Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 12

of Janey’s diary I’m going to read it tonight.”
    â€œLet me know if there’s anything relevant in it, will you?”
    â€œI’ll call you in the morning.” Stone hung up.
    â€œWhat’s happened?” Holly asked.
    â€œJaney Harris’s diary has disappeared, but I’ve got Esme’s at home in the safe.”
    â€œAnd Rawls thinks there was something in the diary that might have led to her murder?”
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    THEY WERE HOME in ten minutes. Stone unlocked the door and stepped into the entrance hall, ready to tap the alarm code into the keypad there. He stopped. “Didn’t I set the security system before we left?”
    â€œYes, I saw you put in the code.”
    Stone looked at the small screen on the keypad. “Well, it’s not armed now.”
    â€œWho could have disarmed it?”
    â€œOnly Seth and his wife would have the code, and they left before we did.”
    â€œCould you have entered the code incorrectly?”
    â€œPossibly. Maybe I got a digit wrong.”
    â€œOr maybe not,” Holly said. She reached into her purse and came out with a Walther PPKS.
    Stone unholstered the little .45 on his belt. “Let’s have a look around,” he said quietly. “We’ll go together, room by room, starting upstairs.”
    The two crept up the stairs, listening. They did a standard police search, entering each room, checking each closet, any place that could hide a man. Stone paid particular attention to Esme’s room and the little bed-room across the hall that she had used as a study. This was where Peter had found her diary. There was no sign that anything had been disturbed.
    They went back downstairs and searched the kitchen and dining room and the garage, then went into the study.
    â€œUh-oh,” Stone said.
    â€œWhat?”
    Stone nodded toward the back door. The vacuum cleaner sat just inside the door to the terrace. He went over and opened the canister. “Bag’s gone,” he said.
    â€œJust like before.”
    â€œExactly like before.”
    â€œBut nothing seems disturbed.”
    â€œLet’s look more closely,” Stone said. They worked the whole room, looking for some small sign that someone had been there.
    â€œAs far as I can tell,” Holly said, “everything is exactly as it was before.”
    Stone tried the door to the terrace. “Locked.”
    â€œDidn’t you say that Dick had some sort of special locks?”
    â€œYes. They use a key that you can only get from the manufacturer.”
    Holly put her gun back into her handbag and came out with a small leather case. “You said the door to the terrace was locked?”
    â€œYes.”
    She walked over to the door and tried it, then got down on her knees and opened the little case, which held a selection of lock picks. “Standard issue,” she said. “I’m supposed to be able to open just about anything.”
    â€œYou did a pretty good job on Dick’s safe, as I remember.”
    â€œThis is going to be harder,” she said, then went to work.
    Stone walked around the study again and opened Dick’s secret office. It seemed undisturbed. The weapons were still in their cabinet. He went back and watched Holly work.
    She stood up and put her lock picks away. “I can’t do it,” she said. “I mean, I’m not a genius at this, but the training I got at the Farm made me a lot better than all but the best burglars. These locks are made by a company called Assa, and we were told about them in our training. The U.S. Government uses them in special security situations.”
    â€œI want to read Esme’s diary,” Stone said. He went to the cabinet that held the safe and opened it. “Holy shit,” he said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt’s gone.”
    â€œWhat’s gone?”
    â€œThe safe. Come and look at this.”
    There were four crudely cut holes in the base of the cabinet, where the safe had been bolted down.
    â€œHe used a hammer and a chisel,” she said. “Took the whole thing right out. I guess he couldn’t open it.”
    â€œRight,” Stone said.
    â€œAnd if he couldn’t open that little safe, he certainly couldn’t have opened the terrace door,” Holly said.
    â€œThen he must have used a key,” Stone replied.
    â€œDoes anybody else have a key?” She asked.
    â€œNot as far as I know. Caleb