Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow (40 page)

I stood up slowly, bracing myself against the craggy stone wall and blinking hard as I tried to adjust to the dim light.

Where am I? I wondered.

The hundreds of bottles of wine lining the wall gave me my answer.

Okay, I’m in the Thorndike Vineyards’ wine cellar, I thought, feeling moderately encouraged. In fact, some people would consider this a dream come true.

But not me. Especially given the way I’d gotten there. I only hoped I wouldn’t have too much trouble getting out.

I glanced up the staircase I’d just wrestled with and saw that the heavy wooden door was shut tight. Probably locked, I figured grimly, certain that whoever had pushed me down all those steps had made sure of that.

Still, I climbed back up, just to check. I moved as silently as I could, not wanting to give anyone who might be poised on the other side of the door any information about my activities—or my condition.

Gently I laid my hand on the knob, grasping it tightly in my fingers. I tried to turn it.

It didn’t move.

Just as I thought, I reflected, swallowing hard. I’m locked in.

I crept back down the stairs, wondering if my attacker was standing on the other side, listening.

Now what? I thought, trying to remain calm. Rather than focusing on being locked in, I tried to concentrate on the fact that the place in which I was being held prisoner wasn’t exactly terrible.

Still, I figured that finding a good hiding place was probably a wise move. I wandered through the cool, dimly lit maze of rooms. From what I could see, they’d been constructed with no obvious plan. Some opened into other rooms, while some of them were dead ends. Most of them had no windows—and the few I spotted were very high up, with very thick glass.

My chances of escape were looking slim.

It could be days before anyone comes down here, I thought woefully. I immediately reminded myself that October was the busiest time of year at the wineries, and that tomorrow was Saturday. The usual hordes of tourists would undoubtedly come pouring into this part of the island and into Thorndike Vineyards. Surely somebody would come down soon to look for a particular bottle of wine or to restock the gift-shop shelves.

At the moment, however, there were no creaking floors or footsteps from the level above. The gift shop and the tasting room were closed, and the tours were done for the day. I figured I shouldn’t expect anyone to come down until the following morning.

Except, perhaps, the person who’d locked me in here in the first place.

That thought not only quickened my heartbeat; it sharpened my senses. I noticed how cool it was down here and was glad I’d brought along my jacket.

I also noticed I was getting hungry.

Great, just great, I thought. I’d probably be spending the night down here. Maybe even longer, depending on how long it took before somebody came down here looking for a few bottles of 1985 merlot—or a nosy veterinarian who’d mysteriously vanished.

I couldn’t even help myself to a relaxing glass of wine. While I was surrounded by hundreds of bottles of the stuff, I didn’t have a corkscrew.

Water, water, everywhere, I thought wryly.

I didn’t really mind. Keeping a clear head seemed like a good idea, since somebody was obviously upset enough with me and my investigation of Cassandra’s murder that he or she saw fit to push me down an entire flight of hard, stone stairs and lock me in a wine cellar for who knew how long.

What I did mind was knowing that, right upstairs, countless boxes of crisp crackers and hunks of weird-smelling cheese lay in wait. Just then, my stomach let out a loud grumble.

“Quiet, you,” I muttered.

Telling myself that resisting the body’s cravings built character, I continued wandering. I was actually finding it kind of interesting, seeing what a real live wine cellar looked like.

Until I heard a loud crash.

I froze. It sounded like glass smashing against something hard, like brick or stone.

But it wasn’t the fact that something had broken that bothered me. It was the realization that I wasn’t alone.

My heart pounded so loudly I was afraid whoever was down here with me could hear it. So much for keeping my whereabouts concealed. I crept along the wall, glad, for the first time, that the cellar was dark—and getting darker by the moment as the sun dropped lower and lower in the sky, by this point casting only minimal light through the few high windows.

