Frankie was in her office, eating a sandwich at her desk, when I showed up twenty minutes later.
“From Uma Lawrence.” I set the money down in front of her with a little flourish. “With love. Keep the change.”
“It went as badly as that?”
“I can’t figure her out. At first she seemed genuinely apologetic for the bad credit card. Then we started talking and she went on about what an unfriendly town this is, so I invited her to the party on Saturday. I told her she’d meet a lot of people and maybe she wouldn’t feel so alienated from everyone. We’re really pretty nice folks when you get to know us.”
Frankie raised an eyebrow. “What’d she say?”
“She assumed I did it because we’re trying to get her to keep supporting all of Roxy’s charities,” I said. “She told me it’s her money now and she’ll spend it how she likes.”
“What a rotten thing to say. And speaking of rotten, Quinn came in this morning looking like he was loaded for bear. He said he’d be in the north vineyard, pruning.” She gave me a look over the top of her glasses. “I thought you were starting to prune in the south vineyard.”
We were. He just wanted to get away from everyone and take out his anger at Gino on some overgrown grapevines with a pair of secateurs.
“He’s trying to get a head start over there,” I said. “You know him.”
She took an aggressive bite out of her sandwich. “I’ll be really glad when whatever is going on around here is over,” she said. “Because it’s driving me nuts.”
I picked up a piece of paper on her desk. It was the menu for Saturday night. “Is this the final menu?” I asked. “It looks terrific.”
“We’re almost there,” she said in a terse voice. “But since Dominique has her interview tomorrow at the White House, I’m taking care of what’s left on our list so she can concentrate on that.” She caught the surprised expression on my face and said, “She told me you know about the job. In fact, you and I are the only people who do know.”
“If she gets it, do you think she’ll take it?” I asked.
“We talked about it. She asked me to keep what she told me to myself.” She took the menu from me and scanned the page. Without looking up she said, “There are sandwiches in the kitchen, by the way. I ran out to the Upper Crust and picked them up for everyone, since they’ve been knocking themselves out all week for the party. I also bought butterscotch pecan cow puddles for you, since you love them.”
“Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”
She set down the paper. “I’m sorry for that dig. It was uncalled for,” she said. “And you’re welcome.”
* * *
MY PHONE RANG AT three o’clock, when Antonio and I were in the middle of transferring last year’s Cabernet Sauvignon from the barrels where it had been aging into a stainless-steel tank before the bottling truck showed up in the morning. Larger vineyards have their own on-site production line to bottle wine, but smaller places like ours have a hard time justifying the expense and space for equipment that’s used only a few days a year. Instead, we hire a mobile unit that comes to the crush pad, an eighteen-wheeler with the whole works on board: an entire automated bottling line inside. And since you pay for their time in addition to a sterile facility, you need to be ready to go when they show up.
Antonio is younger than I am, in his early twenties, with the kind of rugged good looks that turn female heads. Women eye him with lust and longing, much to his girlfriend’s consternation. But he is also the dutiful son who goes by the Western Union counter in Safeway every two weeks to send money to his mother and sisters in Mexico because his father is in jail. If I hadn’t been here just now, he would have had the radio turned to a Hispanic station, some pulsing danceable beat loud enough to be heard above the pneumatic whine of the pump, and I would never have heard the phone ring.
Instead, I did hear it, and when I looked down, I saw Will Baron’s name on the display. Maybe Vivienne wasn’t going to be able to help out tomorrow and he was letting me know.
I answered it and said, “Hi, Will. What can I do for you?”
“Actually, it’s what I can do for you,” he said. “I was wondering if I could come by now.”
“Uh—”
“To deliver your clock,” he said. “Remember?”
“Oh,” I said. “My clock.”
“Don’t tell me you forgot about it.” He sounded reproachful. “Especially considering how much money you plunked down, cash on the barrelhead.”
I couldn’t tell if he was teasing or serious, but to be honest, the clock had slipped my mind completely, with everything that had happened since yesterday afternoon, when I’d bought it in Mac’s shop.
“Sorry, but you caught me in the middle of something at work,” I said. “Of course I didn’t forget.”
He seemed to accept my little fib. “One of the guys from the Georgetown store is here with me now, so we could be at your place in about twenty minutes.”
