Hanging out at Mom’s Place watching Angela, he could have gotten to know Sara Rust. Sure. He could be a suspect.
And now here I was going home with him. Alone.
Maybe I’d just played right into his hands.
Chapter 23
Quinn’s cottage was on the same dirt spur as Hector and Sera’s place, about a half-mile in the other direction. The last time I’d visited, Jacques lived there.
Quinn hadn’t left any lights on and, with the heavy tree canopy overhead, no ambient light permeated the woods. His cottage seemed smaller than I remembered, but perhaps it was the deceptive way places have of shrinking when memory is finally confronted by reality, as though you’re looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
He stopped the car. “I’ll come ’round and get you.”
“I can manage.”
“No, you can’t,” he said. “I found your cane on the floor in the barrel room. It’s got a big dent in it. You can’t use it the way it is. Hector said he’d try to straighten it out, but he’s not sure he can do it without breaking it. You got another one?”
“No.”
“Then sit still. I don’t need you falling on your face.” He sounded annoyed, more than anything else.
He nudged open the screen door with his foot and flipped on the light switch with his elbow. We were in the middle of the living room. It was as soulless as a hotel room. This was a man without a past or a present.
“You take my bed,” he said. “You’ll be comfortable there.”
“I wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing you.”
“The sheets are clean. I’ve been sleeping at the summerhouse. Or at Angie’s.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Nevertheless, I’d prefer to have you there.”
“In your bed.”
“I was thinking more in terms of you not being on the couch because it’s in a room with a door to the outside.”
“You think I might run away?”
“I think someone’s looking for you,” he said. “At least this way, they’d have to get past me first.”
He spoke in his characteristically blunt and unemotional way so it was hard to tell if he considered being my human shield as part of the maintenance responsibilities that came with his job or if he really cared what happened to me. Either way, his words were disturbing.
Quinn shifted my weight in his arms. “I need to set you down. My arm is going to sleep. Let’s get you into the bedroom.”
“I can walk.”
“You couldn’t even sit a while ago without getting dizzy.”
He carried me into the bedroom, a real monastic cell, and set me down on the bed.
“You want a drink?”
“What have you got?”
“Whiskey.”
“No wine?”
“I’ve got wine. You look like you could do with something stronger.”
“Carbon dioxide does that to me. Okay, then. Whiskey’s fine.”
The whiskey was somewhere in the living room. I could hear him rummaging around and then the sound of glasses clinking together. He showed up with two glasses and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He poured two shots and handed me one of them.
“I figured you take it straight,” he said.
“Do I look as bad as that?”
“That foot must really bother you at the end of the day. It looks pretty twisted. I’m sure it hurts.”
I must have shrunk back against the headboard as though he’d just seen me naked. “I don’t really think that’s any of your business.”
Outside the bedroom window a flash of silver light illuminated the silhouettes of trees and bushes. I jumped.
“Calm down. Storm’s a long way off. We won’t get any rain tonight.” As if to validate his statement, distant thunder rumbled like muffled drums. “Not until tomorrow or the day after. Give me your foot, Lucie. I’ve had some training in this.”
I shifted on the bed so that my left foot was tucked underneath my right leg. “If you mean you’ve been practicing back rubs on Angela, thanks, but I’ll pass.” There was no way I was going to let him touch my foot. He’d have to look at it. I managed fine by keeping it hidden under a dress or long pants. To display it, in all its misshapen deformity, made me feel like Superman without the cape and special suit.
“I was talking about medical training. Therapeutic massage.” He reached over and slid my dress up my leg. “Come here. Give me your foot. I won’t hurt you.”
I had to look away while he did it, but he was right. He knew what he was doing.
“Why did you change your name?” I asked abruptly.
On cue, the thunder crashed around us. He looked at me in the washed-out light, his face all angular planes and dark shadows. “What are you talking about?”
“Isn’t your real name Paolo Santori?”
“Legally. But I’m not real big on Paolo. It was my old man’s name.”
There was another crack of thunder, but this one was so close it sounded like a cannon going off in the front yard. I sloshed whiskey down the side of my glass and caught the drip with my finger, licking it.
“What happened in California?” I asked.
He reached for the bottle and poured us both refills. “How’d you hear about that?”
“Leland had a copy of the San Jose Mercury News among his papers. Surely you didn’t think I wouldn’t find out. Why didn’t you say something?”
He walked over to his dresser and opened the top drawer. For some reason, my heart started doing the war drum thing again. Then I saw the box of Swisher Sweets and resumed breathing. He removed a cigar and came back over to the bed. “Hand me that ashtray, will you?” he said.
It was on the bedside table, next to me. I gave it to him. He fished a lighter out of the pocket of his camouflage trousers. He lit up, walked over to the window, and stared outside. Lightning flashed and the lights went out briefly and came on again.
“I never kept it a secret.”
“Did Leland know?”
“Of course. I told him up front.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he appreciated my honesty. Most people would have tried to cover up something like that.”
It was also true that when Leland checked his references, he would have found out anyway. Maybe Quinn was just trying to get in front of a bad situation. Besides, the “honesty” remark didn’t sound quite like Leland, a man who had his own reputation for playing fast and loose with the truth. “Can I ask you something else?”
“Fire away. You seem to be on a roll tonight.”
I ignored that. “Did you know about Leland before you applied for a job here?”
“What about him?”
“His past was a bit…shaky. He had some questionable business partners. And you seem to know a lot about our financial problems.”
He swung around. “Meaning what?”
The lights went out again but this time they didn’t come back on. Quinn was silent.
“I think we just lost power.” My voice sounded small.
There was a metallic click and then a flash of fire. He held his lighter aloft. “Yeah, this time for real. I’ve got candles.” He sounded mad.
He left the room holding his lighter like a torch. I heard the front door open and close. Where did he keep his candles? In the bushes? I sat in the dark as a bead of perspiration ran down my cheek.
The front door opened and closed again. The living room glowed faintly orange and he walked back into the bedroom, shielding a candle against air currents with one hand. “I just tried to call Hector on my mobile. He must have turned his off and the phones are out. I think I’d better go back over there and see if the generator came on. You’re coming, too. I don’t want you here by yourself.”
“I can walk to the car.”
“You can hopscotch for all I care. Come on, let’s go. I’ve got a flashlight by the front door.”
I walked unsteadily to the car. Neither of us spoke on the drive back to the vineyard. The thunder rumbled more quietly now than before and the lightning zigzagged in the distance, toward the west and the mountains. He pulled into the parking lot. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back. You’ll be all right for a few minutes. Lean on the horn, if you need me.”