by Harvey, JM
What had I done? I should have left this to Hunter.
Hunter!
I dug my new cell phone out and pulled up his number. As the phone rang, I walked to the front door, opened it and looked outside, hoping to see Midge Tidwell. Armand had said she was on her way over, but there were no patrol cars racing up the driveway to rescue me.
When Hunter answered, I started talking without a hello.
“I screwed up,” I said. “I told Armand about the labels. He’s furious,” that was putting it mildly. “I think he might do something crazy.”
“I asked you to stay out of this!” Hunter said, but there was no anger in his tone, just a weary resignation. For once I didn’t argue, because, for once, he was right. “Where is he?” Hunter demanded.
“At his house. Upstairs,” I said.
There was a pause before Hunter asked, “What are you doing upstairs at his house?” I detected a hint of a personal question there, maybe even a whiff of an accusation and of jealousy.
“God bless men!” I barked at him. “Just when I was feeling guilty, you say something offensive and I get a brand new reason to yell at you! I am not upstairs! Armand is!”
But Armand wasn’t upstairs anymore. I turned away from the front door to find him halfway down the stairs, an impossibly large and shiny silver pistol in his hand.
“You don’t need a gun, Armand!” I yelled.
“He’s got a gun?” Hunter asked with real alarm. But I didn’t answer him. My attention was focused on Armand.
“Out of my way, Claire,” Armand said in a cold, steady voice. He was heading straight at me, the pistol hanging at his side. He wasn’t even looking at me as he spoke. His eyes were unfocused, the skin of his face tight, every muscle and bone outlined, turning his handsome features into an ugly knot.
I stayed where I was, blocking the door. “Armand—”
“Dalla mia strada!” he bellowed, spraying spittle.
“No!” I yelled. “You’re not going anywhere with a gun!” I knew it was crazy to stand between the door and a man with a pistol, but I had started this and I was going to stop it. “Armand Rivincita! Hand me that gun this minute!” I commanded in my best angry-mother voice, a well-practiced one often used on Samson, Jess, and Victor. I thrust my free hand out, palm up. I was holding my phone loosely at my side, but I could still hear Hunter yelling.
Armand shook his head violently and took a purposeful step toward me. “No, Claire. I’m going to kill him and then I’m going to find Dimitri’s wife and ask her where my wine is. I’ll—”
I took a step toward him and thrust my hand out. “Now!”
For a moment, I thought he might bulldoze right over me, but, suddenly, his shoulders sagged and his eyes lost their fervor.
“Give it to me,” I said again, lowering my voice.
He wordlessly handed me the gun and I almost dropped to my knees with relief. But I had a loaded pistol in my hand. Quickly, I turned and stepped out onto the porch. My ankle screeched a protest as I crouched and dropped the gun gently into the woodchips covering the ground under the hedges. As I stood and turned back to the house, I put the phone to my ear.
“Claire!” Hunter yelled and I almost dropped the phone.
“I’m fine,” I said. “It was a false alarm. I have the gun.” I glanced at Armand and gave him a trembling smile. “Armand is just a little shaken up. But hurry.”
Hunter arrived twenty minutes later. He blasted up the driveway and skidded to a stop with a squall of rubber, the siren on his truck blaring, the lights in the grill pulsing blue and red. He was out of the car, his hand on his holstered pistol, before the truck had even stopped moving. By then, Armand and I were seated on the front steps side by side.
Armand hadn’t said much, but he seemed collected, though still angry.
“Millions gone,” he had said at one point, almost wistfully, his eyes on the two geese gliding across his pond. I had made no reply. He was probably correct to speak of his wine wistfully, though I still held out hope for my own wine. Nothing I had collected over the years was on a par with the Grand Cru and cult wines I suspected Blake had been stealing, though the library of my past vintages would likely have commanded a pretty penny. It was too depressing to think about.
Hunter approached us, his expression stony, his eyes fixed on Armand.
“You okay, Armand?” he asked, but there was a steel-edge to the courtesy and his hand was still on his pistol.
