Ellen Crosby: The Viognier Vendetta

“My number. Please call me if you hear from Rebecca. And for God’s sake, tell her to call me and get the hell back here,” she said. “I’ll see myself out.”

I folded the paper and threw it on the desk. Somehow I didn’t think I’d be calling Olivia Tarrant.

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading a book on canopy management—pruning, spraying, and how often to do it—and trying not to glance up at the door to the suite every five minutes as though I expected Rebecca to waltz in with some breezy tale of a drink with another friend in Georgetown.

Where was she?

The book wasn’t a page-turner, but I forced myself to concentrate because it was a subject I needed to know more about. A lot of people think owning a vineyard means living a glamorous life of days spent wandering among the grapevines sipping champagne and admiring God’s handiwork. The reality is that it’s backbreaking, mind-numbing, tedious work, often in withering heat or the damp chill of a wine cellar. During harvest, we put in eighteen-hour days for weeks on end. Tempers are short because no one gets much sleep and we’re usually racing against the clock and the weather. A good day is when only a few things go wrong. As for glamour, I wouldn’t like to say how much scrubbing it took to get most of the dirt out from under my fingernails before I showed up here today. Dark red nail polish did the rest. Luckily, my clothes concealed the Technicolor bruise on my thigh from banging into a metal rack when one of the five-hundred-gallon wine barrels slipped in the middle of turning it. That said, I love what I do.

By six o’clock Rebecca still hadn’t turned up. I tried her number one more time and it again went to voice mail. No point leaving a third message. Next I called Quinn Santori, my winemaker, to see how things had gone at the vineyard today. This time of year we were gearing up for spring, which meant the beginning of weeding and planting new vines. For a few more weeks, though, it would still be relatively quiet in the winery until we began bottling in May. Lately we’d been doing wine trials—blending wine in varying ratios from different barrels and stainless-steel tanks to decide how we’d make the wine we eventually bottled.

Quinn and I didn’t see eye to eye on this—in fact, lately, we didn’t seem to agree on much of anything. Eight months ago we broke our long-established rule of not mixing personal and professional relationships and had gone to bed together. Foolishly, I thought we could handle what happened the next morning and the mornings and days after that.

He was a passionate and exciting lover, and reliving that first night and the handful of others that followed, still made my face go hot. Then in December his mother passed away in California. As far as I knew, she was the only family Quinn had left since he kept a monastic vow of silence about his life before he came to work at Montgomery Estate Vineyard three years ago. My father had hired him shortly before his death without doing much of a background check. Quinn never bothered to fill in any of the blanks.

He remained in San Jose for a month after his mother’s funeral, leaving Antonio, our new farm manager, and me to run the place. When he returned from California, something was different. He was different. Not quite distant, but remote, I guess. Or restless maybe. By unspoken mutual agreement, he stopped showing up at my house at night anymore. We never discussed the reason, but the fallout was that we didn’t spend much time in each other’s company during the day, either, unless it was business. Personally, I was miserable. I had no idea how he felt.

His phone, like Rebecca’s, went to voice mail.

“Hi, it’s me,” I said, after his message. “Just checking in. No need to return the call unless something’s come up. See you tomorrow.”

Then I took a long shower and got ready for the gala.

At six forty-five Olivia Tarrant knocked on my door again. She’d gone from buttoned-up to siren, glamorous in a red satin gown with a plunging neckline. A black cashmere evening coat and a black sequined purse were draped over one arm. This time she wore plenty of makeup—theatrical smoky eyes, rouged cheeks, and that Madonna red lipstick that made her look like some doll on the cover of a ’50s pulp novel—except for the phone that she still clutched in one hand and the vexed expression on her face.

“I guess you haven’t heard from Rebecca,” I said, “or you wouldn’t be here. You look very nice.”

She looked me over and seemed surprised by what she saw. My own dress came from an upscale consignment shop called Nu-2-You where I occasionally bought clothes since I always needed something for one of the many formal parties and charity events we hosted at the vineyard. This dress was my favorite—silk black-and-gray large floral print, low, square-cut neckline, beaded shoulder straps, and a deeply pleated skirt that swirled gracefully when I moved.

“That dress,” Olivia said, “is absolutely stunning. And no, we haven’t heard from her. We’re contacting cab companies in D.C. to see if we can find out who picked her up and where they dropped her off.”

“Why didn’t you ask that professor what cab company she used?”

She pursed her lips. “Are you kidding? He couldn’t even remember the color. Said he didn’t really pay attention.”

“What about contacting the D.C. police?”

“Sir Thomas has his own security people looking into this. He isn’t ready to involve the police yet. Rebecca’s actually more AWOL than missing. So far.”

“What about the fact that she picked up something quite valuable?” I asked. “She’s nearly four hours late now. Maybe someone followed her and robbed her. I know Rebecca. She’d put up a fight.”

Olivia didn’t look happy that I appeared to have some knowledge of why Rebecca had gone to Georgetown. I had a feeling she was dying to ask me how much I knew. Instead she changed the subject.

“Our people are checking all the hospitals. If she’s anywhere, we’ll find her.” She pulled on her evening coat. “I have a car waiting downstairs to take me to the National Building Museum. You’re welcome to join me if you’d like.”

I didn’t feel much like going to the gala under the circumstances, but Olivia and Sir Thomas would be the first to hear if their security people found Rebecca, and that’s where they’d be. It was a quick ride from the Willard to the Building Museum—though I still thought of it by its former name, the Pension Building—but Olivia, who never seemed to tire of asking questions, continued to quiz me about Rebecca.

“How did you two meet?”

“In college.”

“What was she like back then?”

“Smart, ambitious. Like she is now.”

“She never talks about her family, but I have a feeling she didn’t come from money.” Her tone of voice implied that this was a major character flaw.

“Oh, really?” I’d had enough of being grilled and Rebecca’s private life was none of her business. “You know, the only person we haven’t talked about since we met is you. How’d you get this job, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I … well.” She sat up straighter. “I’ve known Sir Thomas all my life. My father manages several private investment funds and he and Sir Thomas do business together. When my predecessor moved to our London office five years ago, he asked Daddy if I’d be interested in the position.”

I’d never called my father anything but “Leland,” which is what he wanted me to call him. He wasn’t a daddy kind of dad.

“Thomas Asher Investments is a family business,” Olivia went on, emphasizing the word “family.”

“Sir Thomas and Lady Asher take care of us like we’re their children. As a result we’re a pretty tight-knit group—we party together, take vacations together, that sort of thing. That’s why we’re so well run and successful. Everyone’s incredibly loyal to them. Outsiders just don’t get that. Sir Thomas watched me grow up and he knew I’d understand the world he lives in. Knew I’d understand what would be involved in working as closely with him as I do.”