I glanced at Antonio, who was switching the hose to a new barrel. After we finished moving over the Cab, we needed to get the Meritage into a tank as well, and it had to be done today. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t do it right now. Could you come after five? Or maybe another day?”
“It’s going to take two people to carry that clock inside and JJ’s got to get back to D.C. in an hour,” he said. “Now that we’ve brought more furniture to the Middleburg store, the back room is filled up, so Mac wants this delivery taken care of today.”
“In that case, there are plenty of people around here I can ask to help. Don’t worry, I’ll corral someone. So, would five be okay?”
“Well, it’s not rocket science, so I guess that would work if you’re okay taking responsibility for your guy,” he said, though I thought he sounded peeved. “See you at five.”
“I heard that, Lucita,” Antonio said when I hung up. “I can help with your delivery, if you need someone. Especially if it’s not rocket science.”
I grinned. “It’s a grandfather clock and I’ll pay you. It’s above and beyond your responsibilities here.”
He waved a hand. “Forget the money. But you could give me some time off. My girlfriend … fiancée says we gotta start planning the wedding. She wants it before the baby comes.”
It was the first time I’d heard him mention a wedding. “Why don’t you work it out with Quinn? And you can have the wedding here, you know.”
“Thank you for that. I’ll tell her.” He walked over to start the pump again and raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if searching for divine intervention. “But Díos mio, she’s already making me crazy with her mood swings and staying up all hours ’cause she has to have a quesadilla. From Taco Bell.” He shook his head. “What did I get myself into?”
* * *
THE DELIVERY TRUCK FROM MacDonald’s Fine Antiques was waiting in the circular drive outside my house when Antonio and I pulled up in our respective cars at five o’clock. Will got out of the truck and I introduced the two men.
The temperature had been dropping as the afternoon wore on and we could see our breath, puffs of white smoke in the frigid air, when we spoke.
“How about if you show me where you want this clock before we take it inside?” Will said. “So we don’t have to move it half a dozen times while you make up your mind.”
The flirtatious charm from yesterday had vanished, as though a veneer had been scuffed away. Just now he seemed moody and out of sorts.
“I know exactly where I want it,” I said, giving him a cool look. “In the spot where the other clock used to be. Come in and I’ll show you.”
I opened the front door and the two men stamped their boots on the doormat and followed me inside. The house looked as serene and welcoming as an embrace, and smelled of freshly baked bread and the lavender-scented furniture polish Persia always used. The Tiffany lamp on the demilune console table and the small spotlight in the alcove above the bust of Thomas Jefferson had been lit, and the room glowed with their soft warmth. A vase of red roses and baby’s breath sat next to Jefferson—Persia must have put it there earlier—and from upstairs came the unmistakable sound of Persia giving Hope her evening bath, laughter and splashing water, and the two of them singing “Rubber Ducky” loudly and off-key.
Will Baron pulled off his colorful cap and looked around. “Nice place.”
“Thank you. This house has been in my family for over two hundred years.”
“Ah,” he said, a note of disapproval in his voice, “you inherited it. I should have guessed.”
“Something wrong with that?”
“No,” he said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply there was. But what do they say? ‘The rich are different from you and me.’” He gave a self-deprecating smile. “Well, different from me, that is. Probably not you.”
“F. Scott Fitzgerald said that,” I replied, giving him a sharp look. “Now why don’t I show you where I want the clock?”
“Sure,” he said. “That’s right. F. Scott Fitzgerald.”
I flipped a light switch and the enormous Waterford chandelier that hung from the second-story ceiling lit up the room. Persia’s voice floated downstairs.
“Lucie? Is that you?”
“It is. I meant to tell you that I bought a grandfather clock yesterday,” I called up to her. “Antonio and a fellow from Mac’s shop are bringing it inside now.”
“A clock, you say?” She leaned over the railing, drying her hands on a pink bath towel. “Well, hello there, Antonio. Haven’t you been a stranger? Nice to see you.”
“You, too, Persia,” he said.
“Lucie,” she said, “Eli asked me to tell you that he’s gone out for the evening. He’s having dinner at the Inn with a friend and said not to wait up. I can stay and baby-sit if you have plans, as well.”
