Insatiable Appetites

Stuart Woods

Putnam (2015)

Tags: Mystery

Mysteryttt

Stone Barrington returns in the new action-packed thriller from the #1 "New York Times"-bestselling author. It's a time of unexpected change for Stone Barrington. A recent venture has achieved a great victory, but is immediately faced with a new challenge: an underhanded foe who's determined to wreak havoc at any cost. Meanwhile, when Stone finds himself responsible for distributing the estate of a respected friend and mentor, the process unearths secrets that range from merely surprising to outright alarming. And when a lethal beauty from Stone's past resurfaces, there's no telling what chaos will follow in her wake . . . Ever a master of keeping cool under pressure, even Stone might have his work cut out for him this time . . . because when grand ambitions collide with criminal inclinations, the results may be more deadly than he could have anticipated.

Paris Match
^†

Cut and Thrust
^†

Carnal Curiosity
^†

Standup Guy
^†

Doing Hard Time
^†

Unintended Consequences
^†

Collateral Damage
^†

Severe Clear
^†

Unnatural Acts
^†

DC Dead
^†

Son of Stone
^†

Bel-Air Dead
^†

Strategic Moves
^†

Santa Fe Edge
^§

Lucid Intervals
^†

Kisser
^†

Hothouse Orchid
^*

Loitering with Intent
^†

Mounting Fears
^‡

Hot Mahogany
^†

Santa Fe Dead
^§

Beverly Hills Dead

Shoot Him If He Runs
^†

Fresh Disasters
^†

Short Straw
^§

Dark Harbor
^†

Iron Orchid
^*

Two-Dollar Bill
^†

The Prince of Beverly Hills

Reckless Abandon
^†

Capital Crimes
^‡

Dirty Work
^†

Blood Orchid
^*

The Short Forever
^†

Orchid Blues
^*

Cold Paradise
^†

L.A. Dead
^†

The Run
^‡

Worst Fears Realized
^†

Orchid Beach
^*

Swimming to Catalina
^†

Dead in the Water
^†

Dirt
^†

Choke

Imperfect Strangers

Heat

Dead Eyes

L.A. Times

Santa Fe Rules
^§

New York Dead
^†

Palindrome

Grass Roots
^‡

White Cargo

Deep Lie
^‡

Under the Lake

Run Before the Wind
^‡

Chiefs
^‡

A Romantic’s Guide to the Country Inns of Britain and Ireland (1979)

Blue Water, Green Skipper

*A Holly Barker Novel

†A Stone Barrington Novel

‡A Will Lee Novel

§An Ed Eagle Novel

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) LLC

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New York, New York 10014

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A Penguin Random House Company

Copyright © 2015 by Stuart Woods

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Woods, Stuart.

Insatiable appetites / Stuart Woods.

p. cm.—(Stone Barrington ; 32)

ISBN 978-0-698-15415-5

1. Barrington, Stone (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3573.O642I57 2015 2014040669

813'.54—dc23

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Version_1

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Election night, late.

Stone Barrington sat on a sofa in the family quarters of the White House, watching the presidential race unfold on television. Things were not going as he had hoped. The race, between Katharine Lee, First Lady of the United States, and Senator Henry Carson of Virginia, seemed to be a dead heat.

Kate Lee and her husband, President Will Lee, were Stone’s friends, and he had looked forward to their invitation to spend election night in the family quarters with a couple of dozen good friends. He had not looked forward to seeing her lose the race to a cardboard cutout of a Republican senator, which was how he saw Henry Carson, known in the Lee campaign as Honk, due to a failed attempt to get the nation to think of him as a Hank, instead of a Henry. A mispronunciation by a French official had rechristened him.

Ann Keaton, the Lee deputy campaign manager, to whom Stone was very, very close, came and sat beside him.

“How do you feel about all this?” he asked Ann.

“Nauseous,” she replied.

“What’s going wrong?”

“We’re not getting the turnout our pollsters told us to expect,” she said. “Young people and independents are not voting in the numbers we had hoped. At least, that’s what our exit polling is telling us. Also, Florida is taking a hell of a long time to count. They’ve got a Republican governor, and we’re worried about hanky-panky. It could be Bush–Gore all over again. On top of that, Ohio is neck and neck.”

“The West Coast polls close in ten minutes,” Stone said. “Those states should give Kate a boost.”

“They should, yes, but California can’t put her over the top, if Florida and Ohio go the other way. This could be a very big upset.”

“Something’s happening,” Stone said, pointing at the TV. Chris Matthews and Tom Brokaw were on screen.

“Based on our own exit polling and with eighty-nine percent of the precincts reporting,” Brokaw was saying, “our desk is calling Florida for Senator Henry Carson.”

“No!!!” came a shout from around the room. “Not possible!” Senator Sam Meriwether of Georgia, Kate’s campaign manager, yelled.

“Easy, Sam,” Will Lee said. “It’s not necessarily over because a network has called it.”

“CBS has called it that way, too, but ABC is holding out,” a woman watching another TV set called.

“Fox called it for Honk half an hour ago,” somebody said.

“I regard that as encouraging,” Stone said, and everybody laughed, releasing some tension in the room.

Kate Lee emerged from the Presidential Bedroom with a coat over her shoulders. “I’d better get over to the armory,” she said. “I’m going to have to make a statement soon.”

“It’s not over yet,” her husband said.

“I hope you’re right,” Kate said, kissing him, “but I’d better be ready.” She started for the door, two Secret Service agents in tow.

“Wait a minute!” Sam Meriwether shouted. “CBS is reconsidering their call.”

Kate stopped. “Have they reversed themselves?”

“No, but they’re saying that Florida is back in the undecided column.”

“That has to be a good sign,” Ann said to Stone.

“I hope so.”

“New totals from Florida,” Sam called out. “With ninety-six percent of precincts reporting, Kate leads by three thousand votes!”

Kate walked back toward the TV set. “That’s too narrow a margin. What precincts haven’t reported?”

Sam pointed at a north Florida county.

“That county is nearly all African-American,” Kate said. “It should be ours by a big margin.”

“I’m thinking hanky-panky,” Sam said.

“Have we got anybody in the courthouse there?”

As they watched, cars pulled up in the courthouse square and men in suits got out.

“Republicans?” somebody asked.

“FBI agents! I see badges.”

The men swept into the courthouse.

Will came and stood beside Kate. “You’re right,” he said, “you’d better get over to the armory. They’ve got a comfortable room for you to wait in there. Don’t do anything precipitous.”

Kate kissed him again and ran for the door.

“The West Coast has closed,” somebody called.

“MSNBC is backing away from their call in Florida,” somebody else said.

“What do they know that we don’t?” Stone asked Ann.

“I don’t know anymore,” Ann said. “I’m through reading exit polls and guessing. We’ll know soon anyway.”

“One precinct in north Florida has reported and that, alone, has widened Katharine Lee’s lead by another two thousand points,” Chris Matthews said. “And we’re hearing that they’ll have a statewide count at any minute.”

“Here’s some good news for the Lee campaign,” Brokaw said. “Now that the polls in the West have closed, we can tell you that our exit polls show Katharine Lee winning California by nearly thirty points.”

A cheer went up around the room.

“We’ve got a report from Ohio,” Brokaw said. “Let’s go to Amy Roberts there. Amy?”

“Tom, this is official. All Ohio votes are in, and Kate Lee has won by less than twenty thousand votes!”

There was a roar of glee from the people present. Will Lee was on his cell phone, and everybody knew who he was calling.