Ellen Crosby - The Bordeaux Betrayal

He shrugged. “I dunno anything anymore. Maybe she was mixed up in it. Set it up or something.”

“Then she had to have a partner. Or partners.”

“Like Noah, Nic believes the world should be two by two. Yeah, she had a partner all right.”

“I guess she never got the Washington wine, after all,” I said.

“If she did she sure wouldn’t have left it lying around the Fox and Hound.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She moved there after she left Shane.”

“You were staying in touch with her? You said the other day she called you and you didn’t call her back.”

“I didn’t call her back.” He ran a finger around the rim of his glass.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled. If he was innocent, why so evasive?

“Did she leave a message when she called?”

He shook his head and I could feel things start to unravel. “She had something she wanted to tell me and it had to be in person.”

“Did you tell Bobby this?”

He shook his head.

“Quinn,” I said, “don’t be dumb. You have to come clean about everything. If Bobby finds out—and you know they’ll get her phone records like they did with Valerie—you’re going to be in a hell of a mess.”

He gulped his Scotch and set his glass on the table hard. “I already am.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They’ll find out I lied for her once and they’ll figure I’m lying for her again.”

“Because you are! That’s why you have to tell the truth. You can’t protect her anymore. She’s dead.”

“It’s too late.” He covered his face with his hands and moaned softly. “Years too late.”

Quinn finally fell asleep with his head on my shoulder, an arm thrown across my waist pinning me down. I must have dozed off, too, because the next thing I knew he was shaking my arm. It took a moment before I realized where I was and what I was doing here—and why there was a blanket covering me.

He stood over me, barefoot, unshaven, shirtless, and dressed in a pair of camouflage trousers. Last I remembered he’d been fully dressed and in other pants.

“Lucie? You awake?” He held a coffee mug in one hand.

“I am now.” I sat up, feeling awkward, and surreptitiously checked my own clothes. I was still wearing them.

“Here. Drink this. You feeling all right?” He handed me the mug.

Our fingers touched as I took it and I remembered last night’s kiss. The mug had “Somewhere between Forty and Death” stenciled on it. I wouldn’t turn forty for more than a decade, but given the way I felt at this moment, death didn’t seem that remote.

“I don’t know yet.” I sipped the coffee. It tasted like boiled tires. “What kind of coffee is this?”

“Yesterday’s. I ran out, but there was some left in the pot so I stuck it in the microwave. I figured you could use it.”

“Oh.” Either he was being gallant or I looked as bad as I felt.

He sat on the far end of the sofa. I drank more bad coffee and tried to ignore how good he looked half-naked.

“I owe you an apology for last night,” he said. “I said some things I shouldn’t have said.”

“Why don’t we forget it? You were upset. We both were.” I ran a finger down the side of the ceramic mug. Would he apologize for the kiss, too?

“I, uh, unfortunately don’t remember much except I think I slept on your shoulder. I’m really sorry about that. I hope I didn’t drool on you or anything.”

He wouldn’t apologize because he didn’t remember it. I tried to smile. “Nope. No drooling. And it’s all right.”

“I couldn’t get the sight of Nicole lying there in that field out of my mind. I appreciate you being there for me. I probably said a bunch of things you didn’t need to hear.”

So he’d been thinking about Nicole the whole time. “What are friends for?”

He stood and ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “I’d better shower and get over to the barrel room. I need to get to work, get my mind off all this.”

“Sure.” I stood, too. “Last night you were kind of rambling. If there’s anything you held back from Bobby, I think it would be a good idea to get it out in the open and tell him, you know?”

He scratched behind one ear. “What kind of things? What did I say?”

“That Nicole contacted you after she moved to the Fox and Hound. And that she might have been involved—indirectly—with the break-in at Jack Greenfield’s place.”

“I said that? Jeez. I really must have been loaded.” He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about the break-in at Jack’s. Guess I was running my mouth.”

“You said Nicole left a message for you to call her back, but you didn’t.”

“That I remember.” He began balling and unballing his fists. “Maybe if I had she’d still be alive.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” he said, “I don’t. And that’s why I got so stinking drunk last night. Because I’ll never know if I could have saved her and I’ve got to live with that.”

“Quinn—”

He held up a hand. “Look, I know I’ve been a complete asshole lately and I’m sorry. Once we get done with the Cab I thought I’d take some time off since it will be quiet around here. Get lost and get past all this. Past her.”

“Sure. Fine.” I set down my coffee mug. “I guess I’d better get going, too. I might be in late today.”

“No problem. And, hey, thanks for being a good sport. I apologize for anything else I said or did that I don’t remember.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said and left.

I drove home and felt like I’d spent the night rubbing sand in my eyes. My head ached and, to be honest, my heart ached, too. The sooner I forgot last night, the better.

Pépé was still asleep. I showered and changed, then went downstairs to fix breakfast. Quinn wasn’t the only one out of coffee. Pépé must have gone through both bags of the Ethiopian and Sumatran I liked to blend so that he could make the robust rocket fuel he craved. And we had no bread.

I got my coat and car keys and drove to the General Store. I needed something to eat and Thelma would have home-baked muffins and fresh coffee. She would also have her antennae up and ready to receive any gossip she could extract from me by fair means or foul. But I reckoned that she knew everything that had been whispered about Nicole Martin—and, for a change, maybe I’d be the one to glean new information from her.

I angled the Mini into a place on the chunk of cracked asphalt that Thelma liked to call “the parking lot.” She’d been running the General Store for as long as I could remember; there had been some sort of store on this spot since Atoka was founded in the mid-1800s. Thelma swore Mosby had used the place as a hideout, which probably was true, but she also enjoyed dropping names of other famous people she claimed had frequented her establishment. FDR, when he came through to dedicate the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Kennedys when they’d lived here. Movie stars. Politicians. European royalty.

The silver bells on her door sounded like wind chimes when I entered. During the day Thelma stayed glued to the soaps when she didn’t have any customers, but at this hour of the morning the tabloids, spread out on the counter by the cash register, had her undivided attention. Until she saw me. Her smile made me think of cats and canaries.

The General Store got stuck in a time warp a few decades ago, deciding to let the rest of the world pass it by. No computerized cash register, no bar codes, no mist watering the fruits and vegetables. Thelma fit right in with the bygone era of the decor, dressing for work with a vampy flair that was half Auntie Mame, half Roxie Hart.