Murder By the Glass Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Last Call

  Susan Jennings was sprawled on the floor, her half-emptied wineglass on the vanity.

  “That’s what you get for drinking too much too soon at your own wedding and being so awful to my friend,” Nikki said.

  A wicked thought crossed her mind. Maybe she should leave the drunken wench to sleep off her self-induced high. She could tell everyone that Susan was passed out and wouldn’t be joining the party. That would be pretty rotten, though.

  Nikki lightly tapped Susan’s face. Something was wrong. Susan wasn’t moving at all. Nikki watched for her chest to rise and fall. No movement. Then she bent over to hear her breathing. Nothing. Finally, she took the bride’s pulse, her own pulse quickening and adrenaline pumping through her.

  Nikki dropped Susan’s limp hand as a scream caught in the back of her throat. Susan Jennings Waltman wouldn’t be making a formal entrance to her wedding reception, or any type of entrance ever again.

  The bride was dead.

  Berkley Prime Crime Books by Michele Scott

  MURDER UNCORKED

  MURDER BY THE GLASS

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  MURDER BY THE GLASS

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / June 2006

  Copyright © 2006 by Michele Scott.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

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  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-436-28271-0

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

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  To Hillarie.

  You are loved!

  Acknowledgements

  I want to thank and recognize Sue Vosseller, Michael Perry, Theresa Meyers, and Rose Kapsner for their help in bringing this book to life. I especially want to thank Lieutenant Brian E. Davis with the Santa Rosa Police department for all of his police procedural information, Monica and Seyamack Kouretchian for their support, Brandi Spracklin for keeping me on the T. Robb track, Quelene Slattery for all of her contributing knowledge about wine, and Colby Arrington who goes above and beyond to keep me organized and is a good friend. A special thank you goes to my personal Yoda, Mike Sirota, who is always there for me, even in a crunch. Thanks to my dear friend Karen Macinerney who is an awesome critique partner and great author. I also want to thank my agent Jessica Faust and my editor Samantha Mandor. You are both wonderful to work with! And, as always, thanks to my best friend and husband, John, and my children Alex, Anthony, and Kaitlin. Live your dreams and live them with passion!

  Chapter 1

  Nikki Sands took her friend’s hands into her own and squeezed, so sorry for Isabel’s pain. Isabel had just discovered that the man she’d been seeing and thought she was in love with was not only in love with another woman, but was marrying her.

  Worse than that, Isabel had agreed to cater their wedding.

  The bride, Susan Jennings, had come to see Isabel only two weeks earlier, claiming that she’d had a falling out with the chef at Domaine Chandon, the caterer she had initially hired. She’d told Isabel that she’d heard wonderful things about her new restaurant, Grapes, and wanted her to take the job.

  “I didn’t know,” Isabel sobbed. She took her hands out of Nikki’s to wipe her tears. “I said to that woman that I would do the wedding on such short notice, because I knew it would be good publicity for the restaurant. I didn’t know until today, when Susan came into Grapes with Kristof to sign the final contract, that he was her groom,” Isabel said in her Spanish accent and blinked back more tears from her dark brown eyes. “I wanted to cry so badly right there, but I could not. I held it back. The worst part was, he acted like he did not know me. Not at all. Like he had never even seen me. I had no idea.” Isabel choked on the emotion.

  “How could you know? Sonoma is only thirty minutes away but it feels like it’s halfway across the world. It’s no wonder Kristof was able to fool you. Unless you’re in one of those inner circles, you wouldn’t have much chance of knowing.” Nikki poured Isabel another glass of pinot noir. “You couldn’t know.” Nikki thought about her boss Derek Malveaux, knowing that he walked within that circle, but he didn’t seem comfortable doing it.

  Isabel nodded. “Why would he want to marry her?”

  When Isabel spoke, she typically did s
o with her hands as well as her voice. And, when upset, as she was now, Isabel’s arms flailed wildly. To Nikki, it said something about the passionate nature of Isabel’s Spanish heritage.

  “She’s mean and nasty and she is not a very nice person,” she said. “Ever since that day when I said yes to do that reception, she has called me over all little details. Susan Jennings es una bruja.”

