Excerpt from Cold Paradise by Stuart Woods, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Okay. You can reach me through my office. The number's on the other side of the card. I'll be down to Palm Beach in a few days. See you then." He offered Stone his hand, grabbed a ratty-looking overcoat from the front seat, got out of the car and walked into the Waldorf.

"Where to, sir?" the driver asked.

Stone gave him the address. "I have to pack some clothes, then I guess we're going to Teterboro. Jesus, I didn't ask him where in Teterboro."

"Atlantic Aviation," the driver replied.

"Thanks," Stone said. He wished he'd had time to find Shames an overcoat. His had been awful.

He sat back in the seat and thought about his first move when he got to Palm Beach. All he could think of at the moment was to stop every thirtyish brunette he saw and ask if her name was Liz and if she had had dinner in the Hamptons last weekend with an extremely tall geek. Stone sighed.

Chapter 4

WHEN HE GOT HOME, Stone ran upstairs and started packing. He'd never been to Palm Beach before, but he assumed it would be warm, so he took tropical-weight suits and jackets. He thought about a dinner jacket and threw it in, just in case. He changed into a lightweight suit, took his bags back downstairs, opened the door and waved the driver to come and get them, then he went downstairs to his office. His secretary, Joan Robertson, was working at her desk.

"Oh, good, you made it in," he said.

"My husband drove me. Otherwise, I wouldn't have. Why are you wearing that suit? You'll freeze."

"I'm off to Palm Beach."

Joan rolled her eyes. "Just back from LA a couple of weeks ago, and now off to Florida. Why don't I ever get to go where it's warm?"

"Someday," he said. He looked into the envelope Thad Shames had given him; a thick stack of hundreds, at least ten thousand dollars. He counted off two thousand, stuck them in a pocket and tossed Joan the rest. "Put this in the safe for hard times." He jotted down the address and phone number from Shames's card and handed it to her. "This is where I'll be."

"How long?"

"Who knows? No more than a few days, I hope."

"Have fun. Oh, I almost forgot." She handed him a slip of paper. A Mrs. Winston Harding the Third called this morning, wants to talk to you?"

Stone looked at the paper. "Who is she?"

"I've no idea. She sounds terribly upper class, though. She said she needed to talk to you about an important legal matter, and that you came highly recommended."

"Did she say by whom?"

"Nope, but she sounds like money to me. I wouldn't waste any time getting back to her."

Stone stuffed the paper into a pocket. "I'll call her from Palm Beach." He ran for the car.

AT TETERBORO, the car drove him up to the airstair door of a Gulfstream V, and the driver carried his bags on and stowed them.

"Mr. Barrington?" a uniformed crewman asked.

"That's me."

"We're ready to taxi. Please find a seat and buckle up."

Stone chose from a dozen comfortable chairs and fastened his seat belt. As the airplane started to move, the young woman he'd seen in Shames's Four Seasons suite came out of a compartment and sat down near him.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Callie Hodges."

"I'm Stone Barrington." They shook hands.

"I heard you were coming to Palm Beach with us," she said.

Stone looked around the airplane. "Who's 'us'?"

"The pilots and me. We're all that's aboard today."

"What do you do for Thad?" Stone asked.

"I'm his chef and party planner. I pretty much go where he goes. I'll fix you some lunch after the seat belt sign goes off."

"Thanks, I haven't eaten."

The big corporate jet taxied to runway 24, paused for a minute, then rolled onto the runway and started moving faster. Shortly, they were climbing into a thick overcast, and in less than five minutes they broke out into sunshine and clear skies.

Copyright Stuart Woods 2001. All rights reserved. Reproduced by the permission of the publisher, Putnam Publishing.