Shiver of Fear (41 page)

“Happy birthday.” Sam nodded to her. “We have two bottles of the ’94 Tattinger left.”

“Nice call for champagne,” he said, “but I think this is a wine crowd. You like Bordeaux, right, Meredith?”

The woman leaned forward on one elbow, a slow smile forming as she looked at him. “Something complex and elegant.”

Sam waited a beat, as the woman’s gaze stayed fixed on her host. Devyn shifted in her seat, and Sam could practically taste
the tension crackling in the air.

“Let me get the sommelier,” Sam suggested quickly. “I bet he has the perfect Bordeaux.”

“I know he does.” Joshua handed Sam the wine list back without even looking at it. “Tell Rene we’d like two bottles of the
1982 Chateau Haut-Brion.”

“Excellent selection.” Was it ever. “While I get that, can we offer you sparkling water or bottled?”

They made their choices, which Sam whispered to a busboy before darting down the narrow passage from the dining area to the
kitchen, her shoes bouncing on the rubber floor as she left the gentle conversation and music of the dining room for the clatter
and sizzle of the kitchen.

“Where’s Rene?” she asked, a smell of buttery garlic and seared meat rolling over her.

“I’m right here.” The door to the cellars flipped open as the beefy sommelier hustled toward her, carrying far too many bottles.
Two more servers came in right behind him with similar armloads.

“Rene, I need two bottles of ’82 Haut-Brion, stat.”

“After I help with the upstairs party,” he shot back.

“Then give me the key and a general idea where I can find the ’82s.”

“You’re not getting the ’82s, sister.” The faux French accent he used with customers was absent as he deftly set bottles on
the prep deck. “One slip of the hand and you just cost us both a month’s pay.”

“Come on, Rene. I can get two bottles of wine, for crying out loud.”

“You can wait like everyone else, Sam.” He started handing bottles to one of the other servers, who gave her a smug look of
victory.

The doors from the dining area swung open, and Sam squinted down the hallway, just in time to get a glimpse of Joshua strolling
across the room, reaching out to greet a gorgeous former model and her date sitting at the deuce near the bar. So he wasn’t
in a huge rush for his wine. She glanced at the plates on the stainless steel pass, calculating exactly how much time she
had to get this wine poured before her four orders for the old Brahmins on ten came up.

Not much. She wanted the Haut-Brion delivered first or she’d lose her whole rhythm.

One more of the waitstaff came up from the cellar, several bottles in hand. “This is the last of it, Rene. I just have to
go back down and lock up.”

“I’ll lock it,” Sam said, snatching the keys.

“No.” Rene sliced her with a glare. “I’ll get them, Sam. Five minutes is all.”

“Come on, Rene.”

The door from the dining room flung open and Keegan marched through. “Sterling wants his wine,” he announced, his gaze hard
on Rene.

“Then you get it,” Rene said. “Not Sam.”

But Sam was already on her way. “Thanks, Keegan,”
she said quietly as she passed. “You know I’ll slather you with payola tonight.” As she opened the door, she called back to
Rene, “The Bordeaux are in the back nests, the Haut-Brion on the lower half, right?”

“Sam, if you fuck this up—”

“I will dust the bottles! You can watch the video tomorrow,” she added with a laugh. As if that prehistoric camera was ever
used.

“I will!” Rene shouted. “I just put a new tape in.”

She hustled down the poorly lit stairs, brushing by one of the sous-chefs carrying a sack of flour from the dry storage pantry.
Farther underground, the temperature dropped, a chill emanating from the stone walls as she reached the heavy door of the
wine vault.

A breeze blew the strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail, making her pause and look down the dark hallway. Was the
alley exit open again? The busboys were always out there smoking, but they sure as shit better not be taking lung therapy
when Paupiette’s was this packed.

Tarragon and rosemary wafted from dry storage, but the tangy scents disappeared the moment she cranked the brass handle of
the wine vault, the hinges snapping and squeaking as she entered. In this dim and dusty room, it just smelled of earth and
musk.

She flipped on the overhead, but the single bare bulb did little to illuminate the long, narrow vault or the racks that jutted
out to form a five-foot-high maze. She navigated her way to the back, her rubber soles soundless on the stone floor. Dust
tickled her sinuses and the fifty-eight-degree air finished the job. She didn’t even fight the urge to sneeze, managing to
pull out a tissue in time to catch the noisy release.

