“Don’t test me, Atlanta. If I wanted to, I could make myself throw up on you with very little encouragement.”
Chapter 23
Toni felt a kiss brush across her temple. “Toni.”
“Mmmm.”
“Going to work.”
“’Kay.” She blinked through the foggy veil of sleep. “You get coffee?”
Henry was sitting on the side of the bed. “I made some. And there’s hot water for tea if you want it. You want me to make a cup for you?”
She rolled over and blinked at him. “You’re very nice to have around.”
His eyes crinkled in the corners when he smiled. “I like being around. I need to go get Earl though. I’m sure he’s feeling left out.”
“Bring him anytime.” She snuggled farther down in the pillows. “He’s sweet too.”
“Look at you.” He ran his fingers through her short curly mop. “Not even a hint of salt this morning. What did you do with my girlfriend?”
Girlfriend. Girlfriend?
Whatever. She could be a girlfriend.
“I blame you.” She closed her eyes and snuggled closer when Henry started rubbing her back. “It’s the empathy. I’m hanging out with you so much, your sweet is rubbing off on me and dampening the salty.”
“Better be careful. You don’t want to lose your edge.”
“I’m sure someone will come along soon enough and piss me off,” she muttered.
“Okay.” He rubbed small circles on her hip. “If you haven’t kicked any doors or told off anyone by the time I finish work today, I’m going to take you to the doctor to get you checked out.”
She reached over and patted his arm. “It’s good you realize that I’m not going to change.”
He chuckled, leaned over, and placed a line of kisses across the back of her neck that left her shivering. “Have a good day, cougar.” Henry ducked out of the way, laughing as she tried to pinch his ear.
“Get,” she said. “I’m going to drink my tea and then go work on Bubba. I’ve been neglecting him.”
“Bubba?” He stood and walked to the door. “The truck?”
“He’s a ’64 Ford pickup. He can only be called Bubba.”
Henry winked at her and headed out. “Say hi to Bubba then. I’ll text you later.”
“Cool.” Toni lay in bed, listening to Henry putter in the kitchen for a second. He whistled a little before he paused at the door, opened it, and headed out of the house.
What is happening to you, Toni? You’re such a sap.
“Stupid hormones.” She sat up, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and walked to the kitchen to see a mug of tea already steeping on the counter.
Tea. On the counter. Waiting for her.
She hadn’t asked him. He’d just made it because he knew she’d wake up and feel a little queasy. Toni’s phone rang in her pocket as she balanced on the edge of bursting into tears.
“Hello?”
“Toni?” It was Katherine. “Are you all right? I just had a vision of you sobbing uncontrollably. Are you okay? Is the baby okay? Did something happen?”
Okay, it wasn’t uncontrollable sobbing, but tears had started leaking down her face. “Henry made me tea.”
“Okay and…?”
“He just left for work and he must have made a mug right before he left.” She walked over, sniffing. “There’s honey beside it.”
“And?”
“Nothing.” She reached for a paper towel to blow her nose. “That’s all. He made me tea.”
“But why are you crying?”
“I don’t know!” She blew her nose loudly, set the phone on speaker, and put it on the counter. “When he’s around, I feel normal and steady—though admittedly a little less hostile to the general population than I’m used to.”
“That’s not a bad thing.”
“Yes, but then he leaves and I’m a disaster! Emotional and messy.” She took the tea bag from the mug and dumped it in the sink. “I swing from being worried to being angry to being unreasonably happy for no reason. What is wrong with me?” She upended the squeeze bottle of honey and poured a direct stream into the ginger tea. “Am I getting addicted to him or something? This is not normal!”
“I’m guessing this is completely normal for an empath who is newly pregnant and also recently realized she’s in love with the father of her baby.”
Toni hiccuped a cry.
“What’s wrong now?” Katherine asked.
“I forgot I’m in love with him!” She grabbed her phone. “What am I supposed to do with that? Just be in love with someone for the rest of my life?”
“Um… yes? Ideally, that’s how it works.”
“What if we end up making each other miserable and codependent?”
“I’m in a happy relationship. Do I look miserable or codependent?”
“No.” She wiped her eyes with another paper towel. “But you’re you.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I think a good rule of thumb—I can check with a psychologist if you really want me to—is that when you fall in love with a nice person who is healthy and brings out the best in you… don’t fight it.”
She sniffed. “I’m kind of used to fighting everything.”
“I have discovered that about you. But for now, consider not fighting this. Just thank the universe for putting that person in your path and appreciate that you’re going to live life together instead of separately.”
Toni wiped her eyes. “That seems way too simple.”
“I have little doubt that as you’re living life, problems will arise. Just plan on dealing with those later. Did I tell you that I never planned to get married?”
“No.” Toni had always planned to get married. Kind of. It was in the back of her mind. She was just a little too busy to meet anyone.
“Yes, I was quite determined that I would remain single forever. Which is an excellent path for people who enjoy their own company, which I think you do. But then I met Baxter! And I was surprised by my own feelings, and also I liked who I was when I was around him. And he made me coffee and added a great deal of good things to my life. So despite my own parents’ miserable marriage, I decided that Baxter and I were different and we could get married.”
