Atoka. “You’ve gone awfully quiet.”
“Just thinking.”
We didn’t speak again until he turned off Atoka Road onto Sycamore Lane, the private road that led to the vineyard and Highland House, my home.
“If you don’t let her come by tomorrow you’re not going to be able to get it off your mind. So do it and that’ll be the end of it,” he said.
I smiled in the darkness, wondering how he knew what I was thinking. “All right, although I think she just wants to stir up trouble. What would she know about that bottle that Jack Greenfield wouldn’t know? Ryan implied she’s not that bright.”
“You know the difference between men and women? Women make up their minds more than once. You agonize over every detail. Blokes just decide and we’re done with it.”
“Is that a criticism?”
He pulled into the circular drive in front of my house and stopped the car. “Take it anyway you like.”
I knew what was coming next. After four months of abstinence his kiss was like drinking from a well after a journey through the Sahara. I’d forgotten how much I missed him, or maybe I hadn’t let myself think about it. His breathing was hard and shallow as he laid me back against the seat. I wondered why he wanted to make love here first when we could just go inside and do it in my bed. I felt dizzy as his hands moved to unzip my dress. I arched my back to make it easier for him.
“Bloody hell!” He sat up suddenly. “I knocked my knee on the gearshift.”
I started to laugh and pull him down on top of me, but it was over for him as quickly as it started. He untangled himself from my arms and sat back up. “Maybe we shouldn’t. Not tonight. Sorry, love.”
My face was flushed and my clothes were disordered. He’d unhooked my bra and I was having trouble rehooking it. I tried to dress without looking at him.
“You all right?” he said. “Sorry. I just—”
“Please don’t apologize. We haven’t come to that, have we?”
“No, of course not. Look, Lucie—”
“It’s okay. Good night. Thanks for coming with me and being a good sport about this evening.”
I escaped from his car before he could say anything else. I’d taken two steps when I realized I’d left my cane in the Mercedes. My face burned as he handed it to me.
“Let me know how it goes with Valerie,” he said.
I kept my voice deadpan. “Sure.”
As soon as I got inside I undressed and went straight to bed. All night long he’d been sending an unmistakable message that he wanted to rekindle our relationship, hadn’t he? So what had just happened? Did he want to jerk my chain to see if I’d still respond?
He found out, all right, but I had no intention of letting it happen again.
At least I hoped not.
Valerie never showed the next day. Nine came and went and so did ten. I went to my office to finish the monthly tax return we needed to file with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. It was overdue but harvest had been a bear and we’d worked almost around the clock. I punched figures into a calculator and wondered why the government couldn’t find someone to draw up these forms who spoke the same English I did.
The phone rang and “Middleburg Academy” showed up on the display. After last night I didn’t feel like talking to Joe. I let the call go to the answering machine.
He sounded agitated. “Sorry to bother you, Lucie, but I was wondering if Valerie Beauvais was still there. I’ve got a second period American History class in the middle of meltdown. She promised to come by and talk to them this morning and she hasn’t shown. Could you call me when you get—”
I picked up the phone. “Hey, Joe. You’re looking for Valerie? She never came by here, either.”
“You serious? I just called her cell and got her voice mail,” he said. “The academy put her up at the Fox and Hound last night. She hasn’t checked out but she doesn’t answer the phone in her cottage, either. The staff swears she’s not on the property and says her car’s gone. I can’t figure out where she went.”
“Sorry I can’t help.” I didn’t like sounding brusque but Valerie could take care of herself and if she was lost then she wanted to get lost.
“I hate to impose but do you think you could possibly—”
The Fox and Hound was just up the road from the vineyard. He wanted me to check on his girlfriend. I cut him off. “I’m pretty tied up here.”
“I’d go myself but I can’t leave the kids and I’m worried about her. Please, Lucie? If you could just swing by and see what’s up, I’ll owe you. It’ll take you less than fifteen minutes.”
I propped my bad leg up on the credenza and stared at the photos lined up on it. Framed pictures of my parents, Chantal and Leland Montgomery—now both dead—as well as my brother Eli with his wife and daughter, my sister Mia, Hector and his family, and photos taken with Quinn, our current winemaker, and Jacques, our former winemaker, with our crews at harvest. I picked up a silver-framed photo of Dominique and Joe at the Goose Creek Inn’s fortieth anniversary party when she officially took over as owner. Both of them laughing and clowning as they fed each other cake. Except for the clothes they were wearing it could have been their wedding day.
He had been trying to get her to set a date for the past few years but my workaholic cousin always found a reason to postpone. Joe was a patient man, a good man—like an older brother to me.
“All right,” I said. “How do I get in touch with you after I check the Fox and Hound?”
I heard his sigh of relief. “Call the school and they’ll put you through to the phone in my classroom. And thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said.
I’d left my new car, a red Mini Cooper convertible with white racing stripes, in the winery parking lot. I put the top down and grabbed a baseball cap from the backseat to keep my hair from blowing in my eyes.
Many of the roads around Atoka and Middleburg were ancient Indian trails now lined by Civil War–era stacked stone walls. Some were paved but many were still dirt or gravel because this was also horse-and-hunt country and it was better for the horses. Almost all of these pretty country lanes were hilly, filled with twists and turns that followed the contours of the land or Goose Creek as it meandered its way to the Potomac River just past Leesburg. I could drive them with my eyes closed because I knew them so well, but the corners were treacherous for anyone new to the area or not paying attention.
The bright yellow SUV lay on its roof in Goose Creek at a sharp elbow bend in Atoka Road. The moment I saw it I knew it was Valerie’s. I pulled off the road and reached for my phone, murmuring a prayer. As near as I could tell she had made no effort to get out of the SUV.
The woman who answered my 911 call asked calm, quiet questions. I gave her what little information I could. She promised help was on the way and I hung up.
I waded into the chilly water until I got close enough to see inside the car. When I did, I felt sick. Valerie hung suspended upside down, trapped by her seat belt. Her face was bloody and she wasn’t moving.
I wondered if I was too late and she was already dead.
Chapter 2
I didn’t expect the water to be so cold, nor the current so strong. Fortunately the creek was only knee-deep where her car had gone in and I could use my cane to keep steady against the swiftly flowing water.
I called her name as I looked through the passenger window, but she didn’t stir. The car was full of water as high as the creek level. The noise as it rushed through the open windows roared in my ears. Near Valerie’s body it was a pale shade of pink and my stomach churned some more.
I guessed that her car must have rolled like a barrel down the embankment head first because the roof was crushed in at the windshield and her airbag had been deployed, meaning the front end had struck something solid. A faint gunpowder odor still permeated the air inside the car. So far Valerie’s face was above water but the caved-in
