Monday morning’s Trib ran a front-page article about Rebecca’s disappearance that was nearly as lurid as the report on Channel 3 the evening before. Somewhere they found a gorgeous color photo of her flashing that siren smile and wearing a skin-tight knit top that hugged her like a lover. Next to her picture was another of a younger, unshaven Sir Thomas in Katmandu with a garland of marigolds around his neck as he posed before leaving for the Everest Base Camp, cocky and confident about the upcoming expedition to the summit. The article took up half a page below the fold and continued inside with more photos—Tommy and Mandy Asher at a hospital ribbon-cutting ceremony and aboard their yacht, the Arbitrage, hoisting drinks for the camera. The headline said it all: MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF TOP ADVISER TO BILLIONAIRE ADVENTURER & PHILANTHROPIST BAFFLES POLICE.
Still no direct reference to the missing Madison wine cooler Asher had intended to return to the White House today. I could imagine the lid the police and the Asher camp were keeping on that information and how much hell would break loose when it leaked out. Kit had kept her word; there was no hint of it in the Trib.
Reading about Rebecca, whose beauty, career, and personality had been thoroughly parsed along with theories about her disappearance, took away my appetite for breakfast. I dumped the eggs I’d made in the trash and finished my coffee as the phone rang. When the display showed Quinn’s number, I answered before the second ring.
“I just got back a few hours ago,” he said. “Frankie told me about your friend. I’m sorry, Lucie. You okay?”
Back from where? He hadn’t mentioned a trip, though he knew I planned to be in D.C. Last winter, after three straight years of working flat out, we finally agreed to take weekends off to recharge our batteries before the season started in the spring. Besides, in one of my more brilliant career moves, I’d hired Frankie Merchant, a part-time employee who had become so indispensable we brought her on full-time to run the tasting room. Before long she took over planning our events calendar and asked for more staff to help as we grew busier. Quinn joked she was probably gunning for his job, maybe even mine. Truth was she could probably handle both of them with one hand tied behind her back.
Still, if either he or I left town, the other one was supposed to be available in case something came up in the barrel room or Frankie needed us. I wondered if Quinn’s trip had been a last minute impulse and he’d decided that Antonio, our new farm manager, could handle things. If that was the case, he should have let me know he was taking off. I still ran the place.
“I’m all right,” I said to him now. “Just trying to deal with everything. I didn’t know you were going out of town. What happened? An emergency?”
“Nope. Just a trip.”
A couple of his former girlfriends lived in the area. I had no idea whether he kept in touch with any of them or dropped by for an occasional visit. Though to be honest, I didn’t want to know.
“I hate to bring up work when you’ve got so much on your mind,” he said.
“Bring up anything. I’m going crazy.”
“I want to start bench trials for the new Viognier,” he said. “And we’ve got one barrel that smells funky.”
“You mean our award-winning wine that just won the Governor’s Cup?” I asked. “I crowed about it all weekend at that gala they hosted for the Ashers.”
“I heard. We already had a call from Alison Jennings. She’s going to stop by later and talk to you about it. Wants to order a couple of cases for some party. She specifically asked for you,” he said.
“Oh.” I had seen Alison the other night with Harlan, but we never managed to speak. Odd that she hadn’t called me directly about the wine. “No problem. I’ll be around.”
“When are you coming over here? We’ll start the trials as soon as you show up,” he said.
“Give me ten minutes.”
A bank of clouds hung in the sky like dingy laundry, obscuring the Blue Ridge and matching my mood as I drove over to the winery. Last night the temperature had dropped to one degree above freezing. Grapes could survive in the cold as long as the mercury didn’t dip below thirty-two, but people were different. Rebecca’s odds had grown exponentially bleaker after two nights outdoors with almost no clothing on—presuming she’d survived the river’s currents. Still, miracles happened. Until they found her, I could keep hoping.
I walked into the barrel room and saw Quinn through the plate-glass window of our new laboratory. He was sitting at the workbench, probably figuring the ratios for the Viognier. Over the winter we’d modernized and upgraded this part of the winery, which hadn’t changed since my parents built it twenty-one years ago. A brand-new catwalk ringed most of the Olympic-pool-sized room and we’d added a second-story loft where the new lab and an adjoining office were located. Originally we planned to build a staircase with landings between the two floors until Frankie found an antique wrought-iron spiral staircase at a marine salvage depot that fit perfectly and took up less space. The other option for reaching the loft was my favorite—the scissor lift, a kind of open-air elevator.
