After he left I picked up the phone and opened it.
“Hey!” He was back in the doorway with one hand behind his back. “Got something for you.”
I closed the phone, grinning like a giddy schoolgirl. Flowers, maybe? “What is it?”
He whipped his hand around and held it up. Just like a bouquet of flowers. “A spoon,” he said. “That pencil’s really unsanitary.”
I started to laugh and so did he. For once it was completely heedless and lighthearted. Then our eyes met and the old cautiousness returned.
“Turn on your phone,” he said. “I gotta go.”
“Sure.”
I punched the button and the display came up. A second later the message icon blinked. Three messages and two missed calls. Both missed calls were from Mick. Last night. The first message, at 9:47 p.m., also from Mick, asked me to call him.
The second message was from Eli. 10:13 p.m. “Luce. Me. I can’t get hold of Mia and I need to talk to her about dinner at our place tomorrow night. Have her call me, will you?”
Mick left the final message twenty minutes ago. “Lucie,” he said. “I’m just about to board my flight. I rang you last night at home and on this number several times. I wish we’d been able to talk before I left for Florida. Quinn and I spoke yesterday afternoon about the…” The commotion in the background drowned out the rest of whatever he’d been trying to say. Finally I heard him shout, “No use! I can’t…ring you from Miami…” The line went dead.
So that’s why Quinn asked if I’d spoken to Mick. They did have the job talk, after all. If Quinn was leaving, why didn’t he tell me himself? Had he decided to stay? Or did Mick want to prepare the terrain with me first because he’d just hired my winemaker?
The two of them were turning my life upside down. I didn’t know what to think anymore.
I phoned the house and left a message for Mia to call Eli. She’d slept at home last night and was probably still in bed. Then I called Quinn.
“Yeah, what?” He sounded harassed and irritated.
I lost my nerve. “My phone works.”
Silence. Then, “I’m very happy for you. Now can I get back to business? The damn sprayer’s acting up again.”
“Sure. Sorry.”
He disconnected and I closed my phone, feeling foolish.
We held the Mosby dinner at the Ruins after all, and by some miracle it didn’t start raining until we’d finished cleaning up.
“This’ll be good for the grapes,” Quinn said. “At least it held off long enough for the spray to take on the Cab.” We were back in the parking lot. He leaned against his car. “Guess I’ll see you at Dominique’s shindig on Sunday. Bonita and I are heading down to Virginia Beach, but we’ll be back in time for her citizenship party.”
I bit my lip, glad for the darkness so he couldn’t see my eyes. “I didn’t know you liked the beach.”
“I’m a California boy, remember? Bonita said they’ve got a store there that sells tie-dyed Hawaiian shirts. Gotta check that place out.”
“Right. Something new for the collection, huh?” I said. “Well, enjoy it. When are you leaving?”
He glanced at his watch. “’Bout half an hour. She wants to watch the sunrise on the beach. If there is one. Maybe they’re not getting rain down there.”
My legs felt suddenly unsteady and I leaned on my cane. “I hope not, for your sake. Have a wonderful time. See you on Sunday.”
I did not sleep well at all that night, though the last time I remember looking at my alarm clock it read just after four a.m. When the phone rang, it was already light outside. Six-thirty. Not Quinn—he was gone. And it was Saturday.
I picked up the phone. Mia. She sounded like she was drunk or crying or both. “Lucie, it’s me,” she said through hiccupy sobs. “I’m at the hospital. Catoctin General. The police are here. They say I killed someone.”
Chapter 24
She made no sense except that I gathered she’d been driving and hit another car.
“Oh, God,” I said. “When? After you left Eli’s?”
“I never went there,” she sobbed. “He canceled. Look, can we talk about that when you get here? You gotta get me out of here.” She sounded panicked. “I didn’t do it, Luce. I don’t even remember getting in my car. I don’t care what they say.”
I closed my eyes. On top of everything she had blacked out, too. How much worse could it be?
I reached for my cane next to the bed. “I’m getting dressed right now, Mimi. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m going to call Eli and Sam Constantine. I’ll see you in less than an hour.”
“Please hurry,” she begged. “I’m so scared.”
I hung up and called Eli. Not surprisingly, I woke him up. “Aw, Jesus H. Christ,” he said. “What did she
“Next time I’ll get her to plan her hit-and-run or whatever it is around your schedule,” I said coldly. “And for the record, she should have been with you last night. Getting the sober-up-or-else talk. What happened, Eli?”
“Don’t you blame me for something she did,” he yelled back. “I had to postpone dinner because a client wanted to meet last night. So I told her we’d do it another time.”
“When did you tell her that?” I said. “She told me she was going to your place last time I talked to her.”
“Right before she was supposed to come over,” he said wearily. “I had my back to the wall, Luce. I have a family to feed, you know. Client wants to meet, I say, ‘How high?’ That’s the way it is.”
“Well, then we both let her down,” I said. “Meet me at the hospital. I’m calling Sam.” I hung up before he could say anything.
I finally reached Sam on my mobile on my way to Leesburg.
“Where is she?” he asked, sounding sleepy and not too pleased to hear from me at this hour.
“Catoctin General.”
“She injured?”
“Lord.” I was stunned. “I never asked. She was crying pretty hard and she said the police say she killed someone. Says she doesn’t even remember getting behind the wheel of the car.”
“Aw, Christ.” He was wide awake now. “That’s bad already. She needs to keep her mouth shut.”
“I’m not even sure she’s sober at the moment.”
He groaned again. “I’ll get there as fast as I can. But if you reach her first, tell her to button it and not to sign anything. I’ll fax something over to the hospital so we’re on record in case I need to make a Fourth Amendment challenge to anything she says. You can bet they read her her Miranda rights, but if her BAC was above point-oh- eight, then she could have heard the Pledge of Allegiance.”
I put my foot down on the accelerator and checked my rearview mirror. I had Route 15, once the trail of Indians, to myself. Good thing, too, at my speed. I tried to keep the anxiety out of my voice. “She won’t go to jail for this, will she? If it was an accident?”
“At the moment, let’s just work on fixing things so they don’t lock her up today.”
He hung up and I sped toward Leesburg.
I got to the hospital parking lot fifteen minutes later. The same cop who had looked after me the morning I found Georgia was outside the building, talking into a microphone on his shoulder as I walked up to the entrance.
“Are you here with my sister?” I asked. “Mia Montgomery?”
“Just leaving. There’s a female officer with her now.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Didn’t put two and two together that she was your sister.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