Behind the back row, she tucked into the corner where the most expensive wines were kept and started blowing and brushing
the bottles, almost instantly finding the distinctive gold and white label of Haut-Brion.

Sliding the bottle out, she dusted it clean, and read the year 2000. In racks stocked chronologically, that made her a good
eighteen years from where she wanted to be. She coughed softly, more dust catching in her throat. Crouching lower, she eased
out another, 1985.

Getting closer. On her haunches, her fingers closed over a bottle just as the door opened, the sound of the brass knob echoing
through the vault. She started to stand but a man’s hushed voice stopped her.

“I’m in.”

Freezing, she worked to place the voice, but couldn’t. It was low, gruff, masculine.

“Now.”

There was something urgent in the tone. Something that stilled her.

She waited for a footstep; if he was another server, he’d walk to a stack to find his bottle of wine. If it was Rene, he’d
call her name, knowing she was down there, and anyone else…

No one else should be down here.

Her pulse kicked up a little as she waited for the next sound, unease prickling up her spine.

Nothing moved. No one breathed.

Praying her knees wouldn’t creak and give her away, she rose an inch, wanting to get high enough to see over the stack. As
she did, the knob cracked again, and this time the squeak of the hinges dragged out as though the
door were being opened very slowly. She rose a little higher to peek over the top rack of bottles.

A man stood flattened against the wall, his hand to his chest, inside a jacket, his head turned to face the door. In the shadows,
she could hardly make out his profile, taking in his black shirt, the way his dark hair blended into the wall behind him.
Not a server. No one she’d ever seen before.

He stood perfectly still as the door opened wider, and Sam tore her gaze from the stranger to the new arrival. The overhead
bulb caught a glimmer of silver hair, instantly recognizable. What the hell was Josh—

The move was so fast, Sam barely saw the man’s hand flip from the jacket. She might have gasped at the sight of a freakishly
long pistol, but the
whoomf
of sound covered her breath, the blast muffled like a fist into a pillow.

Joshua’s face contorted, then froze in shock. He folded to the floor, disappearing from her sight.

The instinct for self-preservation pushed Sam down behind the rack, her head suddenly light, her thoughts so electrified that
she couldn’t pull a coherent one to the forefront. Only that image of Joshua Sterling getting a bullet in his head.

She closed her eyes but the mental snapshot didn’t disappear. It seared her lids, branded her brain.

Something scraped the floor and her whole being tensed. She squeezed the bottle in her right hand, finding balance on the
balls of her feet, ready to pounce on whoever came around the corner.

She could blind him with the bottle. Crash it on his head. Buy time and help.

But no one came around the rack. Instead, she heard
the sound of metal on metal, a click, and a low grunt from the front of the vault. What the hell?

Still primed to fight for her life, she stood again, just high enough to see the man up on a crate, deftly removing the video
camera.

The security camera that was
aimed directly at the back stacks
.

She ducked again, but it was too late. She heard him working the screws in the wall, trying to memorize his profile. A bump
in a patrician nose. A high forehead. Pockmarks in a grouping low on his cheek.

Dust danced under and up her nose, tickling, tormenting, teasing a sneeze. Oh, please,
no
.

She held her breath as the camera cracked off the wall, and the man’s feet hit the floor. In one more second, the door squeaked,
slammed shut, and he was gone.

Could Joshua still be alive? She had to help him. She waited exactly five strangling heartbeats before sliding around the
stacks and running up the middle aisle.

Lifeless blue eyes stared back at her, his face colorless as a stream of deep red blood oozed from a single hole in his temple.
The bottle slipped out of her hands, the explosion of glass barely registering as she stared at the dead man.

God, no. God,
no
. Not again.

She dropped to her hands and knees with a whimper of disbelief, fighting the urge to reach out and touch the man who just
minutes ago laughed with friends, explained a joke to his wife, ordered rare, expensive Bordeaux.

This couldn’t be happening. It
couldn’t
be.

The blood pooled by his cheek, mixing with the wine. The smell roiled her stomach, gagging her as bile
rose in her throat and broken glass sliced her knees and palms.

For the second time in her life, she’d seen one man take another’s life. Only this time, her face was caught on tape.