risk taking.
“What did I tell you?” Austin was saying. “Lucie’s friend. She’s responsible for this. I knew it.”
“He’s lying,” I said. “She didn’t do what he said she did.”
Mac clicked the remote, turning off the television. “Who the hell cares whose fault it is? Did you hear what he said? He’s freezing everything. All my money is with Harlan. Everything. My God, this is a catastrophe.”
“Asher said he’s good for the money. Let’s not panic. Harlan’s never let us down before.” Austin sounded like he was trying to persuade himself, along with Mac and me.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Austin. It’s gonna be a goddamn stampede.” Mac picked up the phone again. “I’m calling Harlan. I want my money
“All right, maybe you’re right. But let’s be smart about this. Close the store and I’ll drive us into D.C. We’ll talk to Harlan face-to-face. Get to the bottom of what’s going on.” Austin eyed me. “It’s also possible Asher was telling the truth about that woman. That the money’s parked in an account somewhere and they’ll find it.”
I felt numb. “Rebecca didn’t steal any money.”
“How do you know?” Mac’s pale blue eyes were icy and the color had drained from his face. “She’s gone, isn’t she? And no one’s found her.”
He took his pin-striped charcoal gray suit jacket off a hanger on an antique coatrack and put it on with stiff, angry movements.
“Yes, but I know—” I began, then shut up. What did I know?
I’d told Ian that I believed Rebecca had faked her death after leaving behind information—somewhere—that would expose what was going on at Asher Investments. But to be honest, it was possible she had stolen enough money to set herself up so she could live a comfortable life off the grid. Maybe she hadn’t left behind anything for Ian and me to find but an apology … or an explanation.
And what about her pregnancy? How did that fit in?
“Go on,” Mac said. “You were saying?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Except that I can’t believe that Rebecca did what Tommy Asher just said she did.”
“Well, I’m sure she’s grateful for your loyalty.” Austin didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm. “Wherever she is. Come on, Mac. Let’s get out of here and talk to Harlan. Get some straight answers from that boy. Because if Asher is lying about being able to make good on our investments, then all my money—everything I own—just went up in smoke.”
I abandoned my plan to check out the stretch of Mosby’s Highway by Mickie Gordon Park and drove back to the vineyard instead. Frankie took one look at me when I walked through the door and got a bottle of wine from the refrigerator.
“I think we’ll have this with our lunch,” she said.
I looked at the wine. Viognier. How many days had it been since the Ashers’ gala when Harlan and I shared a laugh over the fact that it meant “road to hell”? Today was Thursday. Five days since last Saturday that seemed like five years.
Frankie handed me the bottle. “Here. You’d better open it now.”
The weather had warmed up enough to dine on the terrace. We brought sandwiches, dishes, and the white bakery bag from the Upper Crust to a table next to the railing. Frankie poured the wine as I sat there, numbly staring at the tidy rows of bare vines anchored by the timeless Blue Ridge. Somewhere a tractor motor started up, a comforting, placid thrumming. Probably one of the crew cutting the grass for the first time this year. Spring was definitely on its way.
The seasons would unfold as they always did, beginning with the hopefulness I felt each year at this time when winter was done and gone. In a few short weeks the vines would begin to bud and then they’d be flower- covered and fragrant. Later the grapes would emerge as
Life would go on with its rhythm and cycles, except this year would be unlike any other I’d known. Neighbors and friends could possibly lose everything they’d spent a lifetime working for—in some cases, money that had been in families for generations. No matter the wound was self-inflicted; if it happened, it was going to change Atoka for good.
And I was losing Quinn.
“You want to talk about it?” Frankie asked.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Try the beginning.”
I shrugged. Why keep it all inside anymore?
So I told her, except I left out Rebecca’s pregnancy test and my speculation that Harlan was probably the baby’s father. The story was lurid enough as it was.
“You think Rebecca did what Sir Thomas said she did?” Frankie asked. “Stole all that money?”
We finished our sandwiches and shared the cow puddles. She picked up the wine bottle and refilled our glasses.
“I think he’s blaming her for what he did, and she’s not around to defend herself or contradict him,” I said.
“You still think she’s alive, don’t you?” Frankie asked.
“Nothing would surprise me anymore.”
“Lucie.” Her voice was gentle. “Maybe you just want her to be alive because they haven’t found her body.”
“That’s a pretty good reason, don’t you think? Nor has anyone found ‘Robin Hood,’ the mysterious guy who gave the Madison wine cooler and her jewelry to that homeless man. That’s a lot of missing people.”
“All right, assuming you’re right, then who helped her disappear?”
I drank some wine. “I wish I knew.”
“Someone inside Asher Investments? Although they’d probably be in on the scam.” Frankie frowned, working out her own logic. “Wouldn’t they?”
“Not if it was confined to a very small circle that excluded Rebecca. If what Ian said is true, Rebecca didn’t know what was going on under her nose the first time he told her about his suspicions. She told him to go to hell,” I said.
“Then changed her mind and decided to help him once she found out he was right?” Frankie asked.
“I think so. Although that’s the million-dollar question—or billion-dollar question, in this case. What was it she left for Ian to find?”
And who was Rebecca’s ally? Someone I knew? Olivia Tarrant, Sir Thomas’s personal assistant? Simon deWolfe, his half brother? Olivia had purposely excluded Rebecca from her definition of who made it into what she called “the Asher family.” So I doubted she was the one. But what about Simon? He’d been in the perfect position that evening to meet up with Rebecca down by the river.
“You know,” Frankie said, “you might consider the obvious. That Sir Thomas is telling the truth about Rebecca.”
“Frankie, Rebecca did
“Just because she was your friend—”
“I know she didn’t do it.”
Frankie held up her hands like a shield. “Okay, okay. I give up.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I know you think I can’t be objective, or that I’m just being naïve—but I’m not.”
“It seems to me,” she said in her calm, reasoning way, “that Rebecca left quite a lot at your doorstep. Counted on your loyalty and your integrity to do something she wouldn’t do herself.”
The tractor motor cut off. I let her words sink in as a soft breeze rustled the tree branches and the birds twittered cheerfully. Was she right?
“Unless,” I said at last, “there was some reason Rebecca couldn’t do it herself.”
“What reason would that be? Aside from the possibility that she is, in fact, dead.”
I finished my wine. “I don’t know. But something must have changed. Maybe Rebecca and her partner made
