“Stop stalling.” He jerked my arm and yanked me up. “Get moving.”
My cane skidded off into the underbrush. “I can’t without my cane.”
“Yes you can. I’ve seen you.”
He hung on to my arm, forcing me to keep going. We had nearly reached the floodplain when I tripped over another tree root. This time I took him with me. We both tumbled into the brush and he seemed to go headfirst.
He swore as he got raked by brambles with thorns. A moment later he called my name and I held my breath, waiting.
“Dammit, Lucie. Answer me.”
I crawled back to the path. The river was only about ten yards away. I slid down to the floodplain like I was on a playground slide.
Would he come after me, or wait to see if I survived the current? Why wasn’t he shooting at me? Maybe he lost his gun in the bushes when we fell.
I kicked off my shoes and waded into the water. After my accident, I’d had daily sessions of hydrotherapy to strengthen my bad leg. Afterward I moved to my mother’s home in the south of France, where I swam almost daily. I was a good, strong swimmer. If I could keep up with the current, Harrison Island was probably, at most, fifteen or twenty minutes away. Even if the river took me downstream—as it probably would—I reckoned I could make it to the opposite shore before I ran out of land.
He called my name again and now something whizzed past my head. He’d found the gun, after all. I dove underwater and propelled myself off the river bottom. If he planned to follow, at least I had a head start. Before my accident I’d been on the track team and ran cross-country. The coach drummed into me that looking back to see who was chasing my tail could cost the race. I kept swimming and didn’t look back until my feet touched the river bottom once more. When I finally turned around, I didn’t recognize the scenery back on the Virginia side of the river. How far downstream had I drifted?
Wherever I was, Chance was gone.
Tyler had said Harrison Island was privately owned, a place for hunters. Deserted most of the time. I made my way through the underbrush and reached a flat, treeless place that looked like someone had plowed an enormous field that now lay fallow. On the horizon were several low buildings. A pickup truck was parked next to one of them.
A path wide enough for a vehicle skirted the perimeter of the field. I began walking toward the house but someone saw me before I got there.
The pickup began moving toward me, bouncing on the mud-rutted road.
I waved my arms in the air and waited as a memory of Chance driving across the field to find me the day the tornado ripped open Beau Kinkaid’s grave flashed through my head. How long had it been? Two weeks?
Now I knew the truth about who killed Beau, but I’d never be able to prove it. Chance was probably on his way out of town in my car. If he’d made a deal with Sumner to kill Ray Vitale, I reckoned it wouldn’t be long before one of them would rat out the other.
Annabel thought I wanted revenge for what she did to Leland, but she was wrong. I wanted justice. What I got—by default—was retribution. Annabel and Sumner might never be punished in this life for Beau’s murder, but they had to live with the burden of their guilt, now heavier for accusing my father, who was innocent, of their crime and corrupted from within by the revelation of Annabel’s infidelity.
Maybe it was cold comfort, but it was better than believing my father was a murderer. Even if my friends and neighbors thought differently, the talk would quiet down. Emma Hunt was right.
The pickup pulled alongside me. A girl who reminded me of Savannah Hayden sat behind the wheel.
“You lost?” she asked.
“Not anymore,” I said.
Chapter 27
The police found my car in Pennsylvania two days later. Chance and his girlfriend had vanished, but by now Bobby had told me that Chancellor Miller was one of many names he’d gone by over the past five years. The FBI was brought in because of the stolen credit cards and I cooperated fully, turning over as much information as I could provide so they could contact anyone whose credit cards might have been compromised.
Benny finally tracked down a couple of the laborers who had picked our Riesling, confirming what Chance had admitted about skimming their pay.
“We’re going to have a hell of a lot of fence mending to do to clean up our reputation,” Quinn said.
“I know,” I told him. “But we’ll clean it up. Speaking of which, Seth Hannah called. The Romeos would like to reschedule that barrel tasting.”
Quinn nodded. “I think that can be arranged.”
Within the week Tyler was cleared in the shooting of Ray Vitale once it was established that he’d been shot with a .44-caliber ball which couldn’t have come from Tyler’s Enfield rifle.
Annabel and Sumner returned to Charlottesville. I had no idea if they bought Mick’s horse, though sooner or later word would get around to the Romeos or Thelma and I’d find out one day at the General Store.
I told Bobby what I suspected about Sumner paying Chance to shoot Ray. He shook his head and told me so far they had turned up nothing to connect them.
“But don’t worry,” he said. “We’re looking. And when we get Miller, I’m sure he’ll roll on Chastain.”
We talked about it one evening when he and Kit came by the vineyard after work for a drink with Quinn and me.
We were sitting on the terrace, watching another spectacular sunset behind the Blue Ridge. Quinn looked weary after working flat out to salvage the Riesling, even though we’d never figured out what, if anything, Chance had done to sabotage it.
We were back on the subject of Chance, Sumner, and Ray Vitale.
“Chance, or whoever he is, had enough motive on his own to shoot Ray Vitale,” Bobby said. “He worked for Vitale a few years back. He’s the one who wrecked Vitale’s credit and ran up tens of thousands of dollars of bills.”
“Ray was going to sue Sumner,” I said. “B.J. and I were there when they argued in my parking lot.”
“We’ve been all over that,” Bobby said. “It’s a leap to say Chastain ordered a hit on Vitale and hired Chance to carry it out.”
“I think it’s the other way around. Chance went to Sumner with a proposition,” I said.
“You know, I understand how Chance swiped my card,” Kit said. “But who made those charges at Neiman Marcus with Frankie’s card?”
“I think I figured that out,” I said. “The day Brandi came by to see Eli, she threw her purse down on the bar stool. I found the store catalog on the floor after she left and stuck it behind the bar. When Chance helped out pouring wine, he probably took it. Lucky for him it had her address on it, too. Made it easier to cast suspicion on Eli or Brandi.”
Kit shook her head. “Go figure. What about Sumner killing Beau?” she asked.
“Sumner never admitted it,” I said. “But I know he did it to protect Annabel.”
Bobby finished his wine and covered Kit’s hand with his.
“It’s an imperfect world,” he said. “We do the best we can and we go on to fight another day. I’ve learned to live with that or I’d go crazy.”
After they left, Quinn and I stayed on the terrace until it grew dark.
“Got any interest in seeing the Pleiades tonight?” he asked.
“I might.”
He looked sideways at me. “You don’t sound too excited.”
“Throw in dinner and I might be excited.”
