To Brie or Not to Brie (27 page)

Pushing down panic, I grabbed a carving knife and joined my pals. Both seemed afraid
to go through the stacks of boxes to the front door. “Fellas, it’s nothing.” The old
Victorian creaked occasionally. I was used to it. And yet there I was, holding a knife.

Bam, bam, bam.
Someone pounded on my door.

Baying like a hound, Rocket inched forward between the boxes in the foyer. Rags paced
in a circle, eyeing his compatriot in arms for a
pounce
signal.

Shoulders tense, I said, “Hush, you two. Would someone who meant to hurt me announce
his arrival? No, he wouldn’t.” I lowered the knife and moved toward the door. “Matthew
probably forgot his keys. Relax.”

Bam, bam, bam.
Louder. “Open up!” a man yelled.

I didn’t recognize the voice. I recoiled, hoisted the knife, and aimed.

Whoever was demanding entry rattled the doorknob. The door shook.

Bam-thwack.

My heart drummed in my ribcage. That wasn’t the sound of a fist pounding wood; the
intruder was using his shoulder. He seriously wanted inside. He grunted.

I didn’t have my cell phone on me. The nearest phone was in the study down the hall.

Another bash. Another groan. The door heaved, the old lock gave way, and the intruder
tumbled into the house.

Vinnie scrabbled to a stand. He brandished a black and gray gun in his hand. Was it
a Beretta? Was it his brother’s gun? “It’s all your fault, blondie,” he said.

“I didn’t kill your brother.”

“I didn’t say you did.” He advanced a step.

“Oh, that’s right, you killed him so you could inherit half of his estate.”

“I’m not his heir.”

“I don’t believe you.” I edged backward. My heels jammed into a box. I was trapped.
Mimicking Meredith and her schoolteacher strict voice, I said, “Leave.”

“No.” He aimed, but he didn’t shoot. Was he simply trying to rattle me?

Taking the offensive, I said, “Did you lie about the money your brother was carrying?”

“No.”

“How much was it?”

“A hundred Gs.”

I sucked in a breath. That was a lot of cash. “Don’t move a step closer.” I wielded
the knife. Yeah, right, like it might stand a chance against a gun. “Matthew,” I yelled,
pretending he might come running.

In lieu of the missing Matthew, Rocket bolted around the treacherous boxes and lunged.
He grabbed Vinnie’s trouser leg in his teeth and yanked to the right.

“What the—” Vinnie stumbled; his gun clattered on the floor toward me.

I kicked it behind a stack of boxes.

“Call him off,” Vinnie cried.

“Are you nuts?”

Normally Rocket was a pussycat, the furthest thing from an attack dog, and yet there
he was, assaulting an intruder.

“Good boy,” I egged him on. “Why are you here, Vinnie?”
I demanded, feeling more confident now that the gun was out of reach.

“You shouldn’t have gotten in the way.”

“What are you talking about?”

Rocket yanked Vinnie’s pant leg to the left. Still on his feet, Vinnie skidded and
swiped a box with his shoulder. The boxes teetered. One marked
Books
crashed to the ground with a thud. Rocket didn’t release his hold. His growl intensified.

Clair and Amy’s door opened. Dressed in nightgowns, they scampered to the railing.
“Aunt Charlotte!” they screamed in unison.

“Go back in your room and call 911,” I yelled.

Both girls disappeared.

“You contacted my brother,” Vinnie said. “You lured him here. Lured him to his death.”

“I did no such thing.”

“A woman called him.”

“Not I.”

“Jacky, then.”

“Why would she do that?” I said. “She was scared of him. Look, Jacky doesn’t want
your brother’s money. She doesn’t want a dime. All she wants is for you to leave her
alone. She said she’d pay you.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Sure, she did. At the pottery shop. You were too busy tearing up the place to hear.
I’ll pay you, too,” I blurted. The instant the words were out, I heard Jordan’s warning
that Vinnie would continue to dun me if I paid him one red cent. I pushed his voice
to the back of my mind. I would do practically anything to get Vinnie out of my house—now!
“You’re in debt. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Take the money and run.”

Rocket yanked Vinnie’s pant leg again and, as if he knew what he was doing, released
his hold. Vinnie went flying. His feet backpedaled. He landed on his rump.
Rocket charged and straddled him. Like a well-trained comrade in arms, Rags paraded
up Vinnie’s leg, claws bared.

Vinnie yowled. Something rang. A cell phone. In his pocket. His face turned ghost
white. “I gotta answer that. Can you leash your animals?”

“No.”

“Fine. Be that way.” Vinnie chomped his teeth and snarled. “Off me, you beast. Off!”

Rocket’s true skittish nature surfaced. Frightened, he recoiled and bumped into Rags.
The two tumbled away from Vinnie, giving him time to scramble to his feet.

As he fished in his pocket for his cell phone, he said, “I’ll stop by your shop in
the morning, blondie. Have the money ready. Fifty thousand. You give me that, and
I’ll believe Jacky is going to sign away her rights. Got me? Fifty.” Without waiting
for my response, he pressed Send on his phone and darted from the house.

Breathing in jerky bursts, trying not to think about where I would manage to scrape
up fifty thousand dollars, I set the carving knife on the side table, slammed the
front door, and slid a stack of moving boxes in front of it. Next, I retrieved the
gun. Indeed, it was a Beretta. I searched for markings that would establish it as
Giacomo Capriotti’s weapon but found none. The safety was on. When I was a teen, Pépère
had taken me to an open field and taught me to shoot cans. I hadn’t fired a gun since,
but I could remember the kickback and the blare of the blast.

The twins’ bedroom door opened. I shoved the gun behind my back and scanned the foyer
for a place to hide it. Nowhere.

