Read Chapter 10: The Vintner's Dinner

The barn had been swept clean, the scorch marks scrubbed from the stone walls, but the smell of smoke still clung to the air like a bad omen. Alex stood at the edge of the estate's gravel courtyard, watching the vintners' cars crawl up the access road in the grey dusk, their headlights cutting twin tunnels through the haze.

Claire appeared beside him, a tray of glasses balanced on her hip. She wore a simple black dress, her hair pinned back, and looked for all the world like a woman hosting a harvest supper rather than someone who'd confessed to knowing about a decade of laundering.

"You're sure about this?" she asked, low enough that only he could hear.

"No," Alex said. "But if Vichet or Reynard's people are watching, they'll expect me to hide. And hiding looks like guilt."

She studied him a moment, then nodded and moved toward the long trestle table where the first guests were gathering. Alex watched her go, the weight of her warning pressing against his ribs. *Reynard's protection may have been all that kept the family alive.* He'd spent the drive back from Fleurie—the one he hadn't taken—thinking about that. Instead of slipping away down the farm track, he'd called Delacroix and told him he was hosting the annual vintners' gathering as planned. If the inspector wanted to watch him, let him watch in public.

The courtyard filled slowly. Older men in weathered jackets and younger ones in pressed shirts, their hands calloused in that particular way of people who'd spent decades among vines. Alex circulated, shaking hands, murmuring condolences about his father that he'd learned to accept without flinching. He noticed the way their eyes drifted to the burned barn, the way their questions circled it like wary dogs around a wounded animal.

"The harvest will be thinner this year," one of them said, a barrel-chested man named Roussillon who ran the domaine three valleys over. His tone was careful, diplomatic. "The fire in the shed... unfortunate timing."

Alex nodded. "The insurance assessor comes tomorrow. We'll salvage what we can."

Roussillon grunted, unconvinced, and moved on. Alex let him go. He was scanning the crowd, looking for faces he didn't recognize, when Claire caught his eye and tilted her head toward the far end of the table. A man stood there, alone, holding a glass of wine he hadn't touched. He was thin, almost gaunt, with silver hair brushed back from a narrow face and small, dark eyes that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. He wore a suit that had probably cost more than Alex's entire wardrobe, and he was studying the label on one of the estate's bottles with the careful attention of a man reading a contract.

"Who's that?" Alex asked Claire as she passed him with a fresh bottle.

"François Duval," she said, not breaking stride. "He was your father's biggest private customer. Buys whole lots directly, never at auction. Keeps to himself."

Alex filed that away and made his way down the table, pausing to refill glasses and exchange pleasantries, working his way toward the stranger the way a man might circle a rock to see what's underneath it before lifting it. When he reached Duval, the older man didn't look up from the bottle.

"Your father had a gift for blending," Duval said, his voice thin and dry as old paper. "The '09, in particular. He held it back for seven years before releasing it. Most of them would've sold it at three. He knew the price of patience."

"You knew my father well."

Duval set the bottle down and finally met Alex's eyes. "Better than most." A pause, the kind of pause that carries a warning in it. "Not as well as I thought, perhaps."

The evening deepened. A pig roasted on a spit at the edge of the courtyard, and the smell of crackling fat mingled with the smoke-tinged air. Alex ate little, drank less, kept his attention scattered across the crowd the way a dealer might keep his eyes on the table. He watched Delacroix arrive late, in plain clothes, taking a place near the barn with a glass of water and the patient stillness of a man who wasn't there for the company.

It was nearly midnight when Duval touched his elbow.

"Walk with me," the collector said. No request in it. Alex glanced around, but the vintners had begun to drift toward their cars, the evening winding down in a chorus of goodbyes and engine starts. Claire was deep in conversation with Roussillon. No one was watching them.

They walked past the barn, past the rows of vines that silvered in the moonlight, until the noise of the courtyard faded to a murmur. Duval stopped at the edge of a plot where the old vines grew thick and gnarled, their roots sunk deep into the limestone. He stood there a moment, looking at them like old friends.

"I bought wines from Vincent Moreau for nearly twenty years," Duval said. "Cases at a time. Always the same order. Three of this, four of that. Never varying. Never questioning the price."

"That's very loyal," Alex said carefully.

"Loyal?" Duval made a soft sound that might have been a laugh. "No. I paid for what I received. The wine was excellent. The arrangement was convenient." He turned to face Alex, and in the moonlight his face took on the quality of a carving, all sharp planes and deep shadows. "Your father understood that the most valuable thing a man can have is a customer who looks the other way. He provided a service. I provided discretion."

Alex felt his pulse quicken. "What kind of service?"

Duval reached into his jacket and produced a card, cream-colored, heavy stock, with nothing on it but a name embossed in dark ink: *Henri Vasseur, Banque Vasseur & Fils, Rue du Rhône 14, Genève.* He pressed it into Alex's palm.

"The real value of these wines was never in the glass," Duval said quietly. "Your father kept a second cellar. Not the one behind the false wall you found. Another one. He used it to store things that mature better than wine." He looked at the card in Alex's hand. "Vasseur was my point of contact for certain... acquisitions. I believe he may have been Vincent's as well."

Alex stared at the card. The name felt heavy, a key to a door he wasn't sure he wanted to open. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because," Duval said, and his voice dropped lower, almost to a whisper, "people have started asking questions about your father's affairs. And I don't like being connected to men whose secrets are being pried loose." He stepped back, adjusting his cuffs. "I told you once his wine was worth collecting. It still is. But the collection has become dangerous to hold."

He turned and walked back toward the courtyard without waiting for a response. Alex stood among the vines, the card cold against his fingers, the weight of Duval's words settling into him like sediment.

A second cellar. More records. A Swiss banker who might have answers his father had taken to the grave.

He thought of the passports in the hidden vault, the ledgers with their impossible sums. He thought of the doctor who'd been paid three days before his father died. He thought of Reynard, whoever he was, watching from the shadows of Macau and Marseille and wherever else his money reached.

And he thought of Claire's warning, and the scent of smoke that still haunted the air.

He was still standing there, turning the card over and over in his hand, when a figure emerged from the darkness between the rows of vines. Alex tensed, ready to run, ready to fight—

"Easy," Delacroix said, stepping into the moonlight. His hands were loose at his sides, his expression unreadable. "I saw you leave with Duval. Thought you might want to know—he was questioned in Lyon three years ago, as part of an art-trafficking investigation. Never charged. But his name appears in a file we have on one Marcel Reynard."

Alex said nothing. The night seemed to have grown colder.

"So," Delacroix said, his eyes dropping to Alex's hand, where the card now rested at his side, "I'll ask you again, Monsieur Moreau. What are you doing?"