“Got it.” She yawned. “You’d better get upstairs,” she said. “Primmy is waiting to show you that experience is better than youth.”
Stone fled up the stairs. As it turned out, Carly was right.
31
Stone and Primmy came in a rush of yelling, laughing, and moaning. Stone rolled over on his back and took deep breaths. Primmy crept onto his shoulder and rested her head. “That was spectacular,” she said.
“It was,” Stone agreed. “It may have been even nearly fatal.”
She listened to his chest. “Strong and steady. A good heart.”
Then, from downstairs: “Stone! It’s a bear!”
“I told her to call me if there’s a bear,” he said.
“I’m going to shoot her if there isn’t a bear,” Primmy said. “So go on downstairs.”
Stone struggled out of bed and started for the door.
“Stone! Robe!” Primmy shouted. “Let’s not confirm her estimates about you.”
Stone got into a robe and slippers and started down the stairs. As he did, a shotgun went off — in the house. Stone resisted the urge to run down the stairs. “Carly?”
“Come on down, Stone,” she said.
He walked on down and saw Carly standing, peering at the security system controls. “It didn’t beep,” she said.
Stone looked out the back picture window and saw it pockmarked in a tight circle by buckshot. He was impressed that the glass held.
“They were out there,” Carly said.
“There were two bears?”
“Twins.”
“Twin bears? That happens.”
“The Stone twins! I took a shot at one of them, and they ran.”
“You’re sure it was the twins?”
“I felt them, then I saw them. They were dressed in black with masks, just as they were when Tim and I were kidnapped.”
“Did the security system go off?”
“No, that’s why I hesitated to fire.”
“You didn’t hesitate for long,” Stone said. “I’ll order a new window tomorrow.”
“What’s going on?” Dino asked from the stairs.
“We’ve had a visitation,” Stone replied.
“Not a visitation, a visit!” Carly said. “There was nothing ghostly about it.”
Dino walked over to the window and inspected it closely. “Looks like a couple of pellets got through. Did you fire more than once?”
“No.”
“It’s the ammo,” Stone said. “It’s a powerful load.”
“Well, you might have put a couple of little holes in one of the boys,” Dino said, admiringly. “Had you ever fired a shotgun before?”
“No. Stone showed me how.”
“Well, you were right. You’re a quick learner. I’m even more impressed with your intent than I am with your technique. Tell me, if you can remember, where he was standing. Where would you say the pellets struck him?”
Carly backed away from the window, examined it, and closed her eyes. “Upper chest, I’d say. Near the collarbone on his left.”
Dino drew his weapon, switched on the porch light, let himself out the back door, and had a look around the porch. Then he came back inside, locking the door behind him. “No blood. I was hoping for a DNA match. That could have nailed them.”
“Hey, you just reminded me,” Carly said. “I asked the New Haven EMTs to do a rape kit on me.”
“Did they?”
“Yes, but I don’t know what became of it.”
“I’ll call over there in the morning and find out,” Dino said.
“Everybody’s heart rate back to normal?” Stone asked.
Everybody nodded. “Then let’s get back to sleep. Nothing more we can do tonight.”
“Tomorrow morning,” Carly said, “I want to look at your system and find out why the warning didn’t go off.”
“Whatever you like,” Stone said. Stone had, one way or another, used up all of the adrenaline in his body, and he climbed the stairs slowly.
Primmy was clurled up in a ball, sleeping soundly. That was okay with him. He shucked off the robe and got into bed as quietly as possible. In five minutes he was asleep.
The following morning Stone came down to breakfast to find Carly relating her story of the night before to Lance.
“Don’t touch the electronics,” he said to her. “I’ll have my people do it from their end. They can run a diagnostic program.”
“I can do that,” Carly said.
“Not this program. It’s proprietary.”
“Oh.”
Everybody sat down, and Carly gave them the short version of her story. After breakfast, Lance made a phone call. When he came back into the living room he said to everyone, “I want you to switch off all your electronic devices — phones, computers, vibrators — and I mean off, not just idling along. In fact, remove the batteries. My IT people are going to run some tests, and they don’t want any interference.”
Everyone complied. “Can we turn on the TV?” Dino asked.
“No, unplug it. The ones upstairs, too.”
Soon they had achieved an electronics silence in the house.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t speak,” Lance said. “So, unless you’re electronically based, feel free.”
The keypad for the security system began making a series of noises, once even playing a little tune.
“At least it isn’t ‘Daisy, Daisy,’” Dino said.
This continued off and on for the better part of an hour, then the computer played a farewell fanfare and was silent.
“All right,” Lance said. “You may reassemble your devices.” They did so. Dino plugged in the TV in time to get a news report that the missing FBI agent’s body had been recovered from a sunken boat in the river.
As if on cue, there was a sharp knock at the door. Stone answered it, and two grim-looking men in suits stood there, holding up badges.
“FBI,” one of them said. “Are you Stone Barrington?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know the whereabouts of a Ms. Carly Riggs?”
“I believe I do,” Stone said. “Please come in.”
32
The two agents came into the living room. In their dark suits, button-down collars, and bland neckties, they looked like aliens from the spaceship Federal. They held up their badges.
“Good morning,” the taller of them said. “I am Special Agent Neal Olshan, FBI, and this is my partner, Special Agent Robert Paul. Which of you is Carly Riggs?”
“I am,” Carly said, giving them a little wave. “And no, you may not speak to me alone. I want witnesses.”
Olshan looked a little worried. “I’m afraid we have to speak about some rather delicate, personal matters,” he said. “Things they might not care to hear.”
“They’ve heard it all before, with all the wrinkles and crevices. And they’ve stood up to it very well. I hope you two can do the same. What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start with your criminal appeals class,” Olshan said.
“Would you like to sit down?” Stone asked, indicating two vacant chairs.
“Thank you, yes,” the agent replied, then did so.
“All right,” Carly said. She took them through her experience, step by step, omitting nothing and finished with her rescue from the river by the teenager. “There,” she said finally, “anything else?”
“You have told others that you recognized your assailants.”
“Rapists.”
“If you prefer.”
“Yes, I do. I didn’t say I recognized them. I, rather, identified them from their eyes, which were uncommonly blue and identical, and from their manner of speaking.”
“You recognized their voices?”
“No. I recognized their manner of speaking.”
“And how would you describe their ‘manner of speaking’?”