Deadly Offer (4 page)

“Veronica’s in town,” the saleswoman said, plunking down the credit card slip for Darby to sign. She gestured toward the headline of the Style section. In bold print it trumpeted the sold-out “Angel Tour.”

“Veronica?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know who she is. Geez, I’m over sixty and I know her. Here.” She thrust a brochure at Darby that depicted a tall, leather-clad woman with vibrant red hair sporting large pink feathery wings. “That song ‘Heaven Bent’ is about the only thing the radio plays.”

“When does Veronica perform?” Darby asked, handing back the brochure.

“This weekend at the polo grounds. Then she’ll be in the convention center in San Francisco.” The woman sighed. “Wish I had even a tiny bit of her billions. But me? I can’t even carry a tune.”

Darby picked up the newspaper. Perhaps it would take ET’s mind off his awful journey for a moment or two. She glanced at the price and handed the saleswoman a dollar. Then she grabbed the bottle of water and cup of coffee and turned to leave.

“Come again,” the saleswoman called, in a tone that implied she didn’t care one way or another. Darby pushed open the door and headed for her car.

———

Andrea Contento snipped another bunch of purple-leaved basil from the kitchen garden and added it to her willow basket. Once more she inhaled the herb’s rich aroma and sighed. It was the scent of the growing season, of late summer, and she never tired of it. She rose from her kneeling position, wiped her hands on her jeans, and lifted the basket. Time to make pesto.

She strolled from the tidy garden to the stone patio, one of the many pleasing outdoor spaces at Contento Family Vineyards. An arrangement of weather-resistant furniture with plump cushions invited guests to sit, relax, sample one of the vineyard’s famous flagship wines, or take in the lush scenery. This particular patio was private, off-limits to the hordes of visitors who poured from vans, cars, and busses nearly every day, but there were plenty of lovely public picnic spots elsewhere on the grounds. The whole property was a showplace, a testament to the hard work and vision of generations of Contentos who had poured their time and money into the Ventano Valley land.

Andrea paused before a hedge of rosemary that was growing vigorously in its sunny location by the rock wall. She admired the verdant spikes and broke off a small branch. Remembrance—that was what rosemary stood for. She glanced at the entire row and then frowned. One of the bushes was clearly sick, the tips of its needles an alarming shade of yellow. Aphids? Fungus? Or something else?

Without question Rolfe, the estate’s gardener, would have some sort of non-toxic spray to counteract the disease. He was an expert and an expensive one at that, and the Contento family paid him well. After all, he was responsible for one of the most beautiful gardens in the valley. Andrea admired his skill, as well as the accolades her gardens received, but she had little patience with underperforming plants.

She scrutinized the yellowing bush once more, then grasped its main stem and tugged. After a few yanks, the plant’s roots released their hold and surrendered to Andrea’s will. A burst of fragrance assailed her nostrils and she smiled. The scent was truly magnificent.

A cleverly concealed compost bin hid near a blooming bougainvillea, and Andrea disposed of the plant, making a mental note to remind Rolfe to find a replacement.

Brushing the soil off her hands, Andrea continued across the patio and toward the kitchen. Located just steps away from the herb garden, the country kitchen was set up for serious cooking. On any given day there were famous chefs from the valley and camera crews encamped amongst the painted cupboards, stainless steel appliances, and gleaming granite countertops, but on the rare occasions when Andrea had the kitchen to herself, it seemed a cozy and creative refuge from the bustling estate. She pulled a sky-blue apron emblazoned CONTENTO COOK-OFF from a hook in the pantry and tied it on her petite frame. Visiting hours for the vineyard were over, and the employees had left for the day. The house was serene; empty, with only the sound of the birds in the ancient gnarled apple tree to disturb the profound quiet.

Andrea hummed as she rinsed the basil leaves and readied her food processor with the steel blade. She selected a bottle of olive oil from the pantry. The liquid inside was light colored, faintly tinged with green. She uncapped the bottle and inhaled its sweet aroma.

The oil, as well as the pine nuts she now pulled off a shelf, hailed from the property, the nuts gathered from two old trees that still produced remarkably well. Olive oil was a sideline for the vineyard that was becoming more and more profitable. Plans to expand the olive grove had been in the works for years, but they hinged on available land. With every square inch of the estate’s acreage developed, there was simply no space to plant olive trees without sacrificing some of the precious vines.

Unless we buy more property.

That was the logical explanation, but so far none of the estate’s abutters had wanted to part with any of their acreage. The family had looked to other locations in the valley, but nothing had proven worth the expense and aggravation. And then Carson Creek Estate & Winery had come up for sale, offering the seemingly perfect solution: more vines and an established olive grove, along with a picturesque farmhouse ready to be converted into a restaurant.