If Eli was using Persia as a messenger, then he was out with his new girlfriend again and hadn’t wanted to tell me himself. “Thanks, Persia, but I’m going to crawl into bed with a book after dinner. You go on home when you’re done here. This delivery won’t take long.”
“I’ll keep Hope out of the way upstairs until you’re finished,” she said, and disappeared.
It took Will and Antonio only a few minutes to bring the clock inside and set it up. “The pendulum seems to be brushing against the back of the case,” Will said after a moment. “The wire could be a bit bent, but I think the more likely culprit is your floor. It’s probably warped, since it looks original to the house. I can level it with a shim. A small piece of cardboard would do, if you’ve got something handy.”
“I’ll take a look in the recycling bin in the mudroom,” I said. “Antonio, you don’t need to stay for this. I’m sure you’d like to get home. Thanks for the help.”
“No problem,” he said. “See you in the morning bright and early for bottling, Lucita.”
When I came back into the foyer with a torn piece of cardboard, Will was standing next to the console table with his hands behind his back. For some reason, I had a feeling he’d poked his head through every doorway and checked out my home.
“I found this,” I said.
He took it and fiddled with placing the cardboard under the clock case for a few minutes. Then he stood up and brushed the dust off his hands. “That should do it,” he said, “but if it’s not right, call Mac and he’ll get someone out to level it properly.”
“Thank you,” I said as we walked to the front door. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”
He pulled his hat out of his jacket pocket. “Pardon?”
“Aren’t you dropping Vivienne off at the barrel room for bottling? If she’s still interested in helping out, that is.”
“That’s right,” he said. “We talked about it the other night at your wine tasting. It’s volunteer work, isn’t it? You don’t pay for this.”
“We’ll feed her and send her off with several bottles of wine,” I said, ignoring the reproach in his voice. “So it’s more like bartering. If she’s willing, of course.”
“She’ll be there,” he said. “Viv likes learning new things. She’s always been that way.”
I opened the door. “Great. Please let her know we appreciate her help. Enjoy your evening, Will.”
“I’m working until closing tonight at the Goose Creek Inn,” he said. “Good night, Lucie.”
I closed the door and leaned against it as the movement of the clock settled in a familiar way. A moment later, it sounded the full Westminster chime for the hour and then struck six times, lovely and deep.
Something nagged at the back of my mind about that Fitzgerald quote Will had brought up. There was more to it. “The rich are different from you and me.”
Then I remembered.
“Yes, they have more money.”
* * *
THE NOISE DOWNSTAIRS WOKE me. Frankie’s copy of The Great Gatsby lay open on my lap in bed and the last thing I remembered was the grandfather clock chiming ten. I’d fallen asleep with the lights on. Again. I reached over and checked my phone. Ten-forty. Probably Eli coming home from his date. I lay there and waited for him to come upstairs.
Maybe he was in the kitchen having a postprandial late-night snack. Something to tide him over after dinner and before breakfast. If I ate at this hour, I’d have such bad indigestion, I’d never fall asleep. How did he do it?
I should have heard the creak of the kitchen door opening and closing if he was fixing himself something to eat. Or else he should have been quietly climbing the stairs, probably with his shoes off and skipping the treads that squeaked so I wouldn’t hear him.
I sat up and threw off the blankets, reaching for my robe and sliding my feet into my slippers. Something was wrong, off-kilter. I could feel it, that the house seemed to be gathering itself together against someone who didn’t belong here.
Above our front door was the Montgomery clan motto, carved into the stone lintel: Garde bien. Watch well. Watch out for us. A warning to beware because the Montgomerys were a warrior clan, a martial clan. Even the land my house was built on had been given as a reward to Hamish Montgomery for fierce fighting in the French and Indian War.
But though there had always been guns in this house, they were all securely locked away in Leland’s gun cabinet downstairs in the library. When Eli and Hope moved in, my brother and I agreed they would stay there as long as there was a child living here. We’d left the key in the same spot where Leland had always kept it: on the ledge above the door to the library, far out of the grasp of Hope’s chubby fingers.
I reached for my phone. If I called someone—Quinn, maybe, or 911—what would I say? “I have a weird feeling someone is in my house”? Maybe I should just call Eli. What a laugh when his phone would ring as he was climbing the stairs.
