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They reached the winery just after nine. The winery itself didn’t open to the public until ten, but the receptionist saw their uniforms and didn’t offer any fuss.

“Alex should be in the tasting room down the hall,” she said. “That’s Room Twelve. Should I page him to let him know you’re coming?”

Faith thought a moment, then shook her head. She didn’t want to give Alex a chance to run. “No, that’s all right. It’ll be our surprise.”

The receptionist paled a shade and nodded.

The three of them proceeded through the winery. A few of the winemakers and sommeliers gave Turk a dirty look, but no one dared say anything to the two human agents, whose expressions made it clear they weren’t interested in any complaints about their dog being inside a food establishment.

Room Twelve was at the end of a very long hall. The window was covered with brown paper, and a laminated sign was taped to the front of the door that said TASTING IN PROGRESS. DO NOT DISTURB.

Well, they were going to disturb Alex whether he liked it or not.

Faith knocked on the door and said, “FBI! Open up!”

No answer. She tried the handle and, of course, found it locked. She knocked again, louder this time. “Alex Ferris! This is the FBI! We need to talk to you now!”

No answer. She shared a look with Michael and tried one last time. “Alex! We’re coming in! You can either open the door for us, or we can break it down!”

“Hold on!” a voice called.

Faith turned to see a middle-aged woman rushing over to them as quickly as she could in her heels. “I’ll open the door,” she said. “No need to be boorish about it.”

Faith decided to let the comment pass and stood aside as the woman fumbled with her keys. “Honestly, I don’t understand why you couldn’t have just made an appointment.”

Michael was less patient than Faith. “That’s right. You don’t understand.”

The woman pursed her lips and refrained from further comment. She opened the door to an empty room. “There. Are you happy?”

Faith frowned. “Where’s Alex Ferris?”

The woman sighed. “I don’t know. I’m in sales. He’s with product quality. We work together, but only when he’s assigned to a tasting with a prospective client.”

“We need to talk to him now ,” Faith said. “This is urgent.”

The woman lifted her hands and let them drop. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Where would he be if not here?” Faith demanded.

The saleswoman sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I guess… probably downstairs selecting vintages for the tasting. Usually, our sommeliers like to complete tastings before eight in the morning, but they run late sometimes."

“Where downstairs?”

“The cellar,” she replied, as though that should have been the most obvious thing on Earth. “It’s the first basement level.”

“Good enough,” Michael said. “Thank you.”

The three agents rushed back to the lobby and grabbed the first elevator. Faith and Michael checked their weapons as the elevator descended, just in case.

The door opened, and a very surprised-looking man around Michael’s age but of slighter build and with graying hair stared at the three of them in shock. He had two bottles of wine tucked under his jacket, and when he saw the FBI lettering on their vests, he clutched them more tightly and tried to hide their shape under the jacket.

“We need to speak with Alex Ferris,” Faith said.

The man blinked. “Wh… why do you need to speak with him?”

“He’s wanted for questioning in the deaths of Eleanor Crestwood, Harold Grimes and Lila Vance.”

“The deaths of… well… I’m sorry, but he’s not here.”

Faith’s eyes narrowed. “Really? Because we talked to two people who said he was.”

The man swallowed nervously. “Well, they were mistaken.”

“So if we check your ID right now, it won’t say Alex Ferris?”

The man paled. “I… I see no need to surrender my ID to you. You don’t have a search warrant, and you can’t just accost someone and demand that they identify themselves when they’re not suspected of a crime.”

“Murder in the first is a pretty serious crime,” Michael reminded him.

“What’s in your jacket?” Faith asked.

He paled further. “Nothing.”

“Nothing, huh? Nothing at all?”

The man swallowed. “You have no right to be here.”

“You can argue that all you want,” Faith replied. “But here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to check your ID, and we’re going to tell your employers that you’re walking out of here with two bottles of wine under your jacket.”

“I’m a sommelier here, I’m allowed to transport the product.”

“Under your sweater? Hours after tasting is supposed to be over?”

He swallowed again. “Yes.”

“Sounds good. Michael? Call the front desk and let them know that Alex Ferris is walking out with two bottles under his sweater.”

“No! No, why would you do that?”

“Why wouldn’t we? We’re trying to talk to you, and you’re lying to us.”

“But…” His eyes shifted between them. “Look, I didn’t kill them. I wasn’t in the same place as them when they died.”

