by Emma Accola
Micah didn’t waver. “Move in with me.”
“Sorry?”
He put his hands on the sides of my face. “Really.”
“Do you really want to jump from the frying pan into the fire?”
“Yes. And you’re wrong about having nothing left to lose. We have each other.” He kissed me again. “Leave this random Heart of Darkness nightmare of a townhouse. Every time I come in here, I feel like I need a rabies shot.”
The idea of moving in with Micah made my heart flutter. “People will find out.”
“Let me worry about that.”
I pulled away. “I’m not a waif on the side of the road for you to save.”
Micah pulled me back. “Maybe I like waifs.”
“The smartest thing for you to do is to cut me loose.”
“Who says I have to be smart?”
“You saw what happened to my last roommate.”
“Do you want to move in with me? I’m making it one of my twenty questions.”
“Yes.” I leaned into Micah. “And you just wasted one of your questions.”
Micah kissed me before answering. “Yeah, but it was worth it to hear you say the words.” When I started to clamor about being kicked out of Gary’s home, he shushed me. “You never liked it here anyhow. Let’s get you packed up and out of here. You’ll like my house better.”
Actually, I thought I would too.
CHAPTER SIX
Micah’s gleaming, professionally decorated townhouse was a far cry from the overcrowded animal theme I’d become accustomed to. His home had a restful quality, all open spaces and tasteful blues, browns, and black. The proportions and colors were precise and perfect. Still, to me, it didn’t quite seem like Micah. I was trying to think of why as I put my family’s wine bottles into Micah’s wine refrigerator.
“Let’s have one of those,” Micah said.
I chose a Riesling. “Is this all right?”
“That looks good.”
My face flushed when I handed him the bottle to open. “Look, while I’m here, I’m going to pay my own way. I don’t expect you to keep me.”
“Don’t worry about it. There’s no mortgage on this place. My expenses are fairly low.”
“The taxes and association fee must be crazy high.”
“Of course they are. This is San Francisco.” Micah got out a couple of goblets and poured the wine. “Would you feel better if we wrote a roommate agreement?”
I didn’t miss his sardonic tone. “That might not be a bad idea. How long has it been since you had a roommate?”
“Not counting my ex, the last time was when I was a student.” Micah handed me a goblet. “We’ll make up the rules as we go along.”
We went into the living room, and I sat down on Micah’s sleek leather sofa. He watched me, his eyes kind. The wine swirled in my glass. I wondered if I shouldn’t start rationing the dwindling supply of bottles I had brought from my family’s winery. For me it was all about the wines. The taste and smells, the look of the labels, it was all part and parcel of me. I wondered what it would feel like to buy my family’s wine in a store like the customers did.
Just thinking about what Harry Spice’s manipulation was doing to my parents sent my mind into conjecture mode. Would they want to listen to me telling them I didn’t steal from them, or would they save themselves the trouble and slam the door in my face? They already believed something was amiss, or they wouldn’t have locked me out of the accounting program. If I went to them, would I be able to stand seeing my mother’s face, disgusted and wounded, or my dad’s unwillingness to look at me? Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! My little voice shouted. Stop wondering. Stop the speculation. Just stop.
“What are you thinking?” Micah asked.
“Faith will be gloating.”
“Probably, but that’s not what’s on your mind now. You’re thinking of calling your mom and dad. Don’t. Don’t make them tell you to go away. They’ve suffered enough.”
I put my hand over my mouth and closed my eyes. “Is there ever going to be an end to this?”
“Yes, when you start acting like the warrior I know you are.”
My temper flared. “I’m an English professor, not a warrior. I have a pen, not a sword.”
“That’s what you do, not what you are.” Micah touched me under my chin. “You can try hiding your true nature under those two-piece pantsuits and prim little blouses and skirts, but I’ve seen the real Gracie Meadows. I’ve seen the warrior. And I’ll see her again. Then Harry Spice had better watch his ass.”
I puffed up like an enraged cat. “What are you talking about?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Harry Spice doesn’t want to fight the little English professor slash bookkeeper. She’s no fun. He’s trying to destroy her so that he can get to the real Gracie Meadows, the warrior.” Micah leaned toward me, his elbows on his knees. “I’m waiting to see her too.”
My stare became flinty. “What are you talking about?”
“Caleb called you the most fascinating woman he’d ever met. He told me how you, at the tender age of twenty, managed to talk your parents into expanding your winery’s operation into doing canned wines. He said that canned wine has made your winery into one of the most profitable in Napa.”
“Millennials like us like the single serving cans and the wine keeps well because the light can’t get to it,” I said immediately. Wine was my comfort zone. “There’s a significant savings in the packaging.”
“Some wine snobs say it affects the experience of drinking the wine.”
“Not if it’s poured into a glass just like with bottled wine.”
Micah gave me a slight smirk. “And then you bought up the four neighboring vineyards.”
“Faith wanted those varieties of grapes. No one can blend a wine like she and Dad.”
