Corked by Cabernet

by Michele Scott

  “Hello, Bellissima.”

  Nikki swung around to see Marco coming into the kitchen. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m preparing the lunch for everyone who is leaving today from the S.E.E. group.”

  “Where’s Simon?”

  “Did I hear someone call my name?” Simon came dancing through the archway into the kitchen. “Look what I have.” Simon’s bubbly, singsong voice made Nikki grin. He placed a handful of photos of babies up on the refrigerator. “I’m visualizing, and guess what? We have an appointment with a private adoption agency. Tomorrow!”

  “This is wonderful.” Marco gave him a hug.

  “Group hug!” Simon demanded.

  Nikki put her arms around the two of them and squeezed. “That’s awesome, guys.”

  They talked for a few minutes about the agency and how Simon found them.

  “Can I get one of you to help me get a box of wine down for Alan? He wants to take some of the Merlot home.”

  “Sure, hon. You keep chopping there, sweetie,” he told Marco.

  “Chop, chop.”

  They started walking out of the kitchen when Marco called Simon back. He held out Simon’s cell phone. “The agency,” Marco said.

  Simon turned to Nikki. “Hang on a second. I’ll be right there.”

  This thing about Marco and Simon adopting seemed to be the real deal. Nikki could see it now. They’d adopt a baby girl, name her Diamond or something else bizarre like celebrities did. Then they’d deck the poor child out in designer duds made by Prada, or whoever else had the marketing brilliance to sell onesies for the price of a Benjamin. They’d feed her organics only and stuff good energy and all that vibration nonsense into the kid’s brain. Hmmm. Maybe they could adopt Nikki instead? It really didn’t sound like too bad of a life.

  She flipped on the lights inside the chilly warehouse. It smelled like aged oak and fruit. The blend itself was intoxicating and Nikki took in a big whiff of it as she always did when she came in here. She closed her eyes and took in several deep breaths. Breaths to slow down . . . good stuff. Oh, man, maybe Alan Sansi and all his preaching were getting to her. She supposed she could concede there was something to all of it, especially the relaxation parts. She could get into that.

  Nikki found the row she needed. There it was. The Merlot. Good stuff. She could see why Alan wanted to take some home. Looked like Alan wanted to do one of two things—either go out of this thing in style, or get totally shitfaced and forget any of this ever happened.

  She’d need the ladder to get to the case she wanted. She walked to the end of the row and slid the ladder down. A light shone through a vent in the roof. There were birds flying around it. If she didn’t come in here often, this place might kind of spook her. It was huge, quiet, and cold.

  Nikki made her way up about five steps on the ladder and grabbed the edge of the box to pull it out. Good thing she’d been doing some of that Core Power stuff that was all the rage these days. Nikki had gone from one exercise program to the next. She had a bad habit of watching infomercials and then ordering whatever the latest craze might be. But the Core Power yoga started after going to a class with Simon one day. She’d liked it and it had made her pretty darn strong.

  When she had the box in her arms, she started to work her way slowly down the rungs. What happened next was a blur, like watercolors swirled together. Not a pretty scene, but a rather dark blend of reds, browns, and black that made Nikki think of death, blood, and murder.

  She found herself on the ground. Wine bottles crashing around her, glass shattering everywhere. A bottle hit her on the side of her cheek, too close to her eye. What the hell . . . ? How had this happened?

  And then she saw him—a hooded figure all in black, standing over her, a rope pulled taut in his hand. Nikki tried to move but he’d kicked the ladder on top of her, right onto her stomach. It almost felt like something had punctured her in the gut and she knew she was about to meet her maker.

  Her heart raced at a rate that would’ve given most people a heart attack. Her mouth went as dry as the air inside an empty oak cask. She hoped God above would let her through the gates of heaven. She hadn’t exactly been a good girl much of the time.

  Then she heard the voice of an angel—Simon.

  “Oh, Snow White. Where are you?” Her friend’s voice rang through the warehouse. “You were supposed to wait.”