  “I know she’s a witch,” Nikki replied, understanding Isabel’s Spanish. “Who knows why people choose the people that they do.” Nikki had met Susan Jennings a few times at various winery events and she wasn’t impressed with the realtor to the San Francisco elite. However, her realty work appeared to be helping Susan blend quite nicely with the upper echelon. Those whose trust funds, paychecks or inheritances came with a minimum of six zeroes behind whatever numeral stood out in front.

  “Kristof never said anything about being engaged or that he had a girlfriend. If I had known who she was when she came into my restaurant, I would never have agreed to cater the wedding. I would never have signed the contract.” Isabel picked up a piece of Ahi Poke she’d prepared for her visit to Nikki’s.

  “Just call her and tell her that you can’t do it, that something else came up, something you have to take care of on that day,” Nikki replied. “She can find someone else. It isn’t like the Waltmans don’t have enough money to find someone else to cater the wedding.”

  Isabel shook her head. “I can not do that. The wedding is only a week away, and I will not go back on my word. My family is an honorable one. You know this. You have met my brother, Andrés. We are proud. I have also signed a written contract. This deed is done.”

  Nikki felt a flush of shame and embarrassment. She knew better than to suggest that Isabel Fernandez back out of a signed catering agreement for the wedding of the decade in Sonoma. The heat in her face also signified another reason for Nikki’s embarrassment, which came along with the flutter in her stomach with the mention of Isabel’s brother’s name. There were two men in Napa Valley who’d been able to give her that twinge—one of them was Andrés Fernandez, the other was her boss, Derek Malveaux.

  It had been six months since meeting Andrés, Derek, and subsequently Isabel. Time had slid by like time usually does, faster than expected. It boggled her mind that half a year had passed since she had interviewed with Derek Malveaux. One Thursday night last November, she was waiting tables to subsidize her floundering acting career. The following morning, she found herself on board the Malveaux private plane, at Derek’s behest, to interview over the weekend for the winery’s managerial position. The weekend turned ugly when Nikki found the Estate’s winemaker Gabriel Asanti murdered. For a time she’d considered Andrés a suspect, but thankfully she discovered he didn’t have a murderous thought behind his hooded dark eyes. At the time, she’d also thought that Isabel and Andrés were an item, until Andrés set her straight by telling her they lived under the same roof because she was his sister.

  Isabel was correct; her family maintained pride and a strong sense of graciousness. The Fernandez innate graciousness lent itself to Andrés’ edgy good looks. He conjured up an image of Spanish bullfighter combined with bad-boy movie star. A plus to all of that was he knew exactly how to make Nikki laugh.

  It didn’t take long before Isabel and Nikki started hanging out together and began a close friendship, even though there was a seven year difference in their ages, with Isabel the younger of the two. The two of them had discovered common ground between them. They were the new girls in Napa Valley, and thus carried an air of intrigue about them that captured the interest of many of the Napa Valley natives.

  “I hate them. I hate them both,” Isabel sputtered and gulped back a large swig of the pinot noir. “But I will not let them harm me any further. I may hate Susan Jennings and Kristof Waltman, but I will cater their damn wedding. And I will do it spectacularly.” And having said that, the Spanish beauty laid her head down on Nikki’s wooden plank table and cried the rest of her night’s tears before passing out. Nikki picked up the emptied plate of sashimi and went to get a bottle of water. Wine limitations were definitely at maximum capacity. Her head whirled and she noticed the slight sway to her step.

  She came back to see the shattered, but now unconscious face of her friend, and knew exactly how Isabel felt. With the gentleness of a best friend, Nikki pushed strands of black hair out of Isabel’s face and tucked them behind her ears. “I know, girlfriend, unrequited love is a real bitch.” Derek Malveaux and his sky blue-colored eyes passed through her mind before she entertained any further fantasy about him, knowing that her feelings for him were hers only and that his flirting and sweet nature toward her was as simple as that, flirting and nothing more.