Toni sniffed. “How long did it take for you to say yes when Baxter asked you to marry him?”
“It wasn’t a traditional proposal. We agreed after several discussions that took place over the course of four months.”
“So it took him four months to put enough equations on the whiteboard to convince you that it was a good idea to marry him?”
“How did you know there was a whiteboard involved?” Katherine sounded delighted.
Toni sniffed and smiled a little. “Just figured it was a pretty solid guess for you two.”
“What I would suggest is that you simply live as you are now, with significantly more time spent together to determine if you’re truly compatible as a couple. He can stay over at your place. You can stay over at his. Don’t change anything more than that until after the baby arrives. Isolate the variables.”
“Right.” It sounded so logical when Katherine explained it. “And if I want him to move in with his big scary-looking dog because someone was murdered at the creek behind my house?”
“Yes, there is the murderer variable. Henry moving in wouldn’t be a bad idea. Baxter and I live together and have a dog. Megan lives with her three children up in the hills.”
“And I live with a chickenshit cat about a half mile from where Whit Fairfield was murdered. With a gun in the safe, but still.”
“So reconsidering initial parameters, perhaps Henry and his large canine might be two variables that should be more constant.”
“Are you and Baxter coming over later with the plans?”
“Yes. He went over to the university to see Chimezie, his engineering friend, this morning, but it sounded like he wanted to take a look at the area in person if that was possible.”
“It’s about a ten-minute walk from my house, just down the creek. Easy.”
“Then we’ll see you this afternoon.”
* * *
It was late morning and the radio was blaring Bruce Springsteen as Toni tinkered under Bubba’s hood. She’d bought the old Ford a few years before, and one of the primary reasons she’d bought the cottage was the large barn that could house her project cars and her personal tools.
She’d replaced essential parts of the fuel line a few weeks ago and was contemplating the carburetor when she heard a car coming down the gravel drive from the main road.
Toni walked out, slipped her sunglasses on, and watched as Drew Bisset climbed out of his car.
He looked around and nodded. “I understand why you want to live here. Even with the murder and stuff.”
“Yeah, it’s not bad.” She waved him into the barn. “I’m messing around with my truck. Come on in.”
Drew walked into the barn just as Toni jumped back up on the stool that propped her short ass up. She often wished she was taller, but then it would just make getting under cars more complicated.
She asked, “So what’s up with you?”
“Did Marissa’s formal interview this morning.”
She glanced up. “Yeah? How did that go? Was Nico there?”
“He’s a suspect, Toni. He can’t be there.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. What did she say when you interviewed her?”
Drew glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “She says she doesn’t remember.”
Toni looked up. “She doesn’t remember who she argued with? She doesn’t remember getting beat up?”
“I actually asked a neurologist about it, and he said it would be consistent with the kind of brain injury Marissa had. It’s usually short-term memory loss, but sometimes when a trauma happens, the memory never comes back. The doc said it happens in attacks but also in stuff like car crashes. Documented thing.”
“Amnesia, it’s not just for soap operas anymore?”
“Apparently not. Marissa said the last thing she remembers is you and your friends coming to her apartment.”
“Huh.” Toni had nearly forgotten about that. “It’s been nearly two weeks. She’s got nothing?”
Drew shrugged. “Like the doc said. Maybe it’ll come back, maybe it won’t.”
“Do you think she’s lying?”
Drew took a deep breath. “Possibly. She might lie to protect the father of her children.”
“Come on. That doesn’t make any sense. Nico is helping her out in rehab, bringing the kids around, running errands for her, even though it’s his busiest season. If she could get her memory back at any time and accuse him, why would he do that?”
“Unless he’s hanging around so he can know for sure if any of her memory has returned.”
“Drew, you know Nico. That’s a level of diabolical he just doesn’t have in him.”
“Right now I don’t know anything. I’ve got about four different suspects bouncing around in my head, and that includes your cousin.”
Four?
“So Nico and who else?” She narrowed her eyes. “The fiancée?”
“Angela Calvo has the most motive by far. I can’t eliminate her, even though by all accounts she has an alibi for Fairfield’s death, and she’s set foot in Moonstone Cove a grand total of three times in her life.”
“She could have hired someone.”
“Very possible, which is why I can’t rule her out.”
Toni reached for a wire brush. Bubba was gonna need a new battery. Stat. “Nico, the fiancée, and who else?” She tossed ideas around in her head. “Ruben, yeah? Fairfield’s foreman? He and his boss didn’t get along.”
“True, but he also didn’t have much incentive to kill his boss. He’s poured a lot of time and personal attention into that winery. There’s no reason to think that the fiancée is going to keep him on. He was way more secure with Fairfield.”
“True.”
“Added to those three, there are two women at the country club who cheated on their husbands with the man.”
“Ew.” She curled her lip. “What was the attraction? I do not get it.”
