“Oh, shit,” Stone said, his heart sinking. He dug out his cell phone and pressed the speed dial button for his office.

“The Barrington Practice,” Joan said.

“Hi, it’s me. You might get a call from Dolce sometime soon. Can you recognize her voice?”

“Sure I can. I heard it less than ten minutes ago.”

“What did she want?”

“You, I expect.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That you were out of town.”

“Did you tell her where?”

“No.”

“Thank God for that.”

“Bill Eggers told her that.”

“What?”

"As soon as she hung up I called Bill’s office, but he was on the phone. I held, and when he came on the line, he told me Dolce had called, and they’d had a nice chat. I take it Bill isn’t fully informed about Dolce’s condition.“

“Wonderful. If she calls back try and get a number where I can reach her.”

“Okay.”

Stone hung up and punched the button for Bill Eggers’s office at Woodman amp; Weld.

“Bill?”

“I take it from Joan’s reaction that I did something stupid?”

“It’s not your fault, Bill, but just how stupid were you?”

“Stupid enough to tell her you were in Palm Beach, before I noticed something about her. I stopped just short of telling her where you’re staying.”

“Thank God for small favors,” Stone muttered.

“What’s the matter with her, Stone? I thought she was just sick, but she sounded…”

“Exactly how did she sound?”

“Well, not deranged, exactly, but sort of otherworldly.”

“Does she know I’m doing work for Thad Shames?”

“I didn’t mention that.”

“Okay, Bill, thanks, and I’ll be in touch.” Stone punched off. “She doesn’t know where I’m staying.”

“Her sister does.”

“Oh, no. Mary Ann wouldn’t…”

“No, of course she wouldn’t, not if she were tortured, and Dolce is perfectly capable of torturing somebody to find out where you are.”

Stone turned into the driveway of the Shames mansion.

“Hey, pretty nice,” Dino said. “Do we have it to ourselves?”

“We’re not staying in the house; we’re out back.”

“Guesthouse?”

“Not exactly.”

“Uh-oh,” Dino said.

“Come on, let’s get the car unloaded and make a run for it.”

Two minutes later they had dashed up the gangplank of Toscana and were standing, panting, on the afterdeck, while puddles formed around them. Juanito appeared with some towels and two thick terry robes, and took the luggage.

“Maybe you could change into the robes here?” he said, as he padded off toward Dino’s cabin.

Stone and Dino emptied their pockets onto the table, including Dino’s badge and gun, and stripped. They had just kicked their clothing into a sodden pile when Carrie appeared.

“Well, hi there, sailors!” she said to the two naked men.

Dino grabbed for his robe.

“This must be Dino,” Callie said. “I can always recognize a naked policeman.”

“Dino, this is Callie Hodges,” Stone said, getting into his own robe.

“How do you do,” Dino said, trying to muster some dignity.

“We have a ten-thirty tee time at the Breakers tomorrow,” she said.

“Great,” Dino said. “We can go there on the boat.”

“Don’t worry, the front will pass through tonight. Tomorrow will be beautiful, I promise. The greens may be a little slow, but Palm Beach is thirsty and will soak the rain right up. I’m surprised your plane was able to land.”

“It took the pilot two tries,” Dino said. “I was ready to bust into the cockpit with my gun and order them to fly back to New York.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Callie said, smiling sweetly.

Juanito came back with a tray of steaming mugs.

“We fixed you a little toddy,” Callie said. “Figured that, with the temperature thirty degrees below normal, you might need it.”

Everybody sat down, and Stone and Dino gratefully sipped their drinks, which were laced with rum.

“Well,” Dino said to Callie, “any more at home like you?”

Callie laughed. “Don’t worry, we’ve got you a date for dinner.”

“Oh?”

“Allison Manning,” Stone said. “Although she’s called Liz Harding these days; you might remember that.”

“I’ll try,” Dino said.

“Callie, have there been any phone calls for me?”

“No.”

“If anyone besides Thad, Bill Eggers, Chief Griggs or my secretary, Joan, calls, will you tell them I’ve gone back to New York?”

“Sure. Who are you avoiding?”

“Mrs. Stone Barrington,” Dino said.

She turned and looked at Stone, and her eyes narrowed. “Who?”

Dino set down his cup. “Well, I think I’ll go get into some dry clothes.”

As soon as he was gone, Stone began explaining to Callie who Dolce was. When he had finished, he waited for a comment.

“Well,” she said finally, “hanging around you is never dull.”

Because of the weather, they had dinner in the yacht’s dining room, which was a symphony of mahogany and teak. Juanito had set a small table for the four of them, and candlelight gleamed on fine silver, as he served the dinner Callie had cooked for them. Dino had taken a shine not only to Callie, but to Liz as well, and they to him.

“What, exactly, do you do on the police force, Dino?” Liz asked him.

“Well, you know how, on the TV cop shows there’s always these two detectives who are out there busting their balls to solve the case?”

“Yes.”

“That used to be Stone and me.”

“Oh.”

“And you know how the two detectives come back to the station house and report to their lieutenant, and he criticizes them and second-guesses them and ridicules them and sends them back out onto the street to do it all over again?”

“Yes.”

“That lieutenant is me, now.”

“Was Stone a good detective?” Callie asked.

Stone shifted his weight uncomfortably.

“He wasn’t all that bad,” Dino said, “but he was hard to keep alive. I was always having to shoot people so they wouldn’t kill him.”

“Nonsense! I was a very good detective,” Stone said, “but that second part is perfectly true, which gives you a pretty good indication of what percentage of Dino’s statements you can believe.”

“Tell us about when you saved Stone’s life,” Liz said.

Dino took a big sip of his wine. “Well, let’s see,” he said. “The first time was when we had chased this guy down in a car, and he came out shooting, got Stone in the knee. I put one in the middle of his forehead.”

“Goodness,” Callie said. Both the women were rapt.

“Then there was the time Stone had to jump out of a helicopter because people were trying to kill him. I used a shotgun that time; didn’t kill anybody. Then-oh, this is my favorite-this very strange guy had Stone strung up by his heels, naked, in this old slaughterhouse, about to cut him a few new orifices, and I put two in him.”

Liz blinked rapidly. “Strung up by his heels, naked? Whew! If I had a folding fan, this is where I’d use it.”

“And there were probably a couple of other times, but you get the idea.”

Callie spoke up. “The idea seems to be that Stone needs his hand held.” She took his hand and squeezed it.

“That’s about it,” Dino said. “Stone has good instincts, but he never listens to them. He’s so curious that he doesn’t notice when people are trying to kill him.”

“Tell us about Stone and women,” Callie said.

Dino rolled his eyes. “Don’t get me started.”

“No,” Stone said, “don’t get him started. You keep this up, Dino, and I’m going to start telling them the truth about you.”

Dino held up a hand. “Peace,” he said. “Anything else you girls want to know about Stone, you’re going to have to ask him.”

“Well, Stone,” Callie said. “Will you sit still for some personal questions?”

“As long as you don’t expect an honest answer,” Stone replied.

Juanito suddenly appeared, the cordless phone in his hands. “Miss Callie,” he said, then mouthed, “It’s for him,” pointing at Stone.