Betrayal (19 page)

From the way they snapped at one another and laughed and chatted, he thought he was pretty safe.

He joined Eli at the kitchen counter, and after gathering and distributing drinks, he poured himself iced tea and added two teaspoons of sugar.

Normally, he went a little lighter on the sweetener, but hey, when a man knew the day of his death, he could live it up with a few more calories.

Pulling up a chair, he wedged it between DuPey and Bao and seated himself.

From here he could hear Nonna’s gift arrive. He intended to be the first one to the door when it was delivered.

Brooke walked in and slid into her chair. “Thanks for waiting. This baby is sitting on my bladder. I wish I could get through more than one hand without having to go.”

Nonna finished shuffling.

DuPey cut the deck.

“Five-card stud, deuces are wild,” Nonna announced, and shot the cards across the table with narrow-eyed precision.

Elaborately casual, Eli sorted his hand. “So, Noah—how’s the search going?”

Noah looked at his cards. A full house, nines high.

Figured. Of course he’d get his best hand as his time ran out.

Could have been worse. Could have been two pairs, aces and eights—the dead man’s hand.

Everyone tossed money in the pot, hummed or sneered, plucking out one or two or three cards and discarding them as Nonna dealt replacements from the deck.

They glanced at their new cards, but the primary focus was on Noah.

“I’ll play these.” He threw his stake into the center of
the table. “Great. The search is going great.” He smiled toothily. “Do you know how many miles of corridors there are under that resort?”

Rafe tapped the table. “I’ll take two.” When he had his cards, he tossed his chips in. “Come on.
Miles
is an exaggeration.”

In the 1930s, during Prohibition, the basement had been dug below the original resort building as a root cellar, a space to run plumbing and electrical wiring, and maybe, just maybe, as a secret wine cellar hidden from the revenuers. Recently, Rafe and Noah—and Brooke—had spent more than a few ghastly hours down there.

Had their grandfather hidden Massimo’s jewel-laden bottle of wine in those cellars? Noah had believed the possibility was good. But his hopes were fading. “I have looked in every cubbyhole, every mouse hole, every rat hole, plus I’ve lifted the cushions and opened the drawers on every cobweb-covered, abandoned piece of furniture.” He shook his head. “I used a portable ultrasound to find cavities in the walls, and have unearthed a dozen secret rooms with wine racks and pot paraphernalia and one that was built for—apparently—some long-ago Di Luca and his mistress.”

Chloë’s head popped up, her attention caught. “How do you figure? Is there only a bed in there?”

“That’s right,” Noah answered.

Everyone in the room went, “Ooh.”

Chloë’s eyes sparkled, and she went back to typing.

“I have had my fingers crushed by mousetraps. I have stared into the empty eyes of rodent skulls, cat skulls, snake skulls”—he shuddered at one memory—“and seen one live snake that had somehow found its way down there specifically to scare the crap out of me. I
have washed cobwebs out of my hair every damned night.”

“No bottle?” DuPey knew about the bottle of wine, but he thought it was just that—a bottle of wine. He hadn’t heard about the diamonds. The family had managed to keep that information to themselves.

“Lots of bottles. Beer bottles. Root beer bottles. Coke bottles. Wine bottles. Empty. Full. With spiders or without. But no bottle of wine made by Massimo Bruno.” Chips flew. Players folded or stuck. Noah laid down his hand.

Amid many groans, he scraped the pot out of the center of the table and sorted the chips.

Brooke collected the cards and shuffled like a Las Vegas dealer. “Five-card draw, jacks or better to open.”

Noah grinned at her. “Fours, whores, and one-eyed jacks wild?”

“We’re playing poker, not Go Fish,” she said, and dealt.

Brooke was serious about her poker.

Rafe pulled in his cards. “You could use some help, Noah. That’s a lot of ground to cover.”

“I’ve only got about a couple of hundred more feet to go. You’re welcome to come behind me and check to see if I’ve missed anything, but frankly, I’ve done a thorough search.” Noah wouldn’t have trusted this task to anyone else.

“Where else would your grandfather have hidden the bottle?” DuPey asked.

All cards were slapped, facedown, on the table. Everyone leaned forward, intense and still.

Chapter 27

“I
still say the bottle is in the house.” Brooke waved a hand around her.

“We’ve searched. And searched. Everywhere.” Rafe’s blue eyes burned with ferocity. “There’s nothing.”

