Double Jeopardy (Stone Barrington #57)(33)

“I suggested to the two detectives from the New Haven police that they run a lineup with only the participants’ eyes showing. I could make them that way.”

“You sound very certain of yourself,” Primmy said.

“I am nearly always certain. It’s an annoying habit of mine.”

“How did the detectives respond to your suggestion?” Stone asked.

“Oh, they brushed it off, said they’d talk to their boss about it.”

“And they said it might harm their case, if you got it wrong.”

“Right.”

“The detectives were right, too.”

“You used to be a cop, didn’t you?”

“Right again.”

“You don’t look like a cop, but you sound like one.”

“Okay, but Dino is better at sounding like a cop, because he still is one.”

“You never get over being a cop,” Dino said. “Stone still thinks like one.”

“That explains it,” she said.

“You seem awfully, well, together for a person who was drugged and raped about forty-eight hours ago,” Primmy said.

“I was unconscious at the time, so I guess it didn’t scar my psyche.”

Primmy nodded.

“My guess is you and Stone are an item,” Carly said.

“Good guess,” Primmy replied.

“I knew I was right, or I would have already made a pass at him.”

Stone choked on his bourbon. Everybody else laughed.

“Oh. Did you hear that they found Tim’s body in the boat at the bottom of the river?”

“No,” Stone said, “we hadn’t heard that.”

“The detectives told me. I’ve already written his mother a note.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate that,” Stone said. “Does she know that you and Tim were, ah, an item?”

“Not unless he told her. We weren’t exactly an item, though. More like friends with benefits.”

“What’s the difference?” Dino asked.

“An ‘item’ means it might get serious. Tim and I would never have been serious. I mean, he didn’t even tell me he was an FBI agent.”

“Maybe he was working on something you didn’t know about,” Stone said.

“Like what?”

“Maybe on the twins’ case.”

“He didn’t mention it.”

“If he was on a case, he wouldn’t have.”

“Well, at least he didn’t lie to me,” she said. “That would have been unlike him. Don’t cops have to lie a lot?”

“We’re allowed to lie to suspects,” Dino said. “Sometimes it makes it easier to trip them up.”

“I wonder if, when I get my degree, I should become a cop?”

“That could be useful, if you want to practice criminal law later in your career,” Stone said. “It’s what I did.”

“When do you graduate?” Primmy asked.

“In a few weeks. I’m number one in my class.”

“That’s impressive,” Dino said. He handed her a card. “When you get out, come see me in New York. I’ll get someone to show you around the department.”

“How long is the training?” Carly asked.

“The academy is six months, then you have field training, and you’re on probation for twenty-four months, during which time you can get fired for any reason, so you have to watch your personal conduct.”

“You want to see where the twins live?” Stone asked.

“Sure.” She tossed back her bourbon and followed him to the MG.

“They’re on the island,” Carly said, getting into the little car.

“How can you tell?”

“I get feelings sometimes. They always turn out to be correct.”

Stone gave her a tour of the island, and when they were driving out toward the point, she sat up straight.

“They live up here, on the right,” she said.

He drove slowly past the twins’ place, and Carly said, “This is it; they’re watching from that window at the corner of the house.”

“Can you feel that, too?”

“It’s more than a feeling. I know it.”

“Well, this time of day, the workmen are all gone. It could only be them there. I didn’t see them, though.”

“Neither did I—I just knew they were there.”

“Spooky,” Stone said.

“Yes, it is.”





30

They were at dinner, and Stone and his friends couldn’t get enough of Carly.

“Carly,” Viv said gingerly, “are you on the spectrum?”

“Yeah, you noticed?”

“Well, there is the blunt speech.”

“I have other quirks, too, like math.”

“You’re good at it?”

“I’m a prodigy,” Carly replied. “Some of it in odd ways, like this afternoon at the twins’ house.”

“What was mathematical about that?” Primmy asked.

“The area. The square footage.”

“That didn’t come up,” Stone said.