“He’s fine,” I said.
Hunter didn’t even look at me. “Armand?” he said again, a little more forcefully.
Armand looked up and nodded. “I’m fine, Sheriff,” he said. “Just got a little carried away.”
Hunter nodded noncommittally. “Where’s the gun?”
I pointed down into the hedges. Hunter stooped and picked it up. He ejected the clip and cleared the chamber.
“I’m going to hold onto this, if you don’t mind,” he told Armand with that same hard courtesy. It was clear he was taking the gun whether Armand minded or not.
Armand nodded and Hunter carried the gun back to his truck. He locked it in the glove box before coming back to join us.
“Hunter,” I said, and the frosty look he shot me almost shut me down, but I had to ask about Blake. “Have you found Blake?”
“No,” he said and that was all.
“He never came back to Star Crossed?”
“No.” He turned back to Armand, but I wasn’t done.
“What about the wine? Is the FBI or the State going to get involved?”
Hunter laughed harshly at that. “Nobody wants any part of it. I have a deputy posted there until we get this sorted out.”
“Just one deputy?” I asked. “Hunter, Bartlett is—”
“One man,” Hunter finished in a tone as sharp as a slap across the face. “I have four murder investigations going on right now. We’re spread pretty darn thin, Claire.”
I opened my mouth to say something indignant, but I didn’t get the chance.
“I need to speak to Armand. Alone,” Hunter said, his eyes unblinking and unrelenting. “You can wait for me at your home or in handcuffs in the back of the squad car. It’s your call.”
There was nothing I could say to that, but I gave him a look that could have peeled paint as I stood up. I slung my purse over my shoulder and walked past him. I climbed into my rental truck, banged the door closed, and drove away.
Chapter 30
I was angry as I drove home, both with myself and with Hunter…but mainly with Hunter. That was beginning to be a habit of late, and I had to wonder if it was possible for us to form a relationship for the long haul. That topic seemed more important now I was about to be a free woman.
If Hunter had only taken me seriously from the beginning, none of this would have happened. Of course, if I analyzed it step by step from his perspective, I could see the logic in all he had done. But, in the end, I had been right. That observation should have made me feel virtuous, but it only made me feel petty. It wouldn’t bring any of the dead back to life.
I arrived back at Violet to find the place deserted. I called Samson and Victor, wondering where they were. I was paying them to be there…and there was plenty to do. We had a delivery of new oak barrels due in from the cooper in Sonoma in three days and we needed to make room for them in the cellar. That meant the barrels of the 2012 would need to be moved to the front of the cellar and restacked for racking and bottling in the coming weeks. We also needed to assemble the bottling line. Just thinking of all I needed to do made me even wearier.
I had no taste for food, but I hadn’t eaten all day, so I forced myself to eat a sandwich as I made a pot of strong coffee. When I was finished with the sandwich, I took my cup and limped outside to the patio to await Hunter’s arrival.
The wisteria’s leaves were fading to burnt-red and yellow, their shade thinning as the leaves dropped away. Winter would arrive soon. Not a dramatic change in California, but here
on the slopes of the Mayacamas Mountains, the trees would shed their leaves and the temperature would dip dramatically at night. I sat there thinking maudlin thoughts like those and staring into my cup.
I was on my third cup of coffee, and wondering where Hunter was – it had been more than three hours since I left Armand’s - when Victor’s old truck rattled around the corner of the house. He didn’t stop in the driveway - he drove straight across the lawn and jerked to a stop beside the patio.
He jumped out and was talking fast and loud before his feet hit the ground. “Samson came back after you left this morning, but someone called him on his cell phone while we were punching down the wine. I don’t know what was said, but Samson was screaming in Greek when he blasted out of here ten seconds later. With the baseball bat. I’ve called him ten times but he’s not answering.”
“Oh, no,” I said, my heart filling with dread. Just when I thought this was over… “We need to check his house—“ I began, but Victor was shaking his head.
“That’s where I just came from. He’s not there and neither is Alexandra.”
“I need to call Hunter,” I said as I dug in my purse for my phone.
