Murder & Mayhem

by T Wells Brown

  I decided we were going to do something like this every single year. It was so magnificent. Every single detail so beautifully done, and I felt gorgeous (and slender) in my stunning gown.

  In contrast to the ladies in our shimmering gowns, the extravagant decorations, and the twinkling lights all over the estate, the Macho Men looked all dark and broody decked out in their tuxes and black-tie.

  It was a stunning affair.

  After dinner and the MC was through praising all of the contributors, the party really got started with a hilarious bidding war over silent auction items. That wasn’t all, we also had a full-blown auction. We had raffle prizes, and the raffle sales were being handled by flamboyantly dressed Carnival costumed individuals. There was a full band playing, and a dance floor that quickly became crowded, and a full hosted bar.

  At some point before dinner, Lance found me and became the perfect escort. We danced; he pulled out every chair for me. He rose with me every single time I stood, and when I needed to excuse myself to go to the lady’s room, he escorted me, waited for me outside the lady’s room door, and then escorted me back to my chair.

  Most of the Women of Wine Country were there, with the exception of Francesca. Her husband was still in hospice. I had actually only seen her away from his bed side once, and that was at the funeral, and I hadn’t seen her away from her home where Frank was since.

  The ladies did everything they could to support Francesca and the girls. Besides checking in on the small family regularly. A meal train was organized by the community, and the women made the deliveries so as not to disrupt what little time they had left with Frank. The ladies also made sure the girls were getting picked up, and driven to appointments or errands. It was important that their needs were met during this horrible time in their lives. A time that was only going to get worse.

  It was what this group of women did for each other.

  Lance and I were enjoying a wonderful conversation with one of Harmony Grove Municipal Advisory Council members. Lance was telling him all about his race cars. Apparently, Lance had been racing cars since he was a child with his uncle, and could take a car apart and put it back together better than it was from the factory, (his words – not mine). One of the servers, who I didn’t recognize, came to me and said I was needed back in the event hall kitchen. That was not my normal kitchen. Doug usually worked that kitchen and typically I stayed in the house kitchen, and did my cooking there. But of course, if I was needed, I was going. I excused myself to the table and told Lance not to worry, “I’ll be right back.”

  I didn’t want to interrupt him; he was in deep conversation and everyone was having a great time. He asked, “Are you sure Isabella? I don’t mind escorting you.”

  “No, it’s fine, really. You’ve been such a great date; you relax and enjoy yourself. I’ll be right back. Whatever it is it can’t be very much, shouldn’t take but just a minute.”

  I followed the server, who must have been with one of the wineries; it wasn’t unusual to have somebody I’d never met before come up and ask me for something or need me. We headed back towards the event hall, which was all the way across the tasting room. We walked through the busy event hall where all the booths were set up and the information tables were and headed back towards the kitchens.

  Once we got to the kitchen, I realized there weren’t many people around and it was quieter than I had assumed it would be. Dinner was done and all of the dishes had been cleaned and cleared away. Most of the service from this point forward would only happen after the event was completely over and all of the guests and vendors had left.

  I slowed my pace and asked, “Where is everybody? What’s going on? What could I possibly be needed for back here?”

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up as the server I was following turned around with a gun in his hand and said in a shaky voice, “I’m sorry ma’am, but I’ve got to take you now. Let’s not make this hard. I need you to come with me, right now. I’ve got a car parked right out back.” He indicated the back door off the kitchen.

  I wasn’t feeling great: a wave of nausea washed over me, and I broke out in a cold sweat. He wasn’t coming across as the most confident bad guy I’d ever seen (not that I’d seen tons) but the few I had been exposed to recently were way more confident than this guy was.

  “I’m not going with you!” I said.

  He quickly became agitated, shoved the gun in my face, and shouted, “Go out the fucking back door and get in the goddamn car, or I’m shooting you!”

  He thrust the gun at my face again, this time connecting with my cheek bone. It hurt and it scared the bejeezos outta me! I was getting sick and tired of this shit!

  If he was going to shoot me, he was going to shoot me, whether I go with him or not. And the last bad guys were definitely trying to kill me. If I had my druthers, I’d rather die right here, than be somewhere else going through God knows what.

  I screamed as loud, and as hard, as I could, and I kicked him with my pointy shoe. I kicked that guy as hard as I could and reached for the first thing I could find, which was a coffee urn that had been washed and set back up on the island. I grabbed it by the handle, swung with all my might and smacked him across the head with it.

  Hard.

  Hard as I could.

  That made him twist sideways; the gun went off. It was loud. As in really freaking loud.

  I ducked down behind the island and screamed again, just as Captain Steve, several of the Macho Men, and Lance, followed by a ton of other people, rushed into the kitchen.

  They found me down on my haunches cowering behind the island.

  “He tried to shoot me! I think he went out the back!” I shouted, pointing from my position behind the island. Several of the Macho Men took off out the back door.

  Lance looked irritated and a little confused. Believe me I understood; I was confused too. I noticed he kept running his hands over his head making his hair stand up. It’s weird the things you focus on when you’re freaking out.

