“Wake up, Aunt Wucie. Please … pleeeeese wake up. Are you okay? You’re bleeding.”
I opened my eyes. My sweet niece, who had crouched next to me, was patting my cheek with one of her hands. Her other hand was smeared with blood. My blood.
“Hope.” I could barely say her name. How long had I been here? I couldn’t feel my limbs. “Call Daddy. My phone.”
Somehow, she’d had the presence of mind to put on her winter coat over her nightgown. From her pocket, she pulled out my phone.
“You dropped it,” she said. “It’s dark inside. I’m cold.”
The power was still out.
“The code,” I said, and mumbled it. She frowned, concentrating as she typed it in and found the icon for the phone. A picture of Eli holding her on his hip showed up at the top of my list of favorites.
“Push the button, pumpkin. Call Daddy.”
I heard his voice on the other end of the line, testy and impatient-sounding. Expecting me to be calling and demanding when he was going to be here.
“Daddy.” Hope cut him off with bossy almost-four-year-old authority and indignation. “You come home now. Aunt Wucie is sick. She’s lying down in the snow and she’s bleeding.”
I heard his voice rising in panic. Hope held out my phone. “Daddy wants to say hi.”
She put it next to my ear. “Hurry,” I said, my voice a croak. “Nine one one. I was attacked. He tied me up and left me outside. I’m frozen.”
“Oh my God.” Then he disconnected.
“Hope,” I said, “do you know where we keep the scissors in the kitchen?”
She nodded. “I’m not allowed to play with them. Only mine, Persia says.”
“You can play with them this one time. Do you think you could get them and cut this cord so I can move my hands and feet?”
Another nod. “Stay here,” she said. I would have laughed if I could have.
She disappeared inside and I tried to roll back and forth, closer to the warm air I could feel coming from the kitchen. But it felt as though my mind had become disconnected from my limbs and I had no idea if I was moving or just imagining I was.
“I got them.” She crouched next to me again. “What do I do?”
“Cut the belt to my bathrobe, sweetie. Make a nice cut right in the middle.”
“Okay.”
I heard her muttering to herself and grunting as she struggled with the unfamiliar scissors. “You can do it, Hopie. Keep trying. Two hands.”
Then without any warning, my arms and legs flopped to the ground. Though they were still bound together and my arms were pinned behind my back, at least I could move.
“I did it.”
“Good girl. I know you did. Help me sit up, honey, okay? I’m going to roll on my side first. You push me like a big log. It’s a game.”
“Okay.”
She was stronger than I thought she was. By the time I sat up, a car had roared into the driveway and stopped with a screech of brakes. I heard my brother yelling my name and Hope’s.
“Daddy!” she said.
“Get him,” I said. “Hurry.”
* * *
ELI CARRIED ME INTO the darkened house, white-faced with shock and grief, and took me into the library, where he placed me on the sofa and bundled me up in throws from an antique quilt rack next to the fireplace.
“Sit tight,” he said. “I’m going to turn the power back on. Hope, honey, you stay with Aunt Lucie.”
By now we could hear the wail of sirens coming up Sycamore Lane, followed by more commotion as multiple vehicles pulled up outside. People slamming doors and talking in raised voices. Through the enormous library windows, I could see red and blue lights strobing the night sky. A moment later, the lights in the house blinked on, and suddenly the library was overflowing with noise and people; two men and a woman dressed in bulky parkas with fur-edged hoods over their navy EMT uniforms carrying medical bags, an oxygen tank, and rolling a low stretcher on wheels. I heard Eli talking to someone in the foyer, probably whoever had arrived from the Sheriff’s Department, and Hope’s little voice chiming in.
One of the men put a blood pressure cuff on my arm and checked my temperature while the woman knelt by my side and asked if I could tell her what had happened. While I talked, she carefully cleaned the crusted blood off my face and neck from the bloody nose I’d gotten when I’d been dropped on the wooden veranda floor.
“Where did he hit you?” she asked.
I raised a hand and touched the place where his blow had landed. “Here.”
Her hands were gentle as she felt my skull, but when she came to the spot I’d indicated, I winced.
“We’d like to take you to the hospital,” she said. “Make sure you don’t have a concussion. You could be suffering from shock after a trauma like this; plus, you were outside in extreme weather conditions. You don’t appear to have hypothermia and your temperature is ninety-seven, which is a miracle, but you should still be evaluated. Make sure you’re okay.”
