“I might.”
“What happened?” Quinn asked. “It’s about Leland, isn’t it?”
“I think I offended Seth Hannah.”
“You think or you know?” he said.
I twisted my dish towel into a knot and Quinn threw up his hands. Frankie looked like she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to wait around to hear what came next or drop through the floorboards.
“Why don’t I call the people on the waiting list and let them know we’ve got space all of a sudden?” Her smile didn’t make it all the way to her eyes.
“Thanks, Frankie,” I said.
“Good idea,” Quinn said. “You know how I hate doing tastings when there’s nobody there.”
“I’d better get right to it.”
The door swung shut as she left. Quinn folded his arms across his chest. “What exactly did you say to Seth to royally piss him off?”
“I didn’t royally piss him off.”
“There’s another expression for it?”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
I ran a finger around and around the rim of a clean glass. “Bobby’s been questioning all the Romeos about Leland and Beau Kinkaid. Seth said he told Bobby that he didn’t know anything, but it didn’t stop him from insinuating that Leland probably did it because of the kind of person he was.”
“Bobby’s a big boy. I’m sure he can separate facts from insinuation.”
“You know what? If you repeat something often enough, regardless of whether or not it’s true, after a while people start believing it.”
Quinn set down my glass on the counter and put both hands on my shoulders. “People,” he said, “are going to talk and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Yes, there is.”
He looked at me like I’d already lost not only the battle but the whole damn war.
“No. Not this time.”
“I can prove Leland’s innocent. That’ll stop the talk.”
He let go of my shoulders. “There’s no way you can do that. No evidence, nothing. You can’t go up against Bobby.”
“I can’t let the Romeos imply that because Leland and Beau had a business deal that went bad, he’s the obvious candidate to be the murderer. If that were true, I know a lot of people who’d qualify as potential killers. That includes me and a bunch of the Romeos themselves.”
Quinn finished filling the wine box with clean glasses and closed it up.
“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?” he asked.
I folded the dish towel and slapped it on the counter.
“They shouldn’t throw boomerangs.”
Just like Saturday, Sunday’s first crisis erupted right before we opened. Eli’s wife, Brandi, walked through the front door of the villa and the room went quiet.
There are those who spread joy and sunshine because they’ve got such positive, upbeat personalities that people feel good just by being around them. My sister-in-law was not one of these people.
Beautiful, absolutely. Stunning, even a knockout. Unfortunately, although Brandi possessed the kind of classic dark-haired looks that made people think of kohl-eyed women who graced Grecian urns or inspired men to launch a thousand ships, it was paired with a personality as two-dimensional as a wine label.
My brother had fallen hard for her and every time she wanted him to hang the moon someplace different— which she often did—he never thought twice about dropping everything to fetch the ladder. I do believe he’d commit murder for her without hesitating.
At first I wondered if the two of them had set up this meeting and Eli had forgotten to mention she’d be dropping by. But the moment I saw the look of expectant hope in his eyes, replaced quickly by a mask of cool resignation, I knew it was unplanned and likely to be combustible.
“Hey, princess.” Eli sounded wary. “You look pretty. New outfit? Where’s Hope?”
Brandi wore an expensive-looking red sheath dress with a plunging neckline and a racy slit that exposed a tanned thigh. Black patent leather belt, black sling-back sandals. A ruby and diamond necklace and matching drop earrings. Eli could be in hock until the next millennium just from her jewelry purchases.
Her heels clacked on the quarry tile floor as she crossed the room, tossing her head like a runway model, well aware that all eyes were fixed on her. Frankie disappeared into the kitchen, dragging Gina. Quinn, who had been taking wine bottles out of boxes along with Eli, stopped and folded his arms like a spectator watching a sports event. I quit filling goblets with the small oyster crackers we served during tastings. The air crackled like she’d just laid down a live high-voltage line.
“Hope is with my mother. We need to talk, Eli. I’m broke and I need money. I can’t go on like this.” Her words came out in a torrent as she flung her Coach purse down on a bar stool. She seemed oblivious to her audience.
My brother came from behind the bar like he was about to step into the lion’s cage without a chair or a whip.
“Look, sweetheart, let’s go on outside and talk about it. I told you. I can’t get you anything for a few days —”
“Don’t give me that crap. I’m tired of it. What do you expect me to do in the meantime? Get it out of thin air?” She snapped her fingers in his face. “I don’t even answer the phone anymore because it’s always a collection agency. I’m on goddamn tranquilizers now to deal with the stress. I don’t care if you have to rob a bank, but you’d better do something. Do you understand me?”
Her voice, like her nerves, seemed to fray as she spoke. Eli took her arm.
“Let’s go home, babe.” He sounded calm, despite the red rising on his cheeks. I wondered how often he’d placated her like this before. “We’ll talk about it there. Have dinner tonight, work it all out—”
She wrenched her arm out of his grasp. “Don’t touch me! What are you, insane? It’s over, Eli. I told you already. The only reason you can come home is to get your stuff. What you haven’t moved out by the end of the day tomorrow will be on the street to be picked up with the trash.”
Her words landed like blows, except they were meant to humiliate as well as wound. I held my breath and waited to see what my brother would do. For a moment the only sound in the room was the rushing of the wind through the open French doors.
A muscle twitched in Quinn’s jaw. He was biting his tongue like I was as Brandi faced Eli, her beautiful features twisted into the uncontrolled fury of a harpy.
“It’s still my house.” Eli maintained that surreal deadpan calm but now there was a steeliness in his voice. “And we’re going to finish this conversation somewhere else.”
He grabbed her purse and thrust it at her. “Get going.”
“Don’t you talk to me—”
“I said, move it.”
Brandi looked as if he’d actually slapped her, but for once she didn’t have a sharp-edged retort. Eli’s eyes met mine as she tucked her bag under her arm and stalked across the room, head high in an attempt to salvage her dignity. Eli followed, hands in his pockets, eyes straight ahead.
I did not want to think about where the rest of that discussion would take them. Eli didn’t slam the door, but he did close it with some force.
Quinn broke the silence first. “I’d give her a good spanking.”
“I know you would. What do you bet Eli caves in and buys her something once he calms her down.”
“A straitjacket?”
“Only if Versace makes them.” I paused. “Look, I’m sorry about that scene—”
“Forget it. It wasn’t your fault and no apology’s necessary.” He shoved an empty wine box under the bar. “I smell coffee in the kitchen. Frankie probably made a fresh pot. Let’s get some.”
