Fate Actually: Moonstone Cove Book Two

by Hunter, Elizabeth

  The server motioned toward a table with four wineglasses. “If you’ll wait here, I’ll send Marius right over.”

  “Marius?” Toni muttered. “No, thanks. No vampire servers for me.”

  Katherine cackled, and Megan looked confused.

  “What?”

  Toni shook her head. “Never mind.” She was being petty. It was nice that Fairfield had built this beautiful place. Nicer that it was close to Nico’s winery. If her cousin put up a better sign, he could probably capture a lot of the traffic from here.

  After all, not everyone wanted stuffy servers and immaculate aprons. Some people liked to kick back. Some people preferred Linda Perry on the sound system instead of Vivaldi.

  Toni was those people.

  She felt underdressed. She felt like everyone was looking at her.

  Hey! she wanted to yell. I was drinking wine when you people were sneaking your parents’ awful, watery beer.

  No, that just made her sound like an alcoholic.

  The man at the next table was saying something about “fragrant tobacco” and “racy acidity.”

  Give me a break.

  “Megan!” Ruben entered the members’ room, wearing a black polo shirt with Fairfield Family Wines on the pocket. The dark color set off the silver at his temples and the near-black color of his hair. He really was a great-looking guy.

  The image of Ruben and Megan flashed in her mind. They were all dressed up, being fancy, and they looked stunning together.

  “Weird,” she muttered.

  “What?” Ruben looked at her.

  “Sorry!” Toni shook her head. “My mind was drifting to something at work. Ignore me.” She plastered on a smile and motioned toward the windows. “Ruben, this place is stunning.”

  “Thanks.” He sat with them. “I’d love to take credit for the tasting room, but that’s all the architect and designer. Ross, Taylor, and Associates in San Francisco.”

  Toni nodded like that made any sense to her at all. “Cool.”

  “The way the building just blends with the landscape,” Megan said. “It’s just stunning.”

  Ruben nodded at their glasses. “And what do you think of the wine?”

  Megan smiled, and Toni nearly bit her lip to keep from laughing.

  “So nice,” Megan said. “It fits the setting perfectly.”

  Toni could feel Megan from across the table. She was lying through her teeth. Well, not pants-on-fire lying, but definitely a polite gesture.

  Ruben looked at Toni and Katherine. “And what do you ladies think?”

  Katherine frowned. “It’s very… subtle.” She glanced at Toni. “I think that’s the word I’m looking for. It’s subtle. I agree with Megan; very pleasant.”

  Pleasant? Toni pressed her lips together and sipped the ice water the server had placed on the table. Pleasant was the very definition of damning with faint praise. Pleasant was what you took to a party when you didn’t like the host or didn’t really know them. You took Pleasant to the office holiday party and didn’t really mind when it was left there at the end of the night.

  “Thank you.” If Ruben was offended, he didn’t show it. “Do you ladies drink much wine?” He scoffed. “I mean, other than Toni of course.”

  “Way to make me sound like an alcoholic, dude.”

  He grinned. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do drink wine,” Katherine said. “Quite a lot of it. I like local wines mostly. Have you tried Toni’s cousin’s wine? It’s very good.”

  “I have.” Ruben didn’t seem to know what to do with Katherine. “It’s a solid offering. A little fruit-forward for my taste, but they know what their customers like.”

  Oh, fuck you. Toni plastered on a smile. “We were hoping we could get a tour of the place,” she said. “Do you have time? We’re so curious to hear about the plans.”

  “Sure.” Ruben looked around the room, then pulled out his phone. “Let me just text my foreman and he’ll take care of things for me.”

  He looked up after sending the text. “Ladies, I’m all yours.”

  Chapter 22

  “So what we’re trying to do long term is a type of neural interface for use with prosthetics that mimics the biological systems seen in cephalopods.” Katherine stayed close to Ruben as they moved across the grounds. “It’s all quite fascinating.”

