The Sauvignon Secret

Brooke’s number and called.

She answered after a few rings, sounding sleepy. “’Lo?”

“Brooke, it’s Lucie Montgomery. I’m sorry, is this a bad time?”

“No … wait, hang on a second, will you? I just need to throw on a pair of jeans.”

“You can call me back—”

I heard the male voice in the background asking something, then her giggle and a murmured reply.

“Two cafés au lait.” Someone called my order and set the coffees on the bar.

I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “Sorry, I’ve got to go. My flight’s leaving and I’ve got to get back to the gate. Mick Dunne will call you to sort this out.”

I disconnected before she could reply and grabbed the cardboard carton with the coffees, nearly tipping one of them over as I did. A man next to me reached out and saved the cup just in time.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Yes, fine. Thank you so much.” I stuffed a bunch of napkins into the carton and fled.

The male voice on the other end of the receiver had been muffled, but of course I recognized it.

Quinn.

Chapter 19

I didn’t even make it to the gate when my phone rang again. This time it was Quinn. I had no intention of taking that call. Not now, not ever.

He hated commitment, any commitment, so he had done what he always did when he felt the walls closing in. Found some sweet young nymph and had a quick roll in the hay to prove he was still free and unfettered. I knew all his girlfriends; he always picked someone who wanted to have fun without getting serious. No strings attached, no hard feelings when it ended.

The phone beeped that I had a message. Pépé looked up from his reading and I handed him his coffee.

“Quelque chose ne va pas, chérie?” he asked. “Tu as l’air troublée.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “I’m fine. I spilled one of the coffees, so it was a mess. That’s all.”

He nodded and went back to his papers. I walked over to the window where I watched our plane pull up to the gate and deleted the message without listening to it. Then I drank my coffee and waited to board our flight back to Virginia.

Pépé and I finally talked about Teddy Fargo on the plane, cocooned in the relative privacy of our first-class seats, our quiet voices inaudible to anyone sitting near us above the noise of the engines. My grandfather pressed his hands together in front of his lips as though he were praying as I took out the blurry photographs of the Mandrake Society and laid them on his tray table.

I waited while he studied them, wondering what he’d finally say, since I’d colored way outside the lines, bringing Quinn in on this, tracking down Allen, and searching Mel Racine’s wine vault.

“Whoever this guy was—Fargo or Graf—apparently he was into drugs. He was growing marijuana in the hills behind his vineyard and he was dealing,” I said. “That’s why he disappeared. Charles got it all wrong.”

“But Charles was right that Teddy Fargo was Theo Graf, wasn’t he?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

“You are sure. I can tell. You just don’t have proof, any more than Charles did.”

I pulled out the last two photos.

“Stephen Falcone.” I set down the yearbook portrait.

My grandfather focused on it, nodding.

“And this one.” I placed the explicit photo in front of him. “Charles never said a word about his affair with Maggie Hilliard, who was Theo’s girlfriend. I wonder why he lied about it. I also wonder if he lied about being at the beach house the night she died.”

Pépé’s expression shifted from shock to disgust. He flipped over the picture and shoved it to a corner of the tray table.

“Where did you get that?” His voice was sharp. “Juliette must never see it.”

“Mel Racine had it.”

“You took it to blackmail Charles?”

I blushed. “I took it because it proves he lied.”

“And what do you expect to do with it?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I think Charles lied about a lot of things.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, if he was keeping track of everyone in the Mandrake Society, wouldn’t he know that Teddy Graf disappeared because of the drugs? Especially if he thought Graf was really Theo?”

“Maybe he didn’t know about the drugs.” My grandfather still sounded angry. “As for why he said nothing, Charles operates on a need-to-know basis with everyone, including his wife. Surely you’ve figured that out by now?”

“Please, Pépé, don’t shoot the messenger. Whose side are you on?”

“Yours,” he said, “but I am thinking in the same calculated manner Charles would.”

“I’d like to know why he lied about the affair with Maggie. It would have been useful to know he was involved with Theo’s girlfriend before he sent me off to California to check out whether Theo was still alive and living under an alias.”

“It probably never occurred to him you’d find out about it.”

“Well, I did.”

“Charles’s womanizing, his petites amies, has always been an open secret. It destroyed his first marriage. Juliette knew about it, but she believed she could change him, and, of course, she was wrong. His infidelities hurt her deeply, even if he is discreet.”

Charles was discreet, all right. A private lodge in the woods and a groundskeeper who drove guests home after hours and kept his mouth shut.

“You don’t like him, do you?” I said.

“He is the husband of a very dear friend. If I want to see her, I have to spend time with him, n’est-ce pas?”

He’d avoided the question. But that was Pépé, a gentleman who would never behave improperly toward another man’s wife, who believed in the sanctity of marriage, that the traditional vows—for better or worse, ’til death do us part—meant what they meant.

A flight attendant set down our menus and began taking drink orders for the first-class passengers at the front of the cabin. I scooped up the photos and tucked them into my purse.

“Since I presume you are going to show Charles this photo, or at least make him aware of it, suppose he admits the affair with Maggie?” Pépé said. “What of it?”

“I’m betting he knows what really happened the night she died.”

Pépé steepled his fingers and I wished I could read his mind. So far our conversation had been like a lawyer gently cross-examining a nervous witness, giving no hint that the hammer was about to come down.

“And you believe he will make a confession to you? Lucie, don’t be naïve.” He leaned back in his seat. “He won’t say a word.”

The rebuff stung, even if it was probably true. “If Charles had any culpability in Maggie’s death, he’s managed to get away with it a very long time. I think he’s worried Theo discovered something that could incriminate him and the truth will finally come out,” I said.

“Theo is gone and Charles won’t talk. Nothing will come out.” Pépé sounded just like Quinn. “You don’t need to get involved. And you haven’t told me why you are so sure this man Fargo is Theo Graf.”