“Oh my God!” she cried, her lips parting, her eyes widening. “He was holding it!”
“What? Who?”
“The man in the ski mask. Oh my God. I remember. I, uh, I woke up soon after you left. I lay in bed for a while, but I heard you moving around and smelled the coffee you’d started, and I, um, I came downstairs to pour a cup. I was walking through the doorway from the sitting room to the kitchen, and he turned around. He was holding it against his chest.”
“The FedEx box?”
She nodded, as if dazed, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to remember. “And I think . . . I think I said, ‘Who are you?’ and he picked up the candlestick from the counter.” She placed her palm on the countertop. “And that’s the last thing I remember.”
A strange sense of relief sluiced through Cameron’s veins because if the man had been after the FedEx box, then Margaret hadn’t actually been his target. She’d just gotten in the way.
“Baby, what about the other FedEx the weekend before? The one that was sitting on top of your box of pictures. What was in that one?”
She shook her head. “I never got a chance to open it. It was stolen during the break-in.”
“But you recognized the return address. It was from that vineyard in Baja?”
“It was from Baja,” she confirmed. “But now that you mention it, it didn’t say Cava San Luis on the box. It was just an address in Baja. I just assumed it was from José.”
“But you never actually got a look inside either box?”
Margaret shook her head. “No. I didn’t.”
“I wonder . . . I wonder if . . .”
“What, Cam?”
He thought back to last Saturday morning. He’d been so anxious to get to Margaret after her terrible night in the vineyard that he hadn’t paid the exchange between Franklin and Diego much mind. But now that he thought about it, it seemed awfully strange that Diego was so insistent about taking the box up to Margaret’s apartment—to Margaret’s apartment, where his cousin, Geraldo, was moving at a snail’s pace on a project that should have been finished by now.
“Margaret, is Geraldo working at your apartment today?”
“Yes. It’s Saturday. He’s been there every Saturday and Sunday for weeks now.”
“Right. And yet the work really isn’t getting done. So what’s he doing there all day every Saturday and Sunday?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if those packages from Baja California weren’t coming from Cava San Luis? What if they were sent to your address but intended for Geraldo?”
“What do you think was in the packages?”
“I have no idea,” said Cameron. “But if it was important enough to break in here one Sunday and then attack you on another? It’s worth a lot to Geraldo. And you—and Franklin—kept intercepting the deliveries.” Cameron rubbed his chin in thought. “Diego gave you his cousin’s name, right?”
“Right.”
“So Geraldo comes to your place under the guise of working, but he only does enough work so that you don’t fire him. But he uses your address for deliveries . . . and God only knows what else.”
Margaret blanched. “My apartment? What do you think he’s doing there?”
“Has he acted weird at all? Strangely?”
She nodded. “When I told him he couldn’t work on a Saturday a couple of weeks ago, he got very agitated. Rude. I threatened to fire him.”
Cameron nodded. “That dovetails perfectly with everything else. Don’t you see? If he missed a Saturday at your apartment, he couldn’t intercept the Saturday delivery. And even if Diego tried to, he’d have to wrestle it away from Franklin.”
“I’m scared, Cam.”
Cameron placed his mug on the counter and pulled her into his arms. “Don’t be, baby. If we’re right, it means that you were never the target. You just got in the way.”
“And he almost killed me.”
Cameron fished his phone out of his back pocket. “I want to see about something.” He speed-dialed Franklin.
“Newbury Arms. This is Franklin.”
“Franklin, it’s Cameron Winslow.”
“Mr. Winslow! How can I help, sir?”
“I’m just wondering . . . I asked Diego to look at something in my apartment last Sunday. Do you know if he was able to get up there?”
“Ah. Well, now, that’s unlikely because Diego called in sick last Sunday. Early morning. Said he had the flu. Right as rain by Monday, though. Maybe just a passing bug.”
“You’re sure he wasn’t there on Sunday?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Positive.”
“Thanks, Franklin. I’ll catch him the next time I see him.”
“You have a great day, Mr. Winslow!”
Cameron tucked the phone into his pocket and leaned back so he could look Margaret in the eyes. “I think we just found out who was driving that aqua Ford.”
“Diego?” she asked, her face contorting.
He nodded. “And I’m almost positive it was Geraldo who assaulted you.”