The Sauvignon Secret

“What,” Pépé asked, “is a beef jerky?”

“Dried, cut-up shoe leather,” I said. “Comes in different flavors to disguise the actual taste.”

“It’s guy food,” Eli told him. “Women don’t appreciate it. I bet it doesn’t have a sell-by date, either. It’s good for years.”

“Right, and it probably doesn’t break down in landfills if you ever throw it out. It’ll be around in the next millennium when aliens land on Earth to study the extinct human race, which died out from a diet of hydrogenated fat, processed white flour, and refined sugar.”

Eli rolled his eyes. “I take it you won’t mind if I move Quinn’s box into the carriage house? I’ve nearly got the place set up as an office. You have no idea how long I can keep going at one in the morning with a couple of Twinkies, a can of Red Bull, and a package of chipotle-flavored beef jerky.”

“Gross, that’s just so gross, Eli, but be my guest.” Hope left Pépé’s side and came back over to climb onto the glider. I stroked her hair and pulled her to me. “What are you going to do today, sweet pea?”

“Play with Daddy,” she said, smiling. “And my dolls.”

Eli scooped her up. “First we’re going to have breakfast,” he said. “And then Daddy will play with you. But after that, I have a new friend for you. Her name is Jasmine. You’re gonna like her, honey. She’ll play with you this afternoon while Daddy has a meeting for his work. Okay?”

Eli caught my surprised look. “Hey, Luce, chill, okay? I talked to Jasmine and she agreed to babysit if she was free. Cheaper than day care, and she’s a sweet kid. I think it will work out fine.”

“Uh-huh. My, what big teeth you have, Grandpa. You could have asked me to babysit.”

“You were in California.”

“I’m here now.”

“It’s all worked out with Jasmine,” he said. “She’s babysitting for a couple of hours this afternoon before her shift at the Inn. Tomorrow she’s going to be here from two o’clock on to set up for that Hundred-Mile dinner you and Dominique have got going on, so she said Hope can spend some time with her while I check on a job site. She might help me out on the weekend, too. After that, we’ll see how it goes.”

He sounded huffy and a little self-righteous. Eli and I knew each other so well we could practically finish each other’s sentences. How it was going to go was that next he’d be asking Jasmine on a date. I’d seen the way he looked at her the other night at the dance. He’d been captivated.

“Daddy, what’s wrong?” Hope asked. “You look all puffed-up, like a fishy.”

She made a face like she was about to explode. Eli’s eyes skittered across my face and I managed not to burst out laughing.

“A puffed-up fish? You don’t say? Uh, sweetie, how about some breakfast, a nice toaster pastry? There might be some chocolate ones.” He glared at me. “No comments from the peanut gallery, okay? We’ll have the food pyramid discussion another time.”

I made a face like a fish breathing in and out, then zipped my finger across my lips. He gave me another martyred look as the screen door slammed behind them, Hope’s happy singsong chatter and Eli’s patient answers receding until it was just Pépé and me again.

“Elle est adorable,” he said. “Un trésor.”

“She is adorable,” I said. “I’m glad they’re living here now, even if there are times when Eli and I want to kill each other like we did when we were kids.”

He smiled. “Jasmine—the pretty, dark-haired girl who was helping Dominique at Charles’s and Juliette’s party?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you want her to babysit Hope?”

“I think I’m more worried about her babysitting Eli … which is what I think he has in mind, ultimately.”

Pépé laughed. “Maybe you should let him make that decision for himself.”

It wasn’t often my grandfather pulled me in line.

“Fair enough.” I shrugged. “I’ve talked to her for probably a total of fifteen minutes so it’s not like I know her well. Dominique thinks the world of her, and I guess she’ll be at the Inn this afternoon when we meet Charles.”

Pépé sat back against the cushions of the love seat and stared at the long, low sweep of the Blue Ridge, exhaling dragon-fire smoke.

“Charles,” he said, finally. “He has always been a vain man with a monstrous ego. But I have managed to overlook that—we all have our flaws—because he is also intelligent and very shrewd. He was an excellent ambassador for your country. And, of course, he’s Juliette’s husband.”

“You care for her a lot, don’t you?”

He nodded without looking at me. “She’s not herself these days. I am worried about her.”

“I can tell.”

“You know, I once thought I’d do anything for her. All she had to do was ask. But now there’s one thing I won’t do.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

He turned to me with eyes full of pain. “Save Charles.”

Chapter 20

The Goose Creek Inn is tucked away like a secret in an L-shaped wooded bend on Foxcroft Road, next to the creek that gave the place its name. A rambling, half-timbered building surrounded by native flowering cherry trees and dogwoods, the front entrance has a tranquil Japanese garden with a small waterfall, a terrace framed by flower-filled border gardens, and an ivy-covered springhouse that is a favorite of wedding photographers. At night it is an enchanted jewel, with its graceful low profile and the surrounding trees limned by twinkling white lights like hundreds of tiny stars.

Pépé and I arrived half an hour before we were due to meet Charles so Dominique and I could go over some last-minute items before tomorrow’s One-Hundred-Mile dinner. On Sunday, the day we flew to California, the Washington Tribune ran a front-page story in the Metro section about the economic benefits of shopping locally—focusing on our dinner that showcased only farms, dairies, and small businesses that grew or produced food within a one-hundred-mile radius of the vineyard. Kit had tipped me off about the piece, written by a colleague, but she hadn’t warned me that it would feature us so prominently. Since then, Frankie told me, the phone had rung off the hook and tickets for the dinner were snapped up by Monday at noon.

My cousin led us to a table overlooking Goose Creek, now a thready trickle in a cracked streambed. Earlier in the day the wind had changed direction, wringing the humidity out of the air so that it was pleasant enough to sit outside. The annual summer serenade of the cicadas had bloomed into a full-fledged symphony in the few days since we’d been gone, and somewhere two tree frogs called to each other. A waiter brought out a tray with four glasses and a chilled bottle of white in a cooler.

When he pulled out the bottle I saw the label: California Sauvignon Blanc. I must have looked startled because Dominique said, “What’s wrong, Lucie? Would you prefer something else? Un verre de rouge?”

“No, thanks; white’s fine.”

Why had that spooked me? Dominique knew nothing about my own bottle of wine being found next to Paul Noble’s body, nothing about the Mandrake Society or Charles’s setup, and what I’d been up to in California. Maybe it was just the coincidence and my nerves about the impending meeting with Charles.

“Jasmine will be out in a minute,” Dominique said as the waiter filled three of the glasses. “She and Gilles are taking care of an emergency for a retirement party we’ve got here tonight. The two of them have been running around like children with their heads cut off.”

“Oh, gosh, in that case don’t bother her. I just wanted to give you the latest ticket sales information to make sure we agree on numbers and go over the menu one more time. Frankie told me you changed two dishes because some things weren’t available anymore from a couple of the farmers.”

“That’s right,” she said, “but we could have discussed this over the phone, you know. Not that I’m not glad to