  “I’d say so.” Ruben was completely confused.

  To be fair, Toni often had the same reaction when Katherine started talking about her work. Her professor friend was so enthusiastic that she sometimes forgot that not all her friends had multiple PhDs in a broad range of subjects.

  “And this is where we make the wine.” Ruben opened a metal door to a cavernous tank room with stainless steel tanks rising up from the floor. Workers in white coveralls were shouting from walkways that ran along the outside of the building and around each tank. A man on the far side of the building sprayed down the concrete.

  Ruben leaned toward Megan. “I’m sure most of this is familiar to Toni, but do either you or Katherine have any questions?”

  Before Megan could even open her mouth, Katherine started.

  “How long does the fermentation process take? Do you use wild yeast or manufactured?” She charged into the tank room, pointing at the complicated array of valves and sensors at the bottom of the tank. “Can you tell me more about the temperature? I was assuming it was more like beer, which I’ve studied extensively, but…”

  As Katherine occupied Ruben, Megan and Toni hung back.

  “We need to find his office,” Toni said.

  “Will it be in the winery or in this building?”

  “Ruben’s will be here, but I’m betting Fairfield’s office is in the main building. The pretty one.”

  “Do you want to look for Ruben’s office or Fairfield’s?”

  “I’d stick out like a sore thumb in the fancy building. You go snoop over there, and I’ll try to find Ruben’s office here.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Megan nodded decisively. “Now to create a distraction.”

  Toni stood back and surveyed their surroundings. Megan, with her magnetic charm, blond hair, blue eyes, and telekinetic power was pretty much distraction personified.

  “How disastrous do we want to go?” she asked.

  “No one gets hurt,” Toni said. “Other than that?” She spotted a line that ran from the crush machine to the fermentation tanks. “Okay, you see that giant red hose with the silver fitting that runs from the crusher to the top of that tank?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How far away can you use your telekinesis?”

  Megan’s eyes went wide. “This could be a challenge.”

  * * *

  Toni, Katherine, and Megan were leaning toward Ruben, listening to him explain how the red wine was pressed, when they heard the first shout.

  Toni’s senses went wide when the first splash of wine hit the concrete floor of the fermentation room. Within a second, her senses were overwhelmed.

  “Boss!”

  All the workers started yelling at once as gallons and gallons of crushed grapes, along with the skins and seeds, splashed to the floor, spraying everything within fifty feet.

  “What’s happening?” Megan yelled. “Oh my Lord!”

  “Allen!” Ruben yelled. “What the hell?” He turned to them. “Ladies, I’m so sorry, but I’m going to need you to exit—”

  “Ruben, I can’t shut it off! It’s stuck!”

  Toni patted his shoulder. “We’ll find our way back! You go deal with this.”

  “Thanks, Toni.” Ruben ran off, leaving Katherine, Megan, and Toni standing to the side of the fermentation room, their backs to the office, watching the chaos that Megan had wrought.

  A mess of juice, grape skins, and seeds rained down around them, and the air was starting to feel sticky.

  “How many hoses did you unhook?” Toni asked as they backed away.

  “I think I maybe did all of them? It’s kin
d of hard to distinguish a single valve when they all look alike and I’m so far away.”

  “That is a lot of crushed grapes.” Katherine was staring. “What a waste.”

  “Come on.” Toni tugged her arm. “Megan, you good?”

  She nodded. “I was scoping out the building when we walked in earlier. Pretty sure I know where the executive office will be.”

  “Katherine and I will look at Ruben’s.” Toni walked into a dark hall, the winery a hive of chaos as they disappeared through the metal door.

  As soon as they left, Toni turned and started peeking in the windows of the doors they passed. “He’s not going to be down here, I don’t think.”

  Katherine said, “No. Look at the tone of his skin. He likes the sun.”

  “Agreed.” Toni ran up a set of stairs and onto the second floor that looked over the top of the tank room. She paused at the top. Which side of the building would Ruben pick for his office? “Sunrise or sunset?”

