Ellen Crosby - The Sauvignon Secret

“Nothing. Only that ‘the others’ were still alive so she couldn’t talk about it.”

Elinor bent over in her wheelchair, seized by a coughing fit, something deep and rheumy. Alice reached in her apron pocket and pulled out a tissue.

“You’re exerting yourself too much, dear. Let me get your medicine. That bronchitis doesn’t sound good at all. I need to get you to the doctor.” She placed the tissue in Elinor’s shaking hand.

Elinor waved her away, still hacking. Finally the spasm passed. “I see too many doctors. They’re all quacks. Let me finish here.”

Alice flashed a warning look at me. “She shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I know, but please—?”

“Where was I?” Elinor was still wheezing.

“Vivian asking Maggie’s sister to forgive her.”

“Yes, that’s right.” Her voice grew stronger. “She wrote they’d been drinking, all six of them were stinking drunk. It didn’t excuse what they did, but no one was in their right mind. And she knew that they genuinely did try to save Maggie when they went back to the pier, but by then it was too late.”

“Six of them?”

“Yes, that’s right. Six.”

So Charles had been there that night after all.

Another coughing spasm shook Elinor.

“Miss Elinor, I’m taking you inside right now.” Alice unlocked the brakes on the wheelchair. To me, she said, “Please leave. It’s enough.”

“I … of course. Just two more questions. Please, do you know the niece’s name? What happened to her?”

Alice whispered something to Elinor, who nodded as she wiped under each eye with her finger.

“Wait a second,” Alice said. The screen door banged as she went inside the house. A moment later she was back holding a scrap of paper.

“Why don’t you talk to her yourself?” she said. “If you could find us, I’m sure you could find her. Unless she stayed in France.”

“Pardon?”

“She came through Washington on her way to Paris. Flew here from Oregon, just to see Miss Elinor. Told us she was leaving for Paris that night. She has family there. She also planned to look up Vivian, if she was still alive.”

Alice handed me the paper and I read the name and a Paris address—though I knew already who it was the moment she said the niece was from Oregon.

Maggie Hilliard’s niece was Jasmine Nouri.

I called Eli the second I got back to my car after thanking Elinor and Alice for their time. Jasmine was babysitting Hope. She had no reason to suspect I knew anything about who she really was, and I sure as hell didn’t want to alarm her or tip my hand. But right now she was the last person I wanted to be looking after my three-year-old niece.

Eli’s phone went to voice mail and I left a terse message to call me. I thought about calling Dominique, but she was probably with Jasmine and Hope. What could I say that wouldn’t raise a red flag, especially if Jasmine was standing right there next to her?

I drove back to Atoka as fast as I dared, but it was Friday and the summer rush-hour exodus from the steamy city had started early. The first thing I intended to do was to find Hope and bring her home, if Eli hadn’t already picked her up.

After that, I didn’t have a plan. Especially since I still had no proof of anything, just a lot of speculation based on what Elinor had said. Jasmine had flown to Paris and, if I guessed correctly, she’d probably managed to track down Vivian Kalman. Within the next nine months, Vivian, Mel, and Paul all died. Vivian and Mel of heart attacks; Paul, an apparent suicide.

Maybe Vivian had given up the names of the other members of the Mandrake Society and Jasmine had visited the rest of her aunt’s former colleagues. At a minimum, she might have gotten that compromising photo of Maggie and Charles from Vivian, who had taken it. Plus she found Stephen’s yearbook photo in Maggie’s diary. Jasmine could have mailed the pictures to the others as the warning shot across the bow that the secrets and lies surrounding those two deaths had returned to haunt them all, and Charles had automatically assumed Theo was the one who had sent them.

But why would Jasmine do it? Why would she want revenge for the death of an aunt she never knew? Could she have committed murder that was passed off as a natural death—more than once— and gotten away with it? And how did Theo fit in? He was dead now, too, though his death seemed unrelated to any of this—a drug deal gone bad in San Francisco.

It was just before four when I turned off Atoka Road and flew past the stone pillars at the vineyard entrance on Sycamore Lane. My head throbbed with a tension headache and my jaw ached from clenching it. I drove straight to the Ruins.

Dominique was there, giving orders to half a dozen people setting up folding chairs, laying out tablecloths and place settings, and generally getting ready for tonight’s sell-out event. Jasmine and Hope were nowhere in sight.

My cousin saw me heading toward her. “Thank God you’re here. I could use a hand. We haven’t given ourselves enough rope and I’m about to hang myself.”

“Where’s Hope?” I asked.

“Pardon?”

“Hope. Where is she? Is she still with Jasmine?”

Dominique waved a distracted hand. “I don’t know. I think so.”

“Where’s Jasmine?”

“She might have gone back to the house to look for Eli. Juliette called and said she’d finished the floral centerpieces so Jasmine was going to head over to the Thiessmans’ to pick them up.”

Charles. The only remaining member of the Mandrake Society. Jasmine had ingratiated herself with Juliette, gaining easy and unquestioned access to their home and grounds. She’d done it in spite of Charles’s famously reclusive reputation—how clever. No one would ever suspect her if he were to have, say, an unexpected heart attack like a couple of his ex-colleagues had done. Who would possibly connect the dots between Charles, Vivian, Paul, and Mel— since Charles himself had done such a stellar job of erasing any information that could link them all to one another?

And what about Theo?

“Can you cover for me?” I said. “I’ll be back.”

She looked puzzled. “Where are you going?”

“To the house,” I said. “Then to the Thiessmans’, if that’s where Hope is.”

“Lucie, what’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just, um, would feel better if Hope was with Eli or me. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to her because Jasmine got distracted or too busy.”

“She’s very capable,” Dominique said. “Or I wouldn’t have hired her.”

“Oh, I know that,” I said. “Believe me, I know. I’ll be back.”

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and waved it. “Why don’t I just call her? Find out what she’s doing, where they are.”

“No, that’s okay. I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. You know, make it seem like I don’t trust her.”

“You don’t trust her,” she said. “That’s obvious. She happens to be really good with kids. Actually, she’s good with everyone. I don’t understand why you’re acting so negative about her.”

“I guess I’m just an overly protective aunt. Humor me this time, okay? I’ll find them myself.”

Dominique shrugged, annoyance flashing across her face. “I could use a little help here, you know. It is your vineyard.”

“I know that. I’ll be back as soon as I can. And there’s nobody more capable in the world than you are. I’ve seen you handle bigger events with your eyes closed.”

I started toward my car.

“You’re just saying that because you know you’re leaving me between a rock and the deep blue sea,” she called after me.