Stone Barrington 06-11

happens to you, and, particularly, if you experienced a sense of loss over, oh, I don’t know, maybe a body part or two?” She opened her handbag and removed an old-fashioned straight razor.
    Stone tried harder to free himself from the stockings and the bedposts, but to no avail.
    “You’re wasting your time, my dearest,” she said, daubing the sweat from his brow with a corner of the sheet. “Nylon stockings make excellent restraints; they’re extremely strong, stronger than you, in fact.” She opened the razor, and the blade caught the light.
    “There’s a very nice little shop in town,” she said, “that sells men’s shaving products, and they had this very beautiful example of German steelmaking.” She pulled a hair from Stone’s head and let it fall on the blade. It separated into two pieces and fell to the floor.
    “It has never been used,” she said, “and it will never be sharper than it is at this moment. Just as well, too, since I didn’t manage to steal a local anesthetic from my captors, only the drug. You’ll hardly feel a thing, just the warm trickle—or rather, gush—of blood as it flows across what I believe the poets call the loins.” She reached out and took hold of the tip of his penis. “Let’s get it excited,” she said. “It makes a better target.” She drew back the hand holding the razor and swung it in a slow arc toward its destination.
    Then Stone was screaming, and someone was hammering on the door.
    “Stone, open the door!” a woman’s voice called.
    Stone was sitting straight up in bed, still dressed in his robe. He stumbled to the door and opened it.
    “What’s wrong?” Callie asked, alarmed. “You’ve been screaming at the top of your lungs.”
    Dino appeared behind Callie. “You all right, Stone?”
    Stone went and sat on the edge of the bed, while Callie got a towel and wiped the sweat from his face and upper body.
    “I had a dream,” he panted.
    “More like a nightmare,” Callie said.
    “Yes, more like a nightmare.”

44
    T HE FOLLOWING MORNING, STONE MADE THE CALL HE had been dreading and could no longer postpone.
    “Hello, Stone,” Eduardo Bianchi said.
    “Good morning, Eduardo. I hope you’re well.”
    “I have been better,” Eduardo said, then was silent.
    It was up to Stone. “I understand that Dolce has … left your house.”
    “I am afraid that is so,” Eduardo replied.
    “Do you have any idea of where she might be?”
    “Stone, my friend, I think she would like to be wherever you are.”
    “I’m in Palm Beach, Florida, on business,” Stone said. “Dino is with me, and he feels that Dolce may be in Palm Beach; that she may have been following me.”
    Eduardo heaved a sigh. “I will send people at once,” he said.
    “Eduardo, I cannot guarantee you that she is here. It’s just a feeling.”
    “I respect what you feel, Stone, and if there is any chance at all that she is in Palm Beach, then that is where I must look for her.”
    “Eduardo, speaking as an attorney, I must ask if you have taken any legal steps toward guardianship?”
    “No. This is a family problem, you understand, and I have no wish to bring the courts into it.”
    “I understand your feelings, but simply sending people to find her and return her could present legal difficulties that might be more invasive of your family privacy than taking steps to have her declared incompetent.”
    “She is not an incompetent person,” Eduardo said stiffly.
    “I’m sorry. I meant incompetent in the legal sense, not otherwise. Unless you are willing to make a case to a court that she is not currently able to account for herself and her actions, then she is legally entitled to do and go as she pleases. Removing her to New York from another state could pose problems.”
    “Stone, I understand this, and I am grateful for your advice, but you must understand that, in my family, we are accustomed to solving our problems without the help of, ah, public officials. If I can locate Dolce, I can achieve the reunification I desire.”
    “Of course, Eduardo. I don’t doubt for a moment that you can.”
    “You say that Dino is with you? I had not heard this.”
    “Dino came down to help me with another matter, one not connected to Dolce.”
    “I see. Well, it is good that he is there; you may well need his help. I need hardly tell you that Dolce may be a danger to herself and to you.”
    “I hope you are wrong, but I understand,” Stone said. “If I should locate