This was the wedding proposal she had never imagined she would hear. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
“I will show you every day of our lives how much I love you, and when we’re old, you’ll look back on our lives together and you’ll really know what it means to be cherished.”
His face swam before her eyes, and she had to swallow back the tears before she could whisper, “I look forward to a long life with you. There is no one else who makes me feel so happy, so passionate, so angry . . . and so alive.”
He kissed her, and it was as if all the kisses that went before were insignificant, because this kiss was a pledge.
And they made it together.
Chapter 52
Sarah Di Luca had always told Anthony their grandsons got their intelligence from her.
She was joking, of course. Anthony was brilliant, good at construction and wiring and better than her at reasoning his way through intricate problems.
But for years she did the accounting for the vineyard and the resort, dealt with the wine vendors, hired the staff.
In fact, she and Anthony had been the perfect team.
He’d been gone for ten years, yet in the deepest recesses of the night, she still missed him. She missed his warm body, those nights when he held her close and made love to her. She even missed his sonorous snoring.
In those first few months after he had passed away, the silence was what kept her awake.
She always thought of him at night.
Last night, especially.
Because last night had been different.
Since Anthony had died, Sarah had lived alone. She’d grown used to the sounds of the house, creaking in the wind. . . . Then, after the attack, the girls had come to live with her.
Bao Le, strong and fit. She watched, constantly on guard, her gaze fixed outside, anticipating another attack. She was almost frightening in her focus. As long as Bao was on the job, Sarah knew she was safe.
Olivia Kelly, soft and sweet. In only one way was she fierce: when she guarded Sarah’s well-being. She was a wonderful nurse, so dedicated to her patient’s care.
She and the girls had been home from the hospital almost a month now, and Sarah had grown used to the noises they made in the night. When Sarah got up to use the bathroom, Bao would check the house. After Sarah went back to bed, Olivia would drift past and look in to make sure she didn’t need anything.
The girls seldom needed to use the bathroom at night.
Oh, to be so young again!
Last night had been different from those other nights. . . .
Last night, Sarah had slept hard, but her dreams had been like waking nightmares.
She had dreamed she was awake, but not awake, watching through closed eyes as someone crept into her dark bedroom. Someone came over and petted her head and murmured words Sarah didn’t quite catch, in a voice Sarah couldn’t quite recognize.
Sarah didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Although she tried. She tried so hard, but she was frozen in place, unable to move, to lift her eyelids, to speak.
It was truly a nightmare, and no matter how hard Sarah struggled, she couldn’t break the bonds that held her in place.
A small light flicked on. Sarah could see it through her eyelids. And through the hours that followed, she could hear someone searching her room. The drawers in her dresser. All the boxes stored in the closet. The ones under the bed. The bookcase.
The girl moved the furniture and looked behind it. She searched the headboard while Sarah lay unmoving on the mattress. Sometimes Sarah drifted off, coming back to that truncated consciousness to find the light at a different place in the room, and the searching always sounded a little more frantic.
Sarah’s mind had concluded two simple facts: she was drugged, and one of the girls had done it so she could search the room.
Finally Sarah drifted off once more, and when she came back, she was alone as the morning sun shone through the window. Alone, able to move, and crying with disappointment.
One of the girls, her girls, the girls she had welcomed into her home and her family . . . one of them had searched Sarah’s room for Anthony’s bottle of wine.
Slowly, stiff from lying in one position, Sarah sat up in bed. Gripping the bedpost in one hand, she waited for the room to quit spinning.
Had Bao hooked an inconspicuous microphone to Sarah’s clothing and heard about the diamonds, and gone looking for them?
Had Olivia overheard a conversation between Eli and Chloë?
Which one was it?
Olivia was the most likely suspect, of course. She’d been trained in the use of drugs.
But Bao was efficient in everything she did, a woman who could, and undoubtedly had, killed in many different ways. If she needed to drug Sarah, she’d figure out how to do it.
And how had the deed been done?
Last evening, Sarah had fallen asleep in front of the television. But she always did. Was the drug in the coffee she drank after dinner?
Bao had made the coffee.
Or was it mixed in the pills Olivia gave her before bedtime?
Lately she hadn’t been using the walker much, but Sarah needed it today. Pulling it close, she got unsteadily to her feet.
Her mouth tasted like a garbage dump. A side effect, she supposed. She pulled on her robe, headed down the hall to the bathroom, brushed her teeth and splashed water on her face. She proceeded to the kitchen, giving fair warning of her arrival with the squeaking of the wheels on the carpet.
Olivia and Bao sat at the table, drinking coffee and looking tired. Because they’d both searched her room? Because one of them had searched and one had been drugged? The scenarios paraded across Sarah’s mind in a fearful frenzy.
As soon as she walked in, Olivia got to her feet. “Do you not feel well this morning?” She was eyeing the walker.
“A little unsteady. Don’t fuss, Olivia.” That came out a little sharper than Sarah had intended, and she shot Olivia an apologetic smile.
“What do you want for breakfast?” Olivia’s pale complexion clearly showed the rings under her eyes.