  “Oh my God Isabella! Are you okay?” Captain Steve said, as he rushed to me and pulled me up from my cowering position into a big safe bear hug. “Goddammit Isabella, you can’t be left alone for a second” he whispered to the top of my head.

  Goddammit was right! Cabe was going to come back around when he heard about this.

  That was the last thing I wanted!

  Chapter 18

  What’s Love Got to do With It?

  Just as I thought, Cabe came immediately. He had to have heard right away based on the fact that he was at the estate lickety-split.

  I was sitting in the large living room of the house with the police and several of the Women of Wine Country, their dates, Lance, and Captain Steve, who was holding me in his big safe arms.

  The party guests and servers were giving their statements to the police, which couldn’t have been much ‘cause nobody was there but me and the jerk who had tried to shoot me, or take me…make me go with him…whatever.

  The police were all over the estate, and of course, I had a whole brigade of Macho Men hanging around when Cabe suddenly stormed through the door. He stopped to talk to Roman for a few minutes. During this conversation, his head swung, exorcist style, to me, and as soon as his eyes landed on mine, my stomach dropped and I knew I was in for it.

  At this point I would like to state how unfair it is how sexy Cabe Brown was. No amount of buttheadedness would ever deflect that fact.

  His long, angry, aggressive stride brought him directly in front of me. If that wasn’t enough, the look on his face said it all. He reached down, grabbed my upper arm and pulled me out of Captain Steve’s hold, (note: Captain Steve did nothing to resist Cabe) and dragged me behind him as fast as I could walk in my heels, out of the room, down the hall, and into the bedroom on the first floor I was still occupying.

  He kicked the door open, (yes kicked!) pulled me through the doorway and slammed the door shut behind us and threw the lock. Once inside, h
e released me and I began to back away from him. I wasn’t scared of him, I knew he would never physically harm me, but I wasn’t sure exactly what he had in store for me. I’d never seen him this mad, and I’d done a pretty good job of making him mad from time to time.

  He stalked towards me. I backed up until I hit the wall. I had nowhere else to go, but he still came at me until he was directly in front of me, so close, I had to tilt my head up in order to look at his eyes; he was as close to me a person could be without touching.

  He placed his hands against the wall on either side of my head, leaned in, “Goddammit Isabella! I can’t leave you alone, not for one fucking second! You’re already getting yourself in trouble. You’re going to end up dead!” he growled at me. I could see he was visibly shaking and it was having an effect on me.

  He was freaked out!

  His freaking out was freaking me out!

  Why was he so upset? He chose to date someone else – making it clear I wasn’t that important to him. What the heck was going on here?

  He must have felt responsible for me because he was under some misguided belief Antonio left him to watch over me. That had to be it. Well, it was time to set him straight.

  “Goddammit back to you Cabe! I didn’t do this! They came here , even with all the Macho Men, all the security, even the Harmony Grove sheriff is here! How much more protection does a girl need, for heaven’s sake!” I cried.

  “Isabella.” Cabe still growling, said back, like saying my name was an answer for something. Putting his weight on his hands, he leaned even closer, so close we were now touching chest to chest.

  “You know, I didn’t just run out of the house willy-nilly saying here I am shoot at me, shoot at me, shoot at me! And another thing, take a step back,” I finished, on a shout.

  Cabe stared at me for a few minutes and leaned back so we weren’t touching anymore, but didn’t move his hands from either side of my head so he could be right back into my space anytime he wanted .

  “Look, I told you that you’re not to put your hands on me again. You don’t get to march in here, grab me by the arm and drag me out of a room full of people. You lost any right you had to behave that way with me.”

  He straightened, put his hands in his pockets, and looked at the ground like he was trying to compose himself. I stood before him in my beautiful gown, shaking from an evening of terror and my newly formed anger.

  Shortly after I delivered that little nugget to him, and he gave me space, we heard banging on the bedroom door and Lance yelling on the other side, “Isabella! Isabella, are you okay?”

  Oh great! Lance had the worst timing.

  Cabe looked up at me, his face going cold again, “Now you’re dating the pretty boy?” He used his thumb to point over his shoulder towards the door.

  “Let me in, Isabella!” Lance yelled, banging louder.

  “It shouldn’t matter to you who I’m dating and who I’m not dating.” My voice was shaking.

  “Damn little help he’s been. That pretty boy can’t protect you.”

  Jumpin’ Jezebels!

  “I am not dating him. And even if I was, I wouldn’t be dating him because he could protect me. You’ve got a whole slew of Macho Men to protect me. I don’t need to date somebody to protect me, Cabe.”

  Cabe took a step back towards me. I could see how angry he was and I wasn’t sure exactly what he was angry about, except anger seemed to be his default emotion when it came to anything having to do with me these days. Was he frustrated that I was once again put in harm’s way?

  “Look, I don’t know how much more security you’re supposed to put around here, but you are the security guy, so maybe you need to step it up,” I said, pointing my finger in his chest. I went on, “I thought you were the one who had security all figured out around here. This is your job, to protect me, all of the guests, and this winery. This is your responsibility and you’re the one who fell down on the job this time. And speaking of that where were you tonight Cabe? Were you out with Jennifer ?” This last statement was beneath me, and I knew it, but danggit it felt good to say.

