We continued in a straight line until we reached number seventy-eight. “Stop here.” He gazed around. “There should be a circle of rosebushes here. Red ones, for red wine.”
“All the roses were moved to the other side of the vineyard a few years ago to accommodate the flow of people taking the tour. I’m afraid the bushes were getting trampled.”
He frowned and stared at the instructions.
“But I’m pretty sure they used to be right in this area,” I added.
“Ah. We’ll go with that, then.” We started up again, and this time we made it all the way to the arched double doors of the cave. Unfortunately, the entry was masked off with yellow construction tape, blocking our way.
“I guess this was necessary,” I said, “but it’s going to be a turn-off for the visitors. They’ll think something awful happened here.” I briskly waved that statement away. “I mean, something awful did happen here, but you know what I mean. The bright yellow isn’t exactly subtle.”
“True,” he said dryly, “but the construction tape was preferable to the detectives’ crime scene tape.”
“Oh, wow. They wanted to put up crime scene tape? Okay, I’ll go along with the construction tape.”
“Excuse me. Is this where the body was found?”
I blinked and turned. Two women in their sixties stood a few feet away, wearing jeans, sweatshirts, and sneakers. They were staring with excitement at the cave entrance.
I gave Derek a quick glance, then said, “I, um, yes, that’s what I hear.”
“That’s so cool!” the one woman said, and turned to her friend. “I can’t wait to buy some of their wine.”
“Let’s get over to the tasting room,” the other said, and they walked away briskly.
“So much for the news being bad for business,” I murmured. “That was weird. How did the word get out so quickly?”
“I can’t say, but perhaps that explains the heavy crowds today.”
“I thought it was because it’s so close to harvest time.”
It wasn’t about the harvest, though, because that same basic “Where’s the body?” scenario was repeated by three more visitors before I was finally able to flag down Jenny, one of the winery workers.
“Would you mind guarding the entrance while Derek and I take another look inside? I’ll call Austin and let him know where you are.”
“Okay, sure,” she said easily.
I warned her that people might want to know if this was where the body was found.
She waved her hand blithely. “Oh, we’ve already had dozens of people asking about it. Austin said to tell them, yes, a body was found near here. But if they want more info, we should send them to see the manager.”
“Sounds reasonable.”
I used my cell to call my brother to tell him that Derek wanted to go back into the cave to check on something. Since it was Derek, Austin didn’t have a problem with the plan. I was such a clever sister.
“Be careful,” Austin added. “And tell Jenny she should stay out there until you’re finished.”
I relayed the message to Jenny, who was perfectly happy playing traffic cop while Derek and I tore off enough of the tape to allow us to get the door opened and slide inside.
A few steps inside the cave, we found the light switch and turned it on. In the small alcove the guys used for an office, Derek found one of the flashlights that had been left there yesterday and took it in case we needed it.
“It’s so quiet in here,” I said, then winced. “Oh darn. I hope you kept count of your footsteps.”
“I did. We hit number one hundred two at the edge of the entrance.”
“So we’ve got forty-five steps to go.”
We both counted steps as we walked slowly through the cave in the same northeast direction. At the wall between the cave and the inner chamber, we hit one hundred thirty-three.
“I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” I muttered.
“Let’s carry on.” Derek stepped over the barrier, and I followed. We were able to take another ten steps until we stopped directly in front of the French wardrobe with the beautiful beveled mirror I’d admired on our first visit to the cave.
“I can’t believe it’s a dead end,” I said, smacking my palm against the side of the wardrobe. “We only needed to take four more steps. Maybe whoever made that map had smaller feet than you. We should start over and go in a slightly different direction.”
“I think we wound up exactly where we should have,” Derek said, his gaze focused on the wardrobe.
Trying to read his mind, I turned and stared at the well-appointed antique. It was at least seven feet tall and five feet wide with the large mirrored door in the center and two smaller doors on either side. I glanced back at Derek. “What are you thinking?”
“I think we should move this piece of furniture.”
“You think there’s something behind it.” It wasn’t a question, and I wasn’t about to argue with one of Derek’s hunches. The fact that the thing had to weigh hundreds of pounds was immaterial.
“Let’s do it.”