by Wendy Byrne
"There, there, dear." Viola patted my arm. "We'll figure this out."
Tears bubbled to the surface just as my phone rang. "Hello." I sniffled through the simple word, still trying to catch my breath.
"I need that wine, and I know you have it." Joseph said.
"Are you kidding me?" His terse comment made me sit up straight while my guilt and remorse jumped to the back burner. "The police are looking for you, and you're worried about a few bottles of wine. Of all the—" When I started to hang up the phone, I heard his pleading voice.
"You don't understand. They're more valuable than you think, and unless I get them, they're framing me for manslaughter." Something about his defeated tone had me rethinking the situation.
While I still didn't know what the heck he was talking about, I knew I had to sit up and pay attention. Being the liar that he was, most of what he said I dismissed without giving it a second thought. But the uncharacteristic emotion in his voice made me believe he was telling the truth—at least partially.
"How can wine be that valuable?" I had to ask the question, knowing he wouldn't give me an honest answer.
"Just give me the—" I didn't let him finish before I hung up. Then I shut off my phone. I figured I'd let him stew about that for a while longer before I talked to him again. Besides, I needed to do a little investigating of my own now that he'd given me a few breadcrumbs.
"I know we're up to our elbows in mysteries right now, but after we get copies of the flyers made and distribute them, we need to recover some wine bottles and see what secrets they hold."
* * *
I came down from my father's attic where I'd been storing the wine. The boxes were heavy, but I didn't dare ask the ladies to help. As it was, they were positioned around my dad's living room anxiously waiting for something big to happen.
"Here they are." I plopped them onto the coffee table. "I've got twelve bottles left."
"You drank some? Were they really good?" Alice asked.
I thought back to the time I'd shared them with Gabe—really, I drank while he watched. "Not that I remember. Let's do a search on winelovers.com and get their values. One or two of these has to be worth millions."
"How do I do that on my phone?" Ramona asked.
Before I could respond, Dolly took over instructing the ladies, with mixed results on their searches, while I did the same with my own phone. By the time I'd gotten to the last bottle, I was mystified.
"These are duds," Alice announced before I could say the same thing.
"Exactly. So, what's so valuable about them that Joseph flew halfway across the country and somebody is pressing him to turn them over? There has to be something."
"Maybe it's part of the label or something hiding beneath it," Viola said, causing us all to feel the bottles for anything unusual.
"Another zero," Ramona said.
"Maybe it's some kind of code?" We all took turns shouting out anything that might be construed as clues on the bottles, without luck.
"Do you think he said that to get me off track?" My brain was fried, my patience wavering at a rapid pace and nothing made sense.
"Maybe one of the wineries is about to go public or be super famous for some reason or another, and their cost will skyrocket." Dolly said.
"I guess it's a possibility, but most of the bottles I found on the list were worth, at most, a couple of thousand dollars and from several different wineries. This has too much drama for a couple thousand dollars—even ten or twenty thousand—this doesn't fit into the vibe I'm getting from Joseph. This has to be about money in high six figures at least. He wouldn't sound so desperate otherwise."
"We're missing something," Viola said on a yawn.
Her yawn started a trend, as we all did the same. When I noticed it was close to ten, I realized it had been a long day for all of us. "I know we want to figure this out, but let's come back at it after a good night's sleep. None of us are thinking clearly right now."
After placing the boxes of wine into the trunk of my car, I brought the ladies home. I circled the block a couple of times before I pulled into my parking spot in the back of my apartment. As promised, Gabe had installed a timed light by the back door that made me nearly grab for my shades. Overkill for sure, but I felt so much better.
I trudged up the stairs, my exhausted body and mind daring any troublemakers to try to rile me tonight. Instead, I walked through the door without incident, bolting the new double lock behind me. I liked Gabe's approach to overkill. It fit my current mood perfectly. Even though we were presently in a weird state of mistrust between us, he still followed through with his promises, and I could respect that. I sent off a text thanking him and turned off my phone. I didn't care if Gus called me tonight or if any of our suspects called to confess, exhaustion won out over pretty much everything.
