Wine Astray: Spirit of the Soul Wine Shop Mystery (A Rysen Morris Mystery Book 1)

by K. J. Emrick

  "Oh really?" she snapped, feeling like he was examining her, or something. She didn't know if she should be flattered or punch him in his cute nose. "Tell me then, Mister Security Guy, if Christina is getting what she paid for then where is her shipment?"

  He shrugged. "Not here."

  Rysen waited for more but he just stood there, arms crossed, not speaking. "Really? Not here? That's the best your security expertise can tell us?"

  "Too right. For now, at least. Nothing happened on this end. The wine she had last night, she still has today. That's thanks to me." There wasn't a hint of humility in those words and Rysen felt irrationally annoyed at his smugness. "I installed a new alarm system for her. Security cameras, too. Plus I slept on the floor back there."

  "How nice," Rysen quipped. "You've moved in."

  "All part of the package."

  "I don't care about your package," Rysen told him. He grinned as she said it, and it suddenly dawned on her what she'd said. She felt the heat flooding into her face and swallowed hard. "You…know what I mean. How much is my sister paying you to sleep on her floor?"

  He tapped a finger against the side of his nose. "That's betwixt me and her, Miss Rysen. She's paid me fair. Of course, she's paying in installments. I know when honest people need time to pay for my services. We'll work out future payment…well, in the future."

  "Oh." Rysen didn't know what to say to that. This guy wasn't ripping her sister off, and he actually did sound like he knew what he was doing. She'd been starting to worry that this was just some jack of all trades making a quick buck off someone else's problems. Maybe she'd pegged him wrong.

  "Ask you a question?" he said to her, pushing away from the counter and walking over to her.

  "Uh, sure."

  “Just how often do her shipments not come in?” He sounded genuinely interested to know. Maybe it was just part of his job, she thought.

  "She told me she's lost one a month. This would make three." Rysen took a moment to remember everything her sister had told her. Brandon was close enough now that she could smell his cologne, a musky, spiced scent. "She's been working off the stock she already had, but give it a few weeks and she'll have to close down. She can't keep paying for stock that never arrives."

  "And she's gone to the police?" It wasn't so much a question as a fact, and Rysen could see wheels turning in his mind behind those gorgeous eyes.

  "Yes, she's gone to the police." Rysen took a few steps away, trying to make it look like she had to tidy up the small selection of wine on a shelf. Really, she just needed a little space from Brandon. This close to him, her mind and body were starting to react to his presence, his scent, his warm voice. Damn it, she told herself, get it together. He's working for Christina. He's not some stranger you're going to ask out on a date.

  That idea blossomed into an image that made her bite her lip and shuffle the bottles of wine again. Stop it, she told herself again. You don't even know him.

  "The police were no help," she said, to keep the conversation moving forward. "Christina complained to the shipping company too, with the same results. She's out of options. We were hoping a security consultant would be able to do something."

  He was about to say something, and his hand reached out for hers—when had he gotten so close to her again?—and Rysen felt a little breath escape her parted lips.

  Which was when Christina came back into the room from the office. She was so upset that she shoved the door open as hard as she could and made it bang against the wall.

  “Well, they say there’s nothing that they can do, but I got them to promise to send me a partial shipment tomorrow. At an additional cost," Christina grumbled. She stopped short of Rysen and Brandon, blinking, her eyes narrowing for just a moment before she went back to her grumbling.

  Rysen wondered what her sister was thinking, seeing her and Brandon standing here like this…

  Oh. Of course. She really wished she didn't blush so easily. Turning her face away, she stepped around the set of chest-high shelves, putting them between her and Brandon.

  "I’ll be down in the cellar," Christina finally said, "counting what's left of our inventory."

  Rysen wished she could do something to help her sister. She heard Christina stomping down the stairs to the cellar, muttering to herself the whole time. There had to be some way to keep the shipments coming. But what?

