Hope was sound asleep on the Aubusson carpet in the middle of the foyer by the time I arrived home with her blueberry muffins. Persia had covered her with a bubblegum-pink Cinderella blanket and now she lay tangled up in it next to the Barbie dollhouse Eli had built for her, surrounded by doll-sized furniture that had been strewn everywhere as though a tornado had blown through Barbie-land. A nearly naked Barbie lay on her back with both arms sticking straight up in the air, looking as if she’d surrendered any hope of trying to restore order to the chaos of her pink-and-white home.
“My little lamb collapsed about an hour ago, just wore herself out,” Persia whispered when she met me at the front door. “I didn’t have the heart to move her.”
“Let her sleep.” I handed Persia the bag with the muffins. “I’m sorry these are late. I stopped by to see Elena Vaughn.”
“Sasha’s over with Eli in the carriage house,” she said. “They got here a little while ago. He had some business thing he needed to do and then he’s driving her home.”
“How’s she doing?”
Persia raised her eyebrows and gave a small one-shoulder shrug. “She’s taking it hard. After all these years, she had finally reconciled with her father and now he’s gone.”
“I should go see her and offer my condolences. I’ve also got Jamie’s MedicAlert bracelet. It’s upstairs in the bedroom. I’ll ask Sasha if she’d mind giving it to Elena since I didn’t have it with me when I stopped by Longview.” I glanced over at Hope, who had started to snore softly and was now murmuring something in her sleep. “Maybe I’ll get it later. I don’t want to wake her.”
“If you want to tell me where it is, I’ll get it,” Persia said. “I don’t think Eli and Sasha planned to be here long, so you ought to go over there now or you’ll miss seeing her. Just stop by here before they leave and I’ll have it for you.”
“It’s in the little bone china box on my dresser,” I said. “Thanks.”
* * *
MY PHONE DINGED WITH a text message as I walked across the driveway to the carriage house. Quinn and I had been going back and forth for the last twenty minutes after I texted him on my way home from Longview and told him I had a surprise for him when I saw him that evening. Ever since, he’d been teasing me to tell him what it might be.
Bigger than a bread box?
Definitely. Huge, in fact.
Animal, vegetable, or mineral?
Yes. Well, maybe not too much mineral.
Does it involve wild, passionate sex?
Only if you want an audience. Or we could wait until it’s over.
His next text was a row of smiley faces with half a dozen exclamation marks. Wait until he saw the tickets … and learned how I’d come by them. As much as I was dying to attend the Jefferson Dinner and sample Norton wine from 1876, it still felt like I’d sold my silence in return for something I couldn’t afford.
Through the mullioned French doors Eli had installed where the old wooden carriage doors used to be I could see my brother and Sasha facing each other, seated on the high stools Eli used when he was working on a set of drawings at his drafting table or building models that made ideas he dreamed up in his head into 3-D miniature reality. Late-afternoon sunlight from a window behind them limned their profiles, turning them into silhouettes. Eli was leaning toward Sasha, his hands outstretched, holding hers, the body language of someone in earnest conversation. Sasha was nodding, her head bowed and her shoulders drooping. It was a haunting—and private—tableau of two people weighed down by sorrow and grief. I stopped walking, feeling guilty at having stumbled into such an intimate scene, but Eli caught sight of me and motioned that I should come in and join them.
Sasha’s eyes were red rimmed when I walked into my brother’s studio a moment later. “Hey, Luce.” Eli’s voice was sad and subdued.
Elena’s twin sons, Owen and Oliver, had their mother’s flame-colored hair and fair skin, but Sasha was Jamie through and through—shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes, outdoorsy, athletic build, good-looking in a wholesome all-American way. Only her olive-skinned complexion wasn’t Jamie’s, and I guessed it came from her Italian-American mother.
I went straight to Sasha and hugged her. “I’m so sorry.”
She sniffled, the remnants of earlier tears. “Thanks. I still can’t believe he’s gone.”
