Hit List (Stone Barrington #53)(18)

“Your dog is on guard,” Mike said.

“I don’t have a dog here,” Stone replied.

Mike picked up his cell phone and pressed a couple of buttons. “You hear the dog?” he asked. “They don’t have a dog. Find out where it’s coming from and what it’s barking at.”

Vanessa was looking uncomfortable. “That’s creepy,” she said.

“It’s better than the dog that didn’t bark in the night,” Mike replied. “I don’t really care who the warning comes from, as long as it comes.”

“Mike,” Stone said, “I’ve got a very nice matched pair of 12-gauge shotguns over there in the cabinet. You want to take a walk?”

Mike shook his head. “My people are looking for armed men; we don’t want them shooting us.”

“Good point,” Stone said.



* * *



—

Twenty minutes of silence and acute listening passed, then Mike’s phone rang. “Yeah? Good.” He hung up. “The dog’s owner came home and was greeted noisily.”

“Whew!” Vanessa said. “Can I persuade anybody to go to bed with me?”

Stone raised a hand. “I’ll volunteer. Good night, everybody. There’s more cognac in the cabinet, if you’re really thirsty.”

Upstairs, Vanessa led him into the room. “Why are the curtain’s drawn? It’s night.”

“Because it’s night. Old English tradition, drawing the curtains at dusk. I’ve always liked dusk. However, there is a point. Until a couple of decades ago, there wasn’t a lot of central heating in British houses, so they’d open the drapes to the sun in the morning, then pull them to keep the heat in at night, so they’re not entirely crazy.”

“I guess not,” she said, starting to remove clothing. Stone got done first and propped himself up in bed. “I enjoy watching you get undressed,” he said, as she slipped out of her bra.

“I enjoy being enjoyed.” She crawled in beside him. “And, as you are aware, I enjoy other things, too.”

He searched for the other things.



* * *



—

    In the middle of the night, Stone’s cell phone rang. He picked it up from the bedside table and checked the caller ID. “Name blocked,” it read. He checked the recents; the calling number was blocked, too. Robocall? Probably. Still, he got out of bed and walked naked into the hallway. He stood at the rail and looked downstairs. No lights burning. He looked at the bedroom doors down the hallway: no lights there, either. He took a few deep breaths, then held one and listened. He could hear the big clock near the front door, but nothing between the ticks and the tocks. He exhaled and went back to bed.

He stretched out, and kicked off most of the covers to cool down, and found himself listening hard again. It was awfully quiet in the English countryside, he reflected, as he drifted off.





15


They were having breakfast in bed, and Stone was enjoying the sight of Vanessa’s lovely, naked breasts protruding over the tray in her lap.

“I want to go shopping today,” she said.

“All right.”

“In London.”

“Can do. Shall we ask Dino and Viv to join us?”

“How about Mike?”

“He’s flying out for New York this morning.” He held up a finger and, in the quiet, the big Gulfstream could be heard taking off. “There he goes.”

“I’d love to have Viv and Dino along. A girl needs a girlfriend to shop with. You get an instant response that way. And you need a guy to talk with.”

“Good point.” Stone picked up the house phone and buzzed the butler. “Good morning, Geoffrey,” he said. “Would you have the Bentley brought around in an hour, please? And let the Bacchettis know we’re going to London for a couple of days. Thank you.” He hung up.

“You have a Bentley here, too?”

“Well, there’s a Porsche, but the back seat was designed for legless children.”



* * *



—

With the women in the rear seat, so they could talk uninterrupted, they set off from Windward Hall at ten o’clock in the Bentley, Stone having told the security chief from Strategic Services their plans. He drove into Beaulieu and made a few turns to give the car behind a view of anyone who might be following them, then took the London road and got onto the motorway.

“There’s a noise back here somewhere,” Vanessa said from the rear seat.

“What kind of noise?”

“Like wind. I thought the ads say, ‘At sixty miles per hour, the loudest noise is the ticking of the clock.’”

“We’re doing a hundred and ten,” Stone replied.

“Oh.”

Dino spoke up. “You’re going to get your ass put in a British jail,” he said. “Slow down.”

Stone brought it down to eighty. “There was a time,” he said, “when there was no speed limit on the motorway.”

“You can’t live in the past,” Dino replied.



* * *



—

    They drove into Belgravia, to Wilton Crescent, where Stone’s house was, then into Wilton Row, the mews behind the house. Stone opened the garage door with the remote, then parked inside. Erskine, the male half of the couple who minded the house, took charge of the luggage, and they went across the mews to the Grenadier, Stone’s favorite London pub, and had a light lunch.