Twisted Taste

by Michelle Dayton

  Adam rose from the bed slowly and silently. To Jess’s shock, when his eyes met hers they were bright with fury. “We are doing nothing, Jess. I’m looking into this on my own. You are flying back to Chicago this afternoon.”

  She blinked, three times, slowly. He was hurting; he didn’t know what he was saying. “I’m not leaving you alone with this, Adam. We’re partners, and—”

  He interrupted. “Partners on small, low-risk jobs, sure. But not on finding killers.”

  As she reeled, the words “small, low risk” repeating over and over in her mind, Adam walked into the closet. “Pack your suitcase. I’ve got you on a flight out of SFO at 1:00 pm using your current ID. You’ll fly to Dallas, switch IDs and then catch the six-thirty to O’Hare.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m going to need some clarification here.” Jess’s words were so crisp, she imagined icicles hanging off them. “I’m only your partner on ‘small, low-risk jobs’?”

  She couldn’t have imagined being angrier with him than she had been the other night, but he just kept breaking records. He didn’t think she was capable? He didn’t think she brought much to the table?

  Instead of shouting at him when he didn’t answer, her voice got quieter. “I’ve given up my life and career for a man who doesn’t trust me with the big stuff?”

  He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and exhaled through his nose. “I don’t want to have this fight with you right now, Jess. I’m too tired and too fucking angry. It’s not a matter of trust. You’re just too new. You don’t have the right instincts. This is too dangerous, and I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

  Instead of packing, Jess pulled shorts and a sports bra out of one of the drawers. It was going to take a long, long run before she could speak rationally to him again.

  Not that he was looking for more conversation. He grabbed his car keys off the dresser. “I’m going to Fielding to poke around. Take an Uber to the airport. I’ll call you tonight.”

  She shoved her feet into her favorite sneakers. “Don’t bother.” She couldn’t tell if she was more mad or hurt, but there was an awful combination of emotions roiling around inside her chest.

  “Jess,” he growled, pausing in the doorway.

  She slipped the hotel key into the pocket of her shorts and headed for the door. He tried to block her exit, but she shoved past him. “It’s absolutely a matter of trust, Adam. And if we don’t have that, we don’t have anything.”

  Chapter Eight

  Jess didn’t even allow herself to think for the first three miles. She just concentrated on the slap of her feet against the pavement and the cool morning air stinging her face.

  Her side began to ache in mile four, a sure sign that she hadn’t eaten anything before taking off. Forced to slow down, her thoughts caught up with her. Luckily, some of the temper had burned off with the exercise.

  So yes, Adam was being a huge jerk, but maybe he was just lashing out. He’d suffered the loss of a friend and didn’t know how to handle the pain. She could forgive that, easily. Celeste’s death was simply unbelievable. She was barely handling the horror of it herself, and she’d hardly known the woman.

  The dismissal of their partnership was a different thing entirely. If he really didn’t think she could contribute to big jobs and big problems, then he had another think coming. If their relationship—private and professional—had any hope in hell of working, he needed to realize they were equals in every sense.

  Which meant that she needed to prove him wrong.

  But how? Raising her arms above her head, she turned back to the hotel. This was not her world. She had no idea how to investigate a murder. Desperate, she thought of the hundreds of police procedurals she’d read over the years.

  Usually, investigations started with the discovery of a body. Well, that wouldn’t work since there was no body. Her paced slowed as her brain absorbed that key fact. Why was there no body? Going on the premise that her partner had killed her, the next step was to assume that the partner had taken and hidden her body. Why would he do that? Maybe people had seen Celeste and her partner together, so if her body was discovered, he could be a suspect. Or, maybe her body itself was evidence. Maybe Celeste had DNA or some other trace evidence on her person that would have led the police to the partner-killer.