  She looked back down at Isabel. “Let’s tuck you in.” It took all of Nikki’s strength to lift Isabel onto her sofa, which, good thing for her, stood only a few feet away. Damn, weren’t those Firm videos supposed to be giving her some more muscle? She’d even started using the eight-pound weights now. But at thirty-three, okay thirty-five, nothing seemed as easy as it had seven years ago, and having to hide back-fat was now an issue that had recently cropped up. Yep, twenty-eight was a good age. No low-carb diets, no worries about crow’s feet, and definitely no back-fat.

  She covered Isabel up with a quilt her Aunt Cara sent her from Paris. It seemed that since her aunt’s retirement from the Los Angeles police department as a homicide detective, Aunt Cara had discovered a new life in Europe. What was supposed to have been a month-long backpacking trip through Western Europe had now turned into something more. Aunt Cara had been gone for as long as had Nikki from Los Angeles. Nikki suspected a man might be involved in keeping the woman who’d raised her away, across a whole lotta land and even one really large ocean. Eventually she’d get over there and find out just what was going on with Aunt Cara.

  Her friend sound asleep from wine and a broken heart, Nikki stepped out of her cottage. It had originally been the Estate guest cottage, but since her arrival, she’d unintentionally taken it over. It just happened that way. Derek put it out there when offering her the job and it truly was icing on the cake with her decision to go to work for the winery. Nikki’s mind running amok with thoughts of Isabel’s predicament, she decided to take a walk around the vineyard and over to the pond, one of her favorite places at Malveaux Estate for its calming effect. Hopefully, Ollie would be outside and get a whiff of her scent and come along. Ollie, the vineyard Rhodesian Ridgeback, belonged to Derek, but since Nikki’s arrival amongst the vines, the dog spent quite a bit of time with her, causing some lighthearted chiding on her end toward Derek, whom she knew was a wee bit jealous that man’s best friend had divided his loyalties.

  She glanced around. No Ollie in sight. Bummer. The cold air sent a shiver through her and helped to sober her. But the chill faded fast with her pace and she almost forgot all about it, taking in the evening smells and sounds that the spring brings to the wine country. A bullfrog croaked in the distance keeping time with the chirp of crickets, creating their own nature’s concert. The night’s breeze picked up the scents of Mexican orange blossoms and star magnolia, blowing them across the vineyard, creating a fragrance no perfumer could re-create.

  The pond came into view, a light on over at Derek’s place illuminated through the Spanish moss dangling off the old oaks, shedding a glimmer on the water’s edge. Derek didn’t live up in the Estate mansion because his stepmonster lived there, and on occasion his half brother Simon and his lover Marco, who were now off in New York doing the spring fashion shows, with Marco presenting his new line. The stepmonster, Patrice, knew her way around the country’s best spas and lately had been kept busy frequenting them more than the vineyard, which suited Nikki just fine. She knew Derek wasn’t exactly upset over Patrice’s absences. Of course, Simon and Marco, whom Nikki liked to refer to as the Boys of Summer, with their spray on tans and white-on-white attire, weren’t missed either.

  The breeze blew into a wind, chilling
Nikki’s face. She rubbed her hands together. Was that the Cowboy Junkies version of “Blue Moon” she heard coming from Derek’s house? Getting closer, she determined it was, and sat down on a log next to the pond to take it all in.

  Her eyes closed, and lost in thought, she was startled by a rough tongue licking her hand. She jumped and her eyes flew open and she laughed out loud to see that she’d been found. “Hey Ollie, I was hoping you’d make it.” She patted the big dog on top of his reddish-colored head. He wagged his tail in delight and continued licking her hand.

  “What about me?”

  Nikki spun around on the log, nearly tearing her sweatpants. There stood Derek. Strong, blue-eyed, tanned, blond, rakish Derek. “Oh, hi. I didn’t know you were there, too.” Why was it that every time she opened her mouth to say something to him, she sounded like either a blubbering little girl or a total idiot?

  “Yep.” He sat down beside her. “You glad to see me, too?”

  “Sure I am.”

  “I gave you a call earlier to see if you wanted to have a glass of wine with me. Thought maybe we could barbeque some steaks. I guess the butcher didn’t hear me correctly when I ordered my meat today. He gave me too much. I would have liked to have had you join me. But I got your answering machine, and when I walked on over to your place, I saw Andrés’ car parked out front. I figured you were busy.”