“Me either. I just came from seeing Elena. She said you texted her pictures of the mementos and tributes at the vineyard entrance. You must know how much he was beloved by so many people. I hope it’s a comfort.”
“It is.” She chewed her lip. “Lucie, I want you to tell me everything. You were the last person to see him. I want to know what happened.”
I caught Eli’s eye and saw an imperceptible shake of his head. Don’t do it. Don’t tell her everything.
“He was speeding,” I said. “I’m sure you’ve heard that already. Plus it had been raining, so there were a lot of wet, slick spots, along with places that were flooded out. I think he lost control of the car. And he wasn’t wearing a seat belt.”
She groaned. “Dad always drove way too fast and he could be a real pain about wearing a seat belt. I tried telling him about clients I’ve worked with who became disabled as the result of a car accident…” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, God, Lucie, I’m sorry … I didn’t mean…”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told her with a rueful smile. “You’re right. I’m sure Eli told you he crashed into the same spot where my accident happened.” Might as well get it out in the open.
She nodded. “He also said you tried to help my father get out of the car but he was trapped inside … and then the fire started.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sasha, he’d been drinking, and I think he might have mixed the alcohol with pills. He wasn’t really himself.”
Her lips tightened as she absorbed that information. I didn’t look at my brother.
“Wow,” she said as if the wind had been knocked out of her. “Wow.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She lifted her chin and gave me a determined look. “I told you I wanted to know everything. What happened after that?”
“He passed out. He’d lost consciousness by the time the fire started.” I drew the line at telling her that I’d heard Jamie’s last anguished scream.
“Did he say anything?”
Eli caught my eye again, blinking another coded message. Watch what you tell her.
“Yes,” I said, “he did. He asked me to find someone named Rick and ask for his forgiveness. He said, ‘Tell Rick I’m sorry.’”
Eli looked stunned. This was news to him.
“Rick?” Sasha frowned. “Who’s Rick?”
“According to Elena and Garrett he’s a wealthy campaign donor who had a falling-out with your father.”
Her frown deepened and she shook her head. “I spent a lot of time around Dad during the campaign, and I don’t remember anyone named Rick. No one he had a fight with and no one important enough that he would remember him right before he died.”
Well, now. Wasn’t that interesting. “Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
“Then why would they say that’s who Jamie was talking about?”
“I have no idea.”
“I also have your dad’s MedicAlert bracelet. He was holding it and it slipped out of his hand, so I picked it up. I was going to give it to the EMTs because…” I stumbled over that last sentence. We all knew what I meant. “I thought Elena might want it now.”
Sasha gave me another curious look. “My dad didn’t wear a MedicAlert bracelet,” she said in a flat voice. “At least not that I knew of. What was it for?”
“An allergic reaction to Coumadin.”
“What’s Coumadin?” Eli spoke up for the first time.
“Blood thinner,” Sasha and I said together.
“You have to worry about someone bleeding out if they’re on Coumadin and they’re injured or badly cut,” Sasha told him. To me, she said, “He wasn’t allergic to Coumadin. The only medication he took was for high blood pressure.”
“Then whose bracelet is it?” I asked.
“Rick’s?” Eli said, and I shot him a surprised look. What if he was right?
“You say you’ve still got it?” Sasha asked.
“It’s at the house.”
“What did Elena say when you told her about it?” she asked.
“I didn’t get around to mentioning it,” I said. “It slipped my mind, especially since I didn’t have it with me. That’s why I asked if you would give it to her.”
“Let’s go take a look at it,” Eli said. “Any other news you’d care to share, Luce? Something we don’t know yet?”
“No,” I said, and crossed my fingers behind my back. I still hadn’t told them I thought the crash was no accident. One thing at a time.
By the time we got back to the house, Barbie, her dollhouse, and her furniture had been whisked out of sight and Hope was gone. Persia must have heard the front door open and close because she called from the kitchen, “Lucie, is that you? Your medallion is on the table next to the telephone.”
