Unintended Consequences

station in St. Marks.” This was a Caribbean island where she and Stone had spent some time a few years back.
    “Yes?”
    “There was a crash at the St. Barts airport late yesterday afternoon. Our station head’s name was on the passenger list. No survivors.”
    “I’m sorry to hear that.”
    “You knew him. You met him when we were in St. Marks.”
    “I remember. I recall that there’s a very short runway at St. Barts.”
    “There’s more,” she said. “The names of Mr. and Mrs. D. Bacchetti were also on the passenger list.”
    Stone froze, unable to speak.
    “They were in St. Barts on their honeymoon, weren’t they?”
    “Yes,” Stone said. “Do you have any way of confirming this?”
    “I’ve dispatched someone from our station in St. Marks to St. Barts to make an identification of our man, and I’ve asked him to confirm the other names, too.”
    “Will you let me know?” Stone asked.
    “Of course I will. I’m not going to believe any of this until our officer has investigated thoroughly.”
    “Thank you for calling,” Stone said. They both hung up.
    This was impossible, Stone thought; this couldn’t be happening. He thought about what he should do, and he knew that Dino’s son, Ben, would have to be told. But not yet. Not until the confirmation came in. He called the concierge.
    “Concierge desk.”
    “This is Mr. Barrington.”
    “Yes, Mr. Barrington. How may I serve you?”
    “I need a seat on the next flight to St. Barts, in the Caribbean.”
    “Of course. There is a flight in the early afternoon. May I call you back?”
    “Yes, please.”
    Stone was experiencing tiny flashbacks of his friendship with Dino—their time together as partners on the NYPD, their travel together, their hundreds of nights at Elaine’s. It couldn’t end like this.
    The phone rang. “Yes?”
    “Mr. Barrington, it’s the concierge. The daily Air France flight to St. Martin is fully booked, and there is a considerable waiting list. I took the liberty of booking you on tomorrow’s flight. It departs de Gaulle at two P.M. and arrives in St. Martin at five P.M . You have to take a short flight from there to St. Barts, and I have you a tentative reservation on the first flight the day after tomorrow.”
    “Tentative?”
    “Apparently, the regular flight to St. Barts crashed yesterday, and the service has been temporarily disrupted because of a shortage of aircraft to cover all their flights. Their spare airplane is out of service.”
    “You’d better get me a hotel room in St. Martin, then.”
    “I have already taken the liberty of doing that. Will you be returning to Paris?”
    Stone thought for a second. “I don’t know yet.” He still didn’t know
why
he was in Paris, and he wanted to know.
    He went and stood in the shower for a long time.

12
    S tone got dressed and sat on the edge of his bed for a few minutes, trying to think of every way this news could be wrong. He knew Dino and Viv were in St. Barts; their names were on the passenger manifest. But why? They should have arrived in St. Barts days ago. Could they have gone to another island for some reason, then returned? He could not get his mind off what he was going to have to say to Ben Bacchetti.
    He called Amanda Hurley’s hotel to break their luncheon date: no answer at her room, and he didn’t have her cell number. There was a strange buzzing noise, and he suddenly realized that his cell phone was dancing across the glass desktop. He ran for it; had to be Holly, maybe with good news.
    “Hello?” He was short of breath.
    “Stone?” A man’s voice.
    “Yes?” Why didn’t he hurry up and talk?
    “It’s Dino.”
    “What?”
    “It’s Dino. What’s the matter, do we have a bad connection?”
    His brain thrashed through the gears of recognizing the voice. “Dino?”
    “I told you twice.”
    That was Dino. “Are you all right?”
    “Yes.”
    “And Viv?”
    “Just fine. Did somebody call you?”
    “Holly called, said you were on the passenger manifest of the airplane that crashed yesterday.”
    “I heard about that. It was a Mr. and Mrs. David Bacchetti, of Denver, Colorado, no relation that I know of.”
    “There are two Bacchettis?”
    “There are lots of them, but mostly in Italy.”
    “Then you’re alive?”
    “Do I sound dead?”
    “No more than usual.”
    “Somebody called our hotel and told me to call you. Are you in New York?”
    “I’m in Paris.”
    “Why the fuck are you in Paris?”
    “I have