“Aunt Charlotte?” Clair crept toward the balcony. She looked ashen. So did Amy. “The
lady at 911 is asking if we need a deputy to stop by.”

I stilled my chattering teeth and peered through the window beside the front door.
I really didn’t feel Vinnie would
return. He had bolted off. “Tell her yes. I should give a report. But don’t worry.
The scary man is gone. Go back to bed. I’ll be upstairs in a sec.”

I hurried to the study. After I stowed the gun in a wall safe behind a painting of
Ohio, my breathing returned to normal. I dialed Jordan. He answered after one ring.

“What’s up?”

I told him. “A deputy is on the way, but I don’t think Vinnie will be coming back.”

“I’ll tell Urso,” Jordan said.

“You know where he is?”

“I’ve got a sneaking suspicion.”

Was he with Edy? I put the snarky image from my mind, ended the call, and dialed Matthew.
Frantic, he arrived home minutes after Deputy Rodham arrived. He immediately went
to the girls’ rooms to quell their fears, and I dealt with the deputy.

No matter how confident I was that Vinnie wouldn’t return, when Rodham left, I knew
I wouldn’t be able to climb into bed and focus on a book, so I went to the study and
switched on the television. As I channel surfed, I replayed the argument with Vinnie
in my mind. Had he been capable of killing his brother? He had brought a gun to tonight’s
encounter, yet he hadn’t fired it. He hadn’t even retrieved it. For a quasi-gangster,
he was pretty pathetic.

If I ruled him out as a suspect, who else did I have?

I flipped the channel and landed on AMC.
Fatal Attraction
was playing, which made me think of Anabelle. Had she lied about her alibi? Had she
really been watching television at the back of the bookshop on the night of the murder?
She could have known about the Glenn Close retrospective and used that to establish
her whereabouts, but was she that savvy?

Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I focused on Hugo Hunter again. Missing in action.
On the run. Why? He was a man of mystery. Had he killed Giacomo Capriotti? Was
there more to his motive than simply a man protecting the woman he loved?

After watching
Fatal Attraction
for two minutes, I flipped channels again and settled for a rerun of an old
Mike Hammer
mystery. I watched with rapt attention as the detective wrote a list of suspects
on paper, crossing off each entry because he didn’t have enough evidence to convict
anyone.

I knew his frustration.

At dawn, Matthew, the ratfink, called my grandparents and told them about Vinnie barging
into my house. Early risers, they came straight over. As they delivered oodles of
advice about being more cautious, Pépère paced around me, eyeing me from every angle,
and Grandmère petted my hair. Before long, I felt like the youngest in a herd of apes.
Thankfully, Matthew’s announcement that it was time for him to take the girls to school
interrupted my grandparents’ counsel. Before leaving, he whispered that he was glad
I was alive, and he wished me luck with Tarzan and Jane.

However, later, at The Cheese Shop, I couldn’t escape my cousin’s fretful glances.

“What would I have done without you?” he said, rehashing Vinnie’s violent behavior
as he followed me from kitchen to cheese counter. “What are you going to do to protect
yourself once we move to Meredith’s? Will you move in with Jordan? I’m worried, Charlotte.”

Though I had pondered similar notions, I hadn’t voiced them. I silently willed him
to stop. When he didn’t, I said, “Matthew, relax. I’ll be fine. I’m a big girl.” And
Providence was a safe town, I kept reminding myself. Like the rest of America, we
had occasional bouts of crime, but we could overcome them.

While I made broccolini and pine nut quiches using Marieke Foenegreek Gouda from Wisconsin—the
fenugreek seeds providing a zesty, nutty flavor—the rest of the town learned of last
night’s event. Matthew told Tyanne, who was quick to tell Rebecca, who hurried across
the street to inform Delilah.

Around ten
A.M.
, Sylvie stamped into the store wearing a red silk bag of a dress that draped off
her shoulders and clutched her knees. With venomous intent she marched toward the
cheese counter in her super-high heels. A few feet from me, she posed, right hand
fisted at her waist.

I felt like retreating into the kitchen but held my ground. “Hi, Sylvie, what’ll it
be? We’re offering a Tumbleweed cheese today. It’s made in Pennsylvania from raw cow’s
milk and has a buttery aroma and fruity taste. Take a morsel from the tasting platter.”

“How dare you put my girlie-girls in harm’s way,” Sylvie hissed. “You do this all
the time, Charlotte. You get in scuffles.”

Was that what someone from England called an altercation with a man threatening me
with a gun? A scuffle? I bit back a tart response and said, “Sylvie, the twins are
fine. They’re at school. They were never in harm’s way. And just so you know—”

“Sugar.” Tyanne, who was manning the counter alongside me, leaned in and whispered,
“Remember, bees with honey in their mouths have sting in their tails.” She raised
an eyebrow, silently asking whether I understood. I did.

I shrugged off the instinct to lash out at Sylvie and,
starting where I had left off, said, “Sylvie, I like your dress.” I didn’t. It didn’t
suit her or anyone in Ohio, for that matter, but the compliment defused her.

Won over, she whisked her hand along her thoroughly hidden curvaceous torso. “Isn’t
it fabulous? It’s a sari by an up-and-coming Indian designer. Only six hundred dollars.”

“You’ve been hornswoggled,” Tyanne giggled. “Saris are skintight.”

Sylvie huffed. “As if a New Orleans yokel like you would know anything about fashion.”

“Now wait just a minute, sugar.” Tyanne raised a fist. “I’ll have you know—”

I grasped her wrist and whispered, “‘Bees…honey…sting.’ Ring a bell? C’mon, take a
deep breath. Sylvie loves to goad us. Don’t take the bait. Keep focused on work and
the wedding, got me?”