by Ellen Crosby
“How much do you want for those letters?” she asked. “I’ll give you whatever you want. I know your vineyard just sustained a huge financial loss after that tornado. So name your price. You don’t have to beat around the bush, either. Let’s just get this over with.”
“Did Sumner send you to do this?” I asked.
“Sumner is being questioned by some deputy because he feuded publicly with that horrid Vitale man.” She sounded bitter. “Did you set them on him? Is this your idea of revenge?”
“No, I didn’t. My guess is the sheriff’s department heard about that argument from B.J. No one asked me anything. As for revenge, I don’t believe in an eye for an eye.” I paused. “Unlike you.”
Her voice was low and guttural. “How dare you?”
“There is no price,” I said. “There are no letters. You said so yourself yesterday. It was a bluff and you were right about that. But now I know the truth. Sumner killed Beau, not my father.”
She hissed like a snake. “You have no proof.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I don’t. Which means he’s going to get away with murder and you’re abetting that crime. Even now, when you have a chance to clear the name of an innocent man.”
“Beau deserved to die,” she said. “He was a despicable man.”
“We’re a society of laws,” I said, “not vigilantes. If everyone took the law into his own hands, we’d have anarchy.”
She looked like she’d been slapped.
“Did Sumner have anything to do with Ray Vitale’s shooting?” I asked.
“I won’t dignify that with an answer,” she said. “You really are Leland’s daughter, you know? Tricking us the way you did.”
She left and I spent a long time staring at the mountains.
Quinn finally called me after lunch.
“Damned if I can figure out why the Riesling stopped fermenting,” he said. “The only thing that makes sense is if the grapes were sprayed with pesticide or sulfur or they got treated with something right before harvest. That would do it.”
“You know what? I’m going to drive by Chance’s place and ask him. I’ve got an errand in Middleburg, anyway.”
“I wouldn’t do that, Lucie. Besides, you think he’d tell you if he was the one who did it?”
I closed my eyes and thought about how Chance had kissed me the other night and that offer to finish what we’d started.
“I might be able to persuade him.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“After that brawl the last time you two were together? You can get more with honey than vinegar.” Or a honeypot. I swallowed. “Stay with the wine. I won’t be long. I’ll come by as soon as I get back.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“I know you don’t. But I might be able to persuade him to tell me the truth. He’s got nothing to lose now.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Charm him,” I said.
Chance lived in a small house that belonged to a series of cottages that were part of a larger estate just off Sam Fred Road. When I got there it had the quiet air of no one at home. I rang his doorbell and listened to the silence for a few minutes before I started looking through windows. The living room contained a sofa, flat-screen television, and cheap-looking coffee table. A rug remnant covered part of the floor.
Maybe he was out job hunting. I walked around to the back of the house. A blackened industrial-sized trash can sat in the middle of the weedy backyard. I peered into it. He’d burned something.
I touched the side of the can. Cold. Why set a fire out here when I’d seen a fireplace in the living room? It looked like he’d burned clothing.
I tried to knock the can on its side, but it was heavier than it looked. By the time I succeeded, my hands were soot covered. I wiped them on the grass and spotted a garden rake propped against the garage. Nice of him to leave it there. I fetched it and used it to drag the blackened lump in the bottom of the barrel out of the can.
Along with the cloth, pieces of plastic the size of small playing cards had melted and fused together in the tarry mess. Nothing on any of them, except a black stripe running across the width of the card.
I swallowed. Like the stripe that contained someone’s personal information on the back of a credit card. One of our customers? Had Chance been swiping credit cards at the winery? How many names could he have collected? I could think of one, probably two. Frankie, and maybe Kit.
I raked through the rest of the ashes. Something dull gleamed and I fished it out.
A button with CSA stamped on it. Confederate States of America.
“You make a habit of going through other people’s trash?”
I stood and palmed the button. Did Chance have a twin brother? The man who stood there had jet-black hair and dark eyebrows. Same voice, though.
“Chance?”
“What are you doing here, Lucie?”
He wasn’t stupid, but maybe he believed I was.
“I stopped by to take you up on your offer.” I smiled. “Finish what we started the other night.”
He smiled his heartthrob smile, but this time it was tinged with regret.
“You might be a little late, sweetheart.”
“It’s never too late, Chance.”
He walked over to me and I stepped back, banging into the overturned trash can and momentarily losing my balance. He grabbed my arm and I dropped the button. It hit the ground and rolled where he could see it. His grip tightened.
“Why’d you have to come here?” He picked up the button and shoved it in his pocket.
“I told you why.”
He started to laugh. The dusky blue eyes grew cold. “Wish you hadn’t done this. I’m on my way out of town. Looks like you’re going to have to keep me company. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“You’ll know when we get there.”
He pulled out a gun from under his jacket.
“Get moving,” he said.
Chapter 26
We took my car. I drove. He kept the gun on his lap where I could see it. At the end of Sam Fred Road, he told me to turn east on Mosby’s Highway. The Blue Ridge was behind us.