  But...no body. Huffing in frustration, Jess rode the elevator back up to the hotel suite and took a quick shower. The only action that made sense was talking directly to their potential suspects, and she was pretty sure Adam was on that path. She couldn’t very well hunt down and talk to Ray Lyons and Simon Hess right after Adam did. That would risk their covers. And, be potentially dangerous if one of the men was the killer and got suspicious about their casual interrogations.

  Damn him for leaving her behind. Even if he would be undeniably better at asking questions, she still could have helped by listening—

  Aha. Jess smiled for the first time that day.

  She dried off, wrapped a towel around herself, and sat down at her laptop. Thank goodness Adam had been distracted enough the past few days to forget to ask her how she’d tracked him down in Nashville. Because her method might come in very handy again today.

  With a few clicks, she brought up a tracking application and directed it to make contact with the nifty piece of software she’d downloaded on Adam’s cell phone while he was in the shower one night last week.

  In Nashville, Jess had only taken advantage of one of the features of the program, which used Adam’s phone as a homing device and showed his location on a map. That was how she’d known where his apartment was located. Today, she was going to use another feature. This nice little piece of equipment remotely activated the microphone on his phone and recorded anything it heard. Then, it transmitted the recording to her laptop speakers. There would be a short delay from when the conversation happened to when she received it, but it was the best she could do.

  There was only one downside. The software on Adam’s phone would be a strong battery drain, and she couldn’t remember the last time he’d charged it. There was a chance she’d cause his phone to go completely dead.

  It was worth the risk.

  The application showed the location of Adam’s phone on a map. Jess Googled the address. It was Ray Lyons’s estate. Excellent. With a deep breath, she double-clicked on the microphone icon, and began to receive audio bursts.

  * * *

  Adam fidgeted on his stool in Todd’s tasting room, regretting his entire day.

  After acting like a complete asshole to Jess, he’d driven straight to Ray Lyons’s home. Lyons was a more likely suspect than Hess, only because Lyons was a much stronger man. Someone had to physically remove Celeste’s body from her apartment, and so Adam had decided to start with the man who could actually carry a 120-pound woman. Hess probably didn’t weigh more than 140 pounds himself.

  Using his Chase lazy walk and preparing his Aussie drawl, Adam had strolled into the Lyons tasting room like he owned the place. He’d sweet-talked the staff until one of them went to fetch Lyons from the fields. When Ray Lyons appeared, Adam almost blinked in surprise. The man looked completely different without the scowl on his face. On Friday afternoon he’d looked sort of like a pissed off Clint Eastwood, but today the creases on his face were turned upward. He was all smiles.

  At first, it seemed like a sign of guilt. Maybe he was so happy because he’d stolen the Scarlet on his own and got rid of the only person who knew of the plan. “Mr. Kelly,” Lyons said, extending his hand. “What can I do for you?”

  Adam shook it firmly and smiled a cocky grin. “Thought I’d swing over and check out Todd’s competition.”

  He expected the comment to dim the smile on Lyons’s face somewhat, but it didn’t. Incredibly, he chuckled. “Oh Todd. He can be such an ass. But he does produce a damn fine wine.” He set a g
lass on the bar for Adam and poured a sample of the Lyonsgate Reserve Blend. “Ours isn’t too bad either.”

  Adam lifted the glass and took a long sniff. “Great nose. Nice bouquet there, mate.” He swirled the wine in the glass and took an appreciative sip. A nice wine, sure, but Todd’s top blend was in an entirely different stratosphere. “Excellent. I don’t think the Miracle Fields is much better,” he lied.

  Lyons raised an eyebrow. “Are all Australians full of shit? I’ve tasted the stuff. It blows ours away.”

  He seemed so jovial about it—in a dry-humored cowboy kind of way—that Adam decided to just ask. “You seemed a lot more out of sorts about Todd’s comments yesterday.”