  The man bent down to grab her and she squirmed enough and screamed enough so that he turned and ran.

  “Lord, what was that? Marco!”

  The boys came running around the corner just as the back door to the warehouse slammed. They bent over her. “Don’t move. Oh, God! Oh, no! Nikki? Marco, call 911.” Simon pulled the ladder off her. He knelt down and cradled her head in his lap. “No, no. You poor baby. Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay.”

  “I’m okay,” she whispered, right before she passed out.

  Thirty-one

  NIKKI hated hospitals. Hated them. They smelled of Lysol and alcohol and there were sick people—lots of sick people. Not to mention people running around barking orders at you. How was it that anyone was expected to recuperate in one of these places? Weren’t doctors and nurses always telling patients to get some rest? That was what Nikki had just been told by her unpleasant nurse in the emergency room.

  Simon hovered over her and barked as many orders at the nurse as she’d asked questions of Nikki. “Can we please get some Diet Coke in here for her? She likes Diet Coke. Also, I think she’s a little warm, so a cool cloth would be good. When will the doctor be here? This is ridiculous. It’s been two hours or something totally insane. What kind of operation are you people running?”

  The nurse, who looked as old as God and as happy as the devil, squinted her eyes. “Excuse me, Liberace, the last time I checked, her name”—she pointed at Nikki—“wasn’t Hillary Clinton or the likes of her. And in case you haven’t taken note, this is an emergency room, not the Ritz-Carlton.”

  “Well, I never,” Simon said, completely put out by this witch.

  “Now you have,” the nurse replied, imitating him.

  “Si, please let the woman do her job,” Nikki begged. “I’m fine. Really I am.”

  Marco stood at her head, stroking it. “I am so happy I came with Simon to get the wine for you. He would have had to leave you to call the emergency people. I was chopping and then he said he needed me to help him with the wine because I’m stronger than he is.”

  “You are,” Simon said, rubbing Marco’s arm.

  “If we were only there a few minutes sooner, this wouldn’t have happened to her.” Marco leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. The thought crossed her mind that these two would actually make good parents. They had worry down to a science.

  Another half hour, and another meltdown from Simon, and the doctor appeared.

  “You’re the doctor?” Simon asked.

  “Yes.” He showed him his badge. “Dr. Woodruff.”

  Dr. Woodruff looked fifteen with curly dark hair and dark eyes. He was slight and honestly he didn’t look as though he’d ever shaved—baby skin like a baby’s butt.

  “Honey, I have Dolce and Gabbana T-shirts older than you.”

  Dr. Woodruff wasn’t amused.

  “Simon,” Nikki warned.

  Dr. Woodruff asked the same questions that the nurses and everyone before him had asked, and she was pretty sure that Robinson would be showing up sometime to ask the same questions again before she’d be able to leave. All she wanted was to go home.

  The doctor examined her with the boys out of the room. “Anything hurt?”

  “Everything,” Nikki replied. “I feel like I’ve been pushed off a ladder, clobbered by a maniac, and then almost strung up to die.”

  “Ah.” The doctor winced.

  Nikki doubted he’d heard that story before. “My stomach really hurts where the guy pushed the ladder down on me. I’m not usually a baby, but it does hurt.”

 
; “Can you point to it?”

  Nikki did so.

  “It’s not exactly your stomach, is it?”

  “No.” Now why did she feel embarrassed? The kid was a doctor.

  “That’s where your ovary is on that side. To be safe, we should have an ultrasound done. I may call in a gynecologist to do an exam on you.”

  “What? Why?” There was nothing Nikki could think of that might actually be worse at that moment—hoisting her legs up in a pair of stirrups so some teenager could take a peek at her parts. It was hard enough going to her private physician, a woman in her fifties.

  “A precaution. We should be sure that your ovary didn’t rupture. Looks to me like you were dealt some pretty hard blows.” He touched the side of her face.

  She winced.

  “Good thing you don’t need stitches, but that will bruise up. Not pretty.”

  “Thanks,” Nikki replied.

