“Good for you. Did Quinn like it, too?” I asked. “That is, since you’re paying him to advise you.”
He wore the expression of someone who had just been slapped. “He’s not what you’re thinking,” he said. “Please. Let’s get out of this crowd. I’d like to explain.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Indeed it is.” This time the grip on my arm was firm as he maneuvered me to an unoccupied corner of the room next to a large silk schefflera.
“First, I apologize for not telling you sooner, but I wanted to do it in person,” he said, his beautiful green eyes gazing down into mine. “I came back to see you after Erica Kendall took me ’round and ran into Quinn, who told me you were out. We started discussing land and vineyards and he gave me some advice.” Mick rubbed a silk leaf. It was dusty and left a dark stain on his fingers. “I told him I’d like to pay him for the help and call on him if I need more. That’s it. That’s how it happened.”
“I thought you might be interviewing him for a job.”
“No.” He removed a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped away the dirt. “I would never do that to you.”
The crowd parted at that moment, so I could see Hugo Lang embracing Ross. They spoke earnestly, then Hugo clapped Ross on the shoulder and moved away. Then someone blocked my view and I lost sight of both of them.
Mick followed my gaze. “I’m keeping you from seeing Ross, aren’t I?”
“Will you excuse me, please?”
He tilted my chin so I had to stare into those depthless eyes. “Only if you tell me that we’re okay now.”
“Sure,” I said finally. “We’re fine.”
He knew a brush-off when he got one. “Glad to hear it. I need to have a word with Austin Kendall, anyway. I’ll be seeing you.”
I watched him cross the room and join Austin Kendall, who was with several of the Romeos. Austin’s daughter Erica now ran the family real estate business, but Austin still put his oar in when the deal was in the multimillions of dollars. If Mick was talking to Austin, then he must be contemplating buying a significant piece of property.
I threaded my way through the crowd and found Ross. A group of dark-suited men were with him, but he nodded when he caught sight of me. As soon as they left, he pulled me to him and hugged me. Despite the air- conditioning, he was perspiring heavily.
“Are you all right?” I asked. “You don’t look too good. Can I get you some water?”
He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his forehead. “The sheriff still thinks I did it, Lucie. He’s going to let me get through Georgia’s funeral, which is pretty decent, then they want me to come in for more questioning. I think Bobby Noland is behind this. He doesn’t seem convinced Randy committed suicide, in spite of that note. Sam’s trying to find out what’s going down, but it’s not looking good.”
His voice shook and that’s when I saw just how scared Ross really was that he might actually be convicted of killing his wife…and maybe her lover, too. All because he had no alibi.
“I talked to Manolo about Emilio and Marta,” I told him. “They’re hiding. Manolo says they’re too frightened to talk to the police.”
Ross grabbed my shoulders so hard it hurt. “Manolo knows where they are?”
“No, but he said he’d try to find out.”
“You’ve
I nodded. “Your word of honor. Okay. I promise. Don’t worry.”
“Good girl.” He kissed my forehead, then pulled back and scanned my face, still apprehensive. “I knew I could count on you. You won’t let me down, will you?”
“No,” I said. “You saved me once. Now it’s my turn.”
I left after that, shaken by Ross’s palpable fear. He said he didn’t do it and I believed him. What evidence did the police have that indicated otherwise? Why weren’t they convinced by the suicide note?
Something wasn’t right.
Later, when I was home alone, I opened a bottle of Gigondas and brought it out to the veranda. No light from the summerhouse tonight.
I lit the citronella candles and torches and sat there in the gilded darkness. “Wine is a perfect cure for heaviness and sorrow,” wrote Seneca, the Roman statesman and philosopher, nearly two millennia ago. Tonight it wasn’t doing anything for me.
I thought of the prayer card Ross had made for Georgia and the verse from Ecclesiastes. We’d used the same verse on Leland’s memorial card nine months ago—though a different interpretation. The version Ross chose talked about “a time to search and a time to give up.”
Maybe it had been prophetic, but I hoped not. As far as I was concerned, it was still a time to search.
It was no time to give up.
Chapter 14
The impact of Randy’s death on top of Georgia’s murder hit Atoka somewhere between seven and eight on the Richter scale. The continuing reverberations eventually reached the tasteless domain of journalist bottom feeders who mined every tawdry detail. Our barn, Ross and Georgia’s home, T. R. Island, and White’s Ferry all made up what one reporter called “the trail of lust.”
“Makes me ashamed of my profession reading crap like this,” Kit said to me. She’d called my mobile as I was pulling into the church parking lot for Georgia’s funeral.
“We had to throw a reporter off the property this morning,” I said. “Quinn said Manolo caught him moving the barrier so he could get access to the south service road.”
“Jeez,” she said. “Tabloid heaven, but hell for everyone involved.”
“I just got coffee at the general store. Thelma’s got every newspaper she could get her hands on laid out by the cash register and she’s poring over them,” I said. “It’s better than her soaps.”
“Yeah, we get ’em at work. I swear to God, whoever writes those headlines really scrapes the bottom of the barrel. ‘All Washed Up Boyfriend Kills Lover, Then Takes the Plunge Himself.’ Or ‘Country Boy Fell for Sexy Socialite Hook, Line, and Sinker.’”
“My favorite was ‘Corked—Vineyard Victim’s Slayer Found Dead at Potomac Bottleneck.’”
“I missed that one.”
“I’d better go,” I said. “I’m at the church. There’s a van with a satellite dish out front and reporters crawling all over the place. Even more coverage than her wake. I suppose you guys are here.”
“It’s not like we have a choice. Jerry Roper’s on it.”
“Well, so are the cops. This is going to be a three-ring circus.”
“Georgia always did like to be the center of attention,” Kit said. “Looks like she still is.”
The Episcopal church on Mosby’s Highway was located just outside the village of Upperville, where it straddled the boundaries of Loudoun and Fauquier Counties. Built in the late nineteenth century from Virginia sandstone and limestone, the church had been constructed by local workers trained as stonecutters, masons, and carpenters, all of whom had made their tools at a forge on the property.
The building could have been transported to twenty-first-century Virginia from twelfth-or thirteenth-century France because of its unusual architectural features—shallow transepts and a narthex that became the base of the bell tower. It was purposely built off-center because of the ancient belief that no matter how people strive, their work is not perfect. So the church, too, needed to have a tangible sign of imperfection. It seemed fitting for Georgia’s casket to lie here, in a deliberately flawed place.
