Ellen Crosby: The Viognier Vendetta

The lobby was noisier and more animated than when I had checked in. Underneath the sound of laughter, chatter, and the clink of glasses from the bar around the corner, a piano played “The Way You Look Tonight.” Most of the couches and chairs were now occupied. I wondered how many were hotel guests and how many were well-dressed people watchers. I walked down an opulent corridor called Peacock Alley, passing a few people taking tea and peeking into ballrooms and salons set up for some upcoming event. One of them looked like someone’s wedding reception. Finally I rode the elevator to the seventh floor.

More Beaux Arts elegance in our suite, which was decorated in regal shades of scarlet and gold. Someone had placed my suitcase on a small mahogany bench with a red-and-gold-striped satin cushion. Rebecca’s suitcase occupied the matching bench next to it. A floor-length, one-shoulder black evening gown hung in the closet next to my garment bag. In the bathroom her makeup—mostly Chanel and La Prairie—spilled out of a Vera Bradley cosmetic bag on the marble countertop. Among the blush, lip gloss, and eye shadow was a package of birth control pills.

She’d left her red leather planner, closed and bristling with papers, in the middle of the desk in the sitting room. Next to it, bound in green cloth with gilt-edged pages, was a very old copy of The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. I opened the cover and saw that she had inscribed the flyleaf to me.

For Little.

May you come to know these poems and treasure them as much as I do. Big

I brought the book over to the gold damask sofa and sat down to look at it. The second dedication—to her—was on the title page and had been crossed out, though I could still read what had been written.

For my darling Rebecca ,

“Where’er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade / Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: / Where’er you tread, the blushing flow’rs shall rise, / And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.”

With all my love, Connor

Underneath, Rebecca had written her own message:

Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after.

Presumably the words were originally written by Alexander Pope—Connor’s declaration of love and Rebecca’s bitter recrimination. But there, in a nutshell, was their affair and the breakup. I closed the book feeling like I’d violated her privacy, though obviously she meant for me to see it if she were giving it to me as a present. I put it back on the desk as someone knocked on the door to the suite.

A woman about my age wearing a businesslike white oxford blouse and a slim-fitting navy skirt stood there, long tapered fingers playing with her cell phone. Heart-shaped face, delicate winged eyebrows, English rose complexion, light brown hair pulled up into a chignon, she wore almost no makeup except for lipstick in Madonna red.

When she saw me, she frowned. “Ms. Montgomery?”

She had to be hotel staff since no one else knew I was here. Maybe they needed a credit card on file, after all.

“Yes. You’re with the Willard?”

She looked taken aback. “Good Lord, no. I’m Olivia Tarrant. Sir Thomas Asher’s personal assistant.”

Tommy Asher seemed to surround himself with beautiful young women. Somehow I expected that his personal assistant would be a man—someone older who’d been with him for years. A private secretary or a faithful butler.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“I’m looking for Rebecca.”

“She had an errand in George—”

Olivia Tarrant cut me off. “I know that. She should have been back here two hours ago. I can’t reach her anywhere and she’s not answering her phone. I spoke to Dr. Shelby. He told me she kept her taxi waiting while she picked up a package for Sir Thomas and Lady Asher. Rebecca didn’t spend ten minutes there.”

I opened the door wider and gestured to the room. “I don’t know what to tell you, but she’s not here, either.”

“May I?” Olivia sailed past me before I could answer.

She walked over to one of the two windows overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue and pulled the sheer privacy curtain aside as though she expected to find Rebecca hiding there. I wondered if she planned to look under the beds as well.

“You were with her before she left for Georgetown?” She didn’t turn around.

“Yes.”

“When was that?” She released the curtain and faced me.

“I met her at one o’clock at the Lincoln Memorial. We did some sightseeing.”

“What time did she leave?”

“I don’t know. Probably around two, maybe a little before. I didn’t check the time.”

“Did she say anything else, about where she might go?”

In a moment, I figured Olivia Tarrant would read me my rights. “No.”

She fiddled with her phone some more, turning it over and over. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell Lady Asher.”

“Maybe Rebecca met someone for coffee or a drink afterward.”

The winged eyebrows arched in annoyance. “First of all, she was supposed to return directly here. Second, if that’s what she did then she shouldn’t have turned off her phone.”

“Hey,” I said. “I’m not Rebecca or Lady Asher. Go tell them.”

Her mouth dropped open, then she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. But you have no idea how valuable that package she retrieved is.”

I don’t have a good poker face. Everyone tells me that. I tried, anyway, to look like I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Rebecca is very responsible. I’m sure everything’s fine and she’ll show up any minute.”

Olivia Tarrant crossed her arms, sizing me up. “How well do you know her?”

Right now I could have told her I wasn’t so sure anymore and that would be the truth. Instead I said, “Do you always ask so many questions?”

For the second time she looked taken aback. “I suppose I do. It’s part of my job. You can’t imagine how many people want my boss’s time and attention … and money. It’s my responsibility to know who he’s dealing with.”

She seemed to relish the power of her position as gatekeeper and all-roads-pass-through-me. Sir Thomas may have made the Forbes list of billionaires every year for the past decade and was well-known for his philanthropy, but he still put his pants on one leg at a time just like every other man I knew. I wasn’t as impressed with him as she was.

“I don’t want any of those things and I’m an old friend of Rebecca’s. She invited me to be her guest for the weekend.”

“You’re in investment banking as well?”

“I own a vineyard.”

She did a double take and said, “So you flew in from the West Coast?”

I hate it when people think the only place anyone makes wine in America is California.

“I drove here from Atoka, Virginia. It took me about an hour,” I said.

“Atoka,” she repeated. “Is that near Middleburg or Upperville?”

“It’s in between. Why do you ask?”

“Sir Thomas’s brother just bought an estate there. Upperville, I think it was.”

“He’s moving to Virginia?”

“No.” Her smile was tolerant. “It’ll be a weekend place when he’s not at one of his other homes.”

Her phone rang before I could reply.

“Yes, sir?” Olivia turned away from me and walked back to the window. “No, I’m sorry. She’s not in her suite, either. Yes, sir. Right away.”

She tapped her phone and I heard the click of a disconnected call.

“I have to go,” she said.

“That was Sir Thomas?”

She ignored the question and walked to the desk, bending over to write something on a hotel notepad. She tore off the page and handed it to me.