “I think the shooter was in the van that just took off in such a hurry.” They got Craig into the house gym through a back door.

“I’m going to need a first-aid kit and some light,” Mick said, helping Craig onto the massage table.