a plan, then something went wrong.”
“You don’t have to pick up the pieces, Lucie.”
She stood, lips pursed in disapproval, as she gathered our dishes and the other lunch debris. I grabbed the empty wine bottle and the two glasses as we cleaned up in silence.
In the kitchen she began stacking plates in the dishwasher. “What are you going to do now?”
“See if I can figure out what Rebecca left for Ian. She wanted me to know or she wouldn’t have set it up for the two of us to get together.”
“Lucie!” Frankie crushed the lunch wrappers into a tight ball. “Don’t do this! You don’t have to get involved. Do you want to end up like Ian?”
“I already am involved,” I said. “Whether I want to be or not, someone thinks I know more than I do.”
“Let the police handle it.”
“I tried. That detective … Horne … thinks I’m nuts. Anyway, there’s something else.”
“What?” She threw the papers into the trash.
“If it’s true that Asher Investments is nothing but a Ponzi scheme, people we care about could lose a lot of money.”
“No one held a gun to their heads and made them give their life savings to Harlan Jennings.”
“The Romeos, Frankie. Retired guys who worked in the community and still volunteer around here. They trusted Harlan—and why wouldn’t they? His father was a Romeo, too. One of them.”
She picked up the coffeepot and turned on the tap full force. Water splattered all over the sink. “I wonder if Harlan managed to get his money out in time. If he knew what was going on, then he’s as guilty as Asher is. If he was in the dark, you’ve got to wonder what was going through his head that no warning bells ever went off.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Either way, he loses.”
She filled the pot and wiped the sink. “Walk away before it’s too late.”
I didn’t say anything. Too late was a long time ago. And now there was no one else to find what Rebecca had left behind except me.
Unfortunately my only clue lay buried in the poetry of a man who had been dead for two centuries.
Chapter 19
When I showed up in the barrel room later that afternoon for the Viognier bench trials, Quinn was sitting on a stool in the lab, twirling a pencil between his fingers. His mouth moved soundlessly as he stared into space and ignored the lab book, which sat open on the workbench in front of him.
“You’re talking to yourself,” I said.
“I’m doing mental calculations.” He squinted at me and slapped the book shut. “You look like you can hardly keep your eyes open. When’s the last time you got any sleep?”
“Last night.”
“You are one lousy liar.” He threw down the pencil. “Sure you want to work on the blend?”
I sighed. “Honestly, no. You got a better idea?”
“Why don’t we go somewhere, get lost for a while? Don’t tell the boss. She’s a slave driver.”
“That’s not what I heard. She’s hardworking, benevolent, and not appreciated nearly enough for what she does around here. She also, I might add, pays your salary.”
He grinned and stood up. “Let’s vamoose.”
He’d left the red Mule, one of our ATVs, on the crush pad. We owned two of them—red and green like Christmas. I put my cane on the backseat and climbed in beside him.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing is wrong.”
“No offense, but you weren’t doing mental calculations. When you run out of fingers, you take off your socks. You were talking to yourself when I walked in.”
He started the motor. “Take off my socks. Aren’t you funny.”
“Still avoiding the question.”
He shifted into gear and hit the gas. The Mule lurched forward and I grabbed the dashboard.
“I might have trouble financing the land I want to buy.” He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead.
I watched his profile and saw a muscle tighten in his jaw. Money woes. Him, too? Had one or several of his investors gotten sucked into the miasma of Asher Investments?
“Might or are?” I asked.
“I’m still working on that.”
“Have you talked to Seth? Maybe the bank—”
“It’s more complicated than that, believe me. Seth’s the first one I went to.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Nope. To be honest, I’d just as soon forget the whole thing for now.”
I knew him well enough to hear the clank of a drawbridge coming up, closing off that fortress of privacy he erected around himself. He had just shut me out.
We drove along the outer edge of the south vineyard, passing some of the first vines my parents had planted more than twenty years ago. Quinn seemed to have a destination in mind since he didn’t detour down the rows of Riesling or Chardonnay to check on things like we normally did when we were in the field together.
“Have you seen your mother’s trees lately?” he asked.
At this time of year, I knew exactly which trees he meant. Shortly before she died, my mother had planted a spectacular allée of flowering cherry trees just off the south service road near the larger of our two apple orchards. They reminded her of the trees that lined the drive at the entrance to my grandparents’ summer home in Provence.
“I haven’t been by in the last few days,” I said.
He turned the corner at the end of the Chardonnay block and the trees came into view in a blizzard of lacy pink flowers. Quinn parked the Mule and we got out.
“I love this place,” he said.
“So do I,” I said. “It’s so peaceful here. Nothing like the Tidal Basin. When I was there the other day you could hardly move. Beautiful as it is, it was like being in a packed Metro car.”
“I’ll take your word for it. That’s why they make postcards. I hate being jammed someplace like a sardine, especially when it’s outdoors.”
“Oh, come on. You have to see those trees for yourself at least once in your life. That’s like visiting Napa without stopping at a vineyard.”
He looked at me like I’d stabbed him through the heart. Before he moved to Virginia he’d been a winemaker in Napa.
“Next year we’ll go together,” I told him. “It’s too late this season. They’re past their peak.”
Quinn flung himself onto the wooden bench my brother and sister and I had put here under the trees last year on our mother’s birthday.
“Next year is a long way off. Who knows what I’ll be doing then?” He leaned back with his hands clasped behind his head and crossed one work boot over the other.
“What are you talking about?”
“I might not even be here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you will.”
I sat down next to him and ran a finger over the engraving on the brass plaque attached to the bench. A quote from Thomas Jefferson, whose
“I mean it,” he said. “I might not.”
He sounded serious. He wasn’t kidding around.
“Don’t say that.” My voice wavered. “You can’t leave.”
