by Amy Gamet
“If I’d helped him find somewhere to stay, he wouldn’t have had to hide out in the winery.”
“You couldn’t have known he would do that.”
“I knew he didn’t have anywhere to go. I knew he didn’t have any money, except what I threw at him before I kicked him out.”
“I’m sure you did what you thought was best at the time.”
A woman in purple scrubs approached them. “He’s awake, but he’s having a hard time talking.”
Rafael stood and followed the woman down a long corridor. She indicated an open door. “I wouldn’t stay too long,” she said. “Just a few minutes this time.”
“Okay.”
He turned and saw his father lying in bed, so much smaller in person than in Rafael’s memory. There were bandages around his head, and Rafael called after the doctor. “What happened to his head?”
She nodded. “He has a nasty bump and a bit of a concussion. I’m not sure how it happened.”
He nodded and walked into the room, sitting down beside the bed. Martin’s eyes didn’t open, and Rafael’s stare took in every familiar curve and plane of his father’s features.
He’s just a man.
Somewhere in Rafael’s mind, Martin had taken on mythological proportions. He was a shadow figure that haunted him, mocking his success, always holding failure in the wings.
A fifty year-old man.
One who’d spent a third of his life in prison. Suddenly, the sentence that had seemed like such a small price for Martin’s crime seemed far more substantial to Rafael.
Anything could happen in that much time.
A person could even change, if he wanted to.
Or maybe that was just what he wanted to believe. How could he know, when he and his father hadn’t even had a civil conversation since he came to Moon Lake?
I should have given him a chance. He might have let me down, but I should have given him a chance.
“Rafael?” Martin’s voice was weak and scratchy.
“Don’t try to talk. There was a fire in the winery. You must have been asleep, and you inhaled a lot of smoke. You’re in the hospital.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. I tried to stop her, and she hit me.”
Rafael furrowed his brow. “What?”
Martin swallowed. “She hit me in the head.”
A humming began in Rafael’s ears. “Who hit you in the head?”
“Brown hair girl.”
Annie.
“She hit me with something hard.”
Rafael’s mind worked to make sense of it. “Was there a dog?”
Martin nodded slightly. “Dog was licking me.”
“And then she found you.”
“Yeah.”
“And she hit you with something hard.”
“The dog bit her ankle, and she hit the dog, then she hit me.”
“Dad,” he said, the name slipping out for the first time in too many years, “I have to go now, but I’ll be back soon.”
“Rafael…”
He turned back.
“I love you.”
Rafael was still, surprise at his father’s words washing over him. “I’ll be back soon.”
* * *
“You have to tell me where he is. Please.” It was almost midnight, and Crescent Moon was still dotted with emergency vehicles and personnel. Greg was giving Melanie a ride home when news of the fire came across on the radio. She picked up her own car at her house and headed straight for the winery.
The police officer hiked up his pants. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. He was here earlier. That’s all I know.”
“What about Bonnie? And Edward? Their last name is Trainor. They own the winery.”
“I think they were here, too.”
“Well, where are they now? I can’t get anyone on the phone.”
“Miss, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. I don’t know where they went.”
She spent almost an hour asking everyone at the scene if they had any idea where to find Rafael or the Trainors, then she called Tori, but got no answer.
“What the hell is going on?” she screamed into her empty car, tossing her phone onto the passenger seat. “Where the hell is everybody?”
Not knowing where else to go, she headed for Rafael’s house, assuming he would show up there eventually.
“It’s like I’m being punished,” she said out loud as she drove. “I came back, Rafael. I told Greg it’s not going to work out, and I came back. Now where the heck are you?”
She made her way down the gravel road to Rafael’s house, hitting the brakes when she saw a strange car in the driveway. She inched forward, allowing her headlights to illuminate the vehicle, which she now recognized as Annie’s little red Subaru.
Melanie pulled in beside the other woman’s car and cut the engine. As she climbed out of the car, questions clamored for her attention. What was Annie doing here, and where was Rafael’s car? Why wasn’t Lobo barking, as she’d heard him do when someone pulled in the driveway? She slammed her car door and swallowed against a knot of tension in her throat.
She made her way to the door and knocked. Annie’s silhouette appeared in the window, the other woman seeming to freeze before moving to open the door for Melanie.
When she did, Melanie’s mouth opened in surprise. Annie wore a low-cut lace nightie, her hair falling around her shoulders.
“Melanie. What are you doing here?”
“I…uh…” She licked her lips. “I’m looking for Rafael.”
“There was a fire at the winery. Didn’t you hear?”
Melanie nodded. “I was just there. Nobody knows where he is.”
“We were home when he got the call a few hours ago.” Annie shook her head. “I couldn’t believe it.”
We were home?
Melanie didn’t know what was going on here, but something seemed terribly wrong with this scenario. “Is Rafael here?”
“No. He had to run out…for some things.”
“Oh.”
“Do you want to wait for him?”
Melanie shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“I’m sure this is awkward for you, Melanie, but it doesn’t have to be. We can talk about this.”