“You may not get it, but he did.” Drew shrugged. “Money, I guess? Anyway, there’s more than one angry husband who might have wanted to kill him. Then there’s Pamela at the country club.”
“Pamela Martin?” Toni popped her head up. “What did she have against Fairfield? She was talking with him about a job, wasn’t she?”
Drew looked around, then back at Toni. “Strictly between us?”
“Who am I going to tell?”
“Katherine and Megan.”
“Fair point. I would totally tell them.”
“So keep this between us.” Drew walked closer and leaned on Bubba’s fender. “I interviewed Pamela a couple of times because something wasn’t adding up for me with her. It was just a feeling.”
“And?” Toni focused on brushing sediment away from the top of the carburetor.
“Fairfield offered her a job, but it came with conditions. And those conditions weren’t anything she was willing to consider.” Drew shrugged. “At least, not according to her. But it didn’t help that he was spreading rumors they were already having an affair.”
“Gross.” She fumbled the brush and nearly scraped her hand. “Whit Fairfield was such an asshole. She had every reason to hate him.”
“Plus she doesn’t have an alibi for the night he died.”
Toni looked up. “You know what I’m discovering about crimes and stuff since I got to know you, Drew?”
“What’s that?”
“Normal people don’t have alibis for much.”
He started to laugh.
“It’s true!” She pointed the wire brush at him. “Know what I do every night? Hang out at my house, watching TV or working on this truck or cooking. And you know who can verify that?”
“Absolutely no one?”
“Exactly.” She threw up her hands. “I mean, no wonder rich people get away with all the crimes, right? They have household staff who can give them alibis.”
Drew’s eyes were dancing. “I can’t lie, sometimes when someone has an ironclad alibi that doesn’t involve hanging out at a bar, I get suspicious.”
“Of course you would. Because normal people don’t have alibis for ninety percent of their life.”
Drew smiled. “You would have made a great detective, Toni.”
“I don’t think so.” She wrinkled her nose. “Interacting with the public is never going to be my strong suit.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Fair point.”
“Question.”
“I might answer.”
Toni set the wire brush to the side. “You keep asking about the night Fairfield died. Why are you assuming he died at night? He was out there for like a week and a half, right? Can autopsies be that precise?”
“In this case, we have his watch.” Drew tapped his wrist. “Old-fashioned fancy brand. Swiss-made something or other. I told you he was beat up, right? We think he must have fallen to the ground at some point and the crystal was smashed on a rock. The watch face completely shattered, and the watch was stuck at two in the morning.”
“Weird.” Two in the morning? “No one is wandering around at two in the morning for a good reason.”
“You sound like my mom.”
“Ha ha.” She picked up a wrench and put it down. What was she doing? “I’m telling you, you’re barking up the wrong tree looking at my cousin.”
“You saying Marissa wouldn’t cover for him?”
“I’m saying it’s more likely she’s covering for someone else.”
“Why?”
“She had some deal going with Fairfield, right? The blackmail thing with Henry? Maybe she knows more about that than she’s letting on. Maybe she’s trying to salvage that business since Fairfield is gone and her sugar daddy won’t be around. Maybe whoever else Fairfi
eld was blackmailing is the same person who killed him and beat Marissa up?”
“Henry was the only one we know for sure they were blackmailing, and thankfully for him, he has an alibi for Marissa’s attack.”
“But Marissa also said she thought Fairfield was blackmailing other people too.”
Drew leaned against the truck. “Who else would Whit Fairfield have been blackmailing? Who would he have leverage over?” Drew drummed his fingers on the side of the truck, then looked over at Toni. “Didn’t you say there’d been some sabotage over at Nico’s winery?”
Toni nodded. “Yeah. Henry said there was stuff missing. A tank got turned off. There was the tractor thing.”
“Well then,” Drew said. “It sounds like I need to take a trip up the hill.”
Chapter 24
When they got to the winery, Nico was shouting at a crew sorting and loading grapes into the de-stemmer and crusher. There were three men in long sleeves tossing grapes in and throwing others into bins on a raised trailer that had been pulled up to the back of the tank house.
“You know,” Drew said, “I like wine, but I had no idea how complicated it was before I moved here.”
“It’s a lot of manual labor,” she said. “Unlike a lot of crops, everything still has to be picked by hand and sorted by hand. There’s only so much you can automate.”
“What are they doing there?” Drew pointed to the men Nico was yelling at.
“I think those are cabernet grapes.” She nodded at the large white bins of harvested fruit. “Which means they’re making red wine. So right now they’re sorting the grapes, and then they’re going to go through the wash and into the crusher.”
“No stomping feet?”
“Sadly, that part is automated now.”
Drew pointed at the long metal machines that jutted out from the back of the building. “So the crusher takes the juice out?”
“Nope. It takes the stems off and then it literally crushes them. All the skins and seeds and pulp and everything are going to go right in those giant tanks inside. The yeast is going to be added and then it’s all going to ferment together. That’s why someone messing with the temperature controls is a big deal.”
Fate Actually: Moonstone Cove Book Two Page 19