Murder Uncorked

by Michele Scott

  Nikki found her voice. “You’re not going to hurt me?”

  “Why would I do that? Here drink this.” She handed Nikki a travel coffee mug from off of the table next to her. “Bad habit, but looks like you need it worse than I do.”

  Nikki took it from her and sipped. Yuck. No sugar or cream. She drank it down anyway. “Thanks.”

  “You’re a thorn in my side with your golden hair and bright smile, and too flipping chipper for your own good, but I’m not a killer. Besides, I want Derek, and this will look good on my résumé. How can you not love a heroine? I get the bad guy here, save you, then save him. I’m like Lara Croft. But you, Goldilocks, you gotta get on the road and head on home. There’s no room for you here. The way I figure it, there’s only room for one woman in Derek’s life. And know what else? You owe me. I just saved your skinny ass.”

  “Right.” Nikki shook her head and took another big gulp from the coffee, trying hard to clear the cobwebs. “Look, I think you’ve got the wrong idea about me and Derek. I’m only looking for a job.” She sat up, her head throbbing.

  “Oh, please, who are you trying to fool? Me or yourself? You got it bad, girl. But you’re way out of your league. Listen, I don’t have any more time for this chatter. Let’s get him tied up.” She pointed to the knocked out Cal.

  “Why don’t we call the police?”

  “Go ahead, but I don’t have time to wait for them. I’ve got a man to rescue.”

  “Once again, shouldn’t we let the police do that?”

  Tara sighed. “You don’t get it, do you? It bodes well for me if I ride in on my white horse. I happen to know where my knight is being held captive. I’m good with electronic devices and just so happened to have a bug in Cal’s phone. Once I found out about him and Meredith’s DNA, I figured the two were up to no good and eventually, whatever that no good was, I could use it to my advantage. Granted, I never caught any whiff of them murdering Gabriel or Minnie, because I didn’t sneak my little bug into Cal’s phone line until the day of Gabriel’s funeral. Remember when you caught my eye across the way at the church? I left you high and dry wondering where I’d run off to, didn’t I? I had to plant my bug. What I did catch wind of this afternoon was that Cal had taken Derek to the caves at Sumner Winery.”

  “That’s great, but since you know that, aren’t you in some way guilty of accessory to kidnapping? You have to be guilty of something other than wearing trashy clothes that look better on Britney Spears than you.”

  “Ouch. Watch yourself. I lost my cell phone, and I don’t have a landline at my place. I got the info only a little while ago. I knew Cal was coming here to take care of you, so instead of wasting time going to the cops, I drove straight out here to save you. I’m thoughtful like that. And lucky for you I had already poured myself the java right before I got the tip. You really should be a bit more grateful.”

  “Right. Again, thanks.” She held up the cup of coffee. “But I do think we need to call the police. We can use the landline here.” Nikki struggled to stand up. Getting to her feet, she wobbled a bit. “I’d hate for you to be a part of this lunacy, too, and wind up in jail.”

  “Fine. I’ll call myself.” Tara picked up the phone, bringing the receiver to her ear and then replaced it. “Back to plan A. The line is dead. Cal must’ve cut it.”

  Nikki grabbed the phone from her hand. She was right. No dial tone. “Where’s my cell?” Nikki muttered to herself, still trying to connect the dots.

  “I don’t have time for this.” Tara bent over Cal with the roll of duct tape she’d fished from her purse, and pulled his hands behind his back. She wrapped the tape around his wrists. “Done.” Tara rubbed her hands together. “Gotta go, Goldilocks. Why don’t you hike up to the mansion and call the cops for me.”

  “The hell with that. I’m going with you.”

  “That’s not a part of the plan, and as I explained a minute ago to your simple mind, you owe me. Ta-tah.” Tara picked up her gun, put it back in her purse, and headed out the front door.

  Nikki glanced over at the unconscious Cal, now taped up. He wasn’t going anywhere, that was for sure, and Nikki would be damned if she’d let the vulturous Tara go after Derek.