“About what, exactly?”
“Rafael, of course.” Annie opened the screen door and held it for Melanie. “Come on in.”
* * *
It was almost four o’clock in the morning, and Rafael had already spent more than an hour with Bonnie at the local police station, giving them all the background they had on Annie Webster and her relationship with Peter.
The officer scrolled through something on his computer. “A man in Rochester has a restraining order on her. Notes in the file mention Ms. Webster has a history of psychological problems.”
“I never would have guessed,” said Bonnie.
The officer stood and extended his hand. “Thanks for your time. This gives us someplace to start.”
Bonnie stood, too. “Do think she’s gone for good?”
“Hard to say, ma’am.”
Rafael didn’t move from his seat. “There’s one more thing.” He pursed his lips. “I don’t know if it’s relevant, but I don’t know that it’s not.”
The officer and Bonnie sat back down.
“Shortly after Annie started working at Crescent Moon, I found her in my office, waiting for me, barely dressed. She propositioned me.”
Bonnie leaned forward. “For sex?”
He nodded. “She told me she could tell I was interested in her. That she was interested in me, too, and we didn’t have to hide anymore.”
Bonnie furrowed her brow. “And were you interested in her?”
He shook his head. “No, never.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“She was so young. I figured it was just a crush, growing pains, that sort of thing. I tried to let her down easy, but she still got upset. She said I led her on, that it was my fault she was
confused.” He met Bonnie’s stare. “Truth be told, I didn’t want her to go to you, claiming I had done something wrong.”
“Oh, Rafael. I would have believed you.”
“Would you?”
Bonnie frowned. “I like to think so, but perhaps not.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. I should have said something. But things were fine after that. We never had a problem again. She left me alone, acting shy, even. Honestly, I didn’t think too much about it.”
“When was this?” asked the officer.
“About a year and a half ago.”
“That was right before she started seeing Peter,” said Bonnie. “I wonder if she propositioned him, as well.”
“I had no idea she was dangerous, Bonnie.”
“Of course not. How could you?”
Another officer walked over to the desk. “Toxicology results are back on Galbraith. Positive for Rohypnol.”
“What is that?” asked Bonnie.
“Also known as roofies. It’s a date-rape drug,” said the officer. “He ingested enough of it to depress his breathing.”
“Why would Peter take a date-rape drug?” asked Bonnie. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Unless he didn’t know he was taking it.” Rafael turned to the new officer. “If it’s combined with alcohol, does it make the user appear more drunk than he really is?”
“Absolutely. Slurred speech, lack of motor coordination, that sort of thing. But it’s most known for its amnesiac effects.”
Rafael and Bonnie exchanged glances. “That would explain a lot,” he said.
The first officer leaned back in his chair. “Do you think Ms. Webster may have given it to him?”
Rafael absently rubbed his bottom lip. “At this point, I’m thinking she did. I just don’t know why she would.”
Chapter 13
It was nearly five in the morning when Rafael pulled into his empty driveway and sighed. He was exhausted. In that moment, he missed Melanie so acutely, it felt more like grief than a broken heart.
He climbed out of his car, wondering for the hundredth time today how her reunion with Greg was going, and cursed his vivid imagination. Unlocking the door to his house, the silence reminded him that Lobo was lying in a crate in the animal hospital miles away, and his loneliness dropped to a new low.
Flipping on the kitchen light, he threw his keys on the counter and grabbed a bottled water out of the fridge, twisting off the cap with tired fingers. He wandered into the living room and turned on a lamp.
A female voice behind him made him jump. “We could have been so good together.”
He spun around to find Annie sitting on his couch, one bare leg flung over the armrest, a bandage on her ankle. She was barely dressed, her eyes only half open as she stared at him. “Now, you don’t get to be happy, Rafael.”
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
She lifted the hem of her nightgown up to her abdomen. “You could have had all this. I could have made you so happy, but you just threw me away like I was garbage. Well, you were wrong.”
“Annie, it was a long time ago.”
She acted as if she didn’t hear. “Peter knew I wasn’t garbage. He and I were going to take the winery away from you. He was the real genius behind Crescent Moon, anyway. It was never you.” She shook her head. “You stupid jerk.” Her gaze locked with his and she raised her voice. “You could have had me! But instead you picked that girl. And Bonnie went and offered you everything Peter and I had worked for! We couldn’t let that happen. So we decided to ruin the wine. If we couldn’t have Crescent Moon, we’d make sure there was nothing left for you to take.”
“You and Peter, both.”
“He wanted to do it. It was his idea, but then he chickened out at the last minute and I had to do it all. Peter was weak. He was scared. So I turned off the refrigeration units every chance I got. I added the wrong kind of yeast to the tanks in the wrong amounts. You’ve been so busy with your new girlfriend, you didn’t even notice.”
Rafael frowned. It was true. While the winery was Peter’s turf, Rafael usually made more of an effort to participate in the fermentation process, meeting with Peter and sampling the wine. But he had been distracted, which meant he was partly to blame. “But Peter noticed.”