  "I know that look, I know what you’re thinking," Brandon said to her. Her eyebrows shot up. How on earth would he know what she was thinking by the look on her face? "You’re determined to help your sister?"

  It was surprising to hear her own thoughts echoing in his question, like he could actually read her mind. No guy should be able to do that. "Yes," she told him anyway. "I won't let my sister down. I owe her too much."

  "Is that the only reason?" he asked her, cocking his head to the side.

  "I…I don't know what you mean."

  He smiled with a little shake of his head. "Don't worry about it. I think I might know how to help Christina. You trust me?"

  Rysen felt herself drawn toward him in spite of herself, leaning over the shelves, locking eyes with him and not caring if Christina or anyone else saw. "I don't even know you."

  "So ask me something.”

  "Like what?"

  He spread his hands wide. "Like anything."

  Was he for real? "Okay, fine. Where are you from?"

  "You mean because of the accent?"

  Rysen nodded.

  "Yeah, a lot of people ask me that. I'm from New York City originally." When she stared at him incredulously he laughed. "By way of Sydney, Australia, of course. See? Now you know something about me."

  "That isn't much," she pointed out.

  "Don't have to know someone for long," he said in a low, intimate voice, "to know what kind of person they are. Take you for instance. I've known you for all of ten minutes, and I already know you're one I can trust."

  Oh, dear God, this man was pushing all the right buttons. Did she trust him? Rysen didn't know the answer to that one, but she did know one thing for certain.

  As crazy as it sounded to herself she was starting to fall in love with Brandon.

  ***

  Christina was down in the dumps for the rest of the day. Nothing that Rysen did would cheer her up. Not that she blamed her sister at all. Even Chunky Monkey ice cream couldn’t fix what was wrong. And Chunky Monkey fixed everything. The more that she saw her sister mope around the house, the more Rysen’s resolve hardened. She just hoped Brandon's plan would work.

  After she got her sister to bed, she felt exhausted. What she needed was a good soak in a tub and a glass of wine and a foot rub…

  Well. Nobody to join her in the tub and rub her feet tonight. She'd have to settle for borrowing the master bathroom next to her sister's room and a glass of wine from downstairs.

  Wine! Oh, man she'd forgotten all about Beatrice and the wine she'd ordered from the shop. With the shipment gone, they didn't have what they needed to fill the wedding order they had agreed to. Had Christina already called and explained the situation? Probably not. Not with the funk she'd been in all day. Rysen would have to do it. At least she could take that small task off her sister's shoulders.

  Sitting at the kitchen table, she dialed Beatrice's number and waited, her sock feet up on a chair. The clock on the wall said it was nearly midnight. Kind of late to make a call. Even so she got an answer on the fourth ring.

  "Hello?"

  Rysen couldn't say anything back. The voice wasn't Beatrice's. It was Josh's.

  "Hello?" he said again. "Who is this?"

  "Uh, hi Josh." Why did it have to be him? "I was hoping to talk to Beatrice. About wine. The wine she ordered, I mean. You know? Um. Is she there?"

  She heard how badly she was babbling and hated herself for doing it.

  "Beatrice is asleep," he told her. "Upstairs. Can I give her a message?"

  Rysen rolled her eyes and called herself every kind of s
tupid. Of course they lived together. "Sure. Tell her we might not be able to get the wine she ordered on time. There's been a…well, an issue. I'll have Christina call her tomorrow."

  "That's too bad," he said. "Is everything all right?"

  No, she almost blurted out. My sister's shop is going under and I lost my job and you're living with my best friend from childhood when I should have just stayed in this damned town and gotten married to you and had your babies.

  Probably not the thing to say, she decided.

  "Everything's fine," she lied. "Christina can explain it better."

  "All right. Well, goodnight."

  She was about to say goodbye and end the call when he added, "It was good seeing you again, Ry. I didn't realize I missed you until you walked into the flower shop."

  Then he hung up before she could form a coherent thought.

