Stone Barrington 06-11

been expecting.
    She was only fashionably late, wearing blue slacks and a matching cashmere sweater, pearls at the neck, the very picture of the fashionable young matron. He tended to remember her in short shorts, with a shirt tied below her breasts, revealing an enticing midsection, and he tried to make the adjustment.
    Stone stood to greet her. “Hello, Allison,” he said.
    “Shhh,” she whispered, hugging him, her breasts pressing against him for an extra moment. “We don’t use that name here.”
    He held her chair and ordered a cosmopolitan for her. “Brad,” she said to the headwaiter, “this is Stone Barrington. I’m sure you’ll be seeing more of him.”
    The headwaiter shook Stone’s hand, then went to get her drink.
    “So what is this Mrs. Winston Harding business?”
    “That, my love, is my name these days. It’s good to see you.” She smiled, leaning forward to allow her breasts to be seen down the V-necked sweater.
    “And you,” he said. “You disappeared over the horizon in that rented yacht, and I thought I’d never see you again. I’ve often wondered where you got to.”
    “Oh, all over,” she said, smiling. “I’ve seen the world since last I saw you. I started with a cruise in the Pacific and the Far East, and I just kept going. A year later, I met Winston Harding in London, and a few weeks later we were married in Houston, his home. Winston was a property developer.”
    “Was?”
    “I’m a widow now.”
    “My condolences. Was there insurance involved?”
    She blushed a little. “That was an evil thing to say. He died of a heart attack. He was fifty-five.”
    “My apologies.”
    “But there was insurance involved, and a great deal else. Let’s order.”
    She chose the poached salmon, and Stone the rigatoni with a sauce of wild boar sausage and cream. He ordered a bottle of Frascati.
    “Well, Palm Beach must be the perfect spot for a wealthy widow,” Stone said.
    “We bought the house the year after we were married,” she replied. “I hardly chose it for widowhood; it just worked out that way. Funny, it’s worth three times what Winston paid for it.”
    “I’ve heard the market is hot.”
    “And so am I,” she said. She stopped talking while their lunch was served. “In a manner of speaking,” she said, when the waiter had left.
    “I should think you would have cooled off considerably,” Stone said. “After all, you’re dead.”
    “Being dead has its advantages,” she said, “but if you run into someone you used to know, it can come as a shock to them.”
    “Has that happened to you?”
    “From time to time, but I’ve always managed to duck out before we came face-to-face.”
    “I think I prefer you as a blonde, though.”
    She laughed. “I’m probably the only redhead in Palm Beach with blond roots.”
    “So you’re finding it a strain, being dead?”
    “I’d rather be alive.”
    “Well, there is the insurance company,” Stone said.
    “That’s why I called you. I want you to represent me in squaring things with those people.”
    Stone blinked. “You mean you want to give them back their twelve million dollars?”
    “Of course not,” she said. “Well, not all of it. I thought you might negotiate a settlement. What do you think the chances are of that?”
    “I think the insurance company would be very surprised to get any of their money back.”
    “How little do you think I could give them?”
    “Who knows? After they get over their initial shock, they’ll probably begin to wonder who wants to give it to them. After all, both the culprits are dead.”
    “I read about your part in sending Paul back to St. Marks,” she said.
    “I hope you derived some satisfaction from that,” Stone replied. “After all, he could have stopped your ‘execution’ at any time, and he didn’t.”
    She shrugged. “Well, that’s all in the past, isn’t it?”
    “Apparently not, if you’re still suffering the after-effects.”
    “Stone, I’ve always been an honest person. You mustn’t think I’m some sort of career criminal.”
    “I don’t. I’ve always thought it was Paul’s idea to screw the insurance company.”
    “It was. Of course, I went along with it, after he’d spent a few months persuading me. Who knew it would end the way it did?”
    “Did you love him?”
    “Oh, God, did I love him, and for years! It had begun to wear off, though, by the time we hatched the plot. My plan was to take half the money and kiss Paul