I got it and handed it to Sasha, who turned it over, frowning some more as she checked it out. “I’ve never seen this before,” she said. “It’s old, by the look of it. Tarnished and banged up.” She looked up at me. “Would you mind if I take it?”
“Of course not. You have more right to it than I do,” I said. “Are you going to ask Elena about it?”
She closed her hand around the bracelet, and like me, I had the feeling that it was becoming heavier the longer she held on to it. A burden.
“Eventually,” she said. “But first there’s someone else I’m going to ask.”
* * *
DINNER WAS JUST QUINN and me since Eli had taken Hope with him to have dinner with Sasha and Zach at Sasha’s place. I waited until we finished the dishes before I handed him the envelope with the two Jefferson Dinner tickets. He slid them out, let out a long whistle, and gave me a puzzled look.
“No, I did not pay forty thousand dollars for these tickets.”
“Good, because if you did we could kiss the money we’ve been putting aside for a destemmer goodbye,” he said. “Where did you get them?”
“Elena and Garrett gave them to me when I was over there this afternoon. I think they’re a bribe to let Garrett do all the talking for the family about Jamie and for me to butt out.”
He looked relieved. “One, that means you can tell Pippa O’Hara to take a hike the next time she tries to bait you, and two, Garrett ought to do all the talking for the family. It’s what he does for a living,” he said. “They didn’t have to give you forty thousand dollars worth of tickets for that. But I’m not sorry they did … I’d gnaw off an arm to try that Norton wine. Now we both can.”
“You don’t seem too bothered by this,” I said. “That they’re bribing me.”
“If there’s an ulterior motive behind why Jamie drove his car into our stone wall yesterday, I think his family should decide how much they want the public to know,” he said. “You don’t have to take on that responsibility.”
“Sasha thinks Elena and Garrett are lying about the identity of the mysterious Rick.”
“Let the three of them work that out.”
“I promised Jamie I’d find Rick and tell him Jamie asked for his forgiveness.”
“You can’t do anything about that right now. The ball is in their court. Sasha has the MedicAlert bracelet and it sounds like she is going to get to the bottom of things,” he said, holding out his hand to me. “Come on. There’s a pink moon tonight and it’s also the apogee full moon. Let’s take two glasses and the rest of the dinner wine and go have a drink at the summerhouse so we can see it.”
Why did he always have to be so damn logical and pragmatic? Much as I wanted to challenge what he said, I knew he was right.
“All right.” I gave in and took his hand. Sasha wanted to find out who Rick was as much as I did, and she knew the people to ask. What bothered me, though, was that she seemed to imply that Elena and Garrett had lied earlier today. What I couldn’t figure out was why: What were they hiding?
“… or we could open a new bottle,” Quinn was saying. “Which do you prefer … Lucie?”
“Um … which what do I prefer?”
“Are you listening to anything I’m saying?” he asked. “You’re still stuck on this Rick guy. Let it go, sweetheart. You’ll eventually find out from Sasha who he is.”
“All right. I give up,” I said. “Let’s go look at the pink moon. It’s the worst named moon of any of them, you know. It’s always such a disappointment that it’s not actually pink.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but it’s still going to be pretty.”
* * *
WE SAT BUNDLED IN blankets in two Adirondack chairs that we had dragged outside the summerhouse years ago and left near the edge of a bluff overlooking a sweep of farmland that ended at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was Leland, my father, who first suggested Quinn bring his telescope over here rather than the wooded area around the winemaker’s cottage where he used to live because of the spectacular view of the night sky. Over the years, I’d often joined Quinn on starry nights while he slowly taught me to identify the planets and constellations, gave me my first look at the Perseids meteor shower that appeared every August, explained the stories behind the Native American names for all the full moons, grieved over Pluto being demoted as one of the nine planets.
“You remember what the apogee full moon is, right?” he asked. He had lit a cigar and the tip glowed comfortingly in the darkness like a tiny orange mini-moon of its own.