Andrea let the olive oil run in a slow dribble into the bowl while her food processor chopped the basil leaves and nuts. She grabbed a garlic bulb from the pantry, peeled it, and threw in several cloves. She ran the processor for a few seconds more, then tasted the bright green sauce.
Salt and pepper, and some parmesan
, she thought.

The ringing of her cell phone sliced through the tranquil afternoon. She wiped her hands on her apron and glanced at the screen.

“Hello, darling.” She leaned against the granite countertop and listened for the sound of her husband Michael’s rough voice.

“Andrea, I have terrible news.” He paused, sounding tired, very tired. “There’s been an accident at Carson Creek. It’s Selena. Dan Stewart found her this morning. She’s dead.”

Andrea felt the silence of the house all around her. She drew in a quick breath and sank slowly onto the granite counter.

Three

“Andrea, are you alright?”

No,
she wanted to say.
No, I am not alright.
“What happened?”

“She was in her hot tub. She may have had a heart attack.” He exhaled. “I’m with Tim and Christophe in the far field. We’re all coming back to the house. Later on we’ll head up there, see what we can do.”

“Of course.” She imagined the scene at Carson Creek Estate and shuddered. There would be family coming—Selena had at least two brothers—and maybe more relatives, plus friends from the valley dropping in to pay their respects. Everyone would be shocked at the tragedy. Selena had been well regarded, both for her business ethics and her kind personality, and liked by all who knew her.

“I’ll go up there with you. I’ll bring along some pasta for them to heat up.”

His voice softened. “That would be nice.”

The click of his mobile disconnecting signaled the end of the conversation. Andrea placed her phone on the granite countertop, stood thinking a moment, and then returned to her pesto.

———

Sophie Stewart, fourteen, flipped her long sandy brown hair off her face and picked up the pitcher of lemonade. With her other hand she grabbed a stack of plastic cups and headed toward the dining room at Carson Creek Estate & Winery.

“I’m going to put the drinks in here, on this table,” she said, plunking down the pitcher and cups. She looked up at her father, standing with his back to the table, gazing silently out to the vineyard.

“Dad?” It was creepy, the way he was so still, like he hadn’t even heard her. She walked behind him and rested a hand gently on his shoulder. He started and turned.

“Sophie Doo,” he murmured. It was his pet name for her, something he’d coined because of her addiction to the Scooby Doo animated television show.

She scrutinized his face. He looked like crap—that was the truth, with big bags under his eyes as if he’d been crying for two days straight. “Can I get you something? Make you a sandwich?”

He shook his head and turned back to the window.

Sophie eyed the array of sliced deli meats and bread on the farmhouse table and decided to make him one anyway. She spread mustard on a finger roll, added ham, a slice of turkey, some lettuce and a piece of Swiss, and placed it on a napkin. “Here,” she said, handing it to her father.

Dan Stewart took the sandwich and gave the ghost of a grin. “Just like your mom. She never listened to what I said either.”

Sophie felt a pang in her heart as she watched him devour the sandwich. Not at the mention of her mother—she had been gone for a decade, and Sophie was long past the pain of her death. It hurt to see her father so sad.

She put her hands on her hips, resting them against the leather belt she’d gotten from her grandmother last Christmas. “What time did you say they’d be here?”

Dan glanced at his watch. “Around seven. Carlos waited for his brother to drive up from San Diego. The Contentos will head over once they’re here.”

Sophie nodded. She knew all this—he’d told her when she’d first arrived on the bus from school—but it was good to hear her father talking. “I’ll go and check on Jasper.” She turned to walk back to the kitchen but her father’s hand on her shoulder stopped her.

“I’m sorry about this morning,” he said. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.”

She bit her lip. “Don’t worry about it. I can’t wear that skirt with the new dress code anyway.”

His face softened. “Thanks for coming over to help.”

“No problem.” She gave him a quick hug, felt his strong arms hold her more tightly than usual. God, he was a wreck.

Released from his embrace, she walked back to the kitchen, hunting for Selena’s black and white feline. He appeared without a sound from another room.

“There you are, kitty.” She used a soothing voice and looked into Jasper’s amber eyes. “Look, here’s something yummy.” She gave the cat a scrap of turkey, felt his pink tongue rough against her finger. Poor thing! Did he wonder where his owner was, why she hadn’t fed him that morning? Sophie squatted to stroke his soft fur. The cat lifted his tail in sheer happiness.