“Then you had the old tasting room torn down and another much more lavish one with a restaurant-style kitchen built so your customers could have a full food and wine pairing experience.”
“People like vineyards for weddings. And visitors enjoyed having a five-course tasting menu with the sparkling and varietal wines.”
“You mechanized with a grape harvester and leaf pulling machine to cut the labor force.”
“Napa and Sonoma have really high living costs. Some of the workers had to commute ninety miles each way. Some were sleeping in their cars. The labor costs were climbing with no end in sight. Some wineries pulled out their zinfandel vines because they can’t be picked by machine and are too labor intensive.”
“Caleb called you a budding wine mogul.”
“Caleb exaggerated,” I said because the part of me that was about wine seemed so far away.
“Caleb said that you could reel off facts and figures with the best of accountants. He said that you approved every blueprint and design aspect of the canning plant, the tasting room, and the grounds. Nothing escaped your notice. No detail was too small or arcane. And you were twenty years old.”
I squared my shoulders defensively. “The winery is my family’s business, our livelihood. I couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.”
“And you did all that while attending college full time.”
I waited for the question that would be in all of this.
“Caleb couldn’t figure out how a smart little thing like you, who never failed to see a misprint in a wine label or the delivery of the wrong restroom tile, would misidentify Harry Spice walking down the hallway of her apartment building.”
“Because I didn’t,” I replied, growing cool.
“That’s the entire reason Caleb asked me to do a thorough background check on you.”
I became icy. “He was looking for my weak spots. Like Harry Spice.”
Micah shook his head. “No, Caleb already knew your weak spot was the winery. What surprised him was how the daughter who cared so much suddenly walked away.”
My stomach felt fluttery. This wa
s leading somewhere scary. “Is caring a sin?”
“Lying is.”
“Is there a point to all this?” I snapped.
Micah’s stare became flinty. “You left California. You turned your back on everything you worked for and cared about. It tore your heart out, yet you did it. You were willing to stand up against Harry Spice at the rape trial, but ever since, you have been lying down and letting him take bite after bite out of you without fighting back. I had to ask myself why the smart, capable daughter dropped her weapons and left the battlefield. This is another of my twenty questions. What did Harry Spice do to you to keep you from fighting back?”
I began to quake. A long minute passed. I put my hands over my face before I could summon the strength to answer. My cold fingers curled into my palms. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find enough breath to push words past my lips.
“Start at the beginning,” Micah prompted gently. “Why did you walk away from the winery?”
My entire body trembled. “About a month after I broke up with Leonardo, I was at my computer in the winery office when a message flashed on the screen in white letters on a red background. It said, I am everywhere. It only lasted for a couple seconds, so short a time it was easy to convince myself I’d imagined it. Harry Spice was supposed to be in prison then and nowhere near a computer. Then I was in the warehouse using a touchscreen when it happened again. This time the message was, Get out, you dumb bitch.”
“Why didn’t you tell your parents or call the police?”
“It was like what happened with Lucie Eagan, a message that vanished within a couple of seconds and no one’s eyes had seen it but mine. I had no proof they ever existed, so what would I have said to the police? And I was afraid. Harry Spice could use the system his company designed to destroy every tablespoon of my family’s wine. My family’s legacy would have been shredded. I couldn’t be responsible for that. My family had suffered enough.”
“Did you hire another programmer to find a way to keep out Harry Spice?”
“I tried that, and somehow Harry Spice knew it. I got another red screen. It said, Stop unless you want to be the raisin queen of the Napa Valley.”
“So you left the winery because the alternative was too scary.”
I shuddered and hugged myself. “A friend invited me to go to Wisconsin with her to learn about ice wine. Mom and Dad didn’t exactly seem sorry to have me gone, so I stayed away until I moved into Gary’s place.”
“Was it healing for you, being away like that?”
“No. Distance and time don’t heal wounds. They only make them easier to live with.”
Micah pulled me into his arms. I leaned my face against his chest. His embrace felt warm, solid, and safe. I wanted his touch badly, but now that I was living in his home, it scared me. How long would it be before Micah seduced me into his bed? How long had I wanted to be there? How many times had I gone to sleep thinking of him, wishing and wanting to be with him at night, just the two of us? Now that wish had come true, though not under the circumstances that I would have liked. When Micah pulled away from me, I fought the urge to draw him back.
“Time for bed,” he said in a voice smoother than fine wine. “In the morning, I have a little surprise for you.”
“Okay.” My voice was hoarse. Why didn’t he have a surprise for tonight?
*
Micah was already up when I went downstairs after a restless night. He sat at the kitchen table in a tee shirt and lounging pants with his tablet computer and a mug of coffee. His wet hair showed the tracks of a comb and he smelled of spicy aftershave. The air was heavy and sweet with the pungent scent of dark roast coffee and cinnamon toast.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
“Eventually, once I finally fell asleep.” Crazy thoughts of all sorts had plagued my dreams. Mom had always told me that worry was wasted, but that hadn’t stopped me from agonizing all night long. I put sugar and half and half in my coffee. “How about you?”