I had just pulled up Hunter’s number when Victor spoke in a hoarse whisper, “Oh, sweet Jesus, no.”
My head came up so fast I almost snapped my neck. Victor was looking down the steep slope to the valley below. I followed his gaze and saw a dark finger of inky smoke rising into the clear blue sky. And at the bottom of that column of smoke was Star Crossed’s wine cellar.
I shot to my feet and stared, too stunned to move for several seconds. But that immobility didn’t last long. Samson was missing and Star Crossed was on fire!
“Get in the truck, Victor!” I yelled as I took off at a hobbling run, pushing my bad ankle to its limits.
“What—?” he began but I was already clambering into the passenger side of his pickup.
I felt certain I knew exactly where Samson was at that moment.
But, God, I hoped I was wrong.
Victor drove far too fast down the narrow, sharply twisting road to the valley floor. We were only two hundred yards from my driveway when we almost had an accident. He took the curve at sixty miles per hour, coming whisker-close to a stretch of flimsy, rusted-out old guardrail. Beyond the rail, the rocky slope dropped away gently for twenty feet before it plunged straight down for a hundred feet into a boulder-strewn crevasse. I grabbed the dash, preparing for the screech of metal, but we made it past the railing – barely. He tapped the brake and slowed to fifty, still way too fast, for the next set of curves, but I didn’t protest. I was as anxious and frightened as he was.
At the bottom of the hill, he took a hard right onto the highway without stopping, his tires squealing on the asphalt as the truck’s rusted old chassis rattled and clattered. Two minutes later, we raced up Star Crossed’s driveway to the burning warehouse.
Oily-looking black smoke was seeping through the joints in the building’s metal hide and billowing from the open pedestrian door on the side of the building, creating an acrid haze that hung over the lawn and parking area and twisted wraithlike through the old orchard. My heart lunged into my throat when I saw Samson’s Jeep parked in front of the burning building, jammed in between a white Star Crossed van and Armand’s BMW.
The van’s driver side door was hanging open and the engine was still running. Lying on the gravel fifteen feet in front of its bumper was a uniformed Napa County deputy, sprawled out like a broken doll.
Victor stomped the brake and slid to a stop.
I leapt out of the truck and yelled, “First aid kit!” over my shoulder as I ran to the officer, wincing with every step on my sprained ankle. I dropped to my knees beside him and checked his pulse. He was young and dark haired, tall and gangling. His heart was racing and blood was leaking from his nose. He was breathing fast and shallow. There was dirt and grease on his uniform shirt. I surmised he had been rammed by the van. And I bet I knew who had been driving: Blake Becker.
Victor ran up beside me and thrust the first aid kit into my hands.
“Call the fire—” I began, but he already had the phone to his ear.
I mopped the blood away from the deputy’s face and he looked even younger. One more of Blake Becker’s victims. But where was Blake? And Samson and Armand? I stood abruptly and looked toward the house, then did a slow circle, scanning the orchard, the steep slope, and the dense trees that bounded the Becker property. No one was in sight. My eyes stopped on the warehouse’s open side door. The smoke pouring out of it was growing denser by the minute. They had to be inside the burning building.
I trotted to Victor’s truck, popped the glove box, snatched up his flashlight and ran for the warehouse doorway.
“Claire!” Victor yelled at my back, but I didn’t slow down. The gravel twisted and turned under my feet, giving poor footing for my bad ankle, but I reached the door and stopped dead just in front of it. Beyond the lintel, the warehouse was filled with dense clouds of smoke, though I saw no sign of the fire.
“Samson!” I yelled into the darkness. “Samson!” The smoke got deep in my lungs and I coughed, falling back a step and flailing my hand in front of my face. Victor ran up at that moment, grabbed my arm and tried to drag me further away, but I jerked myself free and stayed put.
“The fire trucks and police are on their way,” he said, but they wouldn’t get here in time to do Samson or Armand any good. And I wasn’t waiting for them. I bolted through the door into the warehouse.
“Claire!”
