Stone Barrington 06-11

yours, and you fly us out to the Bahamas.”
    “Where in the Bahamas?”
    “You know them better than I do. Where’s the fishing good?”
    “Ah, ah, ah,” she said, wagging a bloody finger.
    “Oh, right; no cleaning fish. Where can we go that somebody else will clean the fish?”
    “I know a little resort on Cat Cay that has its own airstrip. You could give your fish to the restaurant and let them worry about the cleaning.”
    “Sounds good to me. Why don’t you stick those fish in the freezer and throw your toothbrush and a bikini into a bag, and let’s get out of here.”
    “Right now?”
    “Right now.”
    “I never knew you to be so spontaneous. Who was the phone call from?”
    “Just a guy.”
    “C’mon, Ham, what guy?”
    “It was Stone.”
    “And Stone suggested we take a vacation?”
    “Sort of.”
    Ginny began wrapping the fillets for freezing. “I want to know the whole story, Ham.”
    “What whole story?”
    She put the fish in the freezer and came and put her arms around his waist. “You know, you’ve been working on that poker face of yours for so long you think you can fool anybody, but you can’t fool me.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I can see right through your eyes into your brain, and right now I see deception.”
    “Not much deception. After all, can it be so bad if I’m offering you a trip to the Bahamas?”
    “Seems to me I’ve heard you say more than once that the Bahamas are boring, all that sun and sand.”
    “Not if I can fish.”

    “And what do I do while you’re fishing?”
    “I don’t know, what do you do here while I’m fishing?”
    “That’s right, you wouldn’t know, would you?”
    “Well, I’m not here when I’m fishing, am I?”
    “I get naked and do witchcraft incantations.”
    “You can do witchcraft incantations in the Bahamas, can’t you?”
    “No, I’d frighten the natives.”
    “You’d frighten the native here, if I’d known what you were doing. I like the naked part, though.”
    “You would, wouldn’t you?”
    “I sure would. You gonna get packed?”
    “Not until you tell me why we’re going.”
    “Stone thought it would be a good idea.”
    “Why did Stone think that?”
    “He had a little brush with Trini Rodriguez.”
    “He said ‘a little brush’?”
    “Sort of.”
    “And what do you think he meant?”
    “Well, usually, having a little brush with Trini involves a death experience, but he was still talking, so I guess he and Holly are all right.”
    “So now he thinks we’re going to have a death experience?”
    “I think he wants us to avoid that.”
    “By going to the Bahamas?”
    “No, he just wanted us to move into Holly’s house for a while. The Bahamas was my idea.”

    “So you’re more worried than he is?”
    “No, I just thought the Bahamas would make a nice change until somebody shoots Trini in the head.”
    “Okay, you talked me into it. I’ll go pack.” She gave him a little kiss and turned toward the bedroom.
    Ham caught a movement out of the corner of his eye; somebody outside. He’d only seen a shoulder and an elbow. “Don’t do that right now,” he said.
    “What?”
    He went into the living room, opened his gun safe, and took out an Ithaca riot gun he’d had for years. He handed her the shotgun and a box of shells. “Take this into the broom closet and load it,” he said. “Take Daisy, keep her quiet, stay down low.”
    She regarded him calmly for a moment, then took the shotgun and went back into the kitchen.
    Ham took his Beretta 9mm from the safe, shoved a loaded magazine into it, and worked the action. He put two more magazines into his pocket, then took out the Browning automatic shotgun that he used for bird hunting and loaded it, putting extra shells into another pocket. He went to a closet in the living room where he kept his fishing clothes and got inside, leaving the door ajar so he could see the front door. He tuned out the birds in the trees outside, tuned out the cars crossing the bridge over the Indian River half a mile away, and listened to everything else.
    He heard the tiny creak of a board from the back porch; he heard the scuff of a shoe sole from the front porch. He heard the squeak of a hinge on the screen door to the back porch. He knew they were listening, too, and they weren’t hearing voices anymore. He thought about saying something, but the closet door he stood behind was flimsy and would not stop a round. He held the shotgun in his left hand, ready