“The smallest moon of the year because the moon, which makes an elliptical orbit around Earth, is at its farthest distance from Earth,” I said. “And the April full moon is always called the pink moon because the first flowers of the season are usually pink. If there are two full moons in a month, the second one is called the blue moon. Always.”
“You get an A-plus. My star pupil,” he said. “Want some more wine?”
“Yes, please.” I held out my glass.
“Pretty night,” he said. “Nice and clear.”
I slid down in my chair and tilted my head so I could look up at the sky. Directly above us were the stars of Ursa Major. Though I’d known how to find it since I was a kid, it was Quinn who had informed me that it was visible in the northern hemisphere year-round and not a seasonal constellation like many others.
“There’s something I need to tell you.” I traced a finger around the stars in the bear’s tail, which also made up the Big Dipper.
“Does it have to do with Jamie Vaughn?”
“No.”
“What is it?” He leaned over and caressed my hair. “Your voice went funny just now, so whatever it is, you’re upset.”
He could read me so well. “Thelma told me she saw Hunter Knight a couple of days ago. He stopped by the General Store. Apparently he was in the area to visit someone. She said he asked about me.”
After a moment he said, “Hunter Knight, as in Greg’s brother, the one who’s a priest? Lives in Guatemala or Honduras? That guy?”
He knew damn well who I meant. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew it looked like thunder. By unspoken agreement, the subject of Greg Knight and my accident had been deemed ancient history, nothing either of us wanted to discuss. Among the reasons: because of my injuries I was told I could never have children.
“He’s a missionary. Or was. And he’s not a priest, he’s some kind of minister and he worked for Amnesty International. He doesn’t live in Central America anymore, either. He moved back here to help Greg.”
Quinn puffed on his cigar and the tip glowed furiously. “Don’t tell me Greg is out of jail. It’s a little early for probation.”
“Oh, God, I didn’t even think of that. I have no idea where Greg is, but I thought they locked him up for life.” The idea of Greg being able to walk around wherever he liked, being able to find me again, terrified me.
“What was Hunter Knight doing in Atoka?” Quinn asked.
“Thelma said he clammed up when she asked him,” I said. “And the Romeos didn’t turn up anything, either.”
“If that crew couldn’t find out what he was up to, the guy’s better than any spy a foreign government could send over here. There’s nothing Thelma doesn’t know.”
“She’s planning to find out.”
“I bet she is. Thelma leaves no stone unturned.”
“She’ll let me know when she does.”
“Who does Hunter know around here that he’d want to see after all this time?”
“I have no idea. He doesn’t have family or any relatives in the area anymore.”
“Well,” Quinn said, “it’s a small town, as everyone always says. It won’t take long before word gets out about what he was doing here.”
My phone buzzed in my jacket pocket. Quinn heard it, too, because he said, “Let it go, honey. You’ve had enough on your plate for one day.”
I pulled it out to turn it off, but then I saw the caller ID.
“It’s Sasha,” I said, and answered the call. “Hi, what’s up?”
“Lucie.” She sounded distracted and upset. “I just talked to my mother in Charlottesville. She was wondering if you’d be willing to drive down there to talk to her. She broke her leg a few weeks ago and it’s still in a cast. Otherwise, she’d drive up here to see you.”
“Why does she want to see me?” I asked.
“She wants to talk to you about what my dad said before he died. And she would like to see the MedicAlert bracelet. I’m giving it to Eli to bring back to you. That is, if you’re willing to do this.”
I sat up in my chair. “Absolutely. When can I visit her?”
“She said the sooner the better. Would tomorrow work?”
“Give me directions and I’ll leave first thing in the morning,” I said.
After I disconnected, Quinn said, “Let me guess. It has something to do with this Rick guy.”
I nodded. “Sasha said her mother wants to talk to me. In person. I told you Rick’s not some deep-pockets political donor who had a falling-out with Jamie. I bet he’s someone from Jamie’s past, someone worth forty thousand dollars to Elena and Garrett to keep me from trying to find out who he really is. What I don’t know is why.”
“But you’re going to find out.”
“Oh, yes. I am.”