Page 61 of Dagger’s Shield

“It was yours too. You’ve made my daughter smile and laugh again. Not many people can do that.” She stopped and looked up at me. “I know there’s something troubling both of you. I only hope you can set aside whatever it is and enjoy this time with us.”

“We will,” I promised, meaning it.

She patted my arm and let Rémy lead her to their car.

Two days, and then, if our theories proved correct, Maëlle and I would rip her family apart. The lies she was having a harder and harder time telling were doing the same to me.

14

MAËLLE

When I woke at two in the morning, Dagger’s side of the bed was empty and cold. There wasn’t a light on in the bathroom, and his boots were still by the chair, so he hadn’t gone far. I got up and went downstairs to look for him.

I found him in the solarium, seated at the desk my mother used for correspondence. His laptop was open, and he had a pen and notepad next to it.

“What are you doing?” I asked as I stepped closer to him.

“Sorry if I woke you,” he said rather than answer.

I peered over his shoulder, and on the screen were treatment protocols for the type of lymphoma my mother had been diagnosed with. On the notepad, he’d written the side effects and how best to manage them.

When my breath caught and my eyes filled with tears, he moved his chair from the desk, took my hand, and gathered me on his lap.

“We’ll get through this, Maëlle,” he whispered as he stroked my hair.

He’d said we. A man who’d known my mother for less than two weeks was awake in the middle of the night, doing research so he could help both her and me navigate what was coming, while the man who’d been married to my mother for three decades told her it would pass.

I buried my face in his neck and cried harder. He soothed me more but for the wrong reasons. My tears now were because I could no longer deny my love for Killian Curran, and when this op was over and we both returned to the States, I had no doubt he’d move on from us. From me. My heart broke, knowing it would happen. When it actually did, the pain would be so much worse.

“Let’s go back to bed,” he eventually said, shifting me off his lap, then taking my hand as we made our way upstairs.

At the turn of the staircase, the window looked out over the courtyard. A light burned in the winery office at the far end.

“That’s the third time I’ve seen that,” Dagger said.

“He said the co-op wants the year closed before January.”

“At two in the morning?”

I agreed it seemed odd, but when Dagger coaxed me into bed and held me in his arms, sleep came easier than I thought it would.

Shouting in the courtyard started a few hours later, jarring both of us from our slumber. It was Marthe, telling two vineyard workers that they were carrying a table through the caveau doors incorrectly. I lay still, listened, and smiled. I’d woken to the same scolding throughout my childhood.

Dagger was already dressed when I came out of the bathroom. “I have an errand in Dijon,” he said. “I’ll return by noon.”

“What kind of errand?”

“The kind you’re not permitted to ask about until tomorrow.”

I had a bottle for him hidden in the wardrobe, so I could hardly demand answers about his secrets.

With Dagger in Dijon and everyone else busy with the party, I used the log-in from Hornet to do more research. I’d been through the sales ledgers already, and they only showed the money coming in. This time, I opened the purchases.

The first oddity was the shipping. Several of the container shipments made no sense. They’d been billed too close together, but never at the same time interval. The weights weren’t identical either, but like the dates, they were too similar. That in itself wouldn’t have been suspicious, but when I found the same pattern with corks, barrels, bottles, yeasts, and fining agents, even sulfur dioxide and other treatment products, I couldn’t explain or ignore what was right in front of me.

I made notes on all of it and took screenshots in case I was unable to find it again. Every padded invoice matched ones I’d already copied from the vendor files.

This, coupled with the inflated prices Maison Fontenay was paying, made the theory that Domaine Valais was laundering money all the more plausible.