Reckless Abandon Read Online Free

a serving officer—but if you start shooting at Trini on the street and clip a civilian—well, that’s big trouble. You might keep that in mind.”
    “I certainly will,” Holly replied. “I’d take a dim view of something like that happening in my jurisdiction.”
    “Good. And if you remember that you’re not in your jurisdiction, that would be a big help. Even if you hit Trini between the eyes with your first shot—that’s a lot of paperwork for the locals, and the New York news media would fall on you from a great height.”
    “Okay, okay,” Holly said, raising her hands in surrender. “Lecture heard and understood. You want the Walther back?”
    “Keep it,” Stone said, “but make sure the circumstances are dire before you use it.”
    “Dire,” she replied. “I promise. So how’s your love life, Stone? Now that we’ve covered mine.”
    “Varied,” Stone said.
    “I’ll bet that’s a New York City term, meaning ‘nonexistent.’ ”
    “You sound like Dino.”

    “And I’ve seen you looking at me. You look pretty horny.”
    Stone tried to repress a blush. “You’re an attractive girl,” he said, “but don’t get cocky; it’s unbecoming.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t want to do anything unbecoming.”
    “If I put my hand on your knee, is Daisy going to bite it off?”
    “She will if I tell her to.”
    “Would you tell her to?”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t need her help to handle you.”
    Stone choked on a noodle.

5
    AFTER LUNCH, STONE drove them back to his house, and Holly and Daisy headed for Central Park and a long walk. Stone called down to his office.
    “Good afternoon,” Joan said dryly.
    “Sorry I didn’t check in this morning,” he said. “I took my houseguest downtown for lunch.”
    “You didn’t tell me you bought a killer dog,” she said. “I went upstairs to find you, and, luckily, I slammed the door before he could tear my arm off.”
    “She,” Stone said. “It’s Holly’s dog. Didn’t you meet her when Holly arrived?”
    “No, I was on my way out. I just gave her the key and the alarm code and pointed her upstairs. I guess the dog was still in the cab.”
    “Anything up this morning?”
    “Well, a guy who says he’s an old friend of yours has been waiting for you for more than an hour.”
    “Who is he?”

    “He won’t say, and he won’t leave. Could you get down here and deal with him, please?”
    “I’ll be right there,” Stone said. He got up and went downstairs to his office. As he came down the stairs he could see down the hall to the waiting area, and saw two long legs extended from a chair, with a very fine pair of shoes at the end of them.
    “Good afternoon,” Stone said. He couldn’t see the face, but when the man stood up, it was familiar enough.
    “Lance Cabot,” he said.
    “So that’s his name,” Joan’s voice called from her office.
    Lance offered his hand. “I’m sorry, perhaps I was being too cautious. I thought that if you called in and she gave you my name, you might not want to see me.”
    “Come into my office,” Stone said, pointing the way. He was still trying to get his breath back. A little more than a year before, a man had walked into his office and offered Stone a lot of money to go to London to rescue his niece from the clutches of her bad, bad boyfriend, whose name had been Lance Cabot.
    Stone had taken the job, only to learn that his client had used a false name and was trying to track down Cabot to kill him. The client, whose name turned out to be Stanford Hedger, was CIA, and Cabot was ex-Agency, then operating as a rogue. Stone had asked for help from a friend and had been contacted by British intelligence, who asked him to enter into a business arrangement with Cabot, who was trying to steal some important equipment from a military arms lab. With the help of an inside man, Cabot had stolen the item, presumably sold it to bad people, and had disappeared with Stone’s money. A couple of weeks later, to Stone’s