  Rysen tossed her phone on the table and went right up to bed. She just wasn't in the mood for a bath anymore. Or wine.

  Not without someone to share them with.

  ***

  Brandon had seen the number of the shipping company's truck at the top of the invoice Christina had at the shop. When she met up with him at six in the morning the next day, he was wearing a smile as big as a cat who had just swallowed a canary.

  He was wearing a very tight-fitting v-neck shirt, too, but she tried not to notice it.

  She had tossed and turned all night, barely getting a few hours of sleep before her alarm had gone off at five-thirty. If she hadn't had to stay up so late comforting Christina it might have gone differently. Then again, maybe it wouldn't have. Part of the reason she couldn't get to sleep had been a dream about Josh and her back in school, sneaking into an empty classroom to flirt and touch and kiss, like they used to do. Only, when she'd opened her eyes in the dream after a passionate moment that had made her heart race, the face she saw hadn't been Josh's. In the dream, it had been Brandon.

  She didn't need help understanding where that had come from.

  Yawning, dressed in the first shirt and pair of jeans she'd found in her dresser drawers, she stopped in front of her sister's shop and waited for Brandon to come out to her. She'd insisted on driving them on this little mission. He might be the smart-guy security expert, but it was her sister in trouble here.

  And maybe it was crazy to try and follow her sister's next shipment on its route, but if the police and the shipping company weren't going to help them, then Rysen was going to do it herself.

  Well. With Brandon's help, of course.

  "I got the information we need," he told her. "Took that shipping information and worked a few of my contacts. I've got the route, and the number of stops, and such. Even got the driver's name."

  "Good for you," she said brusquely.

  He eyed her with mild surprise on his face. "What's with you? I thought you'd be all happy like to hear that."

  "Look…" She trailed off. What was she going to say? Stop haunting my dreams, you big strong mysterious man? "Just never mind. Tell me where I'm going."

  Chapter 5

  Rysen followed Brandon's directions for twenty minutes, up toward Modesto, well out of Cambria, until they pulled off the highway at an exit that led them to a maze of surface streets. Brandon consulted a list of notes he'd brought with him and then pointed her down a series of turns that brought her to a massive factory with tall smokestacks and at least three long warehouses. Rows of white trucks were lined up out front in the light of dawn. Even at this early hour men in white shirted uniforms scurried about.

  Rysen had seen a WalMart distribution center once. This was just about the same size of that. She let out a low whistle as she slowed the car to a stop on the side of the street opposite the parked big rigs, on the other side of a chain-link fence that surrounded the property.

  "Too right," Brandon said. "One of the biggest wine distributors in Southern California. Has an honest reputation from everything I've learned. Trouble is, they're big enough that if they lose a few shipments now and then they don't care. Your sister's shop losing a few crates of wine is nothing to them."

  "Well it's everything to us. So what's our move?"

  He smiled at her with his eyes. "Listen to you. Sound just like a real detective."

  "Isn't that your job?"

  "No. I'm no detective, Miss Rysen. I'm a security consultant. I teach people how to keep their homes or businesses or goodies safe from theft. I advise, and I help set up alarm systems and such, and then I leave. I don't get involved."

  "Oh, really? Because this seems like getting involved to me. You drove us all the way out here to tail a truck delivering wine to my sister's shop. Isn't that a little bit more service than you usually give your clients? What gives?"

  He tapped his fingers on the dash for a few seconds, staring out the windshield. "Maybe," he said, "I found something to interest me."

  Rysen tried to see his face but he kept himself turned away from her. Thoughts filled her mind, but before she could say anything he pointed at the factory. "There. Truck number forty-two-C. Driver's name is Franklin DeBoers. He's starting out on his run now."

  "Um. Okay. So what are we going to do?"

  “Stay far enough back so you can blend into traffic. Don't go too fast, don't go too slow—"

  "You sure you don't want to do this part?" Rysen wasn't a spy. This wasn't one of those movies where the plucky heroine took down the bad guys. She was just a girl from California trying to put her life back together.

