Stuart Woods_Stone Barrington 12

from the others. Jake counted five young men in the cockpit or on deck, each working furiously, and no large blond twins were among them. He had been had. What he would have enjoyed most would have been to remove his Colt Cobra from its holster, empty it into the yacht’s hull just below the waterline and watch it sink.
    Instead, he drew his cell phone from its pouch and punched in a number.
    â€œSergeant Young,” a voice said.
    â€œSergeant, this is Lieutenant Potter of the Nantucket police department.”
    â€œGood morning, Lieutenant.”
    â€œI wanted to let you know that the yacht Hotshot has just left the marina here for the start of the race, and the Stone twins are not aboard. And I haven’t been able to find them anywhere in the village. I’ve had all our people on the lookout for them, and they are not here.”
    â€œThank you, Lieutenant,” Young said.
    â€œOne more thing: Two young men answering their description left here in a small, private airplane yesterday afternoon. There was no flight plan filed, and I don’t have a tail number, but the airplane departed to the northeast, in the direction of Provincetown. That’s consistent with a flight to the Maine coast.”
    â€œDo you know what kind of airplane?”
    â€œIt was a Cessna, nobody could identify the model, but it was not based on Nantucket.”
    â€œDo you know if it refueled at your airport?”
    â€œNo, it did not refuel; otherwise, we’d have the tail number.”
    â€œThank you, Lieutenant.”
    Â 
    YOUNG CLOSED HIS CELL phone and turned his car in the direction of Dick Stone’s house.
    Â 
    STONE WATCHED AS Ginny came down the stairs, clutching the diary and several sheets of paper.
    â€œI’ve got something,” she said. She spread her papers and the diary out on the coffee table and sat down beside it while everyone gathered around her. “I finally realized that I still hadn’t gone far enough back in the diary,” she said. “Then it occurred to me that Esme had been in London with her parents all winter, not here on the island, so what I was reading was mostly irrelevant, so I went back even further to last Labor Day.”
    â€œAnd what did you find?” Stone asked.
    â€œThe pages were very messy, and the ink had faded or run, but I’ve written out what I could read. This one entry was a page and a half long, which was unusual for ESE; she ordinarily wrote a couple of paragraphs about her day. Here’s what I’ve got.” She picked up a sheet of paper and read:
    â€œâ€˜Day started blank.’ Where I couldn’t read a word, I just wrote down ‘blank.’ Then there are two or three paragraphs that are completely illegible, then this: ‘X and blank said blank blank’—several words unreadable—then ‘blank house, blank blank blank drinks. Z wanted blank blank go, so I said okay.’ Then more unreadable paragraphs down to the last one: ‘Z blank crying, me too. Blank blank Y laughing, drunk. Z threw blank, and I got her out blank blank.’ Then the only whole sentence I was able to get: ‘Z swore me to secrecy.’”
    Lance spoke up. “I want to send the diary to Langley and see if they can recover more of those pages.”
    â€œI think you should,” Ginny said. “I don’t think I can get any more of this particular incident.”
    â€œDo you have an interpretation of all this, Ginny?” Stone asked.
    â€œIt sounds to me that there are four people involved: X, Y, Z and ESE. It sounds as though Z and ESE were persuaded to go to somebody’s house for drinks, then got drunk and Z threw up, and ESE got her out of there.”
    â€œZ could be Janey Harris,” Stone said, “and X and Y could be Eben and Enos Stone.”
    â€œCould be,” Ginny said,” but there’s nothing here that I can read that identifies X and Y. It could be two other boys on the island or two other girls or even two men. Wouldn’t be the first time grown men tried to lead teenaged girls astray.”
    â€œAll right,” Stone said. “Here’s a theory: Labor Day is everybody’s last day on this island. When I spent that summer here, the day after Labor Day, everybody abandoned this place as if it were a sinking ship. By five in the afternoon, the island was practically deserted.”
    â€œWhat’s your point?” Dino