“Where’s Bruja?”
“With my girlfriend.”
I’d never heard anything about a girlfriend.
“She know about all this?”
“All what?”
“The credit card scam. Shooting Ray Vitale. That was you, wasn’t it? You must have shown up as a walk-on after you dyed your hair. Somehow you planted live ammunition in Tyler’s cartridge box.”
He leaned against the passenger door, facing me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And slow down. I don’t want to get pulled over for speeding.”
We crawled through the village of Aldie doing twenty-five. If we kept going east on this road, we’d eventually end up in Washington, D.C. But when we got to the light at Gilbert’s Corner, he said, “Get in the left lane and put on your turn signal. We’re taking Fifteen.”
Route 15 went north to Leesburg and on to Maryland.
The music of a heavy-metal song startled me. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and smiled as he glanced at the display.
“Hi, baby. Miss you so much.”
I could hear a woman’s voice through the phone. The girlfriend, probably.
“Naw. Change of plans. I got a passenger.” He stroked his gun as he listened. The voice on the other end of the phone screeched. It sounded like Baby thought three was a crowd.
“Aw, come on. It’ll be fine…hey, have I ever let you down?”
We had come to the bypass around Leesburg. Chance pointed to the sign, indicating that was the road I should take.
“Yeah, sure, okay, baby. I can handle it. Don’t worry…all right, all right…yeah, it’s cool. See you soon.”
He disconnected as we drove past the outlet mall.
“Where’s your phone?” he said.
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sp; “In my purse. On the floor in the back.”
He reached around and got my purse, rummaging through it until he found the phone.
“Can’t have you making any calls, can I?” He turned it off and took aim, throwing it out the window as we passed a meadow. I watched it hit the grass. Then he pulled out my wallet. “And for good measure, I’ll take these.”
He helped himself to my credit cards, stuffing them in his jeans pocket.
“At the next light, turn right,” he said.
It was the road that led to Ball’s Bluff.
“Why are we going here?” My voice shook. “Meeting your girlfriend?”
He laughed. “Not hardly. She doesn’t want to meet you.”
It sounded like his girlfriend called the shots. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ll be going on by myself.”
He was going to shoot me here in the park.
“Why are you doing this? Please, Chance. You won’t get away with two murders.”
That seemed to surprise him. “What are you talking about?”
“Ray Vitale.” I licked my parched lips. “And me.”
“The news said Vitale’s going to make it,” he said. “And I’m not going to kill you. Just slow you down for a while. It’s a big park, but someone will find you eventually. By then I’ll be gone where no one can find me. As for Vitale, he deserved what he got. The guy paid his employees slave wages. He was a mean-spirited bastard and everybody who worked for him hated him.”
“You said once you’d worked at a nursing home. It was one of his, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t you have a good memory.” It wasn’t a compliment. “For a while, I did. Finally I took what he owed me and left.”
“Did those day laborers you hired the other day deserve slave wages?”
“Those guys were illegal. Every one of them. What they got was more than what they earn at home. They should be grateful I hired them. If they don’t like it, let them go back to their villages and their mud huts.”
“You have some ugly prejudices, Chance.”
“I’m a patriotic American. America is for Americans.”
“How much did Sumner Chastain pay you to shoot Ray Vitale?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he repeated.
“You must have known Vitale was going to sue Sumner, so Sumner would be happy to have someone get rid of him. Were you working for Ray when he had those problems with Chastain Construction?”
“Ask Sumner.”
I pulled into the gravel parking lot and my heart sank. Today there wasn’t a single car here.
“Give me your keys. And get out,” he said.
“I need my cane.”
“Then get it and let’s go.”
I knew he’d take the route to the river, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Quinn knew where I was going. Kit expected to have a drink with me tonight. How long before someone put two and two together and started looking for me?
He kept his hand on my arm as we made our way through the park. When we reached the river route, there was no choice but to go single file.
“You first,” he said. “And don’t try anything. I’ve got the gun.”
Yesterday’s rain had turned the path into a slippery slope of mud. I tripped over a root and fell, landing on a stone outcropping. A pain shot up my back.
“Get up.”
“I can’t!” I was breathing hard. “Give me a minute.”
“Stop stalling.” He jerked my arm and yanked me up. “Get moving.”
My cane skidded off into the underbrush. “I can’t without my cane.”
“Yes you can. I’ve seen you.”
He hung on to my arm, forcing me to keep going. We had nearly reached the floodplain when I tripped over another tree root. This time I took him with me. We both tumbled into the brush and he seemed to go headfirst.
He swore as he got raked by brambles with thorns. A moment later he called my name and I held my breath, waiting.
“Dammit, Lucie. Answer me.”
I crawled back to the path. The river was only about ten yards away. I slid down to the floodplain like I was on a playground slide.
Would he come after me, or wait to see if I survived the current? Why wasn’t he shooting at me? Maybe he lost his gun in the bushes when we fell.