I knew this was coming. After the car accident and the months and months I’d spent in hospitals, she would have to drag me kicking and screaming before I set foot in one again.
“I’m fine,” I said. “My speech isn’t slurred and my vision’s fine. Except for the time I passed out, I remember everything, so no amnesia. Other than a nasty headache and a bump on the noggin from where he punched me with his fist, I think I got off lucky. I’ll rest and do whatever you tell me to do, but no hospital. Please.”
What I didn’t say was that I wasn’t going to leave my home. It would seem as if I’d be letting this guy know he’d won if I did.
The woman looked at her colleagues. “We can’t force you,” she said, “but we strongly recommend it.”
“How about if I agree to see my doctor tomorrow if I feel worse?”
“You will feel worse. You’re probably going to have a lot of bruising, especially on your face. And you’ve already got the start of an award-winning shiner.”
“I’ll put ice on it. And take ibuprofen.”
“No ibuprofen, in case you’re bleeding internally, which is what we’re worried about.”
“Lucie. Oh, my poor lamb.” Persia stood in the doorway, holding onto the doorjamb with one hand as if her life depended on it. Her hair was in a wild braid that hung over one shoulder and she was dressed in red-and-purple tie-dyed leggings, snakeskin cowboy boots, and a Redskins sweatshirt under her winter coat. Her eyes flashed with righteous fury. “Who did this to you?”
“Ma’am,” the paramedic said, giving her a doubtful look. “A little privacy, please?”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Persia is our housekeeper and my niece’s nanny. She’s family and she lives next door.” To Persia, I said, “I think Eli and I are going to be up for a while. Will you take care of Hope tonight? She saved my life, you know.”
She nodded, still agitated. “My little angel. I heard how brave she was. But the blood on her nightgown—”
“It’s mine, only mine. Don’t worry.”
“I’ll give her a hot bath,” she said. “And I’ll stay with her for as long as you need me to be here. Shall I fix you some tea first? You need to get something hot in you, warm your insides up.”
Eli appeared next to her, carrying Hope, who clung to him like a little monkey. “I’ll get her tea, Persia, if you’ll take Hopie. And Luce, if you’re up for it, there’s a deputy here who wants to talk to you about what happened. Quinn’s outside, too. He wants to see you.”
“Yes to both,” I said as Eli passed his daughter to Persia.
The female paramedic stood up and said, “We’ll leave you to talk to the deputy. But I’m going to check in with you afterward, make sure you haven’t changed your mind about the hospital.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll be well looked after here. And you have my word about seeing my doctor if I need to.”
She gave me an I’ve-heard-that-before look and waited until a young dark-haired deputy wearing a heavy jacket with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Department logo stitched on it walked into the room before she and the two men left. He introduced himself and said, “I explained to your friend that he needed to wait outside until I talked to you.”
Bobby Noland told me long ago that it’s standard procedure in law enforcement to question witnesses separately, keep everyone apart. The minute that two or more people get together to corroborate on their version of what happened, the story gets muddied and details start changing.
I nodded, and he said, “Do you think you could you tell me what happened? From what your brother said, it sounds like you’re lucky to be alive.”
He wrote down what I told him in a small reporter’s notebook. When I was done, he said, “My partner and I checked your doors and windows for signs of forced entry and didn’t find anything. Your brother tells me you leave your front door unlocked most days and even at night. My guess is that he just walked in.”
“We’ve gotten out of the habit of locking it,” I said, and knew I was letting myself in for a well-deserved lecture on smart people doing stupid things. “I’ve lived here almost all my life and I’ve always felt safe here.”
“You might want to get into the habit of locking it from now on.” He gave me a stern look. “It could have been enough of a deterrent tonight to keep this guy out. Your brother says nothing seems to be missing. Either you showed up before he could rob you or he was here to find you.”
I hadn’t gone down that road yet in my mind, but one thing I did know for sure was that this hadn’t been a random burglary.
“He seemed to know the house,” I said. “And he knew Hope was upstairs … though that could have been because he overheard me talking on the phone to Eli before he cut the power and attacked me.”
“Did he have a weapon?”
“I didn’t see one.”
“Can you describe him?”