  He reached over, putting his hand on her knee, and for a second she forgot to breathe. "Miss Rysen, you can do this. I trust you."

  When she blinked, the world started up again. His hand was warm on her leg where he touched her, and his eyes were that same deep color that drew her in every time he looked at her. "Okay, I'll try. On one condition."

  "Sure. What is it?"

  "Stop calling me Miss Rysen."

  "What should I call you?"

  "Rysen. Just Rysen."

  He leaned in closer, his voice a whisper. "Then Rysen it is."

  She was still leaning into him when he took his hand away. Oh, damn, she wished she could keep herself out of his orbit. He was just so…him.

  The truck they were going to follow pulled out of the gate behind two others, turning left up the road in the other direction. When he told her to, she pulled out in a wide U-turn and followed.

  Rysen stayed on the truck’s tail, doing just like Brandon said, speeding up and then slowing down, driving right past the truck when it made its first two stops to unload cargo, then waiting for the big rig to go by her again before taking up a position several cars back. It was kind of fun, actually. Exciting in a way.

  As the day went on, though, it got boring.

  "What if nothing happens?" she asked. "What if we follow him all day long and nothing happens."

  "Then your sister gets her wine shipment. Sounds like a win to me."

  "Sure, until the next time something goes missing." Suddenly she wasn't liking this plan anymore. There just wasn't any other choice.

  So she stayed with the truck for another hour until it turned off the highway they had been on and took a surface street for a while until it turned off again onto a paved road with no lane markings. There were trees everywhere she looked, and no houses, and definitely no businesses. "Brandon, where are we?"

  "I'm pretty sure," he said, craning his neck to look around, "that we're in the middle of nowhere."

  "Thanks a lot. So where's the truck going?"

  "I don't know. None of the deliveries he's scheduled to make today are anywhere near here."

  The truck started slowing down, pulling over to the side of the road in front of a black panel van. Rysen’s heart started to race. This was it. It had to be. Didn't it?

  "Is this what I think it is?" she asked, slowing down and stopping the car a ways back from the truck and the van.

  "Yes. Looks like. Independent drivers do this sometimes. They sell off merchan
dise from the back of the truck for some extra cash. If the company doesn't look too hard at where their shipments go they can get away with it for years and rake in quite a bit of cash."

  "But from the same shop three times in a row?"

  "I guess they figured your sister's shop is so small that no one would say anything." Brandon nodded, like it was all making sense. "I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out this same guy was doing this to other little shops, too."

  Rysen watched as a big man with bulging arms got out of the van and waited for the driver of the truck to come back to him. The two exchanged a handshake, and then they opened the doors at the back of the big rig.

  "What do we do now?" she asked Brandon.

  He drummed on the dash again. "We have two options. We can call the police and let them know what's happening, hope they get here in time, and let them make an arrest. Or, we can try to stop them ourselves."

  "What? How exactly would we stop them ourselves?"

  Reaching down to the right cuff of his jeans he took out a revolver and held it like a pro. "Sometimes you just have to give people the right incentive."

  She felt her eyes get wider. Guns? Now there were guns?

  "Do you trust me?" he asked her.

  The question took her off guard. Her feelings toward him had gone back and forth and she wasn't really sure where she'd landed yet. This wasn't for her, she reminded herself. This was for Christina.

  "I guess I'm going to have to trust you," she told him. "You're the one with the gun."

  His smile showed teeth. "Guns don't make you right. They just get people to listen to you. All right. Do this. Drive up to them slowly, like you're going to drive right by. Then stop right next to the van."

  Rysen nodded and put the car in gear.

  They watched as the driver of the big rig, a lanky man with stringy brown hair tucked into a baseball cap, climbed up into the back of the truck and carried a wooden crate marked "California Dry Red" back to the big burly guy from the van. They both eyed Rysen's car as it got closer. In the passenger seat, Brandon sat facing forward until they were right even with the van.