Ellen Crosby - The Viognier Vendetta

“Of course,” she said to Tommy Asher. “Enjoy your visit.”

In a few seconds he would enter the room where I now stood, though she would ask him to use the door on the opposite side, not the exit where I was now. It was no coincidence that he had come here. He had hunted me down and I’d been stupid enough to let myself be cornered inside the Botanic Gardens with no phone, no security guard, and no one other than a septuagenarian docent whom he’d just utterly charmed. How had I missed seeing him? Where had he been?

I quietly closed the door to the Orangerie and fled across the Garden Court to the Jungle. On this side of the conservatory there was not only a staircase to the second story canopy walk but also a glassed-in elevator. The car, mercifully, was waiting on the first floor. I slipped Rebecca’s package underneath a prayer plant and a split-leaf philodendron. Then I stepped in the elevator and smashed the Close Door button and the button for the second floor. Maybe he’d think I left through the south entrance on Independence Avenue. Maybe he’d never look up.

The door slid shut and the elevator hummed. “Go,” I said. “Please. Right now.”

The car slowly began to rise as the door from the Garden Court on the far side of the Jungle opened. Tommy Asher walked in to the steamy stillness. He wore black jeans, a dark all-weather jacket, and a knitted cap. He looked more like an older version of the tough streetwise kid Harlan had described in London than the world-renowned adventurer and investment guru he claimed to be now. And here we were in a jungle where he was the hunter and I was the prey.

I stepped to the rear of the carriage as though I would become invisible as it rose into the air above the rain forest. Below, a mist hung over the waterfall and vividly colored orchids stood out like colorful birds among the tropical dark green foliage. Tommy Asher heard the elevator whir as it lifted me above him. He looked up and a broad smile creased his face as he reached in his pocket. Did he have a gun?

I saw the flash of a blade, and then he bent over a balustrade enveloped by twining jungle vines. From my vantage point, I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I had a sickening feeling he was cutting off a piece of one of the vines. Then he ran up the metal staircase—the man who’d scaled Everest—on the far side of the room as my elevator continued its slow ascent.

I pounded the first-floor button, hoping to reverse direction as he reached the catwalk. He disappeared in the jungle foliage as the elevator stopped at the upper level and the door automatically opened. Before I could close it again, he stepped in front of it, jamming it open with his foot.

“Welcome to the catwalk, Lucie. Lovely view up here.”

“No,” I said. “Don’t do this.”

He grabbed my arm and yanked me out of the carriage.

“You have something of mine. I want it.”

One of his arms locked around my neck as the other, holding the vine, felt me up, trying to find the package. His grip tightened.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have anything.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he said, “or I’ll kill you right here.”

“Like you killed Rebecca and Ian? Looking for the proof Rebecca left that you’re running a Ponzi scheme?”

“Shut up.” He increased the pressure on my throat and looped the vine into a noose. I began to feel light-headed. “Your friend is not so noble, you know. She cared for no one but herself.”

“Then why did she try to help Ian Philips?” I tugged on his arm, trying to loosen his grip. He grabbed my arm and pinned it behind my back.

It hurt.

“Stop moving or I’ll really hurt you,” he said. “As for why she wanted to help that idiot Philips, I have no idea.”

“Ian said something changed her mind.”

At least now I had his interest. He eased his grip around my neck so I could talk.

“And what would that be?” His mouth was next to my ear. The overpowering scent of his cologne made me feel like throwing up.

“I don’t know.” Wasn’t it nearly five o’clock? Wouldn’t the docent be coming in to chase the two of us out soon? How long could I stall? “Unless it was the fact that she found out she was pregnant.”

In the long moment of silence that followed, the whistle of an exotic bird cut through the air, a sweet piercing sound. The rain no longer pounded the conservatory roof. Shadows lengthened.

Rebecca had ended her affair with Harlan awhile ago. Ian said she went after rich, older men. Her latest lover had been the richest of them all—or so she thought. Tommy Asher was the father of her baby.

“Did you know she thought she might be pregnant with your child?” I asked. “You know she was caught on camera leaving a pharmacy with a pregnancy test that Saturday afternoon.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“What happened? Did your wife find out?”

“Shut up.” He moved the noose closer to my neck. “I never should have trusted that double-crossing little bitch. She played me.”

He sounded hurt. The same jilted lover’s voice I had heard from Ian. It was the kind of turn-the-tables revenge she had wanted to exact on Connor.

“She tried to blackmail you?”

“Don’t be naïve.” The rough vine scraped my cheek as he slipped it over my head. “Rebecca wasn’t stupid. I gave her access to information she shouldn’t have had. She used it to transfer funds to some account God knows where and decided to do a runner. I guess she figured she’d get away with it as long as I went down.”

“So you killed her? Who got to her that afternoon before your gala? Who made up the Robin Hood story? You or Simon?”

“What difference does it make? Simon does whatever I tell him.”

“In a court of law, it makes a lot of difference who the murderer is.”

“Where’s the package, Lucie? You’ve got it somewhere.”

“No.”

He tightened the cord and the palm fronds seemed to dance as they descended from the ceiling, enveloping me in darkness.

“Let me go and I’ll show you.”

“Show me now, dammit.”

“Down … there.”

“Where, damn you?”

For a split second he let go of the vine, peering over the railing of the canopy walk. I still held my cane, and now I brought it up and swung hard. It flew out of my hand but I caught one shoulder and the side of his head. He groaned and staggered backward. I shrugged out of his arms and ran for the stairs, using the railing for support, his vine still wound around my neck. I yanked it off and threw it on the catwalk floor. His shoes pounded on the metal behind me. I headed for the stairs and stumbled. He was right behind me, the knife blade gleaming in his hand.

He grabbed me again, just as I reached the stairs. “Where’s that package? Tell me or I swear I’ll slit your throat.”

“Underneath the prayer plant. Down there.”

I heard voices in the Garden Court. Coming toward the Jungle. David Wildman and the docent.

“You’re too late,” I said in a hoarse whisper. “They’ll get it first.”

He looked over the railing, fury and rage on his face as he hesitated before raising the knife above my head. I wrenched away from him and lost my balance, pulling him with me as I fell toward the staircase. He fell over top of me as I continued to tumble down the stairs. The last thing I heard before I blacked out was Tommy Asher’s scream as he plunged over the railing, plummeting into the depths of the jungle forest below.

Tommy Asher did not recover from the broken neck and the self-inflicted knife wound he sustained from his fall in the Botanic Gardens. I’d cracked two ribs and had some bruises and a minor concussion, but otherwise I was all right.