I kicked off my shoes and waded into the water. After my accident, I’d had daily sessions of hydrotherapy to strengthen my bad leg. Afterward I moved to my mother’s home in the south of France, where I swam almost daily. I was a good, strong swimmer. If I could keep up with the current, Harrison Island was probably, at most, fifteen or twenty minutes away. Even if the river took me downstream—as it probably would—I reckoned I could make it to the opposite shore before I ran out of land.
He called my name again and now something whizzed past my head. He’d found the gun, after all. I dove underwater and propelled myself off the river bottom. If he planned to follow, at least I had a head start. Before my accident I’d been on the track team and ran cross-country. The coach drummed into me that looking back to see who was chasing my tail could cost the race. I kept swimming and didn’t look back until my feet touched the river bottom once more. When I finally turned around, I didn’t recognize the scenery back on the Virginia side of the river. How far downstream had I drifted?
Wherever I was, Chance was gone.
Tyler had said Harrison Island was privately owned, a place for hunters. Deserted most of the time. I made my way through the underbrush and reached a flat, treeless place that looked like someone had plowed an enormous field that now lay fallow. On the horizon were several low buildings. A pickup truck was parked next to one of them.
A path wide enough for a vehicle skirted the perimeter of the field. I began walking toward the house but someone saw me before I got there.
The pickup began moving toward me, bouncing on the mud-rutted road.
I waved my arms in the air and waited as a memory of Chance driving across the field to find me the day the tornado ripped open Beau Kinkaid’s grave flashed through my head. How long had it been? Two weeks?
Now I knew the truth about who killed Beau, but I’d never be able to prove it. Chance was probably on his way out of town in my car. If he’d made a deal with Sumner to kill Ray Vitale, I reckoned it wouldn’t be long before one of them would rat out the other.
Annabel thought I wanted revenge for what she did to Leland, but she was wrong. I wanted justice. What I got—by default—was retribution. Annabel and Sumner might never be punished in this life for Beau’s murder, but they had to live with the burden of their guilt, now heavier for accusing my father, who was innocent, of their crime and corrupted from within by the revelation of Annabel’s infidelity.
Maybe it was cold comfort, but it was better than believing my father was a murderer. Even if my friends and neighbors thought differently, the talk would quiet down. Emma Hunt was right.
The acts of this life are the destiny of the next. Though Leland’s acts had ended up changing the destiny of my life, we had just written the last chapter. It was over, finished.
The pickup pulled alongside me. A girl who reminded me of Savannah Hayden sat behind the wheel.
“You lost?” she asked.
“Not anymore,” I said.
Chapter 27
The police found my car in Pennsylvania two days later. Chance and his girlfriend had vanished, but by now Bobby had told me that Chancellor Miller was one of many names he’d gone by over the past five years. The FBI was brought in because of the stolen credit cards and I cooperated fully, turning over as much information as I could provide so they could contact anyone whose credit cards might have been compromised.
Benny finally tracked down a couple of the laborers who had picked our Riesling, confirming what Chance had admitted about skimming their pay.
“We’re going to have a hell of a lot of fence mending to do to clean up our reputation,�
�� Quinn said.
“I know,” I told him. “But we’ll clean it up. Speaking of which, Seth Hannah called. The Romeos would like to reschedule that barrel tasting.”
Quinn nodded. “I think that can be arranged.”
Within the week Tyler was cleared in the shooting of Ray Vitale once it was established that he’d been shot with a .44-caliber ball which couldn’t have come from Tyler’s Enfield rifle.
Annabel and Sumner returned to Charlottesville. I had no idea if they bought Mick’s horse, though sooner or later word would get around to the Romeos or Thelma and I’d find out one day at the General Store.
I told Bobby what I suspected about Sumner paying Chance to shoot Ray. He shook his head and told me so far they had turned up nothing to connect them.
“But don’t worry,” he said. “We’re looking. And when we get Miller, I’m sure he’ll roll on Chastain.”
We talked about it one evening when he and Kit came by the vineyard after work for a drink with Quinn and me.
We were sitting on the terrace, watching another spectacular sunset behind the Blue Ridge. Quinn looked weary after working flat out to salvage the Riesling, even though we’d never figured out what, if anything, Chance had done to sabotage it.
We were back on the subject of Chance, Sumner, and Ray Vitale.
“Chance, or whoever he is, had enough motive on his own to shoot Ray Vitale,” Bobby said. “He worked for Vitale a few years back. He’s the one who wrecked Vitale’s credit and ran up tens of thousands of dollars of bills.”
“Ray was going to sue Sumner,” I said. “B.J. and I were there when they argued in my parking lot.”
“We’ve been all over that,” Bobby said. “It’s a leap to say Chastain ordered a hit on Vitale and hired Chance to carry it out.”
“I think it’s the other way around. Chance went to Sumner with a proposition,” I said.
“You know, I understand how Chance swiped my card,” Kit said. “But who made those charges at Neiman Marcus with Frankie’s card?”