Page 8 of Stuart Woods' Smolder

“Chill out. I’ll be right there.”

“How’s the fire?”

“Gorgeous.”

“I meant, how close is it to the house?”

“We have maybe five minutes.”

Devin shot a wide-eyed look at Benji. Benji maintained his neutral expression, but he shared Devin’s surprise. Five minutes away was cutting it a lot closer than they usually did.

By the time Sticks arrived, Benji was standing at the doorway, holding the painting. “Do what you need to do, and let’s get out of here.”

Sticks stepped over to the window and fingered the curtains. “These’ll do.”

Using a long-necked, barbecue lighter, he first set the empty picture frame ablaze, moved to the curtains next, then made his way around the room, lighting up whatever else would burn.

When he reached the door, he smiled at his creation. “So pretty.”

“Back to the car,” Benji said.

They hurried outside and stowed the painting inside the protective box in the trunk.

Once they were all in the car and the engine was running, Benji said to Sticks, “Set the rest off.” Then he put the car in drive and whipped around toward the gate.

Using the same phone-call method as earlier, Sticks set offthe additional four igniters that he’d placed strategically around the house and garage while Benji and Devin had been searching for the painting.

If the brushfire that now dominated the slope didn’t reach the mansion, the house would still burn down. And everyone would believe that the Andrew Wyeth painting had been lost in the fire.

The perfect crime.

Chapter 3

The next morning, Stone’s phone woke him from a deep sleep. He groaned and blindly grabbed for it.

“Hello,” he croaked.

“So, youarestill alive,” his secretary, Joan, said.

He blinked, then sat up, and immediately regretted it. His head throbbed from one too many Knob Creeks the night before.

“Dino called and said you might need a little help getting started today,” Joan said. “Don’t worry. I shifted your schedule around. You have nothing pressing until this afternoon.”

“Thank God for small favors.”

“Small? Do you think I just snapped my fingers and your schedule rearranged itself?”

“Forgive me. For large favors.”

“That’s more like it. I hear Carly has flown the coop.”

“Dino has a big mouth.”

“That was from Fred. You told him on the ride home last night.”

Flashes of the previous evening played in his head, including snippets of a diatribe about how Carly was making the biggest mistake in her life.

“Then Fred has the big mouth.”

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