Page 125 of Near Miss

She set it down, untied the ribbon, and peeled back the wrapping. She used a pair of scissors to open the box underneath.

“Oh,” she said, peering inside.

“Oh good, or oh bad?”

Joan reached into the box and pulled out a desk clock, housed in mahogany. “This is beautiful,” she said. “I think it’s handmade.”

She set it on the desk and Stone looked it over. It was exquisite. The kind of clock that would cost several thousand dollars. While clients often sent him tokens of gratitude, few were of this caliber, and he could think of no current client who had reason to gift him in this way.

Joan looked back into the box and pulled out an envelope. “Ah, I guess thereisa card.”

She handed it to Stone. He opened it and pulled out a brochure for a mortuary. On the front was taped a note that read:Best to get your affairs in order sooner than later. There was no signature.

“That doesn’t look like a card,” Joan said.

“Because it’s not.” He turned it so she could see.

“I wasn’t aware we had a mortuary as a client.”

“As far as I know, we don’t.”

“Then why would they send you this?”

“I doubt they had anything to do with it,” Stone said. “This is from someone trying to send me a message.”

“What message?”

“Something about time, and how little of it I have left.”

“That’s presumptuous.”

“Get Dino on the line.”

She started to leave.

“Joan?” he called before she reached the door.

When she looked back, he pointed at the clock and the box, then motioned for her to take them out and put them somewhere far from either of their offices. It was possible the clock was just a clock and the box just a box, but he would feel better after Mike Freeman’s people checked them both for hidden devices.

Joan put the clock back in the box and carried it out.

A couple minutes later, she stuck her head into the office. “Dino on one.”

“And the box?”

“In the garden shed.”

Stone picked up the phone. “I just received an interesting package.”

“Another stiff, like yesterday?”

“No stiff. Just an expensive clock and a brochure for the Dalby Family Mortuary.”

“I hear they do good work.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” Stone said. “There was a note with the brochure.” He read it to Dino.

“Sounds like someone thinks you won’t be breathing for much longer.”

---