Page 39 of Dagger’s Shield

She didn’t stop until the buildings were well behind us and there was nothing on either side of the path but bare December vines.

“We should make a plan,” she said.

“Agreed. The first thing we need⁠—”

“Is to learn what Papa was doing in Switzerland.”

“I can speak with him, unless you’d rather,” I offered.

“I am not interested in talking to either of you, so that arrangement is perfect.”

I ignored the jab. “And you?”

“I want a look at the business records. Bank accounts, invoices, sales, shipments, to see if I can find anything on the financial side to link him to Géraud.”

“There’s something from last night you should know,” I said. “Around twenty-three hundred, a man crossed the courtyard to the winery buildings and let himself in. A light came on at the entrance, then in an office window at the far end.”

“Could you see who it was?”

“Negative.”

“This is one more reason to get into that office.”

“Will you be able to get in undetected?”

“Before you came down this morning, Rémy asked me to go into Dijon with him. I told him I needed the day with my mother, then suggested the three of us have dinner when he returns. He said he would be gone until then.”

“Good. I’ll keep your father busy while you see what you can find.”

She nodded once and walked away without saying anything more. I hurried after her.

“This isn’t fair,” I said.

“Few things in life are, Dagger.”

“You kissed me first at the dinner table, and you tried to kiss me again on our way to your bedroom. I stopped us because it was the right thing to do, and now, you’re not speaking to me over it.”

“You needn’t worry. It will never happen again.”

If that was meant to reassure me, it didn’t work. It did the opposite.

Maëlle walked ahead of me when we returned to the house. Neither of us spoke. At the courtyard, she peeled off toward the kitchen without a goodbye, and I went to find her father.

The door to his study was ajar, so I knocked.

“Entrez,” he said without looking up from the newspaper spread out in front of him. “What can I do for you?”

“You and Rémy walked me through the cuverie on my first morning here,” I said. “I’d love to see more if you have time.”

He beamed and was on his feet before I finished the sentence, motioning for me to follow.

He led me outside, past the buildings we’d already been in, and into another farther down the path. We went inside and took ancient stone steps down to the cellars, where rows of casks were racked. Beyond the barrel corridors, there were wooden doors. Bertrand stopped in front of one, punched numbers into a pad, and it opened. A motion light switched on when we entered a long narrow room.

Racks full of bottles resting on their sides lined the walls. There had to be thousands of them.

“This is the oldest of several vaults,” he explained. “What you see in here goes back further than anything else on the estate.”

“How far do these date back?” I asked.