It was so weird—weird and sad—to think that Selena Thompson was dead. What would happen to her father’s job at the winery? He’d liked Selena, enough so that Sophie had sometimes wondered whether they were more than just friends. She rose from her haunches and watched the cat tiptoe out of the room. Selena was dead, and her father had been the unlucky one who’d found her. She shuddered. Slasher movies were one thing, but a real dead person—especially someone you worked with—that was another thing entirely.

She washed an oval platter and put it on the wooden drying rack. Her father had found her mother, too, all those years ago. She glanced back at the dining room. Two women; two dead bodies. What would Scooby Doo say?

———

Carlos Gomez had the same dark hair and eyes as his older brother ET, but there the similarity stopped. While ET was tall, with a courtly manner, his brother was compact and loquacious, with a face that r
evealed a shifting array of strong emotions. From the very cramped back seat of Darby’s Karmann Ghia, Carlos let loose a torrent of emotion which ET interrupted only occasionally with soothing sounds.

“And then she had to put in the freakin’ pool and hot tub,” Carlos fumed. “Remember that, Rico? I told her not to do it. Those things are too much maintenance and they cost a fortune to heat. But Selena, she went ahead and did it anyway.”

ET sighed. “She could afford it, Carlos. She wanted it.”

“And look where it got her! A heart attack.
Dio
, she was only forty-four! How can that be?” Cries filled the small car and Darby glanced in the rear-view mirror. Poor Carlos lay across the small back seat, his head in his hands, sobbing.

She slid her gaze toward ET. He was ramrod straight, his eyes unblinking and focused on the road. These brothers were very different, that was clear. And Selena? What had her personality been like?

“I think this is the turnoff,” Darby said, slowing her speed and putting on her left blinker.

Carlos managed to look up from his cramped position. “Yeah,” he croaked, clearing his throat. “This is it. Ten miles to go.” He blew his nose into a tissue. “Rico, did you hear from Auntie Teresa?”

“Yes, I spoke with her as we were driving and she arrives on Sunday. I called Dan at the winery and he booked rooms in Wyatt-ville for her and the cousins. We thought it would be better than trying to cram everyone into the house.”

“Yeah.” Carlos sighed. “Guess you’re right.”

The brothers were silent as Darby steered her car over the twisting roads toward Carson Creek. Suddenly, it seemed they had entered the heart of wine country, with nothing but gentle hills planted with row upon row of vines as far as Darby could see. The countryside was glowing in the late September sun, the leaves of the trees lining the vineyards suffused in a buttery yellow color that lit up the road. She cruised around one corner and the vista opened up even more, revealing the valley and meandering Carson Creek cutting a blue swirl through it.

“That’s Contento Vineyards,” Carlos offered, pointing at a large estate-like property with many buildings. “That whole spread to the west. Old Vincenzo Contento started the place when he was just off the boat from Italy.”

Darby slowed to admire the world-famous vineyard. “It’s gorgeous. Who runs it now?”

“The founder’s grandson, Michael Contento, and his children, right Rico?”

ET pulled his gaze away from the view. “Twenty-five years ago, Michael was a professor at Stanford,” he murmured. “He taught nineteenth-century American fiction. It was obvious that he preferred academia to winemaking, but when his father died, he proved to be a dutiful son and came back to the valley.”

“You took some of his courses, right?” Carlos sounded like the eager younger brother, in awe of his older sibling’s accomplishments.

ET nodded. “Yes. I would have liked to take more.”

Slowly Darby continued along the twisting country road, bordered on both sides with fields full of compact grape vines. A distinctive white sign with gold lettering announced Carson Creek Estate & Winery, and her passengers both sighed. “We’re here,” muttered Carlos.

She steered the car into the vineyard. The rows of grape vines were hypnotic, so incredibly straight that they seemed artificial. Beyond the sides of the fields stood several buildings—one a classic farmhouse with a small shingled barn, the other, a larger, new red building constructed to look like a barn. Darby saw a grove of some kind of trees to the right of the property, and, as she approached the house, glimpsed the fenced-in pool area bordered by a small cabana. She felt her stomach tighten. Undoubtedly this was the location of the hot tub as well.

Carlos and ET sat in silence as Darby parked the car. She respected their need to be quiet. How else could they possibly come to terms with the awful family tragedy unfolding on a sunny September day?

She grabbed their bags as they emerged from her car, and followed them to the door of the farmhouse. Before they could knock, the door was flung open and a lanky man in his forties greeted them.

“Thank God you’re here,” he said. “What a heck of a long ride.” He reached out to clasp both brothers’ hands, but ended up giving them both tight hugs. “I am so sorry,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. The brothers nodded numbly.