“Some poisons take a while to work. Especially if the victims don’t open their bottles right away.”

Alex’s brow furrowed. Then his eyes widened. “Oh shit. The wine.”

“The wine,” Michael repeated. “You want to talk to us now?”

“Okay,” Alex replied. “Okay. Just… look, I’ll talk to you, but don’t tell the vineyard about the bottles.”

“We don’t give a shit about wine, Alex,” Faith said. “Unless you used it to kill three people.”

“I didn’t use it to kill anyone. Look, test the wine. You can do that, right? Test it, and it’ll prove there’s no poison in it.”

“Good idea. Michael, call PD and have them search the victims’ belongings again. Tell them we’re looking for any wine with the Paul Revere label on it. It needs to be tested for the poison. Have them send units here to test everything from the same batch.”

“You don’t need to send units here,” Alex said quickly. “I’ll give you bottles from the batch that you can take to your lab.”

“Not good enough,” Faith said. “We’re going to test every bottle from that batch for poison. And I don’t trust you to help us, so Michael?”

Michael looked up from his phone. “Yeah?’

“Have them call the vineyard and determine exactly which batch the wine came from. We’re going to check everything. The bottles, the barrels, everything.”

“You’re going to get me fired!” Alex pleaded.

“That doesn’t seem like much of a loss for the vineyard,” Faith said, gesturing to Alex’s swollen jacket.

“Look…” Alex ran his hands through his hair. “Please. I get it, okay? I know I look like a piece of shit right now for stealing wine, but I promise you, this isn’t something I do all the time.”

“Only takes once.”

“Okay, can you talk to me? Can you at least let me talk? Maybe I can convince you that I’m not the killer without you needing to go through all of this.”

“It’ll be at least an hour and a half before anyone gets here. Probably closer to two. If you convince me you’re not the killer, I’m going to leave, and you might have a chance to clean out your office and head home before upper management finds out you’ve been lifting vintages.”

“Oh God,” Alex moaned. “All right. Okay. Just please give me a chance to explain.”

He opened his vest and removed the bottles, then walked to a counter and set them down. He turned back to the agents and said, “Listen, your victims are renowned food critics. Well, Eleanor Crestwood is renowned, and Harold Grimes is at least respected. As for Lila, she couldn’t tell the difference between wine and gravy without someone to point it out to her, but she’s popular, and the vineyard is trying to attract younger consumers. I was assigned to work with them because I’m the leading sommelier here. I won’t bore you with my qualifications, but I was the only choice when it came to something as high profile as these pairings.”

“Can you describe your interactions with our victims?”

“Professional. To a tee. All three of them.”

“You didn’t have any conflict with them?”

“Of course not. Why would I?”

“Well,” Michael said, dialing the police department. “Eleanor Crestwood left a pretty nasty review of your wine on her website.”

“And that’s terrible, but I’m not going to kill someone because they slighted my employer.” He gestured to the wine he had set on the counter. “Come on. Do you really think I care enough about Paul Revere Vineyards to kill someone over them?”

Faith shrugged. “Not a bad point. But not enough to—”

“Shit!”

Faith snapped her eyes to Michael. Turk leapt to attention, looking back and forth between Alex and Michael.

“What is it?” Faith asked. “What’s wrong.”

Michael sighed and rubbed his temples. “Okay. We’re on our way.”

Faith’s heart sank. “Damn it.”

“What is it?” Alex asked hopefully. “Is something wrong?”

Michael glared at him. “You’re damned lucky that we have more important things to worry about than a common thief right now. Put those bottles back where they belong. And shape up. You’re what, forty years old?”

“Forty-one,” Alex replied softly.

“Yeah. Come on. Be an adult for Christ’s sake.”

He stormed toward the elevator, and Faith and Turk followed him. Faith waited until the elevator doors closed before asking, "Another victim?"

“Yeah. Steakhouse near Chestnut Hill.”

Faith’s heart dropped. “When?”

“Last night. I want to give them hell about not telling us until now, but I figured we can save that for when we arrive.”

Faith could only manage a nod. Less than two hours ago, the Boss had told her to solve this case before anyone else died, but it was already too late by the time they talked. Their killer had struck and left his victim behind and possibly Faith’s career with it.

Turk whined, and Faith reached down to pat his head. "It's okay, boy. We'll get him. You just wait."

If only she could feel as confident as she pretended to be.