  Katherine thought for only a second. “Sunrise—he’s a farmer.”

  “Agreed.” She ran to the right, headed toward the east end of the warehouse. They passed one person on the walkway who barely glanced at them as he rushed toward the stairs.

  Looking in the rooms, Toni saw familiar activities. There was what looked like break room, one gal entering something on the computer with a set of headphones blocking the noise, and another office with two women chatting over manila folders.

  At the end of the walkway, Toni saw his name on the door.

  Ruben Montenegro, General Manager.

  She pushed open the door, which wasn’t locked, and walked straight to his desk.

  “Okay, where would you put those plans?” she muttered. Toni sat in his seat and pulled out the top shelf directly to her left.

  It jammed.

  She tugged on each of the drawers in turn, hoping to trigger the catch for the top left drawer while Katherine moved to the standing file drawers across the room.

  “I’d say the plans are probably on the computer, but that seems to be the one thing that people still want paper for,” Katherine said. “If I go to the geology department, I always see massive pieces of paper the size of old maps spread out on every table.”

  “Spread out.” Of course they wouldn’t be stuffed in a drawer. That would crumple them. She scanned the office for anywhere that large pieces of paper could be hidden.

  “Anything?”

  Katherine was pulling files out. She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “Keep looking. Keep your eyes out for anything that looks like it doesn’t belong either.”

  Katherine turned her head. “Like Whit Fairfield’s will?”

  Toni blinked. “Uh, yeah. Why would Ruben have a copy of that?”

  “I have no idea.” She took it out and pulled out her phone. “I’m going to scan it quickly.”

  “Still no luck on these plans. Maybe they’re in Fairfield’s office and not—” Her elbow bumped the calendar blotter on Ruben’s desk, shoving the plastic-edged blotter to the side and revealing a curled edge of paper.

  Toni stared. “Of course.”

  She stood, lifted the blotter up, and spotted what looked like blueprints underneath Ruben’s desk. The difference was, there weren’t two set of plans drawn on most architectural plans.

  “Katherine, I found them. I think.”

  The professor shoved the last will and testament up her blouse before she walked over to Toni. “We don’t have time for me to scan all these. I’ll be here for an hour.”

  “I think he was trying to alter these.” Toni pointed to faint lines that contradicted some of the diagrams on the blueprints. “Do you see?”

  “I do.” Katherine glanced at the door. “We can’t take these. He could go weeks without knowing the will is gone. These? He’ll notice.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Pictures,” she said. “It’s the best we can do. Just be fast.”

  Toni snapped a series of photos, trying not to leave anything out of the frame. Then she carefully positioned the calendar blotter over the blueprints and straightened it on Ruben’s desk. “We better go.”

  “I feel so daring!” Katherine said. “Baxter will completely overreact to this.”

  “I think Henry might do the same.” Toni started for the door and paused before she opened it to listen to the warehouse.

  She didn’t hear any voices close by, so she cracked the door open, glanced outside, then opened it wide enough for her and Katherine to slip out.

  “Is this technically considered industrial sabotage?” Katherine whispered.

  “I’m not sure.” There was a set of narrow stairs at the east end of the building. Toni started down them. “Why?”

  “Because there’s a clause in my contract with the university about industrial sabotage, and I wouldn’t want to break it.”

  “Since you don’t have a personal stake in any of Ruben’s competitors, I think you’re in the clear.”

  “That’s good.”

  They reached the bottom of the stairs. The panicked yelling from down the hall was far quieter, but people were still shouting about cleaning up and repairing hoses.

  “I think we made it.” She shoved her way out the double doors at the end of the warehouse, only to run smack into the barrel chest of Danny Barba.

  Toni looked up with wide eyes. “Danny!”

  “Toni?” He was frowning. “What are you doing here?”

  “We… Uh.”