When I reached a doorway, I hesitated, trying to figure out a way to get across it without being seen. Impossible, I knew. I was just going to have to take a chance that whoever it was would be looking away. Either that, or stay where I was. That option was sounding better and better. True, I was in full view—but only if the person down here with me in this labyrinth of rooms happened to wander into my little corner of the basement.

I jumped when I heard another crash. By now, the urge to look was irresistible. I moved my head—just a little—so that I could peer through the doorway, into the room to the right, with my right eye...

“It’s you!” I cried aloud. And nearly burst out laughing with relief.

The mysterious stranger who was stalking me—and had accidentally given away her presence by breaking a couple of bottles of wine—was standing just a few feet away, staring at me with unblinking eyes. Next to her was a puddle of wine, pooling around jagged-edged shards of broken glass.

I hoped she hadn’t cut her paws.

“Come here, Coco,” I said gently. “Hey, remember me? I’m the one who took care of that nasty bladder infection.”

She came over and rubbed against my leg, purring as if she were as grateful as I was to find out that the other being who was stuck down here was a friend.

Then I realized something important:
She
wasn’t stuck down here. Coco hadn’t been pushed down the stairs, the way I had. Which meant she’d either come down here earlier, while the door was open—or there was another way of getting in and out.

“How did you get in here?” I asked, scooping her up and looking into her eyes. She just blinked, proving to be no more helpful than Cassandra’s portrait. Okay, so animals can’t talk. But at least they could answer direct questions some other way, like pointing to a picture with a paw or mewing or barking when they heard the correct answer.

I knew she wasn’t about to tell me anything. Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t show me.

“Let’s get out of here, Coco,” I told her. “Show me the way. Please!”

She looked at me with her intense green eyes, then turned abruptly. Something told me that, somehow, she’d understood.

Sure enough, she led me through that room and into the next, then over to a small window I hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t exactly large, but at least it was bigger than the others. It was hinged on the bottom and opened inward. At the moment, it was open a few inches, just enough for a cat to slink through.

But not a person. At least, not unless that person took something hard and used it to smash the glass.

I glanced around anxiously, desperately hoping to find a hammer or a piece of metal. No luck. In fact, pretty much all I could see was wine.

I grabbed one of the bottles, hoping it wasn’t one of those rare, extremely valuable wines that people spend thousands of dollars on.

Sorry, Gordon, I thought. I never meant to damage your property. But I’ll reimburse you for the window. Besides, I think we’ll both agree that it’s a small price to pay for me getting out of here and fingering your daughter’s killer.

I wrapped up my right hand with my fleece jacket, covered my face with my left arm, and smashed the window.

I let out a yelp of victory when I saw I’d created a hole big enough for me to crawl through. I knew I’d have to expect a few cuts and scrapes from the jagged edges that remained inside the frame, either to my skin or my clothes. At the moment, that didn’t seem to matter very much.

I climbed up the wooden shelves that housed the wine, hoping I wouldn’t end up pulling an entire wall of bottles down. Fortunately, they turned out to be stronger than they looked. I stuck my head through the broken window and wriggled through. Much to my surprise, Coco was waiting for me outside.

“Thanks, pussycat,” I told her. “I owe you.”

I planned to make it up to her too. There were definitely some chicken livers in this feline’s future.

At the moment, however, I had more important things to do—like find Gordon and ask him about the meaning of the Red Rabbit book in his daughter’s life.

And I had to get to him quickly. Since the very beginning of this wrenching ordeal, the clock had been ticking. Now, it seemed to be doing double-time.

I found Gordon Thorndike in the building out back, the one that contained the temperature-controlled “tax room” I’d learned about during my winery tour. He was in a small storage room right behind it. Just like last time, he was surrounded by cardboard cartons. Only instead of moving them around, he was sealing them up with packing tape.

“Mr. Thorndike?” I said softly, not wanting to startle him.

He only glanced up for a moment. “Dr. Popper,” he said, immediately going back to what he was doing.

“I don’t want to bother you, but this is important.” I swallowed hard, thinking, Important enough for somebody to lock me in a dungeon as a warning.

