Blood Vines

by Erica Spindler

  Nothing she’d done since meeting him indicated otherwise.

  Reed’s stomach growled loudly. Saved, she thought, and tipped her face up to his. “Your pizza,” she said. “I forgot all about it.”

  “Me, too.” His stomach grumbled again.

  “Liar.” She eased out from under the blanket. “I’ll reheat it.”

  “Don’t bother.” He caught her hand. “You ready to talk about it?”

  “Can I have a little more time?”

  He smiled lazily up at her. “They’re your secrets. Take all the time you need.”

  A short while later, they sat on the floor eating the cold pizza and sipping on the warm beer. She’d slipped into his shirt; him his jeans.

  “Good pizza,” she murmured, reaching for a second slice.

  “The best.” He popped open another brew. “I had an interesting day. Max Cragan’s house burned down.”

  “What?”

  “Somebody torched it.”

  Flames. Surrounding her. The tentacles reaching for her, licking at her flesh.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She blinked. It crossed her mind that she was glad they had been together. “Nothing. It’s just so… shocking.”

  He frowned. “And that’s it?”

  “Yes… who would do that? It’s so cruel.”

  “Cruel,” he repeated. “That’s an odd way to think about it.”

  Alex looked at him. “Because of Angie. She must be devastated. Losing all those… memories.”

  “She was.” He fell silent a moment. “I spoke with Cragan’s primary care physician today. He couldn’t completely rule out Max being strong enough to hang himself that way, but doubted it.”

  “He was murdered,” she said softly. “And his home burned down. My God.”

  “The Coroner established Cragan’s time of death as between eight thirty and ten thirty P.M. You spoke with him during that time.”

  “Yes. He called me around nine. I showed you my cell’s call register.”

  “That you did.” He watched steadily. “Where were you that night, Alex?”

  “Home. I told you that.”

  “Alone?”

  She flushed. “Yes, alone. All night.”

  “No calls other than Cragan’s? No visitors?” She shook her head. “Didn’t run an errand?”

  “No.” She frowned. “I’m confused. Why is this important?”

  “You may have been the last one to speak to Max.”

  “Not the last. He hung up with me to go to the door. I heard the bell ring.”

  “So you say.”

  She made a sound of disbelief. “I showed you my call log. I told you what happened. We made an appointment to speak the next morning. He said someone was at his door and hung up. He thought it was Angie.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “It could have been anyone.”

  “Yes,” he said softly, “it could have.”

  She realized what he was saying and stiffened. “Why would I hurt Max? I hardly knew him!”

  “I didn’t say you did, Alex. Just doing my job.”

  “Were you just doing your job a half hour ago? When you were fucking me?” She scrambled to her feet, bringing the blanket with her. She stripped off his shirt and threw it at him. “Get out.”

  “Alex-”

  “I felt safe with you. Until now.”

  “Don’t you see, you’re at the center of it all? Everything that’s happened leads back to you.”

  “Not everything. In case you’ve already forgotten, I had an alibi for last night. I was in bed with you. Helping you do your job.”

  “Alex, you could be in-”

  “Get out,” she said again. “Whatever was going on between us is over, Detective.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Saturday, March 13

  8:00 A.M.

  Alex had slept little. She’d tossed and turned, tormented by the events of the previous day-and each day since she had arrived in Sonoma.

  And she couldn’t let go of the way Reed had hurt her. She had been on the verge of laying herself bare to him.

  As the dark hours ticked past one thing had become brutally clear: she was on her own.

  But she wasn’t about to run and hide, the way her mother had. She would face this head-on.

  Something terrifying had happened to her, something fighting to be remembered. Dylan had been abducted and most likely murdered. Also murdered, a man with a tattooed image of vines and a snake on the bottom of his foot. Now, Max Cragan was dead. His home burned to the ground.

  Why kill Max? Why burn his home to the ground? Each time Alex wondered, she became more certain of the answer: the record of Max’s design creations. And who had commissioned them.

  The secrets of the vines and snake.

  She was part of those secrets. At the center of everything that was happening. Just as Reed had said. All her life, her dreams had been nudging her, reminding her she had a brother whom she had loved. And lost.

  Tim had called it avoidant coping. Memory loss that occurred after a traumatic, life-threatening event. An event so terrible or terrifying, the brain worked to hide it.

  But the memory was still there, fighting to get out.

  It’d come close twice. Both times, in a wine cave.

  Whatever happened to her had happened in that cave.

  Alex meant to find out what. The Sommer Winery began tours at 9:00 A.M. and she intended to be in the first group.

  At 8:50 A.M., Alex parked her Prius in the winery lot. She saw that a number of other groups had already arrived. A good thing. She’d hoped to be able to blend in. She flipped down her visor to get a last look at herself in the mirror. She wore a baseball cap and dark glasses. She had pulled her hair into a ponytail that stuck out the back of the cap.

  She didn’t want the tour guide, if it happened to be the same one as the other day, to immediately recognize her.

  And she certainly didn’t want to run into Clark, or any of the other Sommers. To facilitate that, she meant to stay as far away from the tasting room as possible.

