by Emma Accola
Micah was dead right, but I didn’t want to admit it. In all the years we’d been dating, Leonardo had never flirted back with women who leaned into him at sports bars and hung on his every word as if he were revealing the secrets of the universe. His indifference didn’t surprise or flatter me because none of the grapevines in my family’s vineyards were more tightly entwined than we. After he graduated from college, he took his place in his family’s business and rented an apartment, to which I was given a key. Our families took our relationship for granted as much as they did the winter rains off the Pacific Ocean. Then somehow, inexplicably, the book that was my and Leonardo’s life plan was torn apart after the first few chapters. I was blindsided and confused, a rare experience for me.
My response was grudging. “You’re right. I didn’t see it coming.”
“People get bored of each other.”
“We weren’t.”
“Complacent.”
“Leonardo liked complacent.”
“Maybe he was sick of being half loved. Maybe he didn’t want you controlling his destiny anymore so he cheated.”
“Don’t be absurd,” I cried, my temper flaring. “He was an only child whose destiny was set long before I came along. He didn’t even have to try because he was born and bred to run his parents’ trucking firm. That was his master.” I twisted the ring on my finger. “Besides, he didn’t get mad the way people do when they’re caught in a lie. I know when he’s sincere.”
“That confounded you, didn’t it?”
My head nodded, an unconscious act. “I’d thought I read our relationship correctly.”
Micah’s eyes glittered in the low light. “When did you quit believing him?”
“When the appearance he’d asked me to accept and reality stopped being the same thing. The profiles on dating sites, the woman knocking on his apartment door who ran when she saw me, and the texts coming from women he claimed he didn’t know. Take your pick. Leonardo kept denying everything, as if I wasn’t supposed to believe my own eyes. That insulted me.”
Speaking those words made me tremble. After all that, nothing could stop the slow fuse of mistrust once it had been lit. Rumors about us began circulating. It became embarrassing for Leonardo and me to be seen in public. Our relationships with our friends became strained because they didn’t know which one of us to shun.
“Did you want to believe him?”
“Everyone wanted me to.”
“You know that he’s moved on.”
“Has he?” I already knew and became angry. “Is there a point to all of this, or did you just come over here to gloat?”
“I know something about what happened between you and Leonardo.”
I scoffed. “I very much doubt it, but since you’re here, say what you came to say.”
“I came to tell you that Harry Spice broke up your engagement and my marriage. Given that those relationships were moribund, he hardly had to try.”
I glared at Micah, furious that he was trying to make a fool out of me. “You’re tripping.”
The lines on Micah’s face became harsh and uncompromising in the dim light. “I know what you went through because I’m the one who was accused of cheating and I couldn’t explain any of it any better than your hapless Leonardo could. I know your bewilderment from the other side of the mirror.”
For several long moments, I could manage no more than a stare. I fought a surge of defensiveness, because how could I not think that Leonardo was a cheater, not after everything that had happened? For me to hear that he was innocent was for me to acknowledge I had been manipulated and duped. Ordinarily in a situation like this, where someone was asking me to doubt my own truth, I would use strong language and send the person away. That was ordinarily, and this was Harry Spice.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, grinding out the words.
“Harry Spice broke up my marriage and your engagement.”
“How is that possible?”
Micah stilled. His jaw tightened for a moment as he looked past me. “It’s possible because you and I are human and Harry Spice knew exactly how to hit us where it would hurt the most. He wanted our relationships ended and the two of us crushed and broken on the floor.”
There was no mistaking Micah’s flash of pain and confusion, then the dazed look of someone struck hard with the unthinkable. I had to turn away because I had my own pain and I didn’t want to see his too. Every strand of what Leonardo and I had unraveled because nothing, no spoken words or gentle deeds, had made a difference. The coming apart had baffled me and changed everything I thought I knew about relationships. Until this moment, I hadn’t known that Micah had experienced all that I had. He began speaking, drawing my attention back to him.
“The end hit fast. I came home from work and found my clothes boxed up on the front porch. One box had a knife stuck into a note written in large black letters: I hope she was worth it, you rat bastard. High school sweethearts, all those years, over just like that.”
“Just like that,” I whispered, trembling when I thought of all the harsh words that I had laid on Leonardo. The last time I saw him, he had told me that I would come to understand that I had let the right person go for the wrong reasons. He only had half of that right.
Micah cleared his throat. “I thought that if I was innocent, you might be too. That’s why I brought it up, not because I wanted to inflict some random cruelty on you.”
My whole body tightened. “And my sister, Faith?”
“My guess is that Harry Spice used her and her fiancé Damien to estrange you from your family. My parents are deceased, so he didn’t have to bother doing any of that to me.”
Suddenly I wondered if Harry Spice had killed Caleb. Micah’s words left me dizzy. “Harry Spice couldn’t be behind it all.”
“He was.”
I began stammering. “No. He couldn’t have gotten inside our heads like that.”
“He could and he did.” Micah’s eyes became flinty. “Our privacy is shot all to hell and Harry Spice is holding the smoking gun. I’m positive he’s hacked our social media accounts.”
