Page 69 of Enduring Caine
Prickles skittered up and down my spine. Something wasn’t right. I moved slowly, scanning the casks lined up in rows on their sides, looking around for more cameras—but there were none. Why no cameras back here?
“I think you’ll like this one,” said Henri behind me. “I snuck it in. It’s French.”
“This is an awful lot of wine.”
He placed the bottle on the giant table. “They’ll ship out half the casks for bottling and to be sold around the country.”
A legitimate endeavor? Or cover? Send out fourteen casks full of wine and one full of antiquities?
“Could you get out three glasses?” Henri pointed to the upper doors of the cupboard. “Signore Ferraro is in negotiations with a company in America to distribute there.”
I ran my fingers over the grape and vine carvings around the edges of the door, the shapes so worn I suspected they were easily a hundred years old. Dozens of wide-bodied glasses crammed the interior, next to glasses for scotch, martinis, shots, and white wine. I pulled out three red wine glasses and closed the door, but something on the floor caught my attention, half-hidden behind the two barrels on their ends.
A thick-soled boot.
A black-clad leg.
With shaking hands, I put the glasses down and inched closer.
A body.
A blond beard.
A wave of heat flashed through me. My brain clawed back to New Year’s Eve and David Scott’s body after Jimmy shot him.
I clamped a hand over my mouth and took an unsteady step backward, running into something solid. Strong hands gripped my upper arms.
A high-pitched whirring sounded in my ears, drowning out the man’s words.
I spun to face him, connecting the heel of my palm with his chest. Jimmy stumbled back. I wouldn’t let him—
Fuck.
It was Henri, drawn into a defensive posture, one hand up to catch another strike, the other rubbing at the spot I’d hit. “Are you alright?”
I’d just punched him, and he was asking if I was alright? My knees were weak and my stomach roiled. “It’s Johann.”
Henri’s outstretched hand pointed to the nearest chair. “Samantha, sit down.”
The weight of the moment crashed down on me. Foreign country. Surrounded by criminals. And a chef, who’d been Johann’s friend.
Two weeks ago, I would have handled this like a job. Like I’d been trained to handle it. Jimmy ruined so much more than his marriage, our town, and David and Olivia’s lives.
He’d ruined me.
And I wasn’t about to stand for that anymore. All I had to do was push forward. This was a crime and Henri didn’t need to deal with it.
I rushed back to the body and told Henri, “Go call security. Get someone down here.”
He came with me, calmer than I would have expected. “What should we tell them?”
We tipped the nearest barrel and rolled it out of the way, fully revealing Johann’s body, slumped against the wall, his head at an awkward angle.
“Exactly what happened.” I knelt and felt for a pulse. Nothing. “You brought me down here and we found him.”
“We shouldn’t touch the body. It might con—”
I craned my neck to look at him, standing there with his clenched fists. What was he going to say before he cut off? Contaminate the scene? Be something contagious? Confuse me? I cocked an eyebrow, but he turned on his heel.