“He was so bundled up in a ski parka and heavy pants and boots that I couldn’t tell you much of anything about him. Everything he wore was black, including his gloves and his ski mask. I don’t even know what color eyes he had. Plus, the house was dark.”
He wrote all that down and I heard the hitch in his breath. I’d given him nothing to go on.
“Lucie.” Eli stood in the door. “I’ve got your tea.”
The deputy nodded and Eli came in and handed it to me. He waited until my brother had left before he said, “Any enemies we should know about? Disgruntled employees, present or past? Plus, you hire seasonal labor, a lot of ’em Hispanic. You said this guy had an accent.”
I sipped my tea and warmed my hands on the mug. “During harvest, yes, we hire a lot of migrant workers. As for the people who work here year-round, almost everyone lives on the property in housing we provide. I’ve known them and their families for years. It wasn’t someone who works here, Deputy. I’m sure of it.”
“If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that, I could retire young,” he said. “More often than not, it turns out the criminal has some connection with the victim. What makes you so sure it’s not a present or former employee?”
“I just don’t believe it could be anybody who works here now.”
He raised an eyebrow and gave me a disbelieving look. “What about someone who used to work here? Any customers visit your winery and get into an argument? Has anyone threatened you recently?”
The answer to that last question was yes.
Gino Tomassi. I will burn you both. Except the guy who did this to me wasn’t Gino. Too tall, too slim, and that Spanish accent. Someone sent by Gino? I didn’t even want to think about that.
“Ms. Montgomery?” He tapped his pen on his pad. “Can you answer the questions, please? I can’t help you if you don’t help me.”
There was no way I was going to protect Gino, but I needed to think things through and talk to Quinn before I said anything to this officer.
“We had a property manager a few years back. Chance Miller. He’s in jail now. At least I think he is. I’ve lost track of him,” I said. “And over the years we’ve had a couple of seasonal workers who had to be let go for one reason or another.”
“Besides Chance Miller, any other names?”
“Right now I’m a bit shaken up,” I said, “and I need to talk to my winemaker. He might remember the ones we had problems with better than I do at the moment. Let me get back to you, okay?”
He gave me a look that said he knew I’d ducked the question, then said, “We’ll be back in the morning to take a look around outside when it’s daylight. Maybe he wore special boots or dropped something when he took off. You didn’t hear a car before he showed up?”
I shook my head as he flipped his notebook shut and clicked his pen on the cover like a sharp exclamation point to let me know he didn’t appreciate my holding back information.
“If you think of anything,” he said, “give me a call. Your brother has my card. Good night, Ms. Montgomery. I hope you feel better.”
“Thank you.”
He stopped in the doorway and turned around. “We’ll be looking for whoever did this, but in the meantime he’s still out there. If all he meant to do was give you a warning or scare you, then he did what he came for. But if he intended to kill you, once he learns he wasn’t successful, he might try again. So be careful.”
“Thank you,” I said in a shaken voice. “I will.”
“The more you help us,” he added, giving me a pointed look, “the sooner we can get this guy.”
Then he was gone.
When Quinn and the female EMT came into the room, I was holding an empty mug and staring out the window.
“Are you okay, miss?” the woman asked. “You look quite pale.”
She took my temperature again and placed the blood pressure cuff on my arm.
“I’m all right,” I said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t much help to that deputy, and as he reminded me, that guy is still out there.”
I gave Quinn a look that said not to say a word until we were alone. He nodded, barely a twitch of his head, and moved closer to me. I caught the overpowering scent of cologne, as if he’d dumped a whole bottle on himself, and breath mints, a sure sign that he’d been drinking before he showed up here.
The EMT gave him a knowing look and said, “Are you all right, sir?”
“No,” he said. “I’m not. Someone tried to kill Lucie tonight, so I’m most definitely not all right.”
She finished taking my blood pressure and said to me, “You’d be better off in the hospital, you know. At least for observation overnight.”
“I’ll be fine at home,” I said. “Thank you for your concern, but I’ll be well taken care of here.”
She gave Quinn a look that indicated she wouldn’t trust him to care for someone’s pet rock and said, “It’s your decision.”
After she left, Quinn kissed my forehead and took my hands in his. “If this was Gino,” he said, “I will kill him.”
I shuddered and said, “It wasn’t.”
“Or one of his goons. Same thing.”