I heard Victor scream, but I didn’t slow down. I ducked as low as I could, under the thickest of the smoke, and ran for the stairs that led to the cellar below.
I was running blind - the flashlight’s feeble light all but consumed by the smoke – but I could hear the fire, a soft whooshing roar like an approaching freight train. I headed toward that sound, searching for the cellar stairs, but with the smoke stinging my eyes and filling the air, I couldn’t see them. I never would have found them if I hadn’t tripped over the top step.
I went down hard, banging my knees on the second step and only stopped myself from a deadly fall with a desperate and lucky grab at the steel handrail bolted to the wall. I came to a jarring stop, knocking the flashlight from my hand and almost jerking my shoulder out of its socket. The flashlight hit the steps and bounced all the way down, its narrow beam of light disappearing into the smoke-filled void.
I scrambled back to my feet and went down after it, gripping the handrail like a lifeline. The smoke grew thicker as I descended. I dragged the neck of my t-shirt up over my face and breathed through it, but it didn’t help much. I couldn’t last much longer in these conditions, but I didn’t even consider turning back.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I dropped to my knees on the concrete to get below the smoke. The light got better at that level - a murky yellow haze that seemed to come from all sides. I scanned the hall ahead of me and saw every one of the private cellars lining the narrow corridor was ablaze, their doors flung open, fire and smoke boiling through the gaps. And, just fifteen feet away, Armand Rivincita was crouched over Samson - who was sprawled on the concrete - pressing his hand to Samson’s chest.
I heard a clatter behind me, turned, and was knocked face-first to the concrete by Victor as he spilled off the bottom step. He hit the floor right beside me and we both pushed ourselves up to our knees.
“Claire,” he yelled, then coughed long and ragged. “We have to get out of here!”
I didn’t try to reply. I pointed mutely ahead at Samson and Armand.
At the sound of Victor’s voice, Armand’s head came up and he spotted us. For a minute he seemed confused, almost dazed, but then he shouted, “He’s been shot! Help me!”
Victor was moving before I even had time to register what Armand had said. He crawled on his hands and knees down the corridor and I followed right behind him.
Samson’s shirt was wet with blood and
he didn’t seem to be breathing. I didn’t look to see how bad the wound was - there was nothing I could do for him in the cellar – I just yelled at Victor, “Get him up!” then grabbed one of Samson’s arms and pulled. Victor did the same thing on the opposite side and we dragged him toward the stairs, his feet trailing out behind him. He seemed so frail in my arms. He couldn’t have weighed more than one thirty. That thought brought tears to my already bloodshot eyes. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing him.
We were halfway to the steps when I realized Armand hadn’t moved. He was still kneeling on the concrete.
“Help us!” I yelled at him over the growing roar of the fire.
He gave me a dazed, shell-shocked look, then shook his head. He stood suddenly, thrusting his head up into the dense smoke. “I’m going after Blake!” he yelled at me, then turned and ran down the hallway, into the bowels of the cellar, disappearing into the haze of smoke.
Samson twitched in my arms and his eyes fluttered open. “de Montagne,” he said. “The wine…”
“Forget the wine!” I said. I turned back toward the rear of the cellar. “Armand!” I screamed. “Armand!”
And then Victor was screaming at me. “We have to go!” he yelled directly into my ear. “Now!”
I nodded and we went up the stairs as fast as we could, the toes of Samson’s shoes bouncing off every step. The stairwell was almost too narrow for all three of us. We bounced and banged off the walls as we ascended, the smoke searing our lungs. But finally, we staggered off the top step. We headed for the square of light marking the still open door and staggered out into the sunlight just as a fire truck pulled up into the parking area.
Victor fell to the gravel, dragging me and Samson down with him as men in yellow slickers poured off the fire truck, grabbing hoses and axes and poles. One of them raced our way.
“He’s been shot!” I yelled at him then went into a coughing fit that made me double over, black bile bubbling up in my throat.
The fireman ducked down and checked Samson’s pulse as I flopped back on the gravel on my back, too weak to move.