“What if he buried it in the yard?” DuPey asked. “That would be cool and dark.”

“If he buried it, it could be buried anywhere,” Eli said.

“He left a note in the cubbyhole where the wine was stored,” Chloë reminded them.

“He had lousy handwriting, especially at the end. Maybe we’re reading it wrong.” Noah liked the idea that Nonno had fooled them so easily—except that it got them nowhere.

“It’s clear enough.” Rafe reached across and ruffled Noah’s hair. “It says, ‘Up.’ ”

Noah yanked his head away. “What’s it say if you turn it upside down?”

Chloë had apparently already thought of that, for she said promptly, “ ‘dn.’ ”

“Down?” Brooke sat up straight.

“That doesn’t help,” Chloë said patiently. “That gets us back to—did he bury it somewhere?”

“If he did, we’re screwed. He’s been gone nine years.” Rafe glanced worriedly at his grandmother. He continued, “Any sign of his work would be grown over.”

“I can’t sit here on my hands and not do anything.” That was an exaggeration. It was late spring. Eli worked all day in the vineyards and in the cellars blending the wines. Yet he couldn’t contain his impatience. “Is there something that detects objects buried in the ground? I could get my field guys together and have them search the grounds—”

“First of all, how well ground-penetrating radar works depends on the type of soil and how much electrical conductivity is in it. Also, I don’t think we want your vineyard workers looking for a precious object like that bottle—the chances that we’d actually receive it from their hands is not good.” Rafe lifted one shoulder in a half shrug.

Eli gave a half shrug back.

Brooke picked up where Rafe left off. “What happens when you start looking at a highly developed site like the resort is you find chunks of pipe, chunks of concrete, nails, two-by-fours, ceramic tile, rolls of insulation, all from the original construction and the construction since.”

Noah nodded. “And bottles, lots of bottles, from the drinks the workers enjoyed after work and then tossed into a slag pit and buried. Every time we build a new cottage, what do you think we find?”

“Bottles?” Bao ventured.

“Right. Plus the resort includes part of the vineyard. Include that, and we’ve got more than forty acres. Searching the grounds of the resort is a waste of time unless we have something more to go on.” Too bad Noah’s Propov cousins were such thugs. He could put them on the job.

He half smiled. Maybe he could stick them at the far end of the vineyard and tell them to work their way forward.
That
would keep them busy.

Having Hendrik and the lovable gang o’ thugs in town with nothing to do was making Noah extremely nervous.

“I don’t think Nonno would have buried the bottle there, anyway. He worked at the resort, but he loved the vineyard, and he loved his home.” One by one Eli stacked his chips into one tall pile, sorted by colors. “I think the bottle has to be here, somewhere on the home ranch.”

“How about searching Sarah’s yard with your ground-penetrating radar?” DuPey said.

Nonna and Bao exchanged glances.

Nonna shrugged and nodded.

Bao spoke up. “We already did it.”

Everyone turned to face her.

“You did?” Rafe asked. “When?”

“We needed a distraction. And I’m sorry, but I’m here, a highly trained killing machine”—Bao held up her hands, callused from years of martial arts—“and mostly nothing happens. After a few weeks of peace and tranquillity—broken by the occasional murder—even breaking boards with my forehead loses its hint of fun. Sarah and I decided a search was a good idea. So I rented a ground-penetrating radar detector and we combed the
yard. We found some interesting stuff, mostly dead pets, buried toys, some used condoms.…”

Noah pretended he knew nothing.

His brothers did the same.

Bao continued. “But no bottle of wine. And no one has been digging in the yard recently, either.”

“Does it look like anything special?” Chloë asked. When everyone looked at her in puzzlement, she said, “It’s old, made during Prohibition
and
the Depression. Didn’t they clean and reuse bottles then?”

“Yes, and in those days, when wine was illegal, it was sometimes bottled to disguise the contents,” Nonna said.

Eli’s mouth kicked up in a half grin. “You’re right; this bottle would not resemble the modern red wine bottle. For one thing, it’s more than seven hundred and fifty milliliters. That size is a relatively recent development. They used to bottle wine in fifths, like liquor. So Nonno’s bottle is thin and tall—”

“More like a white wine bottle?” Chloë clarified.