ET cleared his throat. “Dan, this is my employer, Darby Farr. Darby, meet Dan Stewart. He was Selena’s right-hand man.”

Darby shook his hand. “I’m here as Enrique’s friend, not his boss,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” Dan Stewart took the bags from Darby and led the way inside. “Sophie?” he called. A tall, lean girl with sandy brown hair and a close resemblance to Dan appeared around the corner. “Sophie, these are Selena’s brothers, Carlos and Enrique.”

She stretched out her hand. “I’m really sorry. I liked Selena a lot.”

Again Carlos and ET nodded. Darby sensed it would not take much for them to lose control of their emotions. She gave the girl a small smile.

“Sophie, I’m Darby Farr. I work with Enrique in the southern part of the state.”

“Really?” An arch of a beautiful eyebrow. “What do you do?”

“We sell real estate,” Darby said.

Sophie and her father exchanged a quick look. Dan Stewart bent over and picked up the suitcases. “There are three bedrooms upstairs, in addition to Selena’s. I’ve also booked several rooms in Wyattville. Do you want to go into town, or are you okay with staying here?”

“This is fine,” Carlos said flatly.

Sophie led the way up the stairs with ET and Carlos in tow. Her father paused and turned toward Darby. “Where’s your suitcase?” he asked, lifting a piece of the luggage.

“I have a few things in the car, but I’m not planning to stay.”

“You mean to tell me you’re going to turn around and drive back tonight?” Dan Stewart’s look was incredulous. “It had to have taken you seven or eight hours! That’s crazy.”

“I only wanted to get ET—that’s my nickname for Enrique—here safely,” Darby explained. “He hates to fly, and I felt he was far too upset to drive. I figured I’d stop at a motel in a few hours.”

“I see. There’s an empty guest room up there. You wouldn’t be any trouble.”

“Thank you, but I’ll only be in the way.”

Dan Stewart gave her a searching look. “Actually, I don’t think that will be the case.” He glanced up the stairs, seemingly unsure as to whether to continue talking, and then turned back to Darby. “Selena was in the middle of something when she died. Her brothers don’t know about it, but I’ll tell them as soon as they’re settled. I can’t speak for them, but I have a feeling they’ll be wanting your help.”

Darby met Dan Stewart’s gaze. She guessed whatever Selena had been doing involved real estate, and wondered what kind of deal she’d set in motion. Was she attempting to acquire another property? Or sell part of the vineyard? Whatever the scenario, it meant more complications for the already overwhelmed Gomez brothers.

“If ET and Carlos want me to stay, I certainly will,” she said.

He nodded. “Come on, I’ll show you that guest room—just in case.”

———

Andrea Contento strode up the hilly road toward Carson Creek, feeling the burn in her thigh muscles as she pushed up the incline. She stopped to catch her breath and an image flooded her mind.

Selena Thompson, her face flushed, panting along beside her at this very spot. When had it been? Five years ago? Andrea remembered her companion’s thick, black braid swaying as they continued the climb up the hill. “Let’s jump in the pool when we finish,” Selena had suggested beneath breaths.

“You mean,
if
we finish,” Andrea had gasped in a melodramatic tone.

“Oh, we’ll make it, don’t you worry.” And they had, too, reached the crest of the hill, finished the walk, and then hit Carson Creek’s pool.
We splashed around in the water like a couple of school girls.
I borrowed one of Selena’s suits—red with a white racing stripe—and she told me it looked so good I should keep it
.

Was it only five years ago? Andrea thought back. That was the summer Michael hired Christophe Barton to manage the vineyards with Tim.
Christophe took Dan’s place when he went to work at Carson Creek for Selena.

And the little minx never did apologize for hiring Dan away
, Andrea thought. She just assumed it would be fine, that her new friend Andrea would let it go.
I did let it go. When it came to Selena, I let a lot of things go
.

Andrea kicked a small rock down the hillside and watched as it bounced off an old stump. Those months had been the real beginning of the two women’s friendship. The long walks through the Ventano countryside, the sharing of recipes, the jokes and parties and glasses of wine.
Endless
glasses of wine.

Selena’s purchase of the property the previous spring had been a welcome breath of fresh air for the valley. Andrea recalled the enthusiasm with which she’d tackled the aged farmhouse, renovating the structure from top to bottom. An interior designer by training, Selena had planned the property’s new barn, installing an office, a pretty tasting room, and ample space for wine production. Dan had been her chief advisor, and together they had transformed the once derelict property into a charming little winery.