The doomsday conspiracy

chapter 26: i'm wasting my time

Dustin Thornton was getting restless. He had power now, and it was like a drug. He wanted more. His father-in-law, Willard Stone, kept promising to bring him into some mysterious inner circle, but so far, he had failed to fulfil that promise.

It was by pure chance that Thornton learned that his father-in-law disappeared every Friday. Thornton had called to have lunch with him.

“I’m sorry,” Willard Stone’s personal secretary said, “but Mr Stone is away for the day.”

“Oh, too bad. What about lunch next Friday?”

“I’m sorry, Mr Thornton. Mr Stone will be away next Friday, also.”

Strange. And it became even stranger, because when Thornton called two weeks later, he received the same reply. Where did the old man disappear to every Friday? He was not a golfer, or a man to indulge in any hobbies.

The obvious answer was a woman. Willard Stone’s wife was very social and very rich. She was an imperious woman, almost as strong in her way as her husband. She was not the sort of woman who wou