Hot Pursuit by Stuart Woods Read Free Book Online Page B

of you.”
    “It’s the truth.”
    “What do you think of Greta Frank?”
    “Greta Frank Lewin,” Herbie corrected. “She is a piece of work: cold, calculating, always composed. She insisted on testifying, and the DA couldn’t lay a glove on her. She had the jury with her the whole way. She’d make a great trial attorney.”
    “Her sister, Pat, flew back from Wichita with me. She’s a very experienced pilot, and my insurance company wanted someone like her aboard the first time I flew the airplane. We’ve become, ah, friendly.”
    “Does she look anything like Greta?”
    “Something like her, only younger and more beautiful.”
    “And a pilot, too? You should marry her.”
    “My experience with marriage has been less than satisfactory,” Stone said.
    Herbie laughed. Lunch came and they caught up as they ate.
    “Did I mention that I’m single again?” Herbie asked when they were on coffee.
    “I thought that was permanent,” Stone said.
    “She took a hike. It’s probably just as well—what with our two schedules, we hardly saw each other.”
    “It happens,” Stone said.
    “Yeah, I guess it does. Her absence sort of opens things up, though. I’ve had a couple of dates.”
    “Take my advice and stay single for a while, then find somebody who doesn’t have a schedule as busy as yours, and you’ll have more fun.”
    “We’ll see how it goes,” Herbie said.
    “It always goes,” Stone replied.

11
    STONE WENT BACK to his office and called Pat Frank.
    “Pat Frank,” she said.
    “Is that the business or the woman?” Stone asked.
    “Both,” she replied. “Are you back?”
    “Yep.”
    “Come over tonight and I’ll cook dinner for you.”
    “Who’ll be cooking? The business or the woman?”
    “The cook.”
    “What time?”
    “Seven?”
    “I’ll bring the wine—red or white?”
    “Red.”
    “See you at seven.”
    Stone passed the remainder of the day with mundane chores. Then, at a quarter to seven he went down to the wine cellar and chose a bottle of Romanée-Conti Richebourg, from 1978. He lit a candle and decanted it, then rinsed the bottle of the lees, poured the wine back into it, and recorked it. He blew out the candle, locked the cellar, and left the house to find a cab.
    At ten minutes past the hour he walked into a town house on East Sixty-third Street and rang the bell marked “Frank.” The buzzer opened the door, and down the hall Pat stood in her open doorway.
    She gave him a wet kiss and brought him inside. He had been expecting a single-girl walk-up, and what he found himself in was a large duplex garden apartment that was beautifully furnished, except that there were no pictures on the walls. Something from the kitchen smelled good. “Whatever I’m smelling, it will go well with this,” he said, handing her the bottle of Richebourg.
    She looked at it and smiled. “Where on earth did you come by this?” she asked.
    “A French friend gave me some cases of wines, and that was in one of them. I decanted and rebottled it, so it wouldn’t get shaken up in the cab.”
    “You have good friends,” she said.
    “One of them lives across the street from you,” he said.
    “Dino?”
    “Yep.” He looked around. “This is a beautiful place. Why no pictures?”
    “Greta took those with her. Her first husband bought it as a pied-à-terre. They lived on the North Shore of Long Island, at Oyster Bay, but they spent a couple of nights a week in town. Her second husband has an even nicer pied-à-terre, so she rented this place until I could collect myself and get to New York.”
    “And you’re going to buy it from her?”
    “After I’ve saved some money.” The doorbell rang.
    “That’s Greta now,” she said. “She and her husband are stopping by for a drink on the way to the theater.”
    Ah, Stone thought, I get to meet the socialite murderess.
    Greta Frank turned out to be totally disarming. She was cheerful, witty, and seemed delighted to meet Stone. “The first