  Katherine said, “Ruben was giving us a tour of the fermentation tanks when something broke on the second story and grape juice came pouring down. It was a very big mess.”

  “Yeah. We were looking for a bathroom because I got some on my jeans.” Toni looked down. “We couldn’t find one.” She pointed at the tasting room building. “Maybe over in the main building?”

  “I think so.” Danny still looked confused.

  “What are you doing over here?” Toni asked. “Something about those grapes Henry wanted to buy?”

  Danny opened his mouth, then closed it. “Um. Yeah, the grapes. The, uh, the pinot grapes he wanted to buy from Ruben.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “Sure hope that wasn’t what ended up on the floor of the tank room.”

  “You and Henry both.” Toni laughed. “Okay, tell Ruben we said bye. We’re gonna find a bathroom and get out of here. We shouldn’t take up more of his time.”

  “Okay. See you.” Danny walked in the warehouse and Toni and Katherine kept walking straight toward the car. “Are you texting Megan?”

  “Yes.” Katherine nearly tripped as she tried to read her phone. “She says she’s at the car too.”

  “Good.” Toni was desperate to get out of there. She felt like at any moment, someone was going to run out and tackle Katherine to grab the will from under her shirt. And then Toni would have to explain to Baxter why Katherine had been tackled and why she had a murder victim’s will up her shirt.

  She saw Megan in the distance, leaning against her Mustang and checking her phone as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey!” She tipped her sunglasses down her nose. “You two found something.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Good.” She pointed to her white purse, which was splashed with purple wine must. “Then I didn’t ruin this beauty for nothing.”

  * * *

  Megan wore her reading glasses as she paged through the living trust that detailed the extent and disbursement of Whit Fairfield’s assets. They were sitting on Katherine’s back deck, which seemed like the least likely place for a thief to search should anyone suspect them. Also, there was Archie. He was sweet as sugar, but he did make a lot of noise.

  Of the three of them, Megan had been the one reading the most legal documents lately, so she was probably their best bet at understanding them without a lawyer.

  “Can I tell you? I’m surprised by how straightforward this is.” She
looked up and slid off her glasses. “He didn’t have any children, so that simplifies it. He had two main asset streams, what he’d inherited from his family and grown—that’s mostly real estate investments—and what he developed on his own, which consists of quite a lot of stocks, mostly in technology, and also shares in various businesses, most of which he shared with Angela Calvo, who is designated here as his fiancée and primary beneficiary. For the most part, anything that came from his family he left to his younger brother, and anything of his own he left to Angela. There’s some mention of a reciprocal agreement in her own living trust, so it’s not surprising. It sounds like they’ve been working jointly for a few years now. At least financially.”

  “Anything about the winery in general?” Toni asked. “Anything that mentions anyone here in town? Marissa? Ruben? Anyone?”

  “Not that I can see.” Megan shrugged. “He didn’t even designate personal items to individuals. This man seemed to have no friends, no loyal employee that he wanted to benefit. Just his fiancée and his brother. That’s it.”

  “That’s strange,” Katherine said. “What an isolated existence.”

  “Single-minded.” Toni stared at the will. “It fits.”

  “What about the blueprints?”

  Katherine pointed inside. “Baxter was very interested in them, but he said they’re too small to really examine, of course. He’s trying to piece them together from the pictures I took; then he said he has a friend at the university in the engineering department who can print them out full size. This professor also specializes in seismic design, so he’s very knowledgeable about geology as well as engineering.”

  Toni felt like she was about to fall asleep. “I may have to take off soon. Even with Baxter’s tea, I’m starting to fade.”

  “Should you call Henry?”

  Toni’s immediate reaction was to brush off the suggestion and fight her way back to awareness long enough to drive home.

  Then again, he had asked Toni to let him help. “Yeah, that might be a good idea.”

  “Look at you.” Megan smiled and patted her shoulder. “It’s like you’re in a grown-up relationship after all.”