“Don’t you need to get that call?”
He gave me his warm smile. “I call her back later.”
“Thank you for doing this, Antonio.”
“You gonna lock the doors when I go, okay?” he said. “I’m going to drive around Sycamore Lane one more time and check the front gate by Atoka Road. Want me to call you when I’m done?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
We walked to my front door. Antonio peered through one of the sidelights.
“Looks quiet.” He pulled his gun anyway and my heart started hammering again.
He waited outside until I locked the door. Then he got into the pickup and I watched until his taillights disappeared.
There was no way I was going to sleep tonight. I found one of my mother’s crocheted afghans in an antique carved cedar chest in the back hallway and brought it into the library. Then I locked a door that led from the kitchen through that hallway to a staircase to the second floor. If anyone got into the house, I wanted them to come through the central foyer, not sneak upstairs the back way.
My cell phone rang and I almost dropped my gun. Antonio, reporting that all was quiet. I tried Quinn’s number one more time, but it went to voice mail, so I disconnected without leaving a message.
I pulled the curtains shut and settled down on the sofa, positioning myself so I could see through the doorway into the foyer. I sat there with my eyes on the door and my hand inches from my gun, waiting until morning.
The shelf clock chiming in the parlor across the foyer woke me at five. It was still dark and the sun wouldn’t be up until six thirty. I had dozed off and on, possibly even slept a little, but the inside of my eyelids felt like they were coated with sandpaper.
I got up and made coffee. One more night like this and I’d be walking around like the living dead. By the time I showered and got dressed, the lacquered pearl sky promised a sweet spring day. Last night’s fears receded. I walked into my bedroom and looked at my unslept-in bed. Maybe if I just lay down for a few minutes…
The next time I woke up, the telephone on my nightstand was ringing, sunlight was streaming through the windows, and it was nine thirty. I sat up and answered the phone.
It was Frankie. “You okay? I thought you were coming by the villa this morning to go over the events calendar.”
“I overslept. Sorry. Can we do it later?”
“Sure.” She sounded puzzled. “Is something wrong?”
“I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Did everything go okay in D.C.? Did you see that woman from the Hill? What happened when you talked to the cops?”
How much did I want to share with her, especially after what had happened last night? No point alarming her right now.
“Everything went fine in D.C., I did see the woman on the Hill, and nothing happened when I talked to that detective.”
“That’s all you’ve got to say?”
“Pretty much.”
Silence on her end. Frankie wasn’t used to me shutting her out, but right now it seemed the less she knew, the better. I didn’t want to tell her I’d slept with a gun last night, though it probably wouldn’t be long before she weaseled that information out of Antonio.
“I’ve got to go to Middleburg for an errand,” I said. “I’ll be in later, okay?”
“How about if I order lunch for us here? Just the two of us.” She switched to the sweet, persuasive voice she used to bend someone to her will. “I’ll get sandwiches from the deli and a couple of cow puddles from the Upper Crust. Your favorite. Then you can tell me what really happened.”
“I don’t succumb easily to bribes.”
“Make an exception. You’re a walking zombie lately, Lucie. You can’t keep all this stuff bottled up inside.”
She waited.
“Okay,” I said. “Noon.”
“Good,” she said. “I’ll be all ears.”
Quinn called on my way out the front door.
“I just went for a little drive with Antonio.” His voice sounded unnaturally calm. “Out on Mosby’s Highway near Mickie Gordon Park.”
“Oh?” My hand tightened around the phone. “How’d it go?”
“Just fine. Nothing out there to report.”
That couldn’t be true.
“Are you sure? No dead deer by the roadside, maybe?”
The other car had struck it head-on. I was sure it went through the windshield. If the animal hadn’t died instantly, I didn’t see how it could have survived the night. Had Animal Control hauled away the carcass so quickly? Usually it took them a few days.
“Just a dead squirrel. That’s all.” He paused. “So how come you went to Antonio last night and not me?”
“You weren’t home and your phone was set to voice mail. The guy who followed me hit a deer, not a squirrel.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but the only roadkill was that squirrel. And I was playing poker with a couple of guys. Got home by ten. There weren’t any messages from you.”
“I didn’t leave any.”
“Why not?”
I didn’t like his challenging tone. What right did he have to jump all over me? I was the one who’d been chased by some nut driving like he was at a NASCAR rally, not him.
“I don’t know why not. Look, everything worked out fine. Antonio got me set up with Leland’s forty-five so if anybody had gotten into the house, I would have been able to defend myself.”
“You slept with a gun last night? Jesus, Lucie.”
“I didn’t actually sleep with it. It was beside me on the coffee table.”
I heard him mutter something that sounded profane. “You should have told me, left a message, something. Why in the hell didn’t you?”
I was tired and irritable, and, since he asked for it, I gave it to him.
“Because in a couple of months or maybe weeks you’re not going to be here anymore, that’s why. I figured I might as well start getting used to it. I heard you went to look at the Jenningses’ land yesterday. Did you buy it?”
There was another long silence on his end and I knew my remark had been the start of drawing the boundaries of how it would be between us once he left.
“No,” he said in a quiet voice. “I didn’t.”
“Why not, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I’ve got some money stuff to get in order first. But it’s a great piece of property. I’d like you to see it.”
I felt a small stab through my heart. “Sure. Anytime.”
“I’m racking over that bad lot of Viognier this morning,” he said. “It’s getting worse, so I decided we should at least try that and see if it helps. And I’m thinking about continuing the bench trials. Maybe this afternoon. Work for you?”
His voice was cool and back to all business.
“I’m having lunch with Frankie to go over the events calendar but I can do it after that.”
“Okay. See you this afternoon.”
“Right.”
I drove to Middleburg, feeling battered and bruised. Why had I told him I wanted to get used to life without him when I really wanted him not to leave? Why was it so hard to tell him that I still cared?