I figured I'd be asleep within thirty seconds of my head touching the pillow and wasn't too far off the mark. It might have taken a minute or two, but I was out cold, fully clothed on my bed. At some point, I'd wrestled beneath the covers, but I barely remembered doing that.
At four in the morning, for no apparent reason other than…I had no idea…my body and mind bolted to attention. This time, a thought that circled my brain was bringing me wide awake rather than any outside noises.
What a fool I'd been.
I threw off the covers, slipped on gym shoes and a coat, and high-tailed it down the stairs. Pumped up on adrenaline, I gathered the boxes from the trunk and powered them up the stairs and into the apartment.
After gathering a couple of bowls and a corkscrew, I got to work. First, I started with the whites. Trying to be systematic in my approach, I poured the contents of the first bottle into the bowl.
Nothing.
I tore into the next three bottles without taking a breath. And without finding anything. Still, I refused to be dissuaded.
With a sense of certainty that seemed unwarranted given the fact that I was down six very expensive bottles of wine, I continued on with conviction. Something had to break, or I might well lose my mind.
Wine splatted the counters and onto the towels as determination made me both foolhardy and sleep deprived. My fingers itched as I opened up the first of the remaining four bottles. Rather than store the liquid in the bowls I'd run out of, I'd started pouring it directly into the sink with the drain covered.
As the red wine began to drain out of the bottle, tears pooled in my eyes and began to roll down my cheeks. Frustration had been brewing for so long, stopping its release was darn near impossible.
The last of the bottle dripped into the sink, and my resolve waivered. I plunked the bottle onto the counter and heard a clinking sound as if I'd jarred something loose.
Reinvigorated, I picked it up and shook it. Definitely a clink. I did the same with another with the same result. And another. While I tried to temper my excitement, I was losing the battle with each moment that passed.
Something was caught inside there. I could only hope…. A piece of plastic emerged from the top. I yanked on it until it slipped out like a snake and onto the counter. Then I took a small pair of scissors to the bubble-wrap style plastic sheet, and a diamond dropped, and then another, and another until ten perfectly cut diamonds sat on the counter.
"What have you done, Isabella?"
"Joseph?" As I said his name, he stumbled inside followed by a man holding a gun to his back.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In that moment, I realized that in my haste, I hadn't locked the door. The guy holding the gun thrust Joseph all the way inside with a shove to his back.
Every Murder, She Wrote I'd watched over the last few months flash forwarded through my brain. Surely Jessica had encountered this kind of situation before.
I shook off crazy thoughts and did the only thing I could—waited for an opportunity. TV show or not, I had to believe every criminal goofed up sooner or later. When I glanced at Joseph, I realized he'd be no help. He was shaking so hard h
e could barely walk.
Once again, I couldn't help but wonder what I'd ever seen in him. That brought about thoughts of Gabe and our ridiculous argument. And for a few seconds, I worried that my life was passing before my eyes.
Not good.
"You two go over to the couch," the guy said as he waved the gun in my direction. When we complied, he began shaking all the bottles and gathering the plastic-wrapped goodies. "You're a pain, lady. I see why you have man trouble."
I rolled my eyes. "If you ask me, it's the men who have the trouble. I'm a peach."
"Yeah, right. That's what I thought when you ran away last night. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you just gave me the bottles of wine."
"Too bad you're so out of shape you couldn't catch up." After the last couple of days, I refused to be intimidated by this man Joseph had brought into my life. "Was that you in the car the other night too?" It had to be him. I should have guessed it had nothing to do with Delbert. He might have been frustrated he hadn't scored with me, but he hadn't put the pieces together at that time of who I was.
He nodded. "That was a good maneuver in the car, but it was pointless since I knew where you lived and figured you'd slip up sooner or later. I still get what I want in the end." He shrugged. "Let's face it. I'm the one in the power position."
