“To return them to their owner,” I said. “I know who they belong to.”
Chapter 25
I left the barrel room and walked along the courtyard loggia toward the parking lot. I knew who. I didn’t understand why.
A man who had everything.
As I rounded the corner I nearly collided with him. He was dressed immaculately as always, even at this hour of the morning.
He looked astonished to see me. “Why, hello, sugar,” he smiled. “I wasn’t expecting to find you here.”
When Eli and I were kids, we used to fry marbles in an old cast-iron skillet, then pour ice water over them. The sudden temperature change would make them crack inwardly. The marbles were broken, but not shattered.
Looking into his familiar eyes I thought of those marbles. “That’s because you thought I’d be in the barrel room, where you left me last night. You’re the one who locked that door and shut off the electricity and the generators,” I said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do, Mason. You tried to kill me and you were coming back just now to make sure I was dead.” I held out the reading glasses. “These are yours, aren’t they?”
His face was like granite. “Where did you get them?”
“From Sara Rust. You must have dropped them when you were searching her house. That’s why you arrived so early at the concert last night. You couldn’t read the small print on your ticket so you thought it started at six thirty, not seven thirty. Why, Mason? Why did you do this?”
He slipped the gun out of a holster under his jacket as easily as if he’d been reaching for his starched handkerchief. “I wish you hadn’t done this, sugar. Now I’m going to have to do something about it. Let’s go.”
Mason went hunting every year with the Romeos. He was a crack shot.
“You wouldn’t.” He’d burped me as a baby, maybe even watched when my mother changed my diaper. I wasn’t fooling him.
“No one’s coming. I know Hector’s in the barrel room. And I saw Quinn leave about five minutes ago. So we haven’t got much time. Now move. I don’t want to shoot you here.” He motioned for me to walk in front of him to the parking lot.
The silver Mercedes was parked next to Bonita’s Corvette. “Get in,” he said, “and don’t do anything stupid. I don’t want blood all over my car.”
I got in the car. He leaned over me and pulled something out of his glove compartment. Plastic handcuffs. “Put your hands out.”
He cuffed me and we drove out of the parking lot, headed for Atoka Road. We passed the turnoff for Quinn’s cottage. No sign of the Toyota.
“He’ll be a while,” Mason said. “He’s got a few things to untangle.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Nothing.”
My voice shook. “Why are you doing this? Are you trying to buy the vineyard yourself? What do you want it for? You already own a palace.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“How do you know?”
He glanced over at me, with his most ruthless and pitiless courtroom eyes. “Because you’ve never been a success. Nor any of your family.”
I held up my hands, manacled in the plastic handcuffs. “What a shame I’m not as successful as you are. Look where it’s brought you.”
I shouldn’t have goaded him. He had that gun.
“Shut up!” He reached out and slapped my face hard with the back of his hand. My head jerked backward. We had reached Atoka Road. He put on his left turn signal, though there wasn’t a soul in sight. Law-abiding citizen kidnaps niece at gunpoint. At least he wouldn’t be cited for a traffic violation.
He drove through Atoka in silence, then turned onto Mosby’s Highway.
“I thought we’d take a little drive to the Goose Creek Bridge,” he said casually. “Since it’s one of your favorite spots.”
I’d never thought of him as sadistic before. He was enjoying this.
“Who was in the SUV, Mason?”
He didn’t even flinch. “Someone who owed me a favor. He’s not in jail like he oughta be.”
“And I was the favor. Was he supposed to kill me?”
He said, coolly, “It would have been an unexpected bonus.”
I shivered and stared at the man who used to bounce me on his knee. “Does Aunt Linda know what you’re doing?”
He glanced over at me and those eyes shut me up immediately.
Another blinker signal and we turned smoothly onto the gravel road that led to the Goose Creek Bridge. It was too much to hope that there would be someone there, picnicking at dawn. “Get out.”
I opened the car door and stepped out. He let me keep the golf club. It didn’t help much with the plastic handcuffs.
“Move.”
“Then take these handcuffs off,” I said, “or you can carry me.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
“The ground’s uneven. It’s hard enough using my cane, but nearly impossible with this golf club. Come on, Mason. Do you really think I can run away?”
He hesitated, then reached in his pocket and pulled out the key. I held out my hands as he unlocked them and yanked them off my wrists. For a moment he seemed unsure what to do with them. Then he opened the door to the Mercedes and threw them on the passenger seat.
“Walk to the bridge.”
I walked as slowly as I could, even stumbling a little, but he was only going to believe so much ineptitude. Besides, who was going to find me here?
We finally reached the arched stone bridge. The air was heavy with the scent of honeysuckle, as it had been when I was there with Kit…when? Two nights ago?
“Okay.” He gestured to the parapet. “Climb up there. You’re going to jump.”
“You are out of your mind. There’s no water.” I didn’t move from the gravel path. He was about ten yards away from me.
“You’re too distraught to notice. The vineyard has no future. Everyone in town knows you and Eli are battling over money because you’re broke.”
“Everyone in town knows I’m not suicidal.”
“You’re dependent on painkillers since your accident and it’s changed you. You became despondent when you found out your ex-lover was screwing your sister. You’re still in love with him, but he’s rejected you. Unfortunately, he finds you repulsive, with your twisted foot and that pathetic limp.” He added cruelly, “You’re ashamed of your deformity.”
I should not have been surprised that his fine, courtroom mind would have thought everything through so coldly and thoroughly. But his viciousness stunned me.
“I am not ashamed of anything. And I’m not in love with Greg Knight. You must be getting senile in your dotage, Mason. In addition to being very farsighted.”
It was stupid to continue to taunt him when he clearly had every intention of making sure I was dead before he climbed back in his Mercedes. I half-expected him to raise the hand with the gun and aim. Instead, he looked perplexed and then I knew why. He’d been getting his information from Greg, who was probably too vain to admit