My stomach felt queasy, as if I’d just been on a roller coaster. “Why go to all that trouble to tear apart our relationships? What does he care?”
“He cares about hurting us. We’ve been puppets on his stage since Caleb agreed to be his defense attorney and you were the prosecution’s star witness. My best guess is that he wants you and me together, like we were on the patio outside the tasting room when I came to your winery. He knows about that little interlude thanks to the winery’s surveillance cameras.”
My face grew hot, and I was glad of the dim light. “We only talked. It’s not like you kissed me.”
Micah had a hint of a smile on his face. “You would have kissed me back.”
I nodded. There didn’t seem to be any need for false pride at this juncture.
“How would you have felt about it afterwards?”
“Like it was a lot wrong, like kissing a first cousin.” The engagement ring suddenly seemed to throb on my finger. “Which is weird, because by then my and Leonardo’s relationship had become something that wasn’t true.”
“What part was the lie?”
“The part where my love for him was an enduring madness.”
He leaned forward and tapped on my finger. “But you still wear the ring.”
“It’s mine,” I said stubbornly. “It reminds me to be careful.”
“Of what? Love? Vulnerability? Madness?”
“Frequently they’re the same thing.” Inwardly, my temper flared at the mention of vulnerability. How could this man have seen that in me? In spite of our history, we hardly knew each other. Yet now, at this moment, we were like two people in a lifeboat. “Thank you for sharing what happened to you. I thought everything was just bad.”
A fraught silence fell between us. Micah took off his wedding ring and set it on the table. His eyes caught and held mine. “H
acking your office computer was just the start. Harry Spice is after us, and we’ll need to work together if we’re going to stop him. That means complete emotional honesty even if it hurts. No more wearing an empty engagement ring, Gracie. No more.”
Feeling his challenge, I slid my diamond off my finger and set it on the table next to his. Micah picked them both up, watching my face carefully as he dropped them into a suit pocket. Then he nodded before launching himself over the fence and leaving me alone. Oddly, my hand without the ring didn’t feel injured, as if I had lost a fingernail. It felt lighter, as if released from a tight bandage. I went into the living room and sat on the couch to stare at the black television screen. The all-powerful Harry Spice would soon know Micah and I were together. Harry Spice expected a battle and welcomed it. Right at that moment, so did I.
CHAPTER THREE
Lucie Eagan haunted my mind. Something had brought her to Harry Spice’s attention, but what? Online I found very little on her. In my class, she had been quiet, almost demure, certainly not the sort of woman who would draw the notice of a flamboyant man like Harry Spice. Using the LMS, I reread the papers she’d submitted so far this semester. They were insightful and showed a passion for literature. I stared at the computer screen. There had to be a connection to Harry Spice, maybe one that wasn’t so obvious, but one that he would expect me to make. I didn’t doubt for a second that her disappearance was about me and the case.
My fingers danced on the touchscreen of my laptop as I went onto the discussion board and read her last posting, made on the day she disappeared. My breath caught when I found a quote that seemed completely out of context: “Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself in dark woods, the right road lost.” The last four words were in bold face. I recognized the lines from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, not a work most college freshmen would know. Lucie Eagan hadn’t posted this. No, this was the work of Harry Spice. My eyes narrowed and my fingers drummed. What journey was he thinking of, and what road could he mean?
I rubbed my chin as I narrowed down the possibilities, cross-referencing the details. Caleb Ekstrand had died in a traffic accident. I opened a new window on my laptop and read all the news accounts of the accident that had taken his life. The articles mentioned some of his high-profile cases, Harry Spice’s conviction being one of his rare failures. I watched some video of Caleb’s funeral, seeing how Micah followed his brother’s casket from the church, his face hard and immovable, pale as marble. Micah’s pretty wife stood next to him, looking pinched and uncomfortable in a black pantsuit. Never once did she put a comforting hand on him or offer a look of sympathy. Like soldiers on parade, she and Micah kept their gaze forward, focusing on the distance. I froze the video to see the other mourners. Lucie Eagan was in the crowd dabbing her eyes. Who was she to Caleb that she would attend his funeral? Clearly Micah didn’t know about her or her connection to Caleb.
I went out on my patio and stood on a chair to look over the fence into Micah’s windows. Though it was Saturday night, I could see light spilling under his shades and drapes. It occurred to me that he might not be alone. Good manners made me hesitate intruding upon him, but only for a moment. Finding a connection between Caleb and Lucie Eagan was too much for my curiosity to bear. I went to Micah’s front door and knocked. He answered almost immediately. The door swung open, and without being invited, I stepped inside. He smelled of soap and cologne and looked flushed, as if he had just taken a shower after working out.
“Good evening to you too,” Micah said, slightly mocking. “Won’t you come in?”
“What is Lucie Eagan’s connection to Caleb? And don’t tell me there isn’t one because I saw her in a video of Caleb’s funeral and she was very emotional.”
I pushed the door closed behind me before I realized that I was standing way too close to him. His chest twinkled from tiny beads of water and his faded jeans smelled of fabric softener. Afraid of looking timid, I squared my shoulders and held my ground. He studied me, missing nothing. Suddenly I wished I had changed clothes. The black yoga pants clung to my body and a low-cut shirt showed the curves of the tops of my breasts. There didn’t seem to be an appropriate amount of fabric to wear to a confrontation with a man like Micah. The heat of his skin radiated, warming me. I fought the urge to cross my arms over my chest.
