Revenge at Bella Terra (15 page)

Eli strolled forward. “But Nonno was a winemaker, too. The bottle needed to be stored in the dark in a cool place. No matter how bad his mind got, he would never have forgotten that.”

Sarah agreed.

“I’m almost afraid to ask—what’s it worth?” Chloë tensed in anticipation.

“A bottle of so old and exalted a vintage, and with this history behind it, is worth tens of thousands,” Eli said.

“Of dollars?” At once Chloë felt stupid. “Of course, dollars, but . . . tens of thousands of dollars for one bottle of wine? Who pays that much for an old bottle of wine?”

“In 1916, bottles of champagne from the Heidsieck vineyard in Champagne were shipped to the Russian Imperial family. The ship foundered off the coast of Finland and was lost until 1997 when divers discovered the wreck and over two hundred intact bottles of the champagne. They are now being sold to guests at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Moscow for”—Eli paused dramatically—“two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.”

Chloë clutched her heart.

“It’s the incredible history and the age of the wine that accounts for the price,” he reminded her.

Chloë had to protest. She had to. “I’ve had fivedollar bottles of wine that I thought were a waste of money.”

Sarah started chuckling.

Eli tried to subdue a smile. “Some say that when it comes to wine, collectors have more money than sense. Of course, as a maker of fine wines, I would never say that.”

Still incredulous, Chloë said, “I get spending huge sums for a cool piece of art or a vintage dress or something, but once you open a bottle of wine that’s so expensive—”

“The value is then nothing,” Eli said.

“And after so long, isn’t there a chance that the wine is bad?” Chloë asked.

“More than a chance,” he agreed. “It almost certainly is vinegar or worse. But occasionally one of Massimo’s wines still tasted like the promise of heaven.”

Chloë tried to imagine it. Not that she hadn’t enjoyed expensive wines—today at lunch, for example—but when she was buying, she preferred to keep the tab under ten dollars. Five was better.

That, she supposed, was still her college-girl mentality. “Is this bottle that Massimo gave to Anthony on the date of his birth . . . is it the last remaining bottle left on earth that was made by Massimo?”

“Not at all,” Eli said. “One of his bottles will pop up now and then at auction.”

“And be purchased for tens of thousands of dollars?” Chloë thought she sounded obsessed by the amount . . . but really. For a probably bad bottle of wine? What fool had that kind of money to waste?

A sliver of suspicion sliced into her mind. “Someone always buys them?”

“Yes. Someone always buys them. Most of his wines go for a good amount, but like gems”—he looked meaningfully into Chloë’s eyes—“the history of a bottle adds value. In this case, where the story concerns a legendary winemaker who disappeared, a brutal rivalry between two families, and the attempted murder of my grandfather . . . the bottle is steeped in history and violence, making it all the more attractive for the potential buyer.”

Right then, Chloë almost announced her suspicion of where the diamonds were hidden.

But Eli shook his head slowly. . . .

So he had had the same idea yesterday, when he suggested this field trip. That was Eli: intelligent and smoldering. What a great combination.

“Do you know, Sarah, was there a lot of crime at the time of Massimo’s death?” Chloë asked. “You know . . . home invasions? Robberies? Anything like that?”

Sarah looked at Chloë as if she’d lost her mind. “I never heard about it if there was. Why, dear?”

“I think she’s comparing those times to now, when we have Joseph Bianchin, who’s still willing to do whatever it takes to get his undeserving mitts on the bottle.” Picking up his grandmother’s hand, Eli bowed his head as if paying homage.

Sarah put her hand on his head. “Eli, dear, I’m fine.”

He lifted his head, and Chloë caught a glimpse of his expression: love, fear, anguish.

Something had happened to Sarah, and even the hint made Chloë sick with the echo of Eli’s fear . . . and made her wonder once more at the depths he hid so well.

Sarah leaned back in her chair. “Why did Chloë need to hear this story?”

“Because we found Massimo’s body yesterday,” Eli told her.

“Massimo? Is dead?” Sarah touched her fingers to her temple. “Of course he’s dead, but . . . are you sure the body you found is his?”

“As sure as we can be,” he said. “Whatever he was doing caught up with him—he was tortured before he was killed.”

“Tortured? No one would have tortured him about the wine!” Sarah frowned fiercely. “Half the time the revenuers were corrupt, but I never heard of them killing anyone.”

