Twenty-three
NIKKI lied. Sort of. Omission wasn’t technically a lie, right? Right? She told Derek that she needed to take Ollie in to have his vaccines updated. True. And she would go to the vet’s. But she also planned to stop by Andrés’ place and see what it was he needed to show her. She justified her omission with the fact that it would tear Derek up to know she was going to see Andrés. She had to go though. He’d indicated that he had something important for her to see. Something she didn’t know, but she did need to find out. She figured sparing Derek and herself that turmoil was probably the smartest (and easiest) thing she could do.
This time there was no convertible blue BMW parked in front of his place, which sat back behind the Spaniard Crest winery. Andrés lived in the refurbished farmhouse on the back forty of the vineyard where he maintained a position as their winemaker. His own plot of land back in Spain had been planted, and Nikki knew that in a few years it would be ready for the first harvest. She’d had the chance to become Andrés’ wife and build his winery alongside of him in Spain, but she’d turned him down and followed her heart, which had led her straight to Derek. She’d done the right thing. She had.
Andrés agreed to come back to Napa while his vines grew and were tended to in Europe. He would go back to Spain a few times a year to make sure everything was going as planned.
He was standing out on his deck. Ollie jumped out of the car and ran up to him, tail wagging. It was then that Nikki spotted a young chocolate lab who was lying at Andrés’ feet. The puppy stood, dancing a little jig at the sight of one of her own. “See you brought your sidekick with you,” Andrés said.
“Don’t leave home without him. Who’s this?” She bent over and gave the pup a rub, causing her to wag her tail at breakneck speed.
“This is Camilla.”
“She’s beautiful. When did you get her? How old is she?”
“Oh, she’s Isabel’s. I think she’s about six months. I’m babysitting today. Isabel had to go into the city, so I’m playing uncle to her, otherwise my sister says she’s known to eat the furniture.”
Nikki laughed, again missing her friend.
“I’m thinking about getting one myself, but with the back and forth travel I have to do between here and Spain, it’s probably not a good idea until I completely settle down.”
“How is your sister?”
“Good. You need to go see her. I know she misses you.”
Nikki didn’t know how to respond. Isabel had initially claimed that she was fine with Nikki’s decision to break the relationship off with her brother, but in the long run they’d drifted apart, with Isabel growing cooler and busier over time, until there was finally no real connection any longer.
“I’m pleased you came. I didn’t know if you would,” Andrés said.
“You said it was important and that you had something to show me that concerned Renee.”
“I do. Why don’t you come on in? Have some coffee.”
She glanced behind her and spotted Ollie and Camilla leaping through brush. “I need to get him to the vet, so I don’t have much time.”
“All right then. Come on in. Let them play. It’s good for the pup. I think she likes him.”
“Looks like it.” Nikki followed him into his house, richly painted in terra-cotta and turquoise. Andrés’ house was warm, colorful, and had always felt good to Nikki. It was small but that had never bothered Nikki. It actually felt good, more cozy than anything else.
He pointed to a desk that had been built into his kitchen. She walked through the arch that led from the family room into the kitchen. A computer sat on his desk. “It’s on here,” he said and sat down and logged into the computer. Nikki stood next to him. A piece of his longish hair waved in front of his eye. She wanted badly to move it out of his face. She’d done that before—many times. She moved a few inches away. “Look here.”
Nikki looked down at the screen. “Oh, my . . . What?”
It was a photo of Nikki from the wedding. She was getting out of the car, carrying her wedding dress and a makeup bag. Simon was next to her, along with Alyssa and Violet.
“There’s more.” Andrés flashed through more than a dozen photos of Nikki going into the church, standing at the entry before walking down the aisle. How had anyone gotten these, and furthermore who?
“Wait a minute, you said this had to do with Renee? Why do you have these? I don’t understand.”
“The day you were supposed to get married, Renee claimed she had to go up to Healdsburg and talk to a winemaker from Hungary for the book. I didn’t think anything of it. She came back that evening, we had dinner, watched a movie, went to bed.”
“Right.”
“I got up to get some water around three in the morning, and she was up on the computer. I asked what she was doing. She said that she couldn’t sleep and was surfing the Net. I told her to get off the computer and come back to bed. The next day when you showed up and things got chaotic, she flew out of here. Remember?”
“Of course.”
“Well, when I got on the computer this morning, I accidentally put something in my trash bin and then realized I still needed the document. When I opened the trash file, I found this file with the photos.”
“Renee took these pictures?”
“I assume so.”
“Oh.” Nikki needed to sit down and absorb the fact that someone she considered a nemesis had come to her wedding without an invite—someone who’d subsequently written that awful article, and someone who might revel in her spending her wedding day in a morgue rather than in the arms of a man who Renee had once laid claim to.
Twenty-four
“DO you mind if I take these photos with me?” Nikki asked.
“No, I thought that you might want them. If I know you, you’re trying to figure this all out. Here I can put them on a flash drive for you.” He opened his top desk drawer and took out the flash drive and imported the photos onto it.