Trying to sound calm and matter-of-fact, I asked, “This might sound like a strange question, but do you have any idea what the book
Red Rabbit Comes Home
might have meant to Cassie?”

He glanced up again, looking at me blankly. At first, I assumed that was a bad sign. But then his face softened into a smile.

“Of course. That was one of Cassie’s favorite books back when she was a little girl. I used to read it to her all the time. I’d be trying to get her to go to sleep, but she’d insist that I read it again....” His voice trailed off and he shook his head sadly. “Even then, that girl wasn’t about to take no for an answer. If she wanted something, she’d just storm ahead, doing whatever it took to get it.”

“But what about as an adult?” I asked, careful not to let my impatience show. “Did that book have any significance to her lately?”

He seemed surprised by my question. But this time his expression told me it was because I didn’t already know the answer.

“That’s the name she picked,” he said with a little shrug.

“Picked...for what?” I asked.

“For her winery.” He reached into one of the cartons next to him and pulled out a roll of what looked like stickers. “Look. These are the labels I had printed up for her. They were supposed to be a surprise. A birthday present. You probably didn’t know she was about to turn thirty, in just a few more weeks.” He held out the roll, which I could now see contained both front and back labels, alternating on a strip of waxy white paper. “See? I had an artist design labels with the name of what was going to be her winery. She chose the name back when she first started talking about doing it.”

As soon as I took the thick roll from him, I felt all the blood rush out of my body, down toward my toes. I opened my mouth to breathe more deeply, vaguely aware that I was feeling light-headed.

“That was so much like Cassie,” Gordon went on, too wrapped up in his own world to notice that I was having difficulty catching my breath. “Planning to name her winery after some book she’d loved when she was a kid. She never let go of that little-girl innocence, you know? It’s like part of her was still a kid, filled with awe and wonder about the world.”

I blinked, still trying to take in what I had just learned from the labels Gordon Thorndike had had designed for his daughter’s brand-new winery.

Each was comprised of bright red letters against a black background. Centered on the front label was the silhouette of a rabbit, also printed in red. Above it was the name she had chosen.

Looking at it sent a chill down my spine as palpable as if someone had tossed an ice cube down my shirt.

Red Rabbit Run.

The name perfectly matched the three objects she’d left behind as she was dying.

Red,
as in
The Scarlet Letter.

Rabbit,
as in the stuffed bunny.

Run,
as in the running shoe.

She had been murdered because of her vineyard, and she wanted us to know it.

“Where was Cassandra going to start her winery?” I asked in a strained voice. “Here on Long Island?”

“Of course. Right on my property, in fact. I was going to give her some of my land. Twenty acres bordering Theo Simcox’s property. That was going to be part of her birthday present too.” He let out a long, deep sigh. “But now I’ll go back to my original plan, since I can’t even bear to look at it anymore.”

“What was your original plan?”

“Selling it.”

“To whom?” I asked. My mouth had become strangely dry.

“Theo,” Gordon replied with a little shrug.

The significance of what he’d just said hit me like a magnum of champagne.

“I suppose he plans to expand his winery,” he continued, seemingly oblivious to my reaction. “I can’t imagine what else he’d do with that extra piece of land. In fact, Joan was just looking over the legal papers earlier this afternoon. She has a much better head for that kind of thing than I do. We’ve been trying to keep the sale of the land quiet, since we both feel kind of bad about moving on so quickly when it was supposed to be Cassandra’s.” His voice thickened as he added, “But that’s the whole point. Now it will never be hers.”

I was only half-listening, since my head was spinning too quickly for me to concentrate.

Gordon had planned to sell those twenty acres to Theo, then decided to give them to Cassandra instead so she could create her own vineyard, Red Rabbit Run. Now that she’s gone, he’ll get them after all.

My head throbbed with the realization that Theo Simcox was the one person who had something to lose by the establishment of Red Rabbit Run Vineyards— something he could only get back through her death.