“You can’t go killing people. They have laws about that kind of thing,” I said, and got a slight smile from him. “Do you think it could have been someone who used to work here? We have had a few bad apples over the years. And whoever was here knew the house, knew his way around.”
“My money is still on Gino.”
“Why me, then? Why not you?”
“To let me know he’s serious. That he’ll go after someone I love. It’s worse than going after me.”
Someone he loved. I nodded because there was a lump in my throat suddenly, and he squeezed my hands. “If he wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”
“He came pretty damn close,” I said. “Though you could be right. I was on the phone with Eli just before he attacked me. He probably heard me say something to Eli about seeing him in a few minutes, when he got home. So he knew I’d be rescued.”
We both looked up as Eli walked back into the library. “They’ve all gone now,” he said. “Quinn, can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure.” Quinn got up.
“Lucie, you want any more tea?” Eli asked.
“Thanks. I’m fine.”
“Sit tight,” he said. “We’ll be right back.”
I heard them talking in hushed voices in the foyer, and when they walked into the library a moment later, I knew a plan had been hatched.
“Luce, Quinn’s going to stay here tonight,” Eli said, “but he’s going to sleep downstairs. I’ll be upstairs with my bedroom door open. Persia’s with Hope. I think she finally managed to get her to sleep. We both thought you’d be more comfortable in your own bed. I’ll carry you upstairs, if you’re ready.”
“Thanks, Eli, but I’m sure I can walk just fine.”
“Don’t argue.”
“I love you, but I can handle this. And I’m taking a shower and getting out of this bloody nightgown before I go to bed.”
Someone had propped my cane against the table in the foyer. Whoever did it must have picked it up from where it fell after the intruder kicked it away. I reached for it, and that’s when I saw the envelope—white, business-size—lying on the table on top of yesterday’s mail. Nothing was written on it. It hadn’t been there earlier.
“Anyone know what this is? Or where it came from?” I picked it up and tore it open before either of them could answer.
The message was spelled out with letters that had been cut from a newspaper and pasted on a piece of plain white paper.
MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS OR ELSE
Quinn swore under his breath. “I told you it was Gino. He sent his guy to deliver a message, to let you know he could get inside your house if he wanted to. That he could get inside your head. You must have surprised him.”
I nodded, unable to speak. Or else what?
“Gino—Tomassi? Is that who you’re talking about? He attacked Lucie? Are you kidding me?” Eli’s gaze swiveled between Quinn and me. “What the hell is going on here? It’s about time I know, don’t you two think?” He paused and said in a strangled voice, “He could have gone after Hope once he’d finished with Lucie.”
I gave him a terrified look. “Don’t even think it.”
“Look.” Quinn held out his hands palms down, like he was trying to tamp down our panic. “I’m getting the bottle of brandy and then we’re going to go back into the library and we’ll discuss this. Okay?”
I let Quinn do most of the talking while I lay on the sofa. As I figured, he kept it short and filled in only the essential details. By the time he was finished, it was nearly 3:00 A.M. and he and Eli had made a serious dent in what was left of the brandy.
“I’m calling Bobby in the morning. Which will be in a couple of hours,” Eli said. “He needs to see that letter.” He stood up and gave Quinn a coded look. “And now I think we should go to bed. Luce, I’m taking you upstairs.”
Quinn kissed me good night and told me not to show up for bottling in the morning or he’d personally throw me out, no questions asked.
“I’ll see how I feel,” I said.
“Tie her to the bed, Eli,” Quinn said.
“You heard him,” Eli said. “You’re not going anywhere. Besides, I’m staying here tomorrow so I can keep an eye on you.”
He wrapped his arm around my waist and we slowly climbed the big spiral staircase. When we reached the top step, I heard the unmistakable sound of Leland’s gun cabinet being unlocked and the squeak of a door as it opened after many months of disuse.
“Eli,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Quinn and I have everything covered. You just get some sleep. I’ll check in on you after you have your shower, make sure you’re okay.”
He said good night to me at my bedroom door, and after I closed it, I went over and looked out the window, straining my eyes to see if anyone might be out there, lurking in the darkness, watching the house, watching me. I saw no one, but what I did hear was the stealthy sound of footsteps, Eli going downstairs once again.
I knew why, too.
Quinn had gotten guns and ammunition out of Leland’s gun cabinet for the two of them. By now, Quinn had probably loaded both weapons.
And he and my brother were ready to use them.