One of Micah’s eyebrows went up. “You’re quite resourceful. I just made the connection today and I have Caleb’s files.”
“Was she one of Caleb’s clients?”
“No, but her brother was. He had been accused of attempted murder for trying to run down his girlfriend with a car. They had a stormy on-again-off-again relationship, to put it mildly. He claimed that he was working late in the family business at the time of the incident and that his car had been stolen. Lucie was the only one who could vouch for him. The witnesses said the driver was masked. There’s more to the story, but suffice it to say that Caleb was able to sow enough doubt in the minds of the jurors to get an acquittal.”
“Did you tell that to Ray Biles? The campus police should know this. It can’t be a coincidence that Lucie was targeted.”
“And who would we say was targeting her? The fact that her brother was a client of Caleb’s and that she’s in your class and missing doesn’t add up to more than coincidence. We can’t just go jumping to wild conclusions. People will start doubting our sanity.”
“Watch me,” I snapped, even though I knew he was right.
“We’ll keep it in mind and see if anything else comes up.” Micah’s eyes moved languorously down my body, seeming to go through the thin fabric. “That’s why you’re here? Were you bored with YouTube?”
I didn’t answer because my heart rate soared at his caressing gaze. And why had he opened the door without his shirt on? The sight of his bare chest and abdomen was now seared into my retinas. I had undressed him a thousand times with my eyes, but my imagination had failed me on this man. Why did he have to be so damned sexy? Everything about this situation would be so much easier if he were doughy, hairy, and mushy. Instead he had a long, slender waist and a sexy curve to his hipbones.
“What are you thinking?” Micah asked, his expression alert and expectant.
He wanted to see if I would lie. “That you don’t have any tattoos.”
“Do you like tattoos?”
“No.”
Micah chuckled. “Your ex had a lot of them on his chest and back.”
“It was like sleeping with a living flesh comic book.”
Micah laughed. “That’s real. I just took a lasagna out of the oven. Have dinner with me.”
The invitation surprised me even though his home smelled of tomato sauce, melting cheese, and garlic bread. “That’s not why I’m here.”
“No, you’re here for information on one of your students, but I’m starving. So you might as well stay for dinner. Otherwise, I would have to freeze part of that lasagna, and it’s never as good reheated.”
I hesitated, wanting to refuse. My dinner plans amounted to standing at the freezer to choose a microwave meal that I would heat and then consume while leaning against the kitchen sink.
“You’ll accept my invitation,” Micah went on, “because you think I can tell you something interesting about Harry Spice. And I’ll talk you into staying because another matter has come up that will interest you.”
Something in his words struck me as a challenge. “Well, since we’re being so civilized, I’ll go back to my place to get a bottle of red wine.”
“From your family’s winery?”
“Of course.” I became impish. “Which would you like? A syrah or a shiraz?”
Micah’s eyes narrowed and he became sardonic. “They’re the same grape, sweetheart. I’m not that monstrously ignorant. Nice try though. I’ll get the glasses.”
Back in my townhouse, I opened the wine refrigerator and chose a syrah that was one of my favorites. I thought with a mixture of pride and loss how my sister had designed the label. I
pulled out the bottle and paused to wonder whether I should change clothes. Micah would notice, no doubt. Would my returning to his place more covered up be too obvious? After a moment of indecision, I pulled on a silky, print tunic that fell to my hips. My mind would work better if Micah’s eyes didn’t run up and down my body. I found that he had left his front door ajar, so I let myself in.
Since he was in the kitchen, I paused to notice his living room’s décor. The floors were shiny hardwood. A fluffy white area rug anchored the seating area of leather sofas and glass end tables. A white marble fireplace was topped with a black marble mantel and carefully chosen glass art pieces. Delicate watercolors of Yosemite and the California coast added pops of colors to the neutral walls. A set of built-in bookcases, lit inside the glass doors, lent a sparkling glow to the room. Closer to the kitchen stood a dining table and six chairs. An elaborate flower arrangement centered the table. I touched the flowers to see if they were real.
“Would you like to eat here or in the kitchen?” Micah asked as he appeared in the doorway.
“The kitchen’s fine,” I said, noting that the flower arrangement had a card. My fingers itched to open it and see who it was from.
Micah didn’t miss my interest. “They’re a gift.”
“That was nice of someone.” I followed him into the kitchen and felt a pang of disappointment that he had put on a shirt. “Is it your birthday or something?”
“It’s something.” Micah took the hot pan of lasagna from the oven and set it on a trivet on his kitchen island. “They’re apology flowers.” He pulled off the oven mitt and tossed it on the counter. “Have a seat.”
“Apology flowers?” I pulled out a stool at the kitchen island. Micah’s look of displeasure was unmistakable. I thought he might have a girlfriend he had fought with. That notion displeased me, though it shouldn’t have. I had no claim on him. “What’s her name and what did she do to you?”