The Merlot Murders Read Online Free

phone?”
    He sighed noisily. “Oh God. Where do I start? It’s Fitz. I want you to talk to him and tell him to knock off spreading these crazy stories about someone bumping off Leland. You’re his goddaughter. He’ll listen to you.”
    “What if they’re not crazy stories?” I asked. “You wouldn’t be covering up something, would you?”
    He looked at me over the top of the Ray-Bans. “Don’t be an ass.”
    “I’m not an ass. I just don’t believe Fitz would say something like that if there weren’t some truth to it.”
    “I hate to burst your bubble,” he said cruelly, “but Fitz is a barely functioning alcoholic. Catch him late enough in the day and he doesn’t know if he’s on foot or on horseback. Get it now? The elevator doesn’t make it to the top floor anymore. The porch light’s on but nobody’s…”
    “Stop it!” I yelled, covering my ears with my hands. “Please stop it!”
    He drove in silence for a while, but a muscle worked in his jaw and I knew we weren’t done.
    “Just suppose,” I said after a few minutes, “that he’s right. What about some of Leland’s business partners? What do we know about any of them, except that most of them probably live under rocks? What if Leland owed someone money and he couldn’t pay it back?”
    “And some hit man took him out.” Eli looked at me curiously. “That’s a hell of a theory for you, Luce. You, ah, wouldn’t be in financial trouble yourself, would you?”
    “Of course not. I’m fine. I got money from the accident settlement, remember?” What little I’d hung on to that Philippe hadn’t spent. Mostly in Monte Carlo.
    I still had nightmares about the midsummer’s evening we’d left the casino—he’d won, for a change—when two men wearing ski masks forced us off the Route de la Moyenne Corniche near the medieval mountaintop village of Eze. The view of the Mediterranean was spectacular from that height, especially at sunset. I wasn’t the only one who appreciated it. One of the men held a gun to Philippe’s head and told him in vulgar terms that he would be seeing the water from a much closer vantage point unless he handed over all his money.
    After they pistol-whipped him they took his belt and bound my hands tightly to the steering wheel of his Porsche. It took a long time before Philippe came around. When he did, my wrists were bleeding and I was still trying to untie his belt with my teeth. I wanted to go straight to the hospital and the police but Philippe said it was too dangerous. They’d find out. They’d come back for us.
    That’s when I knew it hadn’t really been a robbery. He owed someone that money. I realized, then, how much he was like my father, a charming façade masking a complete fake—the kind of man who’d swear over the phone he loved you while making the call from another woman’s bed.
    “Look, sweetheart,” Eli was saying as if he read my mind, “Leland’s so-called business partners were flakes who sold stuff like extraterrestrial real estate. Not the mob. I’m talking condo developments on the moon. Buy early for the best view of Earth. Losers. Like he was.”
    “You know, Eli, you’ve changed.”
    I saw the muscle twitch in his jaw again. “Let’s just say I got sick of watching Leland blow all of Mom’s money. I don’t know why you’re defending him, anyway. What did he ever do for you?”
    I stared mutely at my hands folded in my lap. Like mother, like daughter. And Eli didn’t know about Philippe.
    “Now you see what I mean, don’t you?” he said. “That’s why I need you to get Fitz off this crazy theory of his and make him stop talking. Come on, Lucie, you’ve been gone two years. It’s payback time. You owe this to the family and you’re the only one he’ll listen to.” He emphasized each word like he was talking to a child or a slow-witted person.
    “Hell, the gossip’s already started,” he added. “When I stopped by the general store this morning,