  Another hour or so passed, and Simon had finally calmed down when a tech rolled in an ultrasound machine. He ran the instruments over her, but gave no indication one way or another as to what might have happened, if anything. She could be badly bruised, but a ruptured ovary? That sounded horrible.

  Finally Dr. Woodruff came back in. Simon and Marco had gone to see about getting a sandwich, which was fine with Nikki because she’d tired of Simon’s mother henning about four hours earlier. “Sorry, but it’s a busy night here and our on-call gynecologist is backed up. But I did show him the results of the ultrasound and he said that you do not have a ruptured ovary.”

  “Thank God.”

  “But.”

  Uh-oh. Nikki didn’t like the sound of that.

  “He said that you had a cyst in there that has ruptured. He suggested I go ahead and give you a basic exam.”

  “No.”

  “No?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Okay,” Dr. Woodruff replied, realizing that she was serious.

  Dr. Pipsqueak was not going in there.

  “Can you just tell me what you and this other doctor could be thinking?” Nikki asked.

  Dr. Woodruff pulled up a chair next to her bed and sat down.

  “This is not my place since I’m not your gynecologist or your husband.”

  “I don’t have a husband. You’re scaring me.”

  “All right. My colleague thinks it is possible you could have some issues getting pregnant. Considering your age and that you had a cyst on your ovary, he suggested that you could have endometriosis. He believes your cyst could be caused by this. He suggests that you see your doctor as soon as you can if you want to have any children.”

  “Okay.” She tried absorbing what he was telling her. “Are you saying that I won’t be able to get pregnant?”

  “Again, I’m the wrong doctor here. I really don’t know. But it’s likely that you could have a difficult time, and if you do want to conceive, you may want to speak to the man in your life, if there is one, and the two of you may want to get the ball rolling.”

  “I see. Can I go home now?”

  He stood up and rubbed his hands together. “Yes. I have to sign off on the release papers, but you can go only if you sign saying that you refused a gynecological exam and that you will be seeing your regular doctor as soon as possible.”

  “Sure. Yeah. I can sign that.” Nikki watched the doctor leave. Wow. The thought of never being able to have a baby had never crossed her mind. She figured when the time was right, they would have one. Yes, she knew it could be a little harder as she neared the middle age milestone, but all the same, she didn’t expect this. What if she couldn’t conceive? How would Derek feel? And if she could, they obviously needed to start sooner rather than later. How was he going to feel about that?

  She didn’t know the answers to questions she hated asking even herself.

  Thirty-two

  SIMON and Marco had insisted on staying the night with her. After a couple of Tylenol she felt okay physically. Mentally was another story. Neither of the boys wanted to leave her the next day, but she insisted they go to the adoption meeting they’d scheduled. Derek had been trying to get a flight home since last night, but with everyone else also trying to get home, he’d been delayed and ended up having to spend the night in the airport.

  When she’d last spoken with him, it was close to two o’clock in the morning. She could hear the strain and concern in his voice. Simon had called and told him what had happened, and he’d decided that if planes were still delayed come morning, he was going to rent a car and drive to the closest city he could find that had an operational airport.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked over and over.

  “I’m fine. I really am. Plus, I have the boys and Ollie here. I miss you. That’s really the most pain that I’m in.”

  “I miss you, too, and I am on my way. I’ll do whatever it takes to get home.”

  She couldn’t wait to see him. But there was this pit in her gut about how to tell him what the doctor had said.

  Although her body ached some, it was her mind that was filled with the most discomfort. She needed some fresh air. Robinson had asked both Ruben and Juan to come back to the station because neither of them had been able to confirm their whereabouts when Nikki had been attacked yesterday. Everyone else appeared to have alibis—even Kurt Kensington, who’d showed up at the spa for a sauna after running with her.

  Robinson had also checked in on her in the morning and gone over the statement she gave in the hospital to the officer he’d sent over. He’d wanted to come himself, but he’d also wanted to make sure everything was done properly at the warehouse. More than ever, Robinson was determined to get this guy, and he seemed certain it was Ruben or Juan.

