The Sauvignon Secret Read Online Free PDF Page A

you—”
    I shouldn’t have said it. He stopped the cart, looking exasperated.
    “Now don’t you go treating me like an old man. Just because I’m a little tired and maybe a bit unsteady on my feet is no reason to act like I’ve got one foot in the grave,” he said. “That’s your cousin’s department. I can take one of you nagging me to take a nap or hovering over me like I’m in my dotage, but not both. Don’t you start, too.”
    The reprimand had been delivered lightly, but he meant it andI’d hit a nerve. He pushed the cart over to the car without speaking and put his suitcase and satchel in the trunk when I opened it.
    “Don’t be upset with me,” I said. “I just worry, that’s all. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
    His face softened. “One does not like to admit that one is getting older. I’m sorry,
chérie
. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
    We climbed into the stifling car and I blasted overheated air-conditioning through the vents.
    “We’ll be seeing Dominique tomorrow, by the way,” I said. The refrigeration kicked in and I switched the blower to low so it didn’t sound like a jet engine before takeoff. “Juliette is using the Inn to cater her dinner. Dominique will be working, but she promised to take a break from supervising in the kitchen to see you. And she’s coming to the vineyard on Saturday for our party.”
    Dominique’s mother and my mother had been sisters, two years apart in age but so alike they could have been twins. Ten years ago, after my mother died when her horse threw her jumping a fence, Dominique moved from France to help Leland take care of my wild-child kid sister, Mia. My capable cousin, who’d been studying to be a chef, managed to get Mia under her thumb while also landing a job at the Goose Creek Inn, a local restaurant with an award-winning reputation for its romantic setting and superb cuisine. Dominique took over the fledgling catering business, and before long it, too, was racking up accolades just like the Inn. When the owner, who had been my godfather, passed away a few years ago, he’d left her both businesses in his will.
    “Ah, then Dominique will have plenty of opportunities to monitor my napping,” Pépé said to me.
    We both grinned.
    “She loves you. We all do.”
    “And I love you all, too. Now please tell me why you’re so agitated,
ma belle
? That’s twice you’ve missed the turn for the exit out of the parking lot.”
    I gave him a lopsided smile and pulled up to the tollbooth. After I paid the parking fee I told him about Paul Noble.
    “The police believe he died while playing a sexual game?” Pépé asked.
    “That’s one possibility. The other is that he deliberately hanged himself,” I said. “Except people commit suicide because they’re depressed or they feel hopeless. A couple of days ago Paul called me and bullied me to sell him my wine practically at cost. I wouldn’t have pegged him as either depressed or hopeless after he was done working me over. He was pretty ruthless. Talked about business plans for next year, too. Who does that if he’s thinking about ending it?”
    “Nevertheless you don’t seem to believe that it was an accident?”
    “If Paul was into erotic fantasies or extreme sexual games, then you’d think there would be rumors. There wasn’t so much as a peep about him.”
    “You knew him well?”
    “No, though I tried. I thought it would make dealing with him easier, but he was so … cold, I guess. All business, no social chitchat. After a while I gave up. Besides, he didn’t seem to care about working with the local vineyard owners like his older brother did. A lot of people were mad at him because he was heartless. Folks blamed him when two really good wineries went out of business last year. They couldn’t make a go of it anymore. Nice people. Lost everything.”
    “Could one of the owners have been angry enough to kill him?”
    I signaled to turn onto Route 28 and merged