by Meg Benjamin
The boy’s expression shifted from panic to something closer to misery. “Kent,” he whispered.
“Kent what?”
He swallowed. “Kent Brosius.”
“Al and Carol’s son?”
Kent nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. His toe moved in the dirt and Erik saw the glint of an aluminum can. Well, hell.
“Want to tell me what was going on here?”
“We…” Kent’s eyes darted around the playground, looking hopelessly for rescue. “We were just hanging out.”
Erik reached down and picked up the can. “Who brought the beer? Was it you? From the restaurant?”
Kent shook his head so hard his hair went flying. “No sir, not me. My father would skin me alive.”
Al might still do that if Erik took the boy in. He paused, staring at the beer can in his hand. He had a sudden vision of himself at age fifteen, already sneering, bad to the bone, at least in his own imagination. Trying so hard to impress the worthless bunch of losers he hung out with, the friends his parents wished he’d give up. Jesus.
Kent stared down at his shoes, his hands fisted at his sides. “Do you have to tell my dad?” he whispered.
Erik regarded the top of the boy’s head. All in all, he’d rather be dealing with the bikers. “Okay, Kent, here’s what I’m going to do. You pick up all these cans.” He gestured toward the tangle of smashed cans lining the wire fence. “Get your friends to help you if they come back. Which they probably won’t since you’re the one who got caught. I’ll swing back here in a half hour. If the area is clean, your record stays clean too. If I find any cans left, I’ll have to talk to your dad.”
Kent gave him a mildly mutinous look. “These aren’t all ours.”
Erik shrugged. “Like I said, you’re the one who got caught. Take it or leave it.”
After a moment, the boy nodded stiffly. “I’ll do it.”
“Good.” Erik tossed him the beer can. “Better get started. The thirty minutes begins as soon as I’m in the cruiser. And Kent?”
The boy looked up at him, silently.
“You also need to keep out of trouble. Keep your nose clean for the rest of the summer, and nobody knows about this but us. But if I find you doing anything else, your dad will find out about everything after I take you in.”
Kent’s Adam’s apple bobbed again. “Yes sir.”
Erik blew out a breath and climbed back into the cruiser. With any luck, this would be the worst thing he’d have to deal with tonight.
Kit had another date with Nando Avrogado, so Morgan let her go early. Allie probably wouldn’t be pleased, but Morgan wasn’t a babysitter. And Kit definitely wasn’t a baby.
She ran the sweeper around the tasting room, then straightened the merchandise on the rough wood shelves along the walls. It looked like they were running low on peach salsa—she’d have to call the company in Austin, although “company” sounded a little highfalutin for a two-man operation. The flavored vinegars and olive oil dipping sauces were both doing well, although they came from California rather than Texas. Maybe she’d e-mail the Texas Olive Oil Council sometime in the next few weeks to see if anyone had products they wanted her to sell.
She stood in the middle of the tasting room, rubbing a hand across the back of her neck, trying to think of other things she needed to do before she called it a night. Erik might still drop by, and she’d like to be out here if he did rather than in her apartment watching the news with her feet up. It made her seem more in command somehow. Not that she was in command of much where Erik Toleffson was concerned.
She had no idea what kind of future they had together, or even if they had a future at all. Probably best not to think in those terms—keep focused on what she could control, like olive oil for the tasting room.
She’d been totally out of control last night, for one of the few times in her life. But Erik was that kind of man. Even if she was out of control, she knew he’d protect her.
Morgan sighed, gathering up the cord to the sweeper. Erik hadn’t exactly promised to drop by. He was probably on duty anyway, making sure the town had survived the biker rally. She shoved the sweeper back into the closet.
Skeeter and Fred boomeranged restlessly around the room. She wondered if they’d noticed Arthur was gone or if they just sensed something was different. Neither of them was big on different. She wasn’t that big on it herself. “C’mon, boys. Time for your last visit to the outside world before lockup.”