She laughed. “Peter has a drinking problem, didn’t you hear? He keeps blacking out at work. He barely knows what day it was, no less how the wines are doing. And when he did finally figure it out, he couldn’t even remember what it was he was working on!”
“Because you were drugging him.”
She walked over to Rafael, swaying from side to side. “I couldn’t let you be happy. I wouldn’t allow it. You don’t get to have Crescent Moon, and you don’t get to have a nice neat little loan from the bank. You and I both know you don’t deserve it.”
“You sent them my juvenile record.”
“Charlie had everything in his file cabinet.” She snapped her fingers slowly. “Easy peasy.”
“Where’s Melanie?”
Annie moved to slap his face, but he caught her slender wrist in his hand. “Where is she?”
She grit her teeth. “I told her how you loved me, how you and I have been seeing each other for months.”
“Melanie!” he yelled, hoping she could hear him. “Melanie!”
Annie tried to yank her arm out of his grasp. “I hope your precious winery burns to the ground. I hope you lose everything you ever cared about, even that stupid dog.”
Sirens sounded in the distance and Annie’s eyes went wide. Rafael dragged her outside with him just as two police cruisers came speeding down the hill, gravel flying. Their doors open, uniformed officers climbing out with guns drawn. “Police! Put your hands up!”
Annie complied, and Rafael stepped back as they cuffed and arrested her.
The passenger door of one of the cruisers opened up, and Melanie stepped out, her eyes finding Rafael’s in the glow of the police car lights.
Then he was moving, his steps fast and sure, his arms wrapping around her and squeezing her tightly. “I thought she had hurt you,” he said into her neck.
“I got away, but I didn’t have my keys. Your neighbor up the street called for help.”
“Thank God you’re all right.” He was still holding her, swaying slightly, his hands stroking her back. It felt so good to have her in his arms, especially after the fright they’d been given.
She doesn’t belong to you anymore.
You have to let her go.
He forced himself to take a step back. “Sorry.”
Melanie smiled a sad smile, “Rafael, Annie said you and she were together. She said you’d been seeing each other for months.”
“No, that’s not true. I never touched her, Melanie. You have to believe me.”
“I knew it, I knew she was lying. It’s just…”
One of the officers approached. “Mr. Delacruz, we’ll need you to come back to the station and give a statement about what happened here this morning.”
“Okay.”
The officer walked away and Rafael turned back to Melanie. “What were you going to say?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll talk to you another time.”
* * *
Rafael sat in his dark living room, staring into space as he pet the back of Lobo’s neck.
He’d gotten a couple hours of sleep when he got home from the station, then went back to the hospital to check on his father. Martin was well enough to be discharged, and Rafael had brought him—and Lobo—home.
It had all come full circle.
Rafael knew who he was now.
Where he came from, where he was going, and most important, that he deserved to be happy.
Even if Melanie wasn’t coming back.
The bathroom door opened, light spilling into the room with the scent of soap and damp air. “Rafael, are you out there?”
“Yeah.”
He saw his father’s reflection in the window, Martin drying his hair with a towel, and saw again how much he looked like his father. Surely, the resemblance didn’t simply stop with the physical, and Rafael hoped his old man had some good qualities to inherit, along with the bad.
Hey, you’re doing okay.
“Mind if I have one of your beers?” asked Martin.
“Sure.”
“You know,” said his father, walking into the living room. “You didn’t have to bring me here. I could find someplace to go on my own.”
“It’s okay. You’re welcome to stay with me.”
Martin sat down. “There are halfway houses. Programs for people like me. I just hadn’t given up on you enough to move on yet. That’s why I was staying in the winery.”
Rafael met his eyes. “Are you going to do the right thing, and live on the right side of the law?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll stay with me. But I warn you, if you step over that line, you’re gone. I’m not going to have that kind of thing in my life again.”
His father nodded. “I wasn’t much of a father to you.”
“We’re starting over, you and me. Let’s not speak of it again.”
“Agreed.” Martin patted Rafael on the back, then finished the rest of his beer in one long sip and walked into the kitchen, Rafael’s eyes following his reflection the whole way.
* * *
Melanie knocked on Rafael’s door with a trembling hand, and Lobo started barking.
She’d spent this day thinking about what she was going to say to him. The only thing she couldn’t predict was how he was going to react.
Rafael opened the door wearing only a pair of sweatpants, and her mouth went dry. “Hi,” she said. “I was hoping you and I could talk.”
He opened the screen door. “Come on in.”
“Sorry.” He gestured to his chest. “I was sleeping.”
“Oh, gosh. I’ll come back later.” She turned on her heel. “I wasn’t even thinking of how tired you must be.”
“It’s okay. Let’s just talk now.”
She was holding onto her umbrella like it was trying to get away, and she forced herself to relax her grip. “Okay.”
She followed him to the couch and took a seat, then tucked her hair behind her ear. “I told Greg about us.”