L.A. Dead

They've put her under sedation in a private clinic, but…'

'But what?'

'Before she went under, she was asking for you; she said she wouldn't talk to anybody but you.'

'I'll have to call her,' Stone said.

'I told you, she's under sedation, and Rick didn't know the name of the place where they'd taken her.'

'How about Peter? Where is he?'

'The servants are taking care of him; he has a nanny. Rick said his people had spoken to Arrington's mother, and she's on her way out there from Virginia.'

'That's good.'

'Did Rick say anything else at all?'

'No. He was going to make some calls, and he said he'd get back to me the minute he found out anything more.'

Stone walked to the windows and looked out into the lovely garden. 'Dino,' he said, 'did Arrington know that Dolce and I were being married this weekend?'

'I have no idea. Did you tell her?'

Stone shook his head. 'I haven't talked with her since last summer; Dolce and I had dinner with them in Connecticut, at their place in Roxbury. It's only a few miles from my new place in Washington.'

'And how did that go?'

'Not well. Dolce was very catty, obviously jealous. The next morning, Arrington showed up at my cottage and, well, sort of threw herself at me.'

'And how did you handle that?' Dino asked.

'I managed to keep her pretty much at arm's length-though, God knows, that wasn't what I wanted. I told her I wouldn't do anything to harm her marriage, and that was pretty much that. A couple of minutes after she left, Vance showed up-I think he must have been following her. He asked if he had anything to worry about from me, and I told him he didn't. He thanked me and left. That was the last time I saw either of them.'

'Sounds as though you handled the situation about as well as it could be handled.'

'God, I hope so; I hope none of this has anything to do with Arrington and me.'

'I hope so, too,' Dino said, 'but I'm not going to count on it.'

'Come on, Dino, you don't really think she…'

'I don't know what to think,' Dino said.

Eduardo and the cardinal returned, and Dolce was with them, her face streaked with tears. She came and put her arms around Stone.

Stone had never seen her cry, and it hurt him. 'I'm sorry about all this, Dolce,' he said to her.

'It's not your fault,' she said. 'You didn't have any control over her.'

'Now, let's not jump to conclusions,' he said. 'We don't know what happened yet.'

'All right, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.'

'You'd better get ready to go, Stone,' Eduardo said.,

'Go?'

'You're going to Los Angeles, of course,' Eduardo said. 'She asked for you, and she may not have anyone else.'

'Her mother is on the way.'

'Her mother can take care of the child, of course, but this is going to be a very difficult situation, given Vance's fame and position in the film community.'

'Go, Stone,' Dolce said. 'We can't have this hanging over us; go and do what you can, then come back to me.'

'Come with me,' Stone said, wanting her protection from Arrington as much as her company.

'No, that wouldn't do. You're going to have to deal with Arrington on your own.'

'My friend's jet is not available today,' Eduardo said, 'but there's a train at nine-thirty for Milano, and a one o'clock flight from there to Los Angeles. If you miss that, the trip will become much more complicated.'

Stone held Dolce away from him and looked into her face. 'You're sure about this?'

'I'm sure,' Dolce said. 'I hate it, but it's the only thing to be done; I know that.'

He hugged her again, then left and went to his room, where he found that a servant had already packed most of this things. Half an hour later, he stood on the palazzo's jetty with Dino, Eduardo, the cardinal, and Dolce. He shook hands with Eduardo and Bellini. The cardinal gave him a card. 'If I can ever be of service to you, please call me. Of course, I'll make myself available for a service when this situation has been sorted out.'

'Thank you, Your Eminence,' Stone said. He turned to Dolce and kissed her silently, then motioned Dino into the launch. 'Ride with me,' he said.

'Have you heard any more from Rick?' Stone asked as the launch pulled away from the jetty.

'No, but it's the middle of the night in L.A. Where will you be staying?'

'At the Bel-Air Hotel. Oh, will you call and book me a room?'

'I'll let Eduardo handle it; you'll get a better room.'

A few minutes later they docked at the steps to the Venice train station. Eduardo's butler met them there with Stone's train and airplane tickets and took his bags. Dino walked him to the train.

'I wish you could come with me and help make some sense of this.'

Dino shook his head. 'I'm due back in the office first thing Wednesday. Call me when you've got your feet on the ground, and I'll help, if I can.'

The train was beginning to move, and Stone jumped on. He and Dino managed a handshake before the train pulled out of the station.

Stone found his compartment and sat down. Stress often made him drowsy, and he dozed off almost immediately.

Chapter 6

Even a first class transatlantic airline seat seemed oddly spartan after the pleasures of the Boeing Business Jet, but Stone managed to make himself comfortable. A flight attendant came around with papers; none of the English- language papers had the story yet, but he caught Vance's name in the headlines of an Italian journal.

He managed to sleep some more and had a decent dinner, which, for him, was lunch, then the lights dimmed, and Vance Calder's face appeared on the cabin's movie screen. It was a report from CNN International and mentioned no more than the bare bones of the story, which Stone already knew. He'd have to wait unti LAX for more news.

He thought about another flight, how if Arrington hadn't missed it, things would have been very different. They had planned a winter sailing holiday on the island of St. Mark's, in the Caribbean, and he had planned, once at sea, to ask her to marry him. She had called him at the airport as the flight was boarding and said she had just gotten out of an editorial meeting at the The New Yorker, for which she sometimes wrote pieces. There was no way for her to make the plane, but she would be on the same flight the following day. The airplane had taken off in the first flurries of what would become a major blizzard in New York, and there was no flight the next day, or the day after that.

Then he had a fax from her, saying the The New Yorker wanted a profile of Vance Calder, who hadn't given a magazine interview in twenty years. It was a huge opportunity for her, and she had begged to be allowed to miss their holiday. He had grudgingly agreed and had put the newly purchased engagement ring back into his suitcase, to await a return to New York.

Then he had been caught up in an extraordinary situation in St. Mark's, had become involved in a murder trial, and by the time he was ready to return to the city, there was a fax from Arrington saying that, after a whirlwind romance, she had married Vance Calder.

After that had come news of her pregnancy and her uncertainty about the identity of the father. The paternity test had come back in Vance's favor, and that was that. Now Vance was dead, and Arrington had turned Stone's life upside down once again.