  Alex bought her ticket and waited in the museum, this time only pretending to study the photographs. When the guide arrived, she was grateful to see it was a different woman.

  “Come on then,” the guide said, “let’s begin at the beginning, with the grapes.”

  Alex followed the group, hanging back, pretending rapt attention as the woman described the collection and sorting procedure. Instead, what rang in her head was the rapidly increasing beat of her heart. The sound of her own shallow breathing. She wiped her damp palms against the sides of her thighs, acknowledging her anxiety. Determined to roll with it.

  You have to do this, Alexandra. It’s only a memory. It can’t hurt you.

  “The highest concentration of flavor is in the skins,” the guide was saying. “And this is a major way the fermentation of red and white wines is different. For reds, the skins remain with the juice. Not so for whites.”

  They stopped before the row of stainless steel fermenting tanks. “Here at Sommer we make two very good whites, a chardonnay and a pinot grigio, but our big, full-bodied reds are what we’re known for.”

  She explained about punching down and the dangers involved; this time, however, Alex kept her mouth shut. The guide also explained that the wine was drained from the top to avoid dirt at the bottom of the tank, and that the spigot and hatch door at the bottom provided a way for the winemaker to check the wine’s progress, and once the wine had been drained, for the tank to be cleaned.

  She pointed to their left to a row of four much smaller tanks. “Those are used for some of our small production, reserve wines. We call those our tankquitoes.”

  That earned some laughs and a couple hurried across to take a picture. The woman posed by the tanks. “Oh, my gosh, this one’s leaking.”

  “Those tanks are empty right now,” the guide said. “Now for the highlight-”

  “No, she’
s right,” her companion agreed, “it’s open and leaking.”

  The group stopped and turned. The guide headed that way. “It might just have been cleaned,” she offered, “so what you’re seeing is probably-”

  She bit the rest back.

  Alex frowned. The hatch was cracked open and something was dripping from the edge and had formed a small dark puddle on the floor below.

  The guide reached the tank. “Cleaning solution, I’m certain.” She grasped the door handle and pulled. It opened. A tiny fist popped out, followed by an arm. The crown of a head, covered in baby fine wisps.

  A child. An infant.

  Not cleaning solution. Blood.

  For one second the silence was complete. Then several screams rent the air. The guide stumbled backward, drawing back her hand, covered in blood.

  Chaos ensued. Alex stood as if frozen, unable to drag her eyes away from the gruesome sight, the sounds of hysteria swelling around her.

  “Someone get one of the family!”

  “Call 911! For God’s sake, someone call-”

  “No, wait! It’s a-”

  Alex sank to her knees, struggling to breathe. It was so awful. She curved her arms around her middle, rocking. She heard Treven arrive, out of breath from running.

  “Oh, dear Jesus!”

  Then Rachel. “My God! Has anyone called 911-”

  “Sheriff’s on the way. Ambulance, too!”

  Clark, Alex recognized, gaze fixed on that tiny fist. So small and helpless. Like Dylan. Small and helpless. Innocent.

  “You will not fall apart,” Treven ordered, though whether to Rachel, Clark or someone else under his command was unclear.

  “Clark, close the winery for the rest of the day. At least. No more tours. Get these people into the tasting room. Give them whatever it takes to calm them down.”

  “What if they want to go?”

  “Absolutely not. I’m certain the police will want to talk to them. We need to manage this situation.”

  “Call Danny Reed. Let him know what happened. I want the best and I want a friend.”

  “Rachel, I do not want my brother down here. Do whatever it takes to keep him away.”

  “I agree. He’s been through enough-My God. Alex? Is that you?”

  “What’s she doing here?” Clark asked.

  Rachel responded by telling him just what she’d like him to do, then squatted beside Alex, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Alex? Honey, it’s me, Rachel.”

  With what seemed like monumental effort, Alex dragged her gaze from the tiny fist. She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it when nothing came out.

  Rachel frowned. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”

  She nodded and Rachel helped her to her feet. “Come on, let’s go to my office.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Saturday, March 13

  10:50 A.M.

  Not a child. Not a gruesome murder.

  A sick joke.

  Reed had recognized the fake almost immediately. Almost, save for one agonizing second as his heart clutched in his chest. He glanced sideways, at Tanner. “Looks like the same kind of doll.”

  She nodded and fitted on gloves. “No doubt the same twisted jokester.”

  She tapped the red puddle, then rubbed the liquid between her fingers. “Same as last time.”

  He followed suit, then held it to his nose. It had a decidedly sweet smell. He looked over his shoulder at Treven, Clark and Rachel. “Somebody’s playing a trick on you. A really sick one.”

  Treven frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “This is a doll, the blood is fake.”

  “An Ashton Drake doll,” Tanner explained. “Very expensive. A collectible known for being lifelike, if you’ll pardon the word choice.”

  The trio looked stunned. “But why?” Rachel said. “Why would someone do this?”

  Treven stepped in. “Real child or not, now I’ve got a public relations nightmare on my hands. The last thing I want the Sommer label associated with is dead babies.”

  Dead babies. Two of them. First Dylan. Now this.

  Reed felt Tanner’s gaze and knew she had made the same connection.