He turned off the e-reader. “I slept just fine.”
I sat down at the island. “What’s this surprise you have for me?”
“We’re going to Vallejo. Traffic is going to be brutal between the Bay Bridge and Pinole. We’ll need to leave in half an hour or the freeway will look like a parking lot.”
I frowned slightly. “What’s in Vallejo?”
“Smudge.”
“Smudge? Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?”
“Hardly anyone knows who Smudge is. Caleb introduced us. Smudge is a gray-hat hacker who’s neither on the side of the angels nor the devils. He’s almost a complete hermit. He lives his life online because he trusts almost no one. If anyone can get around Harry Spice, Smudge can.”
I tingled, feeling hopeful for the first time in months. “Why would he help me?”
“He’s strangely loyal to Caleb. Some years back a landlord tried to evict Smudge. After you’ve met him, you’ll see why. Anyhow, Smudge sought out Caleb because he handled criminal cases, and Smudge believed his landlord to be a criminal.”
“Was Caleb able to keep Smudge from being kicked out of his place?”
“Oh no. Caleb ensured it, but he got the landlord to pay his fee and the moving company’s. Smudge sat there the whole time and glared as the movers packed him up. He wouldn’t lift a finger to help and made sure his computer was the very last thing packed. The movers had to pry his hands from the keyboard. Caleb moved him into a fourth-floor apartment that has a view of San Pablo Bay and a very fast internet connection. He even got the old landlord to pay Smudge’s security deposit and the first month’s rent in the new place, which the man did happily to be rid of him.”
“And Smudge is expecting us?”
“We’ll be dropping in.”
“Let me get ready.”
Half an hour later, we left San Francisco in Micah’s car and drove east over the Bay Bridge. Micah drove down the wide freeway, weaving in and out of the streams of cars, chatting amiably as music filled the car. We turned off the highway into Vallejo and entered the oldest part of the city, a hilly area of buildings from the 1800s. Micah parked the car, put a messenger bag over his shoulder, and led me to a four-story brick building that had once been a tavern or dance hall. Micah opened a peeling white door to a staircase that led to the upper floors.
Inside the dark entry, the worn carpet stank of old dirt and stale beer. The risers on the steps creaked as we went up. The second-floor air smelled of cooked onions, dust, and ancient wood. Muted voices and game show tunes slipped into the hallways. On each floor we had to walk down the hallway to get to the next flight of stairs. People looked at us suspiciously as they passed. The air grew steadily warmer as we went higher and higher. When we finally reached the top floor, Micah stopped in front of a door at the end of the hall. He put his hands on my shoulders.
“Let me do all the talking.”
I bristled. “Excuse me?”
“Look, Smudge is not your ordinary person. You might inadvertently annoy him. So please don’t speak.”
“Maybe I should keep my eyes downcast and my hands folded primly in front of me. Shall I walk four paces behind you?”
“If it makes you feel better.” Micah knocked twice and waited a few moments before tapping out four more distinct knocks. Nothing happened. Micah appeared to be counting. He knocked again with five sharp raps.
The door opened a few inches, and after a moment, all the way. Micah and I stepped into the dim interior. As soon as the door shut behind me, the smell of rotting food and unwashed clothes struck me like a blow. Smudge, a small, doughy man who appeared to be about my age, sat down in his office chair and laid a baleful glare on us. The malevolent fury in his eyes made me glad to have Micah with me. If this was a warm welcome, I couldn’t imagine this man’s idea of hostile.
“Micah Ekstrand, pretty boy professor, what do you want?”
Smudge didn’t bother asking us to sit down. The only seat ava
ilable was the one he occupied. There were no couches or chairs, only folding tables full of blinking equipment and computers, some of which appeared to be in pieces. Four full garbage bags hunched neglected in a corner. The counters in the tiny kitchen were cluttered with fast food wrappers, empty tin cans, and pizza boxes. I could see an unmade bed outfitted with graying sheets. Dirty clothes kept company with fluffy puffballs of dust. From where we stood, I could smell the bathroom. Only politeness kept me from pulling the front of my shirt up over my face.
Smudge folded his flabby arms over his rounded belly. He wore red basketball shorts and a wife-beater tee shirt that had once been white but now had a brown and spattered front. A long blond braid lay over one hairy shoulder. His little eyes darted back and forth between Micah and me, and he reached up to rub his incongruously clean-shaven chin. Unbidden, Micah went to open a window.
“I need your help,” Micah said.
“Show me the money,” Smudge replied, his voice rough as if from disuse.
Micah pulled an envelope from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it over. The clean air from the bay flowed into the room, swirling around and raising the stink. I swallowed hard and was glad that I hadn’t eaten a big breakfast. Smudge showed no emotion as he counted one thousand dollars in cash. He set the money aside.
“What do you got in your purse?” he asked with some scorn.
Micah opened his messenger bag and pulled out my and his laptops. He held them out, but Smudge wouldn’t take them.
“We need these made secure,” Micah said.