I eyed Joseph and shook my head. "What is wrong with you?" I mumbled. The car that blocked us when we left Miller's Pub had nothing to do with Gus and everything to do with Joseph.
"I didn't know. He gave me a good deal for storing the stuff."
"Really?" I didn't try to keep the snark out of my voice. Joseph clearly was a weasel of epic proportions.
"This is business, nothing more than that," the guy said.
"Tell that to the dead guy. It sure seemed a lot like murder to me."
"That was an accident. That drunken vagrant was walking along a country road in the dark. His bad luck happened to work in my favor in terms of coercion." He shook his head and swore. "Enough talking."
He grabbed the roll of the packing tape sitting on my counter and instructed us to sit back to back. Then he gathered our hands and feet in front of us and bound us together at the waist. He loaded the packets into the pocket of his coat and sprinted out the door. Seconds later, I heard a car start and felt relief despite the restriction of my breathing by the way-too-tight-tape strapping me to my ex. The idea that we were bound together made me want to hurl.
"I'm sorry," Joseph mumbled.
"You do not get to say you're sorry. We are frickin' tied up because you're an idiot." I breathed through the mad, but it didn't dissipate. "You brought this on me. And you don't deserve to be forgiven, no matter what you say or how many times you say it." I was pretty certain my mad had jumped into the stratosphere, and there'd be no coming back from it—at least any time soon.
"Hey, you brought this onto yourself by stealing my wine."
"Do not go there, or I might very well hurt you."
"In case you haven't noticed, your hands are tied."
"Is that a challenge? Because if it is, I'm sure I'm up for it." At this point, I'd reached a point of maximum ticked-off-ness. I tried to scoot away from Joseph but instead we knocked heads. I twisted my hands, anxious to get away, desperately trying to break the tape. But this packing tape was industrial strength. I brought my hands to my mouth and attempted to rip it and nearly chipped a tooth. Just when I was desperate enough to try to coordinate some kind of effort to get to the scissors, there was a knock at the door.
"Izzy?" Gabe's voice broke through my frantic thoughts.
"In here. And grab the scissors off the counter," I shouted.
He pushed through the door and rushed towards me, scissors in hand. Somehow, he also managed to give Joseph a scowl as he went by.
"What happened?"
I related what had happened while he cut off the tape, then pulled me into a hug, and multitasked by dialing Nate.
"What made you stop this morning?" My heart was beating like I'd just finished a full out run up a hill.
"I wanted to talk to you about the other night, and when I spotted your light on… I'm sorry," we both spoke at almost the same time.
"I know you don't understand my commitment to Gus, but…I…believe in him. I was a pariah after I filed for divorce and well…kind of gave away Joseph's suits…because…yeah, well…" His eyebrows rose while a hint of a smile curled his lips. "Nobody believed me that he'd been cheating on me during the entire course of our marriage. I was made to feel like I did something wrong even when I didn't. I'm not sure that makes sense to you—"
He stopped my words when he placed his hands on my cheeks and kissed me, slowly and perfectly.
"Hmm…that's nice," I whispered against his lips. I could do this forever.
"You're your own woman. That's what I love about you," he whispered against my ear.
Say what? We were having a moment and then….
"Hey, what about me?" Joseph's whiny voice interrupted our moment.
Gabe gave me one more lingering kiss as he rubbed his hands up and down my arms. He smiled, and I gave him a quick peck. I really wanted this to last forever…well not with Joseph in the room…but you know what I mean.
Gabe sighed his annoyance, grabbed the scissors from the couch, and walked towards Joseph, his patented grouchy guy face back on. He pointed the scissors at Joseph. "I do this now, and you have to promise to withdraw that BS stuff you filed about the divorce settlement. It's over and done with, and you're not getting another penny."
"That's extortion." Joseph whined.