But I didn’t think it was Eli. That was my first thought. My second was for Hope, my sweet, innocent niece and the love of my life. Nothing could happen to her. I wouldn’t allow it.
I turned off my light and walked quietly in the dark to the landing, where I could look down into the foyer. The space below was wild with shadows cast by the Tiffany lamp, glowing in its corner like a lit jewel. Had I imagined that I’d heard something? It could have just been the unfamiliar sound of the clock movement settling before it chimed each quarter hour, instead of my overactive imagination.
I listened for a moment outside Hope’s door until I could hear the faint sound of her deep, steady breathing. Then I went downstairs and called Eli on my cell phone.
He took his sweet time answering. “Luce? I’m on my way home,” he said, sounding as if I’d interrupted something. “I was just leaving. Everything okay?”
“Hope’s fine, since I know that’s what you’re asking. Sleeping like an angel,” I said. “I thought I heard something downstairs, so I came down to check. It’s probably just the grandfather clock, making weird sounds I’m not used to.”
“You’ve got the hearing of a bat, so that’s probably exactly what it is,” he said. “You know, maybe we ought to start locking the front door again. We’ve gotten kind of lazy about it.”
I walked over to the door and turned the dead bolt.
“That’s because you’re always running back and forth between the house and your office,” I said. “And you never have your keys.”
“My bad,” he said. His voice sounded different now and I knew he was talking to me through the speakerphone in his car.
“Are you only just leaving? I thought you said you were already on your way home.”
“Relax,” he said. “I’ll be there in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes max. If you’re still up, we can have a nightcap.”
“Fifteen or twenty minutes? I’ll be up,” I said, and disconnected.
It was two minutes before eleven. The back door to the kitchen was locked, but just to be sure, I figured I ought to double-check it. I had just started to walk toward the kitchen when a quiet explosion sounded from the basement. For a moment, I thought it was the thermostat kicking in to turn off the furnace for the night, but the Tiffany lamp went out like a snuffed candle and from various parts of the house electronics that had been abruptly cut off squawked in protest.
In the bleak silence that followed, I knew someone had cut the power. I whipped my phone out of my bathrobe pocket, where I had dropped it after talking with Eli, and started punching in the code to unlock it.
He came out of nowhere from deep in the shadows, a tall figure dressed in black with a ski mask covering all but his eyes. His arm came up to knock the phone out of my hand as he kicked my cane away with his boot. Before I could cry out, he grabbed me, covering my mouth with a gloved hand and twisting my right arm up behind my back so hard, it hurt.
“Shut up,” he said in a guttural voice, “and I won’t hurt the child. You say anything and she’s next. Got it?”
I nodded and he removed his hand.
“Please don’t hurt me or her,” I said. “Just take whatever you want and leave. I won’t call the police.”
His hand slid down my side, toward the opening of my robe, and I tensed, waiting for what I was sure he would do next. Instead, he yanked on the belt, untying it and pulling it from the loops until it swung free.
Fifteen minutes, Eli had said. Twenty, max. I probably didn’t have that long. My intruder frog-marched me into the kitchen in silence and complete darkness.
He knows where he’s going. He knows my house.
“Lie down. On your stomach. Don’t look at me.” This time, I paid attention to the accent. Hispanic. I couldn’t tell from what country.
I had to hold on to one of the kitchen chairs for balance, since I didn’t have my cane. He bound my hands together behind my back with my bathrobe belt and then used the other end to bind my feet, trussing me like an animal.
Maybe he wasn’t going to hurt me after all, just tie me up and rob me. Then I heard him unlock the kitchen door. Was he just going to leave? A blast of cold air assaulted us and he bent down and swept me up in his arms, facedown, as if he were carrying a bundle of logs.
“No,” I said. “Please don’t.”
He dropped me on the veranda on my stomach and slammed the door to the kitchen. The sound reverberated with a terrifying finality. I tasted blood; either my nose was bleeding or I’d split a lip from that fall.
He hit me once, hard, on the back of my head. Before I passed out, I heard the crunching sound of his boots retreating on the icy snow as he walked down my garden path and left me outside in the frigid cold to die.