  She picked up the Range Rover keys off the kitchen counter and followed Tara. Nikki knew she shouldn’t drive, but hanging around here wasn’t an option, and the drug Cal had given her must’ve been a short-working one because she was seeing and feeling pretty clearly. He used a drug that lasted just long enough to relax her so he could kill her. Yikes! The coffee and adrenaline were also doing the job.

  Tara got into her older-model Mercedes. She rolled down the window. “Now don’t get any foolish ideas of ruining my show. You’ll never beat me to Cal’s. I know a shortcut.” Tara revved the engine, a trail of dust billowing up behind as she sped off.

  Nikki made it to the Range Rover still parked in front of the cottage and hopped inside. There in the front passenger seat sat Ollie, as if he’d been waiting for her. She now realized as she slammed the car door shut, that Cal must’ve put Ollie in the car to keep him from trying to protect her, which Nikki knew he would have, given the chance. She figured that because the dog knew Cal, he was able to get Ollie into the car.

  “What’d Cal do, offer you a Scooby snack?” Nikki asked, as she turned over the engine. She blazed down the dirt road and onto the paved drive. “Am I glad to see you. Now where is your master?” Caves. They had to be the same caves on the Sumner vineyard that Cal mentioned the other night. She’d have to find them before Tara did. She noticed her cell phone in the center console and picked it up to phone Jeanine Wiley at the station. Her battery was blinking on low. One bar left. Damn. She took a chance anyway and called Jeanine’s direct line, which she’d given to Nikki the other night after Minnie’s murder.

  “Officer Wiley,” Jeanine’s high-pitched voice came through the phone.

  “Jeanine, it’s me, Nikki Sands. Listen, there’s no time to explain, but you and Chief Horn need to get out to Sum—” The phone died. “Damn, damn, damn.” Nikki tossed the phone onto the backseat. Ollie cowered at her angry voice and throwing motion. She reached over and gave him a quick pat on the top of his head. “It’s not you, boy. You’re a good dog.”

  Nikki pressed down on the gas pedal and crossed her fingers in hope that she wouldn’t be too late for Derek. She focused on the drive to Sumner Winery, remembering that she’d passed it on one of her rides into town.

  Five minutes later she pulled off the highway and into Sumner Winery, which was far smaller than the Malveaux Estate, and headed to the back of the property. The entire place was dark, not a soul around as far as Nikki could tell, and she didn’t have a flashlight, but she did have man’s, or in this case, woman’s best friend with her, and lucky for her, Nikki was aware that Ridgebacks are renowned hunters. They were originally bred to hunt lions in Africa.

  Nikki scanned the darkened property, not spotting Tara’s car, either. Still quite dazed, but more determined than ever, she got out of the car, and Ollie followed behind her. “Okay, boy, put your nose to the ground and do your thing. I’ve got a feeling you’ve got yourself a decent smeller. Lead the way.”

  Ollie tilted his head from one side to the other.

  Nikki found a sweatshirt of Derek’s on the backseat and took it out of the car, bringing it up to Ollie’s nose. “Go. Find Derek.” Ollie charged off, and Nikki tried to keep up with him.

  “Hey, wait up.” They were on a dirt path, and she hoped it led down to the caves Tara had mentioned. She trusted her gut and the dog, and the light of the moon to get her there.

  After about ten minutes, they were at the entrance to the caves. Nikki went in behind Ollie, who balked. C’mon,” she whispered. “This is no time to chicken out.” She knew she was saying it more for herself than the dog, who caught a whiff of a jackrabbit that went speeding by. Ollie followed suit. “Some best friend you are.” With trepidation she ventured into the cave.

  N
ot able to see, Nikki felt her way with her hands out in front of her. The smell inside the cave was dank. She jumped back as her forehead came in contact with something slick and wet from overhead. She hoped and prayed it was just moss.

  She started to yell, but stopped suddenly as a dim glow of light shone up ahead, and she could hear a woman’s voice. Meredith.