“Just cereal.” Sarah seated herself. “How did you girls sleep?”
“Lousy,” Olivia said. “I had the weirdest dreams.”
“I slept well.” Bao spoke stiffly and bowed her head as if thanking Sarah for asking.
Sarah thought she looked guilty, but right now Sarah was too distrustful to have faith in her own instincts. “I had bad dreams, too. Very odd dreams.”
“That’s it,” Olivia announced in her best nurse’s voice. “We’re not drinking caffeinated coffee after dinner anymore.”
“Probably a good idea,” Sarah agreed.
Breakfast was quiet, the clink of the spoons against the china bowls a little too loud for comfort.
By the time she was done, Sarah had decided what to do. “It’s a beautiful day. I think I’ll shower and go out to the garden and do some weeding.”
“We can do the weeding,” Olivia and Bao said together.
“I like to weed.” Sarah got her walker. Stopping by the coatrack on the wall, she picked up her purse—she wanted her cell phone—and walked down the hallway to her bedroom. She shut her door and loudly flipped the lock.
That should have echoed down the hallway to the kitchen.
Was there a camera in her bedroom? A microphone? She hated being suspicious of everyone and everything, having her sense of safety stripped away and replaced with the brokenhearted knowledge that one of the girls she adored—maybe both—was plotting to rob her.
But she had to put her pain aside and concentrate on her scheme. And if there were a camera and microphone in place, that made the plan all the easier.
Putting the walker aside, she went to the closet.
Just because she didn’t know where Anthony had hidden Massimo’s wine didn’t mean she didn’t know the hiding places Uncle Leonardo Di Luca had constructed during Prohibition for their family wines and brandies.
>
Going to her closet, she took the wide, white-painted wooden trim and opened it as she would a cupboard door. The hinges squeaked. The scent of cedar wafted out. Shelves lined the narrow space in the wall.
She kept concealed in here the best memories of her life with Anthony: the love letters he had written her while they were courting, the photo he had taken of her during their trip to Cuba on the beach in her bikini, the naughty poem he’d written her from Italy . . . and the wine they had created together.
She smiled fondly as she examined the tall ruby red glass bottle and the red wax seal they had so carefully crafted to fit over the cork. They’d been sure that this wine would launch the premium wine market.
And it might have, too, except for two things: they were ten years too early . . . and Anthony had used grapes planted by his grandfather, a varietal no one recognized, and the wine had been a spectacular failure. They’d been disappointed, of course, but as with everything in their marriage, they’d picked up and soldiered on.
Anthony had dumped most of the wine, but she’d kept one bottle as a memento and now . . . now she was going to sacrifice it on this terrible ongoing feud with Joseph Bianchin.
Taking it out of the cubbyhole, she carried it to her dresser and placed it there.
The mirror reflected it back into the room. The red glass glowed like a ruby.
She frowned. Too obvious?
No matter. She was a recently concussed elderly woman. She could get away with what appeared to be a senior moment.
Plucking her phone from her purse, she made a display of punching a number, but she never pressed CALL. This was for show only, for the spy who might be watching her. Speaking into the phone in fond tones, she said, “Hello, dear. I think you’re right. I’m getting uneasy about the safety of Massimo’s wine, so would you come by and take it home with you? Your security is so much better than mine.” She made a pretense of listening, then chuckled. “Really, you can’t complain. I have kept it safe so far. Come when you can. Thank you, dear!” The pretense of hanging up, and she was done.
She kept her expression determinedly bland as she gathered her clothes for the day and laid them out on the bed, but she couldn’t help being startled when someone knocked.
“Mrs. Di Luca? I wish you wouldn’t lock your door. If you fell, I couldn’t get to you.” It was Olivia.
Olivia. Was it concern that had brought her to the door or greed?
Using her walker, Sarah made her way to the door and opened it a crack. She could have won an Academy Award for her backward glance at the bottle on the dresser and the worry and guilt on her face. “I’m ready for my shower, but you don’t need to check on me. I’ll be out in a half hour.”
Olivia nodded, her wide eyes guileless.
Sarah started to shut the door, then opened it again, wide enough for Olivia to actually see the bottle. “Oh, and, dear, Rafe is coming by to pick something up for me. If he shows up before I’m out, make him comfortable, won’t you?”
“Yes. I will.”
This time Sarah noted a definite shade of worry in Olivia’s eyes.
Because she had always been uncomfortable around domineering men like Rafe? Or she wanted to grab the bottle and get out before he arrived?
Sarah felt sick to her stomach with misgiving . . . and maybe from the drug hangover, too.
She waited until she heard Olivia walk away, then walked down the hall to the bathroom. She shut the door—and that newly acquired paranoia made her quietly turn the lock.
She might not know which girl had searched for Anthony’s bottle of wine, but she knew she didn’t want her to step in while Sarah was naked and defenseless.
She turned on the water—that would block any sounds from the hall—got ready and showered as she would have on any morning, except perhaps she took a little longer than normal.
If one of the girls was going to steal the bottle off the dresser in her bedroom, Sarah didn’t want to catch her.