She opened the front door, letting the dogs scamper around her ankles. Frogs creaked in the twilight, adding a soprano note to the buzzing cicadas. Skeeter and Fred visited their favorite live oaks, sniffing at the roots as if they’d never seen the trees before.
Somewhere in the distance, Morgan heard the sound of a truck. “C’mon boys,” she called. “Time to wrap it up.”
Skeeter trotted toward her, but Fred moved to the next live oak trunk. “Fred, c’mon, enough.” Morgan began to herd him back toward the door.
The truck sounded closer now, although she wasn’t sure where it was. It sounded too far east to be on the highway. Oh lord, please don’t let it be a grape delivery.
She closed the door behind the dogs, then raised the curtain to peer down the road. Grapes would be coming on the highway. They didn’t have any deliveries scheduled, but sometimes the grapes showed up without a lot of advance notice. She heard the brief grinding sound as the truck downshifted. It almost seemed to be coming from the back of the winery, but no delivery would be coming down that hill after dark.
Morgan reached to the side of the door and switched on the yard lights, illuminating the patio and the area behind the winery where the deliveries came in.
The truck sounds stopped abruptly.
She peered out the back window, staring up the hill beside the Cynthiana vineyard. A dark shape was silhouetted toward the top. Maybe it was a truck. Morgan narrowed her eyes, trying to see beyond the brightness of the yard lights.
After a moment, she heard the sound of the truck motor once again. She peered at the shape on the hillside, but it seemed to have blended into the darkness. The truck sound faded slowly in the evening air, leaving only the crickets, the cicadas and the creaking frogs.
And some troubling questions. Why would a truck come down the steep hill beside the vineyard at night? Why would it turn back when the winery lights went on?
And was any of this worth calling Erik about?
After a moment, Morgan shook her head. She could imagine what he’d think if she called about something so feeble. God, Morgan, you are pathetic.
She turned the lights off again. But just before she headed for her apartment, she checked the locks one more time.
Chapter Twelve
Erik was having a heart attack. The pressure nearly suffocated him. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath. The heat was stifling, and the rumbling in his ears…
Rumbling? Since when did heart attacks rumble? He opened his eyes.
Two malicious amber orbs glared back. Arthur might be purring, but he clearly didn’t want Erik to think he was entirely happy about the situation.
“Okay,” Erik wheezed. “Off.”
Arthur ignored him, settling his hindquarters more firmly over Erik’s abdomen.
“Arthur,” Erik snarled through gritted teeth, “get off!”
Arthur pushed his front paws down against the sheet, letting the tips of his claws graze the top of Erik’s chest. A clear message, if he needed one, about who’d lose in any pitched battle.
He sighed. “What do you want, cat? Besides your missing fur, which I can’t give you.”
Arthur began to knead his upper chest, lightly, the points of his claws just enough to prickle. His rumbling purr seemed to resonate all the way to his heels.
He reached up to the back of the cat’s neck, scratching the side of his head absently.
Arthur closed his eyes, pushing his chin against his fingers. So the wildcat liked to
be petted. Who knew?
Slowly, Erik sat up. Arthur slid down to his lap, blinking. “Don’t even think about putting your claws there,” he snapped.
Arthur raised his amber gaze again.
Carefully, he slid out from under Arthur’s paws, then stood up. He tried to remember if he had any more cat food. Yes. Morgan had given him a couple of cans before she’d reluctantly driven off to Cedar Creek yesterday. Along with a cat box.
He’d have to empty the cat box. Jesus.
Arthur hit the ground beside his feet with a thud, then looked up with a throaty “Mwrorwr!”
Erik stumbled toward the kitchen, wondering exactly how he’d gotten himself into this. His mind conjured up a quick memory of Morgan’s silvery body lying beneath him. Oh, yeah—that was how.