  “Let’s focus on the good news, Uncle Treven,” Rachel said, an edge in her voice. “Five minutes ago we thought someone had murdered a child and stuffed the body in one of our fermenting tanks. Now we simply have a public relations nightmare.”

  “It is pretty cold, Dad,” Clark agreed. “You don’t always have to be such a son of a bitch.”

  Tanner cleared her throat, Reed suspected, to hide a chuckle. For himself, he bit back a sound of surprise at Clark’s uncharacteristic show of spine.

  Treven flushed. “I have a business to run, Son. A bottom line to watch. If you plan to fill my shoes someday, you’d better toughen up.”

  Reed stepped in before Clark had a chance to respond. “We’ve seen this before, a couple weeks ago. A doll like this one was left mutilated and strung up in the Hilldale vineyard.”

  “This is the first I heard of it,” Treven said. He looked at Clark, who shook his head, then at Rachel.

  “I heard about it,” she said. “Only because I’m friends with Betsy Dale.”

  Treven nodded, looking pleased. “That’s good news. We’ll work to keep this under the radar as well. Dan, can you help us out here? Can we keep it out of the papers?”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem.” He glanced at Tanner for confirmation.

  “Okay with me,” she said to Treven. “You’re the victim.”

  Something crossed his expression that left Reed feeling as if Treven Sommer hadn’t appreciated that label.

  “Who found it?” Reed asked.

  “A couple from Illinois. They were taking a picture by the tanks.”

  He glanced at Tanner. “We question them first. Somebody goes to this much trouble and expense, they don’t leave their work being discovered to chance.”

  Tanner agreed. “One of the deputies is gathering the names of everyone on the tour.”

  Treven looked at his watch, expression irritated. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a dozen visitors I have to reassure and appease. Clark, Rachel, I could use your help.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Rachel said, the edge in her voice once again. “I need a minute.”

  Reed watched the father and son go, then turned back to Rachel. “Treven didn’t seem too happy about your show of independence.”

  “He’s an asshole.”

  Reed felt Tanner’s surprise at Rachel’s blunt expression. He admitted surprise himself. “You can speak freely around me, Rachel. Don’t hold back.”

  “Sorry. That wasn’t very professional.” She let out a frustrated-sounding breath. “Grandpa had other ideas for the winery and Uncle Treven only got where he is because-” She bit the words back. “Maybe he should think of that the next time he decides to go all King of the World on us.”

  She jammed her hands into her pockets. “Look, I just wanted to let you know, Alex is in my office. She’s pretty shook up.”

  At his obvious surprise, she added, “She was on the tour this morning. I’ll be in the tasting room if you need me. Helping soothe those ruffled feathers.”

  Reed watched her walk away, then turned to Tanner. He found her watching him, eyes narrowed, expression speculative. “Interesting,” she murmured. “The lovely Ms. Clarkson is in the thick of it again.”

  Reed collected his thoughts as he made his way to the administrative building and Rachel’s office. Alex had been on the first tour of the morning. He found that odd. The obvious reason to take such a tour-to learn about the process and see the property-didn’t wash. She could have asked Rachel, or several other family members, for a private tour.

  But no, she’d bought a ticket to a group tour. The first of the day. A tour that turned out to be anything but routine.

  “The lovely Ms. Clarkson is in the thick of it again.”

  Reed wished he could argue with the subtext of
that comment, but couldn’t. He’d said the same thing-to Alex herself-just last night.

  The admin building was nearly deserted. All hands were no doubt in the tasting room doing damage control. He made his way to Rachel’s office. The door was partially open; through the opening he saw Alex sitting slumped in a chair in front of Rachel’s desk.

  He tapped on the door. She wasn’t alone, he saw. Krista, Rachel’s assistant, was with her.

  “Reed!” Alex cried, leaping to her feet and running to him. “Thank God!”

  She threw her arms around him and held him tightly. “It was so horrible. That poor child… first Dylan, now-”

  “It’s all right, Alex.” He awkwardly put his arms around her. “It was a sick joke.”

  She lifted her gaze to his. “I don’t understand.”

  “It was a doll, Alex.”

  “But I saw”-her voice wobbled-“everyone did. It was so-”

  “Real?” She nodded, throat working. “It’s a very expensive type of doll known for its realism.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “Thank God… I was so, I couldn’t stop thinking about what-”

  As if suddenly remembering the night before, she stiffened and stepped away from him. She folded her arms across her chest. “Who would do something like this?”

  He looked at Rachel’s assistant. “Krista, could we have a few minutes?”

  She left them alone and Reed motioned to the chair. “Sit down, Alex.” When she had, he went on. “This has happened before. Once. Not that long ago.”

  She furrowed her brow.

  “Same kind of doll. Also mutilated. But strung up in a vineyard.”

  “Crucifixion style.”

  He paused, frowning. “How did you know?”

  She blinked. “I don’t know. I just guessed.”

  “What were you doing here today?”

  “Taking the tour, like everybody else.”

  “But you’re not like everyone else on the tour. You have connections with the family. If you’d asked, any of them would have given you a private tour.”

  “I didn’t want to bother anybody. It seemed so much simpler to just buy a ticket.”