When she finished, she pulled on her robe and tied it tightly, as if the strength of the knot would give her the fortitude she needed to face these challenges. She listened at the door, straining to hear any movement in the hallway.
There was nothing.
Cautiously she opened the door.
It was quiet. Had both the girls left?
She walked down the hall to the front of the house, to her bedroom.
The door was open.
The bottle was gone.
Tears welled in her eyes.
She had wanted to be wrong so badly.
The front door was open, and she could hear a murmur of voices outside. A man. And a woman.
Rafe. Rafe was here.
Had he taken the bottle?
She hurried out onto the front porch.
He stood facing Bao, frowning heavily. At Sarah’s appearance he turned to face her. “Nonna, I—”
“Do you have the wine?” she asked.
“What?” His eyes narrowed on her.
No. Obviously he knew nothing. “Why are you here?”
Bao stepped forward. She was still pale and strained and still so guilty-looking Sarah didn’t know whether to call her a thief or embrace her and tell her everything would be all right. “I called him, Mrs. Di Luca,” Bao said. “I have to retire from my position here.”
“Retire?” Sarah hadn’t expected that.
“Yes. I must.” Bao’s eyes shifted away from Sarah, and she twisted her hands. “Last night I . . . I slept through the night. I never stirred. I never heard anything. Someone could have come in and killed you, and I wouldn’t have known, so—”
“Ah. I see. Where’s Olivia?” Sarah asked.
Bao blinked in confusion. “She said she had some errands to run. Why?”
“What’s wrong, Nonna? You look . . . upset.” Rafe’s frown deepened.
Sarah said, “I was drugged last night so someone could search my room.”
Rafe and Bao viewed her in astonishment and alarm.
Sarah looked at Bao. “Could you have been drugged, too?”
Bao whirled to face the driveway. “Damn her! Olivia? I never suspected that insipid little twit of having the guts to—”
“What wine?” Rafe asked.
“I pulled a bottle of wine out of the hiding place in my bedroom. Not Anthony’s wine,” Sarah assured him. “I left it on the dresser while I showered. It’s gone.”
“I’ll check your room for monitoring devices,” Bao said.
“I’ll send law enforcement after Olivia’s car,” Rafe said.
The two shot into action.
Sarah seated herself on the porch swing and rubbed her aching head.
Olivia. It was Olivia who had drugged her. Olivia who had searched her room.
But Rafe had investigated her. Olivia had no record. She had no family, either: no mother or father or grandparent who loved her and would keep her from going astray. Someone had offered Olivia money either before she came to Bella Terra or after she came to work in Sarah’s house, and she had taken the bribe.
With her innocent eyes and shy way, she had never given a hint of the avarice that drove her. But neither had she ever uttered a word about her past, or her goals, or anything personal. Sarah should have had doubts. Instead, she had respected Olivia’s privacy.
Noah drove up on his motorcycle. As he parked it, Rafe went out to meet him.
The two boys stood hunched together, talking.
And Noah . . . Sarah could tell he had been interested in Olivia. Just like the other boys, he had his secrets. Unlike the other boys, Sarah didn’t have a clue what mystery lurked in Noah’s background, only that something had happened that year after high school when he was wandering around the world. . . . He’d come back, her youngest grandson, the boy she’d raised free from the angst that had dogged his brothers . . . and somehow the angst had found him.
He’d never fully met her eyes again.
Foolish old woman that she was, she’d ha
d hopes that shy, sweet Olivia would heal whatever anguish dogged him.
Instead, Olivia had betrayed him . . . as she’d betrayed them all.
Bao put a cup of coffee on the table beside her.
Brooke drove up, Eli and Chloë close behind.
The family was all there, and that meant . . . that meant bad news.
They walked up onto the porch and stood around her.
Eli sat next to her on the swing. “Nonna, I’m sorry. They found Olivia’s car about twenty-five miles from here on a turnout on East Summit Highway. The bottle is gone. And Olivia . . .” He shook his head.
“She’s hurt? Is she going to be all right?” Sarah asked.
Eli looked around helplessly.
“No, Nonna. She’s not. She’s dead, shot execution-style.” Noah’s face was angry and drawn, and each word was as direct as the blow of a sledgehammer. “It would appear that the professionals have descended on Bella Terra.” He looked around at his family, daring them to deny him the truth. “And it’s not the bottle they’re after, is it?”
Sarah looked around, saw the heightened anxiety on Eli’s face, and Chloë’s, and Rafe’s, and Brooke’s. She saw the way Bao had herself braced, and knew this thing was much, much worse than she’d imagined.
“They want what’s hidden in the bottle. And I know what it is,” Noah said. “There’s no use trying to protect your younger brother from this.”
“How do you know what’s going on?” Chloë asked. “Eli and I barely figured it out ourselves.”
“We were going to call a family conference,” Eli said, “but . . . Noah, what do you know? And how do you know it?”
Noah laughed, bitterly, briefly. “I know because I’m right in the middle of it. These people . . . they’re ruthless, and they are going to find Massimo’s pink diamonds any way they can.”
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