Ellen Crosby - The Viognier Vendetta

“Quinn—”

“No offense, Lucie, but you said yourself you were just speculating. I’m not so naïve I don’t believe people are going to lose money by the time this shakes out. But hell, the market giveth and the market taketh away. Tommy Asher’s not God, though people have been acting like he was. Now he’s just human.”

“I don’t think—”

“Can we drop this, please?”

I saw the unmistakable message in his eyes. Go no further. I nodded and we finished the rest of the drive without speaking. How many people I cared about were going to lose money because they trusted Harlan and Tommy Asher?

It seemed to me the body count was still climbing.

Kit called when I got home just after five o’clock. I peeled off my sweatshirt and threw it on the toile-covered Queen Anne chair in the foyer. Across the room, Leland’s bust of Thomas Jefferson looked out from a lighted alcove. Jefferson knew what it was like to be broke. It was part of the reason he sold his personal library to the Library of Congress. He’d needed the money.

“The only thing harder than tracking you down,” Kit said, “is figuring out who’s lying and whose telling the truth at Asher Investments. Didn’t you owe me a phone call after you talked to the cops yesterday?”

I rubbed my forehead where it had begun to ache between my eyes.

“Yesterday got a little complicated.”

“I heard. David Wildman talked to your new friend Summer Lowe. You remember David? My Podland cubicle mate?”

A small shiver ran down my spine. Summer made it clear she didn’t want anyone to know we’d spoken together in the Capitol. How had a reporter from the Trib found out about our off-the-radar meeting?

“What’s he doing? Following me around?” I didn’t mean to snap at her.

“Not on purpose, he isn’t.” Kit sounded surprised at the rebuke. “But every time he finds a new piece of the puzzle, the seat’s still warm because you were just there. In fact, you seem to be the connecting link to all of it.”

“Is that so?”

“Apparently it is.”

“Has David had any luck putting the pieces together?”

“Ask him yourself. He’s dying to meet you.”

“You could choose another expression.”

“What? Oh … sorry.” She paused. “He’s up in New York talking to people all day tomorrow. How about the three of us get together on Saturday? I’ll drag him out to Atoka and bring him by the vineyard. Maybe first thing in the morning?”

“Uh …”

“What?”

“It might be better if we didn’t meet here,” I said.

“Sure.” She sounded puzzled. “Why?”

“I think someone besides David might be following me. Why make it easy for them?”

“Good God, are you serious?”

“’Fraid so.” I told her about last night’s car chase after I left the Hill but left out the part about sleeping with a gun.

“Lucie, you’d better watch your back.”

“I’m trying to. That’s why I’d like to meet somewhere out of the way.”

“Any preferences?”

“How about our old hangout?”

“Ah.” I could hear her smile through the phone. “A reconvening of what your brother referred to as the Semi-Irregular Meeting of Juvenile Boozers Anonymous.”

I grinned. When Kit and I were growing up, I used to filch unlabeled bottles of wine from the barrel room and bring them over to the old Goose Creek Bridge where we’d hang out at twilight and drink. It had been the site of a Civil War battle—the place where Colonel J. E. B. Stuart tried to delay Union troops in order to give Robert E. Lee more time to advance toward Pennsylvania. Ten days later, the two armies met at Gettysburg. Now the garden club looked after the bridge, which was out of the way and generally deserted. We’d probably have it all to ourselves.

“But I’m not up for polishing off a bottle of wine first thing in the morning anymore,” I said.

“How about coffee and doughnuts instead?” she said. “David and I’ll spring for it. Meet you there, say around ten?”

“Fine. Ten o’clock.”

“Before you hang up,” she said, “what are you wearing Saturday night? The invitation says black tie but I never know whether to wear short or long.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Library of Congress. The reception and a private dinner afterward for the Asher Collection. I got the press packet and your name’s on the guest list. I figured Harlan and Alison Jennings invited you.”

I thought for a moment. “No, not them. Rebecca told me about it. She put my name on that list. My God, I completely forgot. She really wanted me to be there.”

“So are you going?” Kit asked.

Every player in this unfolding drama would be there. Including, perhaps, my stalker.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m going.”

After I hung up with Kit I poured myself a large glass of wine from an open bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon on the dining room sideboard. I took it into the library, along with Leland’s .45, and set them both on the coffee table next to the sofa. The next thing I knew someone was pounding on my front door.

I picked up the gun next to my untouched glass of wine and walked slowly into the foyer.

“Lucie! Open up in there. Are you okay? Answer the door, and for God’s sake, don’t shoot me if you’ve got that damn gun!”

Quinn. I lowered my arm, dizzy with relief, and flung open the door.

“What are you doing here? You scared the wits out of me!”

He was holding a couple of white bags. The appealing aroma of Chinese food filled the air. He’d gone to the new place in Leesburg.

“How come you didn’t answer my calls? Next time pick up, will you? And you could have told me you started locking your front door.”

“What calls?” I let him in. The food smelled wonderful. “And I’m fine.”

He pointed to the gun. “Yeah, I can see everything’s just great. You forgot to charge your phone again, didn’t you? Bet you didn’t eat yet, either. Your face has funny creases on it. I woke you up.”

I brushed my fingers across my cheeks and felt for creases. “Who are you, my mother? And my phone is”—I felt in my pocket—“somewhere.”

“Where somewhere? Carry it with you, okay? That’s what it’s for.”

It drove him nuts when I forgot my phone, which I often did, but the level of anxiety in his voice made me uneasy. He was right. It was dumb not to have the phone with me at all times, under the circumstances.

“It’s probably in my car. And I think it needs to be charged,” I said, as he looked exasperated. “What’s in the bags?”

“Shrimp with snow peas for you.” He handed it to me and I peered inside. “Kung Pao chicken for me. Bon appétit.”

“Wait. You’re not leaving, are you?”

“I was gonna check things in the barrel room.”

“And eat by yourself?”

“You, uh, want to eat together?”

Why are men so dense about these things?

“We could make a fire in the parlor. I think there’s a really good Saint-Estèphe in Leland’s wine cellar.”

Quinn handed me his bag. “I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the carriage house to get some firewood,” he said. “Where’d you think?”

He was gone a long time, longer than it took to get a few logs. Our dinner was growing cold and my heart started up like war drums.

He met me at the front door, arms full of firewood, his eyes traveling to the .45, which I again held in my hand.

“Put that thing away before you shoot somebody,” he said.

“That’s the general idea of guns.”

“And your phone was in your car. Dead as a doornail. Plug it in and charge it, okay?”