“I think I’ll just stay right here.”
“And wait for Mosby?”
His laugh sounded like a pig hunting truffles. “Maybe. He could be along any minute.”
“I have a better idea. You come home with me.” I blew out the candles and put them back where he’d found them. “The moon’s out from behind the clouds. Let’s go while we can see our way. I don’t want to fall and break my leg.”
“The drunk leading the lame or the other way around?” He hiccupped. “Sorry, babe. That was stupid. I didn’t mean it.”
“Forget it.”
It hurt, but he was too drunk and depressed to take him seriously right now.
I helped him up and he leaned on me as we staggered to the staircase. It felt like I was dragging an anchor for the
“First one to get back to the house wins.” Eli fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his car keys.
I held out my hand. “I’m going to win because you’re either walking or riding with me. I suggest the ride, so hand ’em over, sport.”
He looked annoyed but at least he didn’t protest. Instead he shoved the keys in his pocket and let me help him into the passenger seat of the Mini.
“I wonder who left those matches and candles there.” I started the engine and backed on to the main road.
“Mosby.”
“I’m serious.”
“You ’lose and clock both gates every night?”
“Close and lock? Of course. Quinn takes care of it himself.”
He shrugged. “Maybe you’ve got people who sneak in shum other way.”
Which is what I’d suggested to Bobby and he’d pooh-poohed it. Unless it was someone who was here on a regular basis and didn’t need to sneak in. Had Quinn used it for trysts with one of his girlfriends? Chance? Tyler?
I drove back to the house in the quiet darkness, the silence broken only by the waning sound of the cicadas. We couldn’t possibly patrol all five hundred acres of this farm, nor keep someone out if he or she really wanted to gain access to the property.
“I’m gonna call Brandi when we get back to the house,” Eli said all of a sudden. “Have a lil talk with her.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Eli.”
“Why not? Tell the lil woman she’s makin’ a huge mishtake. She needs to know.”
“Maybe you should sleep on it.”
“Who you tellin’ what to do? I’m the man of my own housh.”
Once when we had to deal with an extremely inebriated client who’d become hostile during a wine tasting, Tyler had recited something in Latin. I couldn’t remember the words, but I did remember the translation: To quarrel with a drunk is to wrong a man who is not even there.
I hoped Eli wouldn’t call Brandi. But right now, I was talking to a man who wasn’t there. Which was a pity because after tonight’s discussion—all teasing about Mosby’s ghost aside—I wouldn’t have minded the sober comfort of a coherent conversation with my brother to shake off my worries.
Instead I put him to bed and undressed in my own room as the tree branches made skeletal patterns against my windows in the shifting moonlight. Too much talk of ghosts and spirits and hauntings. Mosby, Beau Kinkaid, the restless spirits at Ball’s Bluff.
I climbed into bed and lay there, rigid with the irrational fears I knew would seem foolish by morning. I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to come.
Chapter 17
We spent Wednesday getting the equipment ready so we could bring the Riesling in the next day before Edouard’s rains arrived. Quinn’s commands were barked orders rather than the usual banter that went on with the cellar rats in the barrel room and the field crew, which only served to further ratchet up tension.
We weren’t the only vineyard in the region that decided to pick early, meaning there would be competition to get the experienced pickers. Last spring when we needed extra help for pruning, Chance hired a crew of day laborers from the migrant camp in Winchester. Unfortunately, none of them had ever held a pair of pruning shears before, much less worked in a vineyard. They either cut too much or too little and the result was a disaster.
Around ten o’clock I went over to the barrel room to check on things, arriving just in time to hear Quinn telling Chance not to bring him another inexperienced crew or else.
“You get over to the day laborer place early,” he was saying, “and you get me guys who know the difference between the sharp end of a pair of shears and the one with the holes for their fingers.”
The two of them faced each other near the row of stainless-steel tanks, Quinn’s voice echoing in the large space, reverberating with anger. Off to one side, Javier, Benny, and Tyler looked on. Tyler’s eyes were huge behind his glasses and Benny kept folding and unfolding the bill of his baseball cap like a book. Javier saw me come in. He glanced over and shook his head, warning me to stay where I was. The others didn’t notice.
“If you don’t like the crew I get for you, why don’t you take care of it yourself?” Chance replied.
“Because it’s your goddamn job, that’s why.”
“Then back off and let me do it.”
“Who are you telling to back off, asshole?”
It was over in seconds. Quinn lunged at Chance as Javier grabbed Quinn’s arms, speaking to him in rapid-fire Spanish. Chance looked like he was ready to start shoving Quinn, but Benny stepped in and pinned Chance’s hands behind his back. Chance tried to wrestle free.
“Don’t, Chance,” Tyler said. “Don’t do it.”
“Stop it, both of you! There will be no fighting here. Is that understood?” I walked toward them.
All of them froze, and Quinn turned toward me first, lowering his arms to his sides. He still looked like he regretted not throwing a punch or two. Chance shrugged off Benny like unwanted clothing and folded his arms across his chest, a hostile expression on his face.
“Everybody out of here except Quinn,” I said. “Chance, meet me in the villa in ten minutes. Benny and Javier, maybe you want to go for a smoke. Tyler…I don’t know. Take a break, okay?”
They filed past me, eyes downcast. The metal door to the barrel room clanked shut. Quinn looked elsewhere as they left, stoking my anger.
“Are you out of your mind? What was that all about? If Benny and Javier hadn’t stepped in, you and Chance would have gone at each other like a couple of street fighters. And you started it.”
He held up his hands. “Don’t talk to me about who started what. You know what I just found out? Either there are some cases of wine missing or our records are totally screwed up because the numbers don’t add up. And I haven’t got the goddamn time to deal with it now.”
“Are you accusing Chance—?”
“Him. Tyler. Somebody. I don’t know. Either way, Chance is a total screwup.” He ran a hand through his hair, more weary and at the end of his rope than I’d seen him before. “Dammit, Lucie. I want him out of here.”
I pressed my lips together. I didn’t need this right now. A squabble between two macho guys with egos, Chance accusing Quinn of abuse; Quinn claiming Chance was incompetent. The timing was lousy, on top of all our other problems.
“I don’t want to have this conversation right now,” I said. “We have the Riesling to get in tomorrow before the rain gets here. The reenactment’s this weekend. Harvest is biting us in the butt. Let’s get through the next few days without anyone spilling blood, okay? Back off with Chance and I’ll deal with him. I promise I’ll sit on him. You just steer clear of him.”
Quinn shook his head at the folly of my words. “You’re going to be sorry if we don’t cut him loose