Gabe shook his head. "It's not extortion if I'm not asking for money, property, or services. I'm only asking that you not be an asshole. Now sign this, or I swear I'll stuff you in a closet and leave you there to rot." He slid both a piece of paper and a pen into Joseph's hands.
I tried not to smile, but I couldn't help it. Seeing the painful contortions on his face and knowing that he had no option but to comply made my day.
"I'll sign it."
Without saying a word, Gabe clipped the tape still holding Joseph hostage.
"Ouch, you nicked me," Joseph whimpered as he eyed Gabe, a mixture of fear and disgust on his face.
Gabe grumbled something indecipherable and then stopped and turned. "You brought this crap on yourself." With an air of nonchalance that brought Joseph a false sense of security, he hauled back and hit him with an uppercut worthy of a world-class prizefighter.
Joseph went down like the coward he was. The only regret was I hadn't been the one to knock him out.
Nate came in the door and glanced from Gabe to me to a prone Joseph and shook his head. "Looks like I missed something."
Gabe and I took turns giving him specifics while Joseph slowly came around. He'd already started to develop a giant bruise on his jaw, which I didn't feel one bit bad about.
Nate made some phone calls before turning his attention back to us. "I have an APB out on the car you spotted in the parking lot, Gabe. The guy couldn't have gotten too far."
"What happens next?" Gabe asked.
Nate glanced at Joseph and frowned. "I'll bring Joseph back to the office and hold him in a cell until I can talk to somebody in New York to see what they want me to do with him."
I'm not embarrassed to admit I smiled when Joseph let out a squeal. Page Six in Manhattan would have a field day and might very well ruin his good family name. Karma is not your friend, Joseph.
"What? Aren't you going to arrest that jerk—" Joseph pointed in the general direction of Gabe but reconsidered when Gabe gave him the death stare to end all death stares. "Well, he did knock me out," he whispered beneath his breath.
"Are you saying you want to press charges?" Nate's eyebrows rose as he asked the question, as if double-dog daring Joseph to follow through with that threat.
Joseph closed his eyes and muttered something indistinguishable. "I…guess…not."
"Good choice." Nate helped Jos
eph off the floor. Probably for my benefit more than anything else, he clicked on some handcuffs before he led him out the door.
* * *
Before they knocked, I heard their excited chatter and opened the door to greet the Qs. Besides the laser festivities this evening, there was so much to discuss after the debacle earlier and final preparation for our Spring Fling celebration in two days.
They filed in wearing black T-shirts they'd had made up with silhouette caricatures of themselves and me holding laser guns. On the back it said, "The Qs—A force to be reckoned with." Viola handed me my matching T-shirt.
"I hate to state the obvious, but it smells like one of those wine bars at closing time in here," Alice said. "We heard the guy was caught before he made it out of the state."
I nodded. "Yep, Nate called to let me know I didn't need to worry any more. That the guy was being held in Inez on involuntary manslaughter charges for the hit and run and then will be transferred to New York where he'll be charged federally with smuggling."
"Nate's connections in Washington really helped get things tidied up quickly," Ramona said.
"Heard Gabe knocked out Joseph," Alice said with a snicker.
"It's about time somebody brought that bozo down from his pedestal," Viola added with a proud grandma smile on her face.
"Still wish he would have let me do the honors, but have to admit it was kind of cool to see him laid out like that after all the grief he's caused me. Looks like the state's attorney in New York is going to let him off the hook in exchange for his testimony. At least according to Nate."
"Hope that rascal learned his lesson not to mess with you," Alice added.
I felt tears bubble to the surface. These ladies felt more like family than I could have imagined. I didn't have time to be melancholy now. We had a Spring Fling to plan. "How are the preparations going?"
"We stopped and talked to Jeremy to make sure everything is set. He said the tent is coming tomorrow, and it takes a couple of hours to set up, but he's got some volunteers to help with that. They're closing off Main Street and expecting a crowd, especially with the weather predicted to be in the seventies," Ramona said.