Chloë started to speak.

Eli shook his head at her.

“So my mother was right.” Sarah’s eyes filled with tears. “Massimo should never have made a deal with the devil. The devil is not to be trusted.”

Chapter 19

E
li looked helplessly at Chloë. He seemed bewildered by his grandmother’s reaction.

“Why are you grief-stricken, Sarah?” Chloë gently asked. “If you never met Massimo, why do you care?”

Eli moved back to give Sarah space to speak.

“I was born into the Depression, and I vividly remember those years—the poverty, the struggle to survive, how everything was gray and hopeless. My father told stories, and in those stories, Massimo sounded like Robin Hood, disappearing to rob from the rich and bring back to us, the poor. Massimo made good wines when it was illegal. He was hope, and when he disappeared and I asked my father where he had gone, my father said he had taken his fortune and retired to the Old Country. There, in my mind, he was eternally alive.” Sarah brushed a tear off her wrinkled cheek. “Now you say he was cruelly murdered. For me, it’s the death of a legend.”

The breeze whispered through the wisteria leaves and made the vine’s purple blossoms twist and dance, and the first fading petals whirled in circles as they slowly descended to earth.

Sad and thoughtful, Sarah watched them. “But I’m a foolish old woman to mourn for a man who died before I was born.”

“Not so foolish. Someone should mourn for that man. Why not you? And me?” Chloë shared a smile with Sarah, all the more painful for its poignancy.

“Thank you, dear. You’re very sweet.” Sarah stood. “Shall we go in?”

Chloë rose and began to collect the glasses and cookies and return them to the basket.

Sarah started toward the house.

Eli gave Chloë a meaningful glance and a push.

Chloë hurried after Sarah, took her arm, and walked with her.

Eli followed. Although he made no sound, Chloë knew he was close behind, watching them, listening to every word . . . and hanging back from his beloved grandmother’s wrenching emotion.

Not that most guys liked tears. Chloë knew they didn’t. But he was so openly affectionate to his grandmother, and so visibly afraid of her tears. It was as if he thought they were catching, and yet . . . she couldn’t imagine him ever crying.

Of course, two days ago she couldn’t imagine him ever smiling. But on rare occasions he did, and that made those occasions worth celebrating.

“Have you figured out why Massimo was tortured?” Sarah asked.

Chloë waited for Eli to answer, and when he didn’t, she said, “Not yet.”

“Or who did it?” Sarah pressed Chloë’s hand.

“I wish we knew.” That was completely honest, anyway.

“I wonder if it had something to do with Anthony’s bottle of wine,” Sarah said.

Chloë would almost bet on it. Again her suspicions trembled on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them and asked, “Can I see the wine cellar?”

Sarah laughed a little shakily. “Of course. Everyone else has tried to find the bottle. You might as well take a stab at it.” She glanced behind them. “Take her down, Eli, and be careful on the stairs. They’re steep and narrow.”

“Like these.” Eli stepped up to hold her arm as they climbed the front porch steps, the three of them together. “We’ve got to replace them, Nonna.”

“Rafe has already said he’s going to do it,” Sarah said.

“Let me know when and I’ll come to help.” A few beats, and Eli said, “I thought Rafe and Brooke were leaving for Sweden soon?”

Sarah stopped in front of her door. “They’ve postponed their trip.”

“Really?” As if astonished, Eli shook his head slightly. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah said.

But Chloë didn’t believe it. Not the way Sarah’s eyes were twinkling.

They walked through the hallway straight back to the kitchen. There Bao and Olivia were chatting quietly as they finished the luncheon cleanup.

Olivia took one look at Sarah’s puffy eyes. “How about a nap?”

Sarah sighed and said to Chloë, “When you are eighty, dear, do try to remain healthy, or all of a sudden your life is not your own.” But she kissed Chloë’s cheek, and Eli’s, and, with Olivia at her side, she started toward her bedroom at the front of the house.

Chloë watched until she was out of sight. “What happened to her?”

“Joseph Bianchin sent a man to attack her here in the house. She received a broken arm and a concussion.”

“You’re joking.” Chloë turned to him in a fury. “The baby who got the rattle? The rat who pillaged your grandparents’ wedding reception and tried to kill your grandfather? He’s still alive and after the elusive bottle?”