She smiled at him. Unlike Derek, Andrés had never really had a problem with her curious nature and her desire to right the wrongs of the world, or at least the wrongs in her world. “I am. Definitely I am. You can only imagine the havoc this has created for me. For Derek and Simon, our family.”
“Yes.” He clasped his hands together. “I am certain this is difficult. What is happening?”
“With what exactly?”
“With everything, I guess. Have the police any clues as to who shot Simon?”
“There are a few clues but none that lead to anyone directly. And it doesn’t look as if it’s Simon the shooter was targeting.” Nikki told him all about the newspaper clippings and the photos, as well as Kenny’s murder.
He instinctively reached for her hand and squeezed as a friend would. “No. Nikki, this is terrible. This scares me.”
She didn’t let go of his hand immediately. “Me too, but I want my life back.” She pulled her hand away. “I have to go on with my life, and I don’t see how that can happen until this person is locked away.”
“Yes. And your marriage to Derek, then?” He left the rest of the question hanging in the air.
She sucked in a deep breath of air. “Yes. We will get married, but I don’t know when that will be, and I think that any wedding we do have will be far different than what we’d originally planned. Much smaller, more intimate. I’m even for eloping, or just gathering my closest family and friends and being low-key. It has to be about the love and not all of the hoopla.”
“I agree. Intimate is always what I saw for my own wedding. Maybe in Spain. Someday.” He smiled. “There are beautiful rolling hills, covered in vines overlooking the land. That would be nice.”
“Sounds lovely.” She fidgeted and started to stand.
“Nikki, about what I said to you the other day . . .”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She had planned to talk about it and ask him to move on with his life, but now that she was here with him, she simply did not w
ant to talk about it.
“I need to. And I think you owe me that. Please.”
She looked down at her hands. “I do owe you that much.”
“Thank you,” he whispered. “When you made your decision last year, I thought I could move on. I thought that I had. I wanted to, but then everywhere I would go, I thought I saw you. In a store. At the park. At a museum one day. Everywhere. And I dreamt about you.”
Nikki couldn’t look at him.
“Maybe I need more time.”
She nodded.
“Or maybe it isn’t over between us. All of these things that have happened in only a couple of days, maybe it means something. Maybe God, or the universe, whatever”—he swirled his hands in the air—“is trying to tell you something.”
Now she took his hands. They were warm, calloused, and familiar. “I don’t know that I can believe that. I know you want me to, but, Andrés, I love Derek. I really do.”
He nodded. “But can you look me in the eyes, here and now, not like leaving me sitting on an airplane waiting for you, this is us together here . . . Can you look at me right now and tell me that you feel nothing for me? Can you tell me that you don’t still love me?”
She sat there for several seconds without saying anything. Her mind racing with the past, and thoughts of the future. All sorts of thoughts and images and she actually felt physically dizzy as her heart raced inside her chest. She dropped his hands and stood. “I have to go. Thank you for the pictures and letting me know.”
“You can’t say it. Can you? Nikki, if you can’t be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself.”
She walked out the door and yelled for Ollie, needing to get away from Andrés as fast as she could. Needing to avoid his questions. She had to wipe him and his questions out of her mind and her system for her own good, for his own good. She’d made up her mind about who she was going to spend the rest of her life with. Or had she?
Twenty-five
“HOW was he at the vet’s?” Derek asked when Nikki and Ollie came into the house.
“Oh, you know, it’s not his favorite place in the world to go.”
“Yeah. I know. It sure took a long time.”
“Yeah.” It was all she could say. Did he know she’d made a detour and stopped off to talk to Andrés? Was deceit written all over her face? She wanted to tell him about the photos that Renee had obviously taken and explore what they might mean, but she couldn’t do that. Not yet anyway. She knew she’d have to make a trip into the city and confront Renee herself.
“So I did what we talked about with Jonah,” Derek said.
Still sort of in a daze from the conversation she’d had with Andrés, Nikki just stared at him.
“Uh, the phone call. The Plan. Although I really don’t think any of these guys had anything to do with it. But you and Jonah seem to think otherwise. Now it’s your turn to put your part of the plan into effect.”
“Right.”
He came toward her and pulled her into him. His embrace was like coming home. She closed her eyes and tried not to get emotional.
“You okay, babe?” he asked.
That was all it took for the waterworks to begin. “I’m sorry,” she said in between sobs.
He stroked her hair. “You don’t need to be sorry for anything. Why are you sorry?”
She shrugged. “For all that’s happened.”
“Stop. Please. You don’t need to apologize. We’re going to get through this. I know it’s difficult, but you know what I believe? I know when we get through this, life is going to get a helluva lot easier. It has to. This is simply a test to see how much our love can endure, and I know that we can endure anything that comes our way.”
Oh, God, did she feel like a royal heel.
“No more tears. It’s not like you. I know it’s stressful, but it will be okay. It will all work out. I promise you.”
“Thank you.” She lifted her face and kissed him. “Thank you for being so wonderful and sweet and so damn smart.”