  “You’ve basically ruined my life.”

  “Ruined your life? You’re the one who thought it would be fun to play ‘screw the men of Napa Valley’ behind my back.”

  “Please. A little transgression, and you couldn’t forgive me? All I needed was one thing from you, and you couldn’t accomplish it. I was trying to get knocked up, you idiot. It was all my mother’s plan. Get pregnant, have a kid, divorce you, hold the kid over your head in an ugly custody battle, and knowing what a good guy you are, trade you the kid for the vineyard. But I’m not exactly patient. I wanted my share sooner rather than wait for all that, plus ruining my body is not all that exciting to me.”

  “You’re delusional, Meredith. Now untie me, and let me go before Cal gets back to finish me off. You can get out of town. No one has to know anything about your involvement in this. Let Cal take the fall. I know you, Meredith. You’re a good person.”

  It was Derek. Now it clicked for Nikki. The conversation she’d overheard between the Botox buddies made a helluva lot more sense now. Their deceitful plan was to lure Derek back into Meredith’s bed, thus making “his purpose” one of getting Meredith pregnant. Waiting to implement their plan at the right time, they had to continue to keep their true relationship under wraps, because if Derek ever found out, he would’ve never fallen into Meredith’s trap from the get-go.

  “You expect me to believe that’s what you think? Am I talking to the same man who has called me every name in the book? I don’t recall ‘good person’ being in that book. Call me stupid, but how can your opinion change so rapidly and drastically? The funny thing is, Derek, Cal didn’t murder Gabriel or Minnie. Wrong. I killed them. Cal protected me. He is my brother, and blood is thicker than water. However, Cal is as capable of murder as I am. He’s at the vineyard right now, taking care of Miss Busybody. Your hopefully new employee. If she’d minded her own business, I may not have gotten quite this impatient. She’s a problem. And, my brother and I know how to deal with problems.”

  “What have you done, Meredith? What is Cal going to do to Nikki?”

  “Exactly what I’m going to do to you. I want it all, and that imbecile mother of mine is going to get it all when you’re gone, and well, need I say more? I know all about your father’s provisions for the vineyard. What he left you, and what he left Patrice and Simon. Simon is easy to deal with. I know that if you’re dead, the vineyard, according to your father’s wishes, falls back into the hands of Simon and Patrice.”

  “This is crazy. Leave Nikki out of it. She doesn’t know any of this.”

  “She’s smarter than she looks.”

  What the hell was that supposed to mean? Nikki inched her way closer to the flickering light only a few feet ahead of her.

  “I believe she knows about Cal’s and my DNA, and that’s enough to ruin all of this for us,” Meredith added.

  “Okay, since you know so much and have this all figured out, why didn’t you kill me in the first place? Why murder Gabriel and Minnie?”

  “Those, lover, were unfortunate events. My temper got the worst of me. It all had to do with that four-letter word.”

  “Excuse me?” Derek asked.

  “Love. Yes. True love. I killed them because I fell in love with Gabriel.”

  Aha! Nikki’s initial theory about Meredith being the killer and her reasons for doing so was right after all. Go figure.

  “Gabriel and I did have a thing. The rumors were true about us. It may have been only a few nights, but it was love. Guaranteed. The kind of love that lasts forever. But then Miss Lark had to seduce him, and he didn’t want anything to do with me after that.”

  “Sounds like true love to me all right,” Derek angrily remarked. “True love doesn’t usually walk out on you when the next pair of legs go cruising by.”

  “What do you know about true love? Not a lot, or you would’ve paid more attention to me. Gabriel had his reasons for walking out on me. He said it was all wrong for us to be together. He felt guilty about you. Not so guilty he couldn’t steal money from you, mind you. What you don’t know is that your trusted Minnie was ripping you off. I know you were suspicious of me. But I never planned to steal your money. I was going to get it legitimately, by killing you and extorting it from my mother.”