Eli put a comforting hand on Chloë’s shoulder. “Nonna’s fine, but for the moment we’re keeping Olivia around to care for her, and Bao to protect her.”

Bao leaned against the counter, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Bianchin broadcast enough information about that bottle to bring every repeat offender in the Western states down on our heads, and yet for the last few weeks there’s been no sign of anyone on the property. I can’t decide what it means, but I am uneasy every minute.”

Chloë looked at her in a different light and realized . . . the young woman was smiling, relaxed, but she moved with the economy of motion and the intent directness of a martial artist, and that constant pacing from window to window . . . She wasn’t nervous. She wasn’t watching the flowers bloom. Bao was guarding Sarah and her home.

What had started out yesterday as a fun excursion to see a historic still became abruptly real and perilous. “Is Joseph Bianchin in jail for his crime?”

“We caught the guy he hired, but Bianchin covered his tracks too well for us to get him.” Eli clearly despised the old man. “But he as good as told Nonna he was guilty, and for that, my brother Noah gave him reason to be afraid. Bianchin’s left town, and the fervor has died down . . . it seems. . . .”

“It’s too good to be true,” Bao said dourly.

“Honestly?” Chloë didn’t believe the mystery couldn’t be solved. “No one can find this bottle of wine?”

“I’ve searched, too.” Bao gestured around the kitchen.

“We’ll go down in the cellar and you can try. Maybe a fresh pair of eyes will see what we can’t.” Eli opened the narrow wooden door next to the counter. “The stairway is truly steep, so let me go first.”

The stairway was nothing but treads and risers strung together and painted white, and Chloë followed him down into the cool darkness, clutching the banister and wishing it weren’t quite so precipitous.

Windows at ground level provided feeble illumination: The cellar was a generously sized room, twenty by thirty, with a high ceiling and rough cement walls. It smelled earthy and rich, like an orchard where the fruit ripened in the sun.

Eli reached the bottom and flipped a switch, and a fluorescent fixture flared to life. “This is nothing but an old basement dug when they built the house. The Di Lucas have used it to store their vegetables and their wine for a hundred and twenty years.”

“No matter how they look, every cellar feels the same, doesn’t it?” She walked over to the wall, pressed her hand against the chilly concrete, and felt the weight of the earth pressing back.

Most of the long wall was covered by a wine rack: well made, but rustic and unfinished. Bottles old and new filled the slots, and that accounted for the scent of fruit; wine had an intoxicating odor of its own. Dust coated the floor, and, as Chloë watched, more dust sifted down from the ceiling. She looked up, wanting to see a wine bottle dangling up there by the pipes; there was nothing but sturdy oak beams and looping electric cables.

“It has appeared basically the same ever since I can remember, except now a precious bottle of wine has gone missing, and that makes me actually scrutinize it. We—my brothers and I—have tapped on the walls. We’ve searched in the window wells. We’ve tried to slide the wine rack aside in hopes there is a hidden cubbyhole. We’ve dusted every bottle and read the label and the markings.” He shook his head. “But I’m not in an Agatha Christie novel, and whatever secrets this cellar holds . . . it keeps.”

They were alone, with no one to hear their conversation, and finally Chloë was able to voice her suspicions. “You think Massimo hid the Beating Heart in your grandfather’s bottle of wine, don’t you?”

He shot the question right back at her. “Don’t you?” “If what we read and surmise is correct, he made a habit of stealing valuables, probably on commission, and then picked up a few jewels on the side and smuggled them back into the United States. In 1930, it couldn’t have been difficult. Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic in what?” She couldn’t remember.

“Nineteen twenty-seven,” Eli said.

“So Massimo was making the crossing on a ship. There were customs, but no X-rays. A clever thief could hide jewels in his shoes or the lining of his suitcase, or he could swallow them. He’d come back to his home in Bella Valley, bottle his wine with the gems inside, and give them as gifts to newborn sons with the expectation that the wine would be put away out of sight until the child’s twenty-first birthday.” She pressed her hand a little harder against the wall, giving birth to the half-formed thoughts in her mind. “When an appropriate amount of time had passed, he retrieved the bottles and replaced them with bottles without jewels. The families got what they expected—a good bottle of wine for the birth of their sons—and Massimo escaped suspicion until he was able to sell the gems.”