“Yes, but taller.” Eli gestured with his hands. “Twenty-four inches, perhaps? Straight-sided, with slender shoulders. It’s heavy for its size. The glass is green and I think thick, although I can’t tell that until I decant it.”

“Here’s to the day that you do.” DuPey lifted his glass in salute.

Eli inclined his head. “God grant it be soon.”

“Amen,” Noah said fervently.

Nonna sat biting her lip and looking worried.

Noah had to ask. “You don’t know where it is, do you, Nonna?”

She shook her head. “I wish that I did.”

“Because lives depend on finding that bottle,” he said.

Nonna turned on him, her usually gentle brown eyes
flashing. “Dear. I realize I’m a befuddled old woman who couldn’t possibly comprehend the seriousness of the situation, but since I’ve been attacked, my personal nurse has robbed me and been killed, and Joseph Bianchin himself threatened me.… I think I have as good a grip on what is happening as you young people do.”

“I know, Nonna. I’m stupid. I’m sorry.” He was, and he was.

But she was having none of it. She stood, quivering with anger. “I need to get the dining room ready for company.”

Brooke and Chloë came to their feet. “We’ll help you, Nonna.”

“No!” She pointed a finger at each one. “I want to be alone for a minute.” Because they all knew she didn’t lose her temper very often, but when she did, it took time and patience for her to bring it under control.

Both girls sank back into their chairs.

As soon as Nonna left the room, Chloë said, “Good going, Noah.”

“What happened to the usual smooth charm, Noah?” Brooke taunted. “Got something on your mind?”

Even the girls wanted him to confess his part in this ongoing crime.

But he couldn’t dare.

When he remembered last month’s outburst, admitting he knew about the pink diamonds and who sought them, he wanted to smack himself. All these years, he had been so careful to keep his mouth shut. Apparently the strain had finally breached his good sense, and this was the result: He had slipped, causing his brothers and his sisters-in-law, and most of all Nonna, aggravation and worry.

Right now, he didn’t need them trying to pry his secrets from him. His family couldn’t imagine how much danger it would put them in if he shared what he knew. He needed them on their guards, but ignorant. Because with every heartbeat, the leather dog collar seemed to tighten around his neck, and every time it tightened, a tiny bit of his discipline slipped away.

He didn’t dare lose control again. He would say too much, and with his mother and her family in town, Noah feared an indiscretion would lead to deaths—Di Luca deaths. As much as he loved his brothers, they couldn’t overpower Liesbeth and her gang.

Ignoring Brooke and Chloë, Noah said, “I feel as if the bottle has to be in plain sight, or someplace painfully obvious, and somehow we’re just missing it.”

Nods all around the table.

He leveled a look at his brothers. “Nonno did so much work in the shed and in the garage, and both of those places are dark and cool. If you want to help, empty them, pull out everything—”

“We already did that,” Eli said.

“Do it again. Run your radar detectors over every inch of the dirt floor and any patches in the concrete… that would help.” Noah must have looked grim. Or determined. Or scared. Or something.

Because Eli said, “Damn it, Noah, tell us what you know!” And in an unexpected move from the usually stoic Eli, his long arm reached around and slapped Noah hard on the back of the head.

An unexpected flash of pain.

A piercing fear.

A single thought.

He was dead.

Noah found himself on his feet, heart pounding, clutching at his throat and the studs that would ignite and end his life, facing a tableful of puzzled, worried faces.

No. Not dead. He was still alive. Still alive…

“Noah?” Rafe stood slowly. “C’mon, man. Nothing can be that bad. Tell us.”

With an effort, Noah loosened his grip from around his neck. He flexed his hand and cleared his throat.

Yes.
Tell them.
They were his kin and perhaps they could think of something he had not. Maybe they could help—

“Noah, you darling boy.” Nonna bustled into the kitchen, laughing and crying.

Noah looked around, dazed and confused.

Nonna threw her arms around him. “I never could stay mad at you long, but this—this stunt exceeds all your other shenanigans.”

He looked at her uncomprehendingly.

Then he realized—his present had arrived.

Behind Nonna, his great-aunt Annie rolled down the hall in her electric wheelchair, holding the leash to her assistance dog. Walking behind was his great-aunt June, tall, brisk, white haired. He had flown them in, Annie from Washington State and June from Far Island off the coast of California, to let them reassure themselves that Nonna was well—and to be with her after she suffered another loss.