Quinn threw down his pencil as the lift reached the catwalk and I climbed out. He pushed his reading glasses up on his salt-and-pepper hair, which he’d let grow so that it now curled over the collar of his flannel shirt.
“I finished calculations for the first batch of trials.” He squinted at his paperwork. “And we need to talk about that barrel of funky wine. It smells like your worst nightmare in high school chemistry lab.”
We had only seven barrels of Viognier; three in brand-new French Allier oak that would give the wine a strong oak flavor and four in older American ones where the oak would be muted. We also had about five hundred gallons in a stainless-steel tank. One funky barrel was a lot of spoiled wine.
“Which barrel, new or old?”
“New.”
“What if we just do nothing and see how it develops?” I asked.
“That’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do.”
“Pardon?”
“I said, whatever you want to do.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Dead serious. Why?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think we ought to discuss it. We never agree on anything without an argument—sorry, discussion—first. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing to discuss. I happen to agree that a minimalist approach would be worth a try. It’s no big deal.” He gave me a wide-eyed look that I recognized as feigned nonchalance.
I leaned on my cane and waited as he shifted in his seat.
“You’ve come a long way in the last year,” he said. “You’re perfectly capable of making smart decisions without me weighing in.”
Three years ago, shortly before my father was killed in a hunting accident, he hired Quinn. When Quinn and I finally met, he made it clear he thought that what his new young boss knew about winemaking and growing grapes could be written on the back of a postage stamp with room to spare. As for me, I wondered how to handle a mouthy winemaker with a macho personality who seemed better suited as a bouncer in a bar. A compliment from Quinn was the mountain coming to Muhammad—maybe the whole mountain range.
“Do you want something? A raise?” I asked. “Is that what this is all about?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, stop reading into things. All I said was that you know what you’re doing. Grab that plastic beaker and the bottle of SO2.” He pointed to a graduated cylinder and a spray bottle next to the sink. “I got the rest of the stuff.”
I obeyed, but it felt like I was talking to a stranger. We took the lift down together in silence and I followed him into one of the bays as he flipped on the low-wattage lights. We generally kept this part of the barrel room completely dark since nothing kills wine faster than light, air, and bacteria. The sulfur dioxide spray was something new learned at a winemakers’ conference a few months ago. By spraying the top of a barrel before we opened the bunghole—where most of the germs were located—we prevented bacteria spreading from one barrel to another.
He found the one he was looking for and used the SO2. Then he took a wine thief and siphoned the liquid with his mouth. He released the straw-colored wine into the beaker and passed it to me. Our fingertips brushed and his eyes met mine.
His were opaque and unreadable, but I couldn’t hide my confusion and misery. He pulled me close. “I’m trying to work out a few things. All I’m asking for is some time and space by myself. That’s why I took off this weekend.”
Working a few things out. Time and space by himself. I said things like that. Quinn, who thought real men worked out their problems with a bottle of Scotch or in a barroom with the guys, did not.
He kissed my hair and I leaned my head against his chest. “Are you talking about us?”
“I thought we’d backed off ‘us.’” His voice was soft. “It got pretty intense for a while, remember?”
I didn’t want to feel what I was feeling, didn’t want to have this conversation right here, right now.
“We never talked about it,” I said. “Backing off just kind of happened.”
He didn’t reply.
“So how long do you need?”
“Lucie—” he began.
Already I knew I was not going to like his reply, but before he could finish the winery telephone rang in the main part of the barrel room.
“I got it.” I hated the relief in his voice at the reprieve.
I followed him into the other room. We weren’t done yet. He said, “Hey, Mick. Yeah, long time no see. Sure, she’s right here. Hang on.”
He held out the cordless phone and said in a toneless voice, “It’s Mick Dunne.”
“Thank you.” I took the phone and tried to keep my expression as deadpan as he was. “Hello, Mick.”
“Morning, love. Just wanted to call to see how you’re doing. I was hoping you’d stick around a little longer last night at the Inn once Simon showed up. Too bad your friend wanted to push off so soon.”
Quinn’s mouth twitched. He’d heard that “love” and the mention of last night. I walked over to the row of stainless-steel tanks where the humming of the cooling system and the gurgling of glycol moving through the tank jackets as it chilled the wine gave me some privacy.
“I’m all right, thanks.”
“Simon told me about your friendship with Rebecca Natale. I didn’t realize you’d been with her just before she disappeared. No wonder you seemed so upset.”
I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that Simon deWolfe knew about my relationship with Rebecca since he handled security for his half brother. Had Olivia Tarrant told him? Who else in Sir Thomas Asher’s circle knew about the two of us?