An hour later he headed for the station, having locked a growling Arthur in the apartment. He’d probably have hell waiting for him when he got home, once Arthur figured out there was no escape.
Helen glanced up as he walked in. “Somebody waiting for you.”
“Who?” He thumbed through the pile of mail that had come in while he’d been patrolling over the weekend.
She shrugged. “TCEQ. Powell’s water samples.”
Erik tossed the mail back in the inbox and started for his office. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality probably didn’t like to be kept waiting.
A blonde in khakis was sitting in his metal visitor’s chair, glancing through a copy of Law Officer Magazine that likely dated back to Brody. She glanced up at him through wire-rimmed glasses and smiled. “Erik Toleffson, I presume. I’m Andy Wells.”
“Ms. Wells.” He shook her hand. “Thanks for coming all the way out here from Austin.”
“Call me Andy. No problem coming to Konigsburg. My grandma lives here. I try to get down to visit her every couple of weeks.”
Andy Wells had a nice smile and warm green eyes. As he sat at his desk, Erik wondered if he might have been interested if he’d met her when he worked for Olema. Probably. He didn’t want to think about why he wasn’t interested in her now except in a professional sense. “So what made Powell’s goats sick?”
She frowned, dropping the magazine back into the rack beside her chair. “We found a mixture of things in the sample. Chlordane, perchloroethylene and motor oil. Hard to say which one had the most effect. None of them would do the goats much good.”
“Motor oil?” He tried to remember if there had been any farm equipment around the tank. He didn’t think so.
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “A layer on top. That might have been what the goats swallowed when they drank the water.”
“What’s the other stuff—chlordane and perchlorowhatever?”
“Insecticide and dry-cleaning fluid.”
Erik narrowed his eyes. “How the hell would dry-cleaning fluid get into a stock tank?”
“How would any of it get into a stock tank?” She gave him a faint smile.
“Motor oil could be accidental—spilled from farm equipment.” He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. “Could insecticide be from runoff?”
She shook her head. “Not this stuff. It’s strictly for residential use—termites. And it’s been banned since the late eighties because of environmental problems. Some people still use it illegally, though. It’s nasty but it does the job.”
Erik felt that prickling along his spine he got whenever a particularly troublesome situation seemed to be looming. “So none of the stuff could have gotten there accidentally?”
“I’d say not. I suppose something like used motor oil could have been stored at the ranch, but you said the stock tank was up in the hills.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his neck again. “Way back.”
Wells sighed. “Sounds like dumping, then.”
“You mean somebody went up there and dumped all of this into Powell’s stock tank? Why the hell would they do that?” He rubbed harder.
She grinned. “No idea, Officer. I’m just a lowly environmental scientist, not a law enforcement type. We do see this kind of stuff occasionally, though.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Illegal dumping. All of those substances are supposed to be disposed of in particular ways—they’re potentially harmful to the environment, and they’re regulated. But you’ve always got people who try to get around the regulations.” Her smile dimmed slightly. “Usually, they dump it down the drain somewhere and we trace it back from the dump site.”
“But you wouldn’t be able to trace this.” He dropped his hand, slowly.
Her grin faded altogether. “Not if they dumped it back in the hills. My guess is you’ve got somebody using the stock tank as what my dad used to call a ‘target of opportunity’. If you can’t dump something into the sewer, dump it onto the ground.”
“Well, crap.” He stared down at the water report, not that the numbers meant much to him.
“Exactly.” Andy Wells dug around in her briefcase and pulled out her Blackberry. “Now I need the contact information for this Mr. Powell so I can get in touch with him.”
He blinked at her. “Get in touch with him? You don’t think Powell dumped stuff on his own land, do you?”
She shook her head. “No, but the thing is, he’s got a truckload of problems to take care of now—the tank will have to be cleaned out and he’ll have to dispose of the water somewhere. TCEQ will have to monitor it to make sure the situation doesn’t get worse. But we’ll also help him out.”
