“Is that so?” Smith asked earnestly.
Stone nodded. “And they are much more likely to achieve that result without danger to themselves.”
“Who are these people?”
“They are better friends than you know, or need to know.” Stone stood up. “If you want to survive this episode in your life, it’s better that you start now. How did you travel here?”
“A friend in New York has a King Air. His pilot flew us directly to the island.”
“Can you recall the airplane?”
“Yes, if it’s not in use.”
“You should do so now. Do you have any clothing or personal effects at the inn?”
“No, we checked out a little while ago. We had planned to sleep here tonight.”
“Call about the airplane.”
Smith produced a phone and made the call, then hung up. “The airplane is in the air, returning to Teterboro from the Hamptons. They can divert and be here in an hour. I’d better explain things to Coco.”
“You can do that when you reach the airfield,” Stone said. “Let’s not waste any more time here.”
They locked the house and loaded their things, while Stone kept a watchful eye on the twins’ house.
Stone followed them to the airfield and waited with them, watching the perimeter. The King Air was late by ten minutes, but the pilot had no problem with the short field length. Stone helped them load their belongings.
“Listen,” Smith said, “we still want to close on the house. Once all this is cleared up, we can move in.”
“I’ll let you know when it’s safe,” Stone said.
They shook hands, then boarded the airplane. Five minutes later the pilot set the flaps for takeoff, revved the engines to full throttle, then, after a moment, released the brakes. The aircraft used all the runway, then lifted off and turned south.
Stone felt vastly relieved. He drove slowly back to his house and arrived to find Dino and Viv sitting in the living room, reading.
“Where are Primmy and Carly?” he asked.
“They left a few minutes ago,” Viv said.
“Left for where?”
“They didn’t say, but they took bathing suits with them.”
Outside, the skies darkened, and it began to rain. They could hear thunder in the distance, growing closer, and the rain became dense. The lights in the house went out, then came back on a few seconds later, as the generator kicked in.
“Not a good day for a swim,” Stone said.
“Thunderstorms don’t last long,” Viv said. Then, as if to confirm her judgment, the lights dimmed again, then came back bright, as the generator turned itself off. A moment later, the sun was shining again.
“Now,” Dino said quietly to Stone, “all we have to do is make sure the twins don’t kill us before Ed can kill them.”
54
Stone read for a while, then he went outside and looked at the skies. Cloudless. The sun was high. He went back inside and wondered where Primmy and Carly were. Finally, he got out his cell phone and called Primmy’s number. The call went directly to voicemail. He left her a message to call him, then hung up.
“You have no idea where they are?” he asked the Bacchettis.
“I know nothing,” Dino said, “just like you.”
“Viv, do you know where Primmy and Carly are?”
Viv ignored him. “Viv, can you hear me now?” Stone asked, raising his voice.
Viv lifted a finger to her lips for silence, then ignored him again.
Stone tried Primmy again: nothing.
Dino leaned over and said softly, “Try Ed Rawls. They could be with him.”
Stone called Rawls; no reply. “It’s as though everyone has gone on radio silence,” he said.
The phone rang, the landline. Stone picked it up, expecting to hear Primmy’s voice. “Hello?”
“Stone, it’s Billy. I just got a call from the mainland. Lightning struck the cell tower above Lincolnville, and service is out.”
“How long?” Stone asked.
“No one seems to know.”
“Thanks, Billy. Have you seen Primmy and Carly this afternoon?”
“Nope. It’s been pretty quiet around here. The rain drove everybody indoors.”
“Thanks, Billy,” Stone said, then hung up.
“What does Billy have to say for himself?” Dino asked.
“He says lightning struck the cell tower over at Lincolnville, and our service is out. Nobody knows how long.”
“Good,” Viv said.
“What?” Dino asked.
“Sometimes, a lack of cell service is a good thing,” she said. “It reminds us of the good old days.”
“You mean the good old days of the landline?”
Stone picked up the phone to call Ed Rawls on his landline, then he remembered Rawls had no landline. He had been one of the first to go all cell.
He looked up Primmy’s landline number in the local directory and picked up the phone. It was dead. “So much for the good old days of the landline,” he said. “Now it’s out, too.”
“Shush,” Viv said. “Try the good old days of reading a book. They work, even when the phones don’t.”
“Annoying, isn’t she?” Dino asked.
55
Stone finally couldn’t stand it anymore. Primmy and Carly were gone and unreachable. Ed Rawls couldn’t be phoned. And Viv wasn’t speaking to him.
“Dino,” he said finally, “I’m going to take a look around the island. You want to come along?”
Dino opened his mouth to speak, but Viv spoke first. “Dino,” she said, “I’d feel safer if you would stay here with me.”
There must have been something in her voice that Dino could hear, but he was deaf to, Stone decided. “Oh, the hell with them,” Stone muttered to himself.
“What was that you said?” Viv asked.
“Never mind, I was just talking to myself.”
“Why don’t you just calm down, sit down, and read a book.”
“Dino,” Stone said. “Do you have any idea what’s going on here?”
Dino looked at him dolefully, then put a finger to his lips.
Stone got his shoulder holster and pistol from Dick Stone’s little office, put them on and grabbed some ammunition magazines, and shoved them into his bush jacket pocket. He struggled into that and walked across the living room toward the front door. “Good afternoon to you,” he said putting on a straw hat to keep the sun off.
“Bye,” Viv replied. Dino said nothing, apparently having been switched off by Viv.
Stone walked into the garage and found it empty. He remembered that Seth had gone into Camden for something and had taken the station wagon, but the MG was gone, too. Primmy’s car was apparently at her house, so he was stranded.
Then Stone remembered that he had legs and that there were feet attached to them. He started walking.
It took him twenty minutes to get to the village and the store. He looked inside and saw Billy seated at his desk, as usual; otherwise, the store was empty.
“Hey, Stone,” Billy said.
“Any word on the cell service?”
“I got a call on the landline saying that the repairmen were on the way from Augusta, then the landline went down. I don’t know why.”
“Will you do me a favor, Billy?”
“Sure.”
“Call me on my cell when the service is restored?”
“Sure, glad to, Stone.”
Stone continued up the road toward Ed Rawls’s house.
A few minutes earlier, Sally had come out onto the porch where Ed Rawls was reading the papers. “The girls are on the move,” she said.
“Okay, thanks.” Ed got up, went inside, got into his shooting vest, and stuffed magazines into his pockets. He mounted the scope to his rifle and attached a shoulder strap, then he went into a closet and got out the pair of strap-on lineman’s blades, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and took his binoculars to the window and surveyed the twins’ property. All was quiet, and so was the Jackson property.