“I hope they find her soon. I’m going crazy wondering what happened to her.”
“Simon’s in constant contact with the D.C. police while this is going on. He’ll probably be one of the first to know when something new develops. I promise I’ll pass along anything I find out.”
“You seem to know him quite well.”
“Of course. We met through Tommy and Mandy,” he said. “At their place in West Palm. All of them come down every year for winter polo. We used to party together when I was living there.”
Before Mick moved to Virginia, he owned a pharmaceutical company in Florida that he sold for a bundle of money after growing bored with it. I had sensed that same restlessness and what seemed like an incessant need for a new distraction when we were seeing each other. It wasn’t long before he moved on from me to the earl’s daughter. That’s when I’d realized it was only a matter of time before he tired of his life in Virginia as well and left for the next adventure. With Mick the future was an ever-shifting horizon.
“So you’ve known Simon for a while?” I asked.
“Yeah, we’re mates. We go hunting together. Now that he’s buying a house here I expect I’ll see more of him.”
So Simon deWolfe was a hunter, too.
“Look, I was serious last night about dinner,” Mick went on. “I know you may not be up for it with what’s just happened, but why don’t I call back in a day or two? I need to see you, Lucie. You know I’m not going to stop asking until you say yes.”
He’d said “need.” What was going on? “Mick—”
“I mean it.”
“Okay,” I said. “But give me a couple of days.”
“Whatever you want.”
I disconnected and I walked over to the long pine table we used for winemaker’s dinners. Quinn pulled out a chair for me.
“You all right?” He took the seat next to mine.
“Fine. Why?”
“No reason. Here, try this.” He pushed a glass of wine over to me.
“Mick knows the Ashers,” I said. “Kit and I ran into him last night at the Inn with a guy called Simon deWolfe. Turns out he’s Sir Thomas’s brother. Half brother, actually. Mick just wanted to see how I was holding up with all the news about Rebecca.”
“Nice of him to look out for you. You don’t owe me an explanation, Lucie. Mick’s a good guy.”
I took a deep breath. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking a friend called to comfort you on a tragedy involving another friend. Is it something more than that?”
“No.”
“Okay, then. Bottoms up.”
I swirled the wine, then held the glass to my nose before I drank. He did the same. Back to business. Fine by me.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Good nose, smooth finish.”
“It’s a fifty-fifty blend from the barrel with the South African yeast and the wine in the tank with the American strain.”
It was the blend we used for the Viognier that won the Governor’s Cup.
“This time around it doesn’t taste like wine that would win a prize,” I said. “It’s good but not fabulous.”
“That’s why we’re doing trials.” He shrugged. “Okay, how about the same ratio with the Rhone strain?”
“All right. Or maybe a different ratio of South African to American.”
“Sure. Sit tight and I’ll get it.”
He disappeared into the bay like a shadow vanishing into the night, and I felt as though a glass curtain had descended between us. He was shutting me out of whatever was really going on in his life. I didn’t know whether to be hurt or angry or both.
A phone rang, but this time it was my cell. A Washington, D.C., number, no caller ID.
“I’m looking for Lucie Montgomery.” The male voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“Speaking.”
“Detective Horne here.”
I licked my lips and tasted Viognier. The road to hell. “You found Rebecca?”
“I’m afraid not, but we’ve located her purse and ID. We’ve also got a person of interest temporarily in custody.” Horne still sounded beat and I wondered how much sleep he’d gotten since I saw him yesterday. “A homeless guy living down in the woods by the river. A pawnshop owner in Georgetown called nine-one-one when he showed up trying to sell that wine cooler you told us about. And some jewelry. Can you describe what she was wearing?”
I did. Then I said, “Do you think this man killed Rebecca?”
Horne snorted. “He said he didn’t. He claims some dude showed up in his tent and just gave him all her stuff. Told him to sell it and use the cash for food and a warm place to stay. It was like Robin Hood stopped by.”
Rebecca still missing and someone giving away a priceless antique and her jewelry? No way. “Do you believe that?”
He sighed. “Like I told you, I don’t discount anything. Sometimes the most bizarre thing you hear turns out to be what really happened. Look, did Ms. Natale mention meeting anyone once she picked up that package for her boss? A man, maybe? A date with anyone?”
“No. No one.”
“All right. Thanks for your time.”
“Before you go,” I said. “Are you looking for this other person? Robin Hood?”
“We’ll follow up,” he said. “If he exists. But to tell you the truth, the number one person I’m looking for is Rebecca Natale. I got her clothes, her jewelry, and that wine holder. What I don’t have is a body.”