He pulled away from her and bowed. “I’ll take that.” He laughed. “Now let’s get back into this game so we can get back to life.” He clapped like a coach.
“I kind of like this new you, all into getting the bad guy.”
“I have my motivations.” He smiled. “The sooner we put this behind us and get to the bottom of it, the sooner you can become my wife. So make your calls.”
“You got it.” Nikki picked up the kitchen phone and called over to the hotel. Marco answered and connected her to Lily and Jackson’s room where she left the necessary message, and then to Savannah and Tristan’s, where to her surprise Savannah answered. Nikki could hear the wariness in Savannah’s voice at the invitation, but by the time Nikki hung up the phone, plans were made for Nikki to have dinner with Savannah and Lily. A real girls’ night out. Oh boy.
Twenty-six
NIKKI started the evening by pouring glasses of Syrah and serving baked lemon and mushroom crostini. She’d intentionally invited Savannah to the house twenty minutes earlier than Lily, feeling if she was going to get anywhere that she needed to do some damage control. Derek had planned to meet the guys up at the wine bar by the pool. They were each on a fact-finding mission. She knew this wasn’t going to be easy for Derek, considering that these were his friends. More than ever, she wished that Simon was healthy. He made the quintessential sidekick. Marco had also helped her out in the past. He was Johnny-on-the-spot—always there right when she needed him to be and on top of things, but this time it was up to Derek, and her fingers were crossed that something would come out of the evening that might lead them closer to finding a killer.
Ollie remained in the house with Nikki, helping her feel secure. One thing she’d discovered over the past few years in wine country was that murderers weren’t always men. Men and women both committed murders, and she’d been unfortunate enough to, at one time, be alone in a room with a murderess. It hadn’t turned out so well for the killer, but Nikki didn’t want to take that chance ever again. At this stage of the game there was no way she could say that Savannah or Lily couldn’t have taken Kenny out. Now shooting at her from the rectory was a whole ’nother matter since they were with other halves in the church. Their husbands certainly would have noticed if their wives were brandishing a gun and sneaking off inside the church to take aim at the bride. Unless they were in cahoots—a kind of Bonnie and Clyde thing. Hmmm . . . That would be a theory she would have to run through in her brain, but at the moment she needed to take the appetizers out of the oven. Her first guest was rapping on the front door.
When she opened it, she almost didn’t recognize Savannah, who wasn’t dressed in tennis whites or pearls, but rather a pair of jeans and plain white T-shirt. Her light blue eyes were red and her face a little swollen as if she’d been crying for some time. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She smiled weakly at Nikki. “I figured this was casual.”
“Of course. Like I said on the phone, it seems all of us will be spending a little time together until the police have a chance to talk to everyone who knew Kenny and who was here at the time of the wedding. I thought that maybe we could get to know each other better. And I feel bad that we didn’t exactly start out so great. I’m sorry about that. I think I really had wedding jitters, you know, and my nerves got the best of me.”
Savannah nodded. Ollie finally realized there was a newcomer in the house, but he was comfortably seated on the sofa and so just lifted his head, made a low growl, and decided that the company didn’t appear threatening.
“I have wine or water, soda, iced tea?”
“Anything stronger?” Savannah asked.
“Um, sure. What do you like?”
“Tequila.”
“Oh. Okay. I actually make a good margarita. Derek taught me. It’s all in the fresh juice. You have to squeeze your own lime juice and a little orange juice. It’s very good.”
“No. I just want tequila.”
“Uh, sure.”
Nikki walked over to an antique liquor cabinet in the dining room. She took out a bottle of tequila and went into the kitchen where Savannah had taken a seat at the table. “Do you want it mixed with anything? Ice at least?”
“No. A shot glass will do.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Nikki took out a shot glass from the cupboard and poured Savannah a shot. She set it down in front of her and before she could ask her if she wanted a lime wedge and some salt, the woman shot it back.
“Can I have another?” Savannah asked.
Nikki reached across the table and touched her hand. Yeah, sure, when Savannah walked in, Nikki’s act at being nice was in order to gain information at some point in the evening—any kind of info that might help them out—but it was obvious the woman was hurting and regardless of how callously she’d treated Nikki, she knew it wouldn’t be right to not show her some kindness. “I’m not sure what you’re going through. It’s obvious that you cared a great deal for Kenny, and this has really upset you.” Savannah nodded. “But I think I speak from experience when I say that downing Patrón won’t help for long. Maybe talking about it would be better. Like I said, I’m sorry we didn’t get off on the right foot, but you and Tristan are Derek’s friends and I think maybe we should try to make amends. I’m a decent shoulder to cry on.”
Savannah sighed. “I suppose I was pretty much a bitch to you.” She smiled through her tears. “It’s just that . . .”
“Hello? Nikki?” Lily walked in the front door and Nikki stood to go and greet her. “The front door was cracked open.”
“Oh.” Nikki frowned. “I must not have gotten it closed all the way. Savannah is in the kitchen. Come on in and have a glass of wine or, uh, tequila.”
A Toast to Murder Page 13