  Nikki resigned herself to believing that Ruben or Juan, or both, had something to do with the murders and attacking her, but she still could not wrap her mind around Ruben being a killer. She’d heard that Rose Pearlman was down at the police station, wreaking havoc and making all sorts of threats about lawsuits and whatnot. Nikki didn’t wish her on Robinson, or anyone for that matter.

  What still bothered her was that the one clue she felt was missing in this whole thing was that stupid DVD she witnessed Iwao trying to give to Alan. Why this troubled her, she didn’t know. But it did, and it got her to thinking about where that DVD had gone to.

  And how about Jen and Sierra? He shows up at a convenient time, does not seem all that distraught over his uncle’s death, and suddenly he and Sierra are madly in love again. Was it all coincidence and were they telling her the truth? Or was there something more sinister? The alibi that each one of them had when Nikki was attacked was based on being with one another. Could they be behind the murders? If Iwao had threatened to stop supporting Jen’s aunt’s hospitalization if Jen married Sierra, could that have sent Jen over the edge? He had time to plan and execute a murder, didn’t he? Had Robinson been able to find out yet whether or not he’d still been in Japan the night his uncle was murdered?

  One idea came to mind. It was kind of a last straw, but why she hadn’t thought to do so before, she didn’t know. She needed to head up to the hotel and check some things out. Running was out of the question today, but taking a walk to kill some time with Ollie would be a good idea.

  The boys had told her that when the Sansis had heard what happened to her, they’d decided to stay an extra night, partly because Robinson and his crew once again needed to interrogate everyone and partly because Alan Sansi was concerned for her welfare. She wanted to thank him and tell them good-bye.

  She went into the garage and changed out a load of laundry, then grabbed Ollie’s leash and called him. He climbed off the couch and obeyed. This time she wasn’t taking no for an answer from him. Not after yesterday. The two of them headed slowly up the hill to the hotel, where Nikki wanted to check in with Alyssa.

  Alyssa was behind the front desk with Petie, who was playing with some plastic cars. She came around the desk and hugged Nikki. “Oh, my God.
Simon told me what happened. Are you okay? You poor thing. You look—”

  “I know. I know. I hope I don’t scare him.” She pointed to Petie, who was totally absorbed with his toys.” Nikki had seen herself in the mirror and it wasn’t a pretty sight. There was a nice purple and black bruise under her eye on her right cheek and a small cut near her chin. She did look worse than she felt.

  Ollie lay down at their feet, evidently exhausted after the five-minute walk.

  “You won’t. I’m sorry I had to bring Petie today. Kathy at the day care center is sick, and so is her helper. I’m hoping he doesn’t catch it.”

  “Me, too. You don’t have to be sorry that you brought him in. He’s always welcome here. I can take him down to my place and watch him. I’m lying low today,” Nikki said.

  “I couldn’t do that to you. You need to rest.”

  “I’m fine. It looks a lot worse than it is. Really. I’d love to have his company. Derek will be back tonight, and after yesterday, I want to catch up on some housework and take it easy. I know he loves Thomas the Tank Engine. I have all those DVDs for him at our house. I bought them to bribe you to let me have him for a few hours at a time.” She laughed. “Come on. Let me take him. I’ll make him some lunch. Oh, by the way, have you seen the Sansi family at all? I’d like to tell them good-bye.”

  “They went into Yountville, except for Rich Higgins. He asked me for directions into the city because he said that he had a meeting and would be back this afternoon to head out with Hayden and her family. It’s good news about everything. I talked to Jonah, I mean Detective Robinson . . .” She blushed. “He said that he thinks he has the killers in custody. He’s working on proving it now. That must make you feel better. Jonah is a good guy. He’s worried about you, like we all are. He said something today about having security at your house.”

  “I have it. His name is Ollie and he weighs as much as I do. Trust me, with him around, I feel safe. But if you’re nervous about me watching Petie after what happened . . .” She glanced down at the dog. “Or you’re worried about Ollie . . .”