  Cabe’s shoulders relaxed and he took a half a step towards me again, “Isabella’.” he said softly.

  “Oh, no you don’t! NO! No Isabella! No soft, growly, sexy Cabe voice! There will be none of that!” I shouted at him.

  Before he could respond, I lowered my voice and said, “Cabe, I know you think Antonio left you to watch over me like some old chauvinistic romance novel, but he didn’t. He left you to make sure the winery wasn’t run into the ground my first year. That’s all.”

  He waited a second, then two and finally after what seemed like a year, he said, “Growly sexy Cabe voice? ”

  “None of that either!” I said, and stomped my foot.

  Cabe stepped back to me, pressing his whole body up against mine and said, “I fucked up Isabella. I know I did, and I’m sorry for hurting you. It was fucking stupid and I’m not stupid. If it matters, I took Jennifer home and left her there. I didn’t want to be with her. I don’t want to be with anyone… not anyone but you.”

  “Step back Cabe.” I wedged my hands between us and pressed back on his stomach. He didn’t move back but instead leaned in and rested his forehead against mine.

  “I’m in fucking love with you Isabella.” He whispered. “You make me crazy and sane all at the same time.”

  “What?” I breathed. “You hurt me Cabe. You hurt me, and you did it on purpose. I don’t know how you expect me to get past that. I don’t know if I can.”

  “Isabella, you have to. I need you. You make me want to be a better man. Being around you makes me a better man.”

  “This is you being a better man?” I asked, exasperated. I reached up and grabbed onto his forearms that were braced next to my head.

  “Abso-fucking-lutley.” His voice was the deepest I’d ever heard from him. He lifted his forehead from mine and kissed my temple softly.

  After delivering that bomb, he turned on his heel and left the room. Lanced rushed in as soon as Cabe cleared the door frame .

  That was such a bullshit move! Leaving me standing there, after that kind of bombshell on this awesome night (turned terrifying night) and now, confusing night!

  Someone must have drugged me.

  I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined the whole thing.

  I didn’t know which way was up. I did know I wasn’t going to be able to dissect this without the ladies’ input and I was going to need it STAT!

  Lance stood in front of me asking if I was okay and if he needed to do anything for me. I tried to stay focused on him but couldn’t. I am not even a little ashamed to say I was super relieved when Captain Steve walked into the room, took my hand and gestured to the door. I looked at Lance, shrugged my shoulders and tucked myself under Captain Steve’s arm. This was exactly where I felt safest.

  Luckily for me, I missed the look that swept over Lance’s face when I walked past him.

  Captain Steve walked us back into the living room where all the Macho Men and some of the police were still hanging around.

  “Isabella, I recently rescued two bullies from a shelter. I thought they might make good guard dogs because they’re a bonded pair, and they work really well together. I’ve put them through extensive testing and their natural guarding instinct is high. But they are also used to living in a home with people and that may not make them the best choice to be perimeter guards. I want to bring them over tomorrow morning so you can meet them and see if they are a good fit for you. That work?” This was from one of my regular kitchen visitors, Marcus, aka Macho Man number two. I knew from our lunch time conversations he ran the K-9 division of the security company Cabe owned, SDI – Security Deployment International.

  “Thank you, Marcus, that actually sounds like a great idea!” and it did. If the dogs liked me, and I liked them, they just might be exactly what I needed.

  I looked around the room at the wine tribe who was hovering and said, “Ladie
s, we need to talk!”

  “Finally!” Becca yelled.

  ******

  Later that evening, Roman, Marcus and Cabe replayed the images of the fake server who tried to take Isabella. Every inch of the estate was under surveillance. They had already pulled the stills of the guys license plate. The car that had been outside the door, running and waiting – waiting until the driver heard the gunshot and took off. The images were circulated to every law enforcement agency in the area, as well as Cabe’s security team.

  “This guy wasn’t a professional; he was terrified. In fact, I’m not sure who was more scared, Isabella or him.” Roman commented. “ The guy outside, however, drove off as soon as he heard the gun shot, as calm as could be.” He said pointing at the monitoring screen. The car had been idling outside waiting to load Isabella up and take her off to God knows where.

  “Isabella really clonked him hard, didn’t she?” Cabe sounded a little amused and a lot proud.

  “Yes, she did.” Marcus responded, “Luckily.”

  “We have to find the server; he’s going to be the weak link,” Cabe said, looking at Marcus.

  Roman put his hands on his hips and said, “You find the server, you bring him to the station, or better yet, call a car to come pick him up. I don’t want you going rogue on me.”

  “Guess you’d better make sure we don’t find him first,” Cabe replied.

  Roman looked at Cabe, then to Marcus. The men had known each other for several years and Roman didn’t always approve or appreciate Cabe’s interference. Especially when it came to Sydney and his relationship.

  But he knew Cabe.

  He knew Cabe’s guys were very good at their job, Cabe was even better. Sometimes this was a big asset. Sometimes it ended up being a big nuisance.

  “He pointed a gun at Isabella. He scared Isabella. No one does that and walks away.” Cabe said.

  This was going to fit in the nuisance category .