Chapter 22: Sold

The auction was held in the Heritage ballroom on Monday morning, in the same room where I had once given away my ring.

The tables were gone, and a hundred gold chairs stood in rows facing a podium.

On a stand beside the auctioneer sat one bottle of Ashbury Cabernet under a spotlight, with the crest on its label.

The Ashbury name, the vineyard designations, the recipes, the customer list and the trademark were all in a single lot.

The bank had put it up to cover the debts Conrad had left.

I sat in the third row between Joaquin and Wyatt.

On the other side of the aisle sat Conrad in a charcoal suit, with a man beside him I did not know.

The man was fifty, tanned and smooth, and he wore a thick gold watch.

He leaned over to murmur in Conrad's ear.

Conrad nodded without looking at me.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the auctioneer said, "the lot is the Ashbury Cellars brand. We open at four million."

"Four," said the man in the watch, lazily.

"Four and a half," said Joaquin, and the whole room turned around.

Conrad's head snapped toward us.

I kept my face still.

We had agreed on this at dawn in the pickup, over bad coffee, with the number written on a napkin: ten.

"Five," said the man in the watch.

"Five and a half."

"Six."

"Six and a half," Joaquin said, and he did not raise his voice.

The room had gone so quiet that I could hear the air handlers.

At seven million, Conrad bent toward the man in the watch and said something sharp.

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