Death By the Glass #2 by Nadia Gordon Page A

be jumping to the wrong conclusion altogether. It was possible that he didn’t know anything about the wine and was duped himself, in which case he might be grateful for the information. Monty Lenstrom had spotted the mistake just by looking at the cork, but maybe Remy had never had that chance. Since he was reselling it, he may never have opened one. The only way for him to tell would have been the color of the foil, and that could have easily slipped past him. He may not have even looked at the wine. Anyone might have opened the box and removed a couple of bottles. On the other hand, if he was guilty, letting him know she was on to him wouldn’t help matters. It could even be dangerous.
    The phone rang and she went to have a look. The caller ID said Vinifera, meaning it was Andre wondering where she was and why she wasn’t getting back to him. There was no good answer to that question right at the moment. She let it ring.
    She wanted to have something to drop off as a pretense for her visit to Remy tomorrow morning, not that it would make her intentions any less obvious. A casserole was the traditional food of bereavement, but that wouldn’t be terribly appealing at seven-thirty in the morning. She opened a few cupboards andexamined the supplies on hand. There were the basics for baking and not much else. Biscotti was an option, or maybe morning buns. She noticed a Ball jar filled with apricot pits that had been on the counter for several months. Maybe it was time to use them. Remy Castels would know how much work it was to extract the tiny kernels inside the pits, called
noyau,
and he might even appreciate the effort. Well, probably not, but it was hard to imagine anyone turning away a plate of morning buns with
noyau
frosting, which would smell and taste like sweet almond. The project also had the benefit of keeping her hands busy, and it might help focus her thoughts. At the moment her mind was leaping with the kind of questions that would stand squarely in the way of sleep.
    She found the nutcracker and went to work. The apricot pits released their seal with a woody crack, revealing the tiny, smooth seed inside. When there was a tablespoon of them in the bottom of the mortar, she ground them into a coarse powder and added it to a saucepan of simmering heavy cream. After cooling and heating the mixture several times, she put it in the refrigerator. The cream would continue to soak up the essence of the ground
noyau
until it was strained away.
    The morning buns were a simpler task. She mixed up a batch of the sweet, stretchy dough and set it aside to rise.
    With the preparations done, she ran a bath and settled in. Remy was onto a good thing with his wine club, she thought. It would be relatively easy to fake a bottle of wine, especially if you were certain that no one would open it for ten years. All he would have to do is soak the bottle in soapy water overnight and the label would slide right off. She did it herself whenever she wanted to keep a label for her wine journal. Then all he needed to do was scan the label from the more expensive wine, print it outon a good printer, trim it, and stick it on. Up at Skord Mountain, she’d helped Wade put plenty of labels on bottles. There wasn’t anything fancy about the process, it was just paper and glue. Some wine labels had gold lettering, embossments, and other flourishes, but Marceline didn’t. Its label was very plain, stoic.
    She added more hot water to the bath. A certain scenario kept running through her mind. Assuming Remy was the one who doctored the wine, suppose that Nathan Osborne found out about it and threatened to expose him. Remy then silenced him in the most permanent way. But how could Remy induce a heart attack without leaving any trace in the body? If that was the plan, and assuming there was a way to execute it, wouldn’t it be smart to create rumors of heart trouble? Maybe there wasn’t time. Maybe Nathan had threatened to expose his crime right