Erik closed his eyes. He could imagine what Powell would say when he heard about all of this. A day that began with a cat-induced heart attack didn’t show many signs of improving.
Mondays were the slowest days at Cedar Creek—few people felt like drinking wine on a Monday morning. Morgan had even suggested closing the tasting room on Mondays to give them a day to regroup, but Ciro had vetoed the suggestion. “If somebody hauls themselves up to the hills on a Monday, the least we can do is pour them some wine to celebrate,” he explained.
Nobody seemed to be celebrating this Monday, though. Kit wiped water spots off the glasses, while Morgan restocked the wine racks. Thanks to the bikers, they’d had a big weekend—over a hundred cases sold—which was good and bad. Good because they needed the money. Bad because now they were close to being out of sangiovese along with being altogether out of primitivo. They had a few cases of syrah and moscato, but not many. They were even running low on Morgan’s Blend.
Pretty soon they’d be down to their generic red and white, along with the sweet wine, Bluebonnet Sue, which sold well enough but weren’t the kinds of wine that would keep people coming back for more.
Ciro walked up behind her, juggling a case of syrah. “Tell Cliff he needs to do another release, Morg. I won’t go ahead with it until he agrees, but he needs to get on it now.”
She sighed. “I know. I’ll talk to him, Ciro. I promise.”
She glanced around the tasting room. Kit was wiping off the bar, lining up glasses where the sunlight caught them. She had faint blue shadows under her eyes, Morgan noted. Kit and Nando were probably up to something interesting in their spare time.
Not that she had time to think about anybody’s sex life right then, including her own.
She sighed again. She might as well stop putting it off. She had to talk to her father, and it would be better to do it in person than over the phone. She swung through the door to the storeroom and walked over to the unreleased bottles of primitivo and sangiovese that lined the back wall, ready to be labeled.
She tucked a couple of bottles into a gift box, then headed for the front door. “Okay, Kit, you’re on your own for the day. I’m going to Austin.”
Kit grinned, leaning back against the counter. “Great. A chance to work on my plans for world domination.”
Morgan grinned back. “Better you than me, toots.”
The drive to her parents’ house always took longer than she expected, but that was par for the course with Austin traffic. She thought
about the morning rush hour jams she’d struggled with when she’d worked in North Austin. She usually arrived at the office feeling harried and irritable and lucky to be alive, given the general lunacy around her.
For a moment, she pictured rush hour in Konigsburg when the tourists were in full swing. It was never as bad as this. And she could always duck into the Dew Drop with her friends.
Did she really miss Austin all that much? True, she was tired to death from working twelve- to fourteen-hour days. But in a weird way that was better than feeling harried and irritable. She was still musing on the possibilities—and dodging madmen in BMWs—when she pulled into the driveway.
Every time she’d seen her father since the accident she felt the shock all over again. He’d never been a big man, but after the injuries he’d seemed to shrink even more. Now he sat straight in his chair at the kitchen table, his pant legs loose around his ankles, his shirt hanging from his shoulders, hollows around his collarbone. Still, his eyes had the same gemstone brightness they’d always had.
He glanced up as she walked in, his mouth spreading in a grin. “Well, this is a nice surprise! Hi, baby, what’s new?”
“Oh, this and that. Some things I needed to talk to you about.” Morgan poured a glass of iced tea from the pitcher in the refrigerator, giving herself time to pull her thoughts together, then settled in the chair opposite him. “We had a really great weekend with the motorcycle rally, Daddy. I haven’t tallied everything up yet, but it looks like we sold at least twenty cases more than last year.”
Her father reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “Good, sweetheart, that’s good to hear. That’s always been a profitable weekend, even if the people are a pain in the rear.”
Morgan took a deep breath, keeping her voice as matter-of-fact as she could. “We’ve got some supply problems, though. We’re almost out of sangiovese and we’re all out of primitivo. Ciro thinks it’s time to release the new wine.”