  “Real upstanding of you.”

  “Thanks. Anyhow, I wasn’t pleased that they were trying to make it look like I was the thief. It pissed me off. The bitch takes my lover away, and then she wants to frame me for her crimes. I didn’t think that was very nice. On the day I killed Gabriel, it was out of rage because he’d ended things with me and had partnered in more ways than one with the conniving numbers broad. I snapped.”

  “What happened exactly? Don’t you think I’m at least entitled to know, since you’re going to kill me?”

  “Sure, why not? You are after all a nice guy, and you do have some assets that I continue to think fondly of, even now, and probably will after you’re gone. Gabriel and I were in the barreling room. He broke it off. I started to leave, but instead grabbed a bottle of wine, came up behind him, and smacked him on the back of his head with it. I knocked him out cold and called Cal to tell him what I’d done. He came to the rescue and finished the job for me with the grape vines. He’s a smart one, my brother. The next afternoon when it seemed like all was quiet on the vineyard, Cal placed his body by the pond. That was what your gal pal, Nikki, saw.

  “After she found the body, we had to think fast. Cal came up with the idea to set up the poor Mexican worker because it was easy to do. Apparently, Cal had seen him one afternoon a few weeks ago, drunk and sketching his pitiful drawings at a café in town. At the time he didn’t think much of it, but it became of use to us. All I ever wanted was true love. Cal tried to steer Nikki in a different direction because she was asking all sorts of questions. He thought he had her believing that Simon may have done the evil deeds. But after tailing her around town, he realized she was still snooping. That’s when I plunked her on the head inside the offices the other night. We were trying to scare her off. I didn’t need the bodies adding up.

  “Minnie was easy to knock off. The woman steals my man and tries to frame me for stealing your cash. I called her before the party and told her I knew she was cooking the books and trying to frame me. She said that she’d meet me at the party. I told her to meet me in your mother’s old room. I thought it would work nicely and make it look like the killer was some psycho nut.”

  “You are a psycho nut,” Derek said.

  “You need help. Let me ask you, do you give it up to every man who asks?”

  Nikki now had a view of both Derek and Meredith. Derek was tied up, his back against the wall of the cave. Meredith held a gun on him. She watched as Meredith slapped Derek hard across the face with her open hand.

  Nikki’s blood boiled, and without thinking, she charged Meredith, low and fast. She took the surprised larger woman down, the gun flying out of Meredith’s hand.

  “You really are a bitch,” Nikki said, pinning Meredith to the floor of the cave with every ounce of strength she could muster.

  Meredith brought her knees up, and in a rocking motion, swung Nikki off of her and back to the ground. Uh-oh. The tables were turned as Meredith pounced on Nikki’s smaller frame, pushing her arms down. “And you really are as trashy as white trash comes. My mother is an idiot, but she was right on that account. You were stupid not to take her check and run. No one would’ve ever bothered you after that.”

  “Sure,” Nikki groaned.

  Meredith released her grip on one of Nikki’s wrists, leaning to the side to grab the gun, which was now within her reach.


  With her left arm free, Nikki gathered all her strength and smashed Meredith on the side of the face, just as Meredith picked up the gun. Nikki used her body weight to roll onto her side before Meredith could aim and fire the gun at her. She squirmed forward just enough to be able to kick Meredith in the stomach. Meredith fell to the ground beside Nikki, giving Nikki enough time to stand up. She didn’t think, the adrenaline was pumping through her, and the rigorous physical training she’d taken when doing her TV show paid off as she brought her foot down onto Meredith’s arm, pinning it to the ground. With her other foot she kicked the gun to the side.

  A bark echoed through the cave as Ollie bounded in and landed on top of Meredith, laying his tremendous body across hers, further pinning her to the cave floor. Sirens could be heard in the distance.

  Out of breath, Nikki turned to Ollie. “You’re a little late, Scooby, but thanks.” Nikki picked up the gun and held it on Meredith, in case she tried to get out from underneath Ollie.