  Lyons nodded. “That was yesterday. But at the party last night, Todd confronted me about the ‘bug up my ass’ and I told him. The couple of acres where he gets the grapes for the Miracle Fields used to be on the Lyons’ property. Ten years ago, our fathers were playing late-night poker and my father gambled those acres away on a bad hand. Normally, I’d call that fair play—but my father was eighty-nine years old and well afflicted with dementia. Todd’s father knew it and took advantage. It’s always irked me, and when Todd created the Miracle Fields and it was so good and got so famous...well, it just didn’t seem right.”

  “What happened last night?” Adam asked.

  Lyons came around the bar and sat down on the school next to him. “Todd made one of his comments and I blew up. Told him the story of the poker game. I fully expected him to shrug it off and make some sort of colorful remark, but he didn’t.” Lyons shrugged. “Actually, I’ve never seen him so serious. He disappeared for a few minutes and when he got back, he told me he was reviewing the property lines of our estates and that I was right. Then he said he knew his old man was a mean son of a bitch and this sounded right up his alley.”

  “So you shook hands and decided to be mates?” Adam asked, his voice skeptical.

  Lyons grinned. “Not until he announced to the entire party that from this point forward, the profits of the Miracle Fields would be split between Fielding and Lyonsgate.”

  Adam whistled through his teeth. “Wow.”

  Ray Lyons nodded. “I know.” He paused and grinned. “It gave all his friends and enemies something to gossip about during the performance.”

  Adam frowned. “I missed the party. What performance?”

  “He invited the glee clubs of three of the local high schools to perform a showcase of their greatest hits before dinner.” He grinned again. “It was actually pretty cute, although maybe not the extravagant entertainment some of the hoity-toity crew were expecting. Todd didn’t say as much, but I suspect he donates quite a bit to the schools because the administrators who brought the kids were sucking up big time.” His face sobered and he met Adam’s eyes. “He’s not actually the shithead he pretends to be, is he?”

  Adam lost some of his Chase-swagger. “No.” So, his suspicion had been right. Todd really wasn’t an asshole. For a second, he felt happy that he hadn’t stolen the Scarlet. But then he remembered Celeste and felt awful again.

  Lyons was out as a suspect. If he was telling the truth, he would have been having his revelatory discussion with Todd right around the time that the EMTs arrived at Celeste’s apartment. There was no way he could have been the one to make her disappear. Besides, Lyons seemed to be a more direct problem solver. Adam couldn’t see him surreptitiously partnering with Celeste to steal jewelry. If he’d wanted to take Todd down a notch, he’d probably just punch him in the face.

  From the Lyons tasting room, Adam had driven to Fielding and asked Todd if he could pick Simon Hess’s brain about “best practices for winery financial management.” Cheerfully, Todd agreed. After depositing the scowling accountant in the tasting room, he’d clapped Adam on the back and ordered him to join him for an early dinner in the house afterwards. “You ditched out on my big party last night,” Todd scolded. “The least you can do is keep me company while Helen’s in Calistoga at the spa retreat.”

  Adam forced himself to focus on Hess, who had crossed his arms over his chest adding another full layer of petulance to the perpetual scowl on his face. Adam plastered on an earnest smile. “Thanks for taking the time for a quick chat. Especially kind of you to do so this morning, after the late party last night.”

  Hess sniffed. “I had no interest in that shit show. I made sure I was well on my way home before Todd’s idiot friends arrived.” Adam decided not to react to that comment, even though Hess clearly considered Adam to be an “idiot friend.” With Hess at home, he didn’t have a strong alibi for Celeste’s disappearance, but Adam still couldn’t see him taking care of any dirty work or managing physical labor.

  “Thanks anyway, though.” He grinned again, trying to warm Hess up. “I’m sure you’re ready to get on to your life of leisure. Happy retirement, by the way!”

  Hess glanced behind him, at the door Todd had just walked through. “Nothing happy about it,” he grumbled. “I didn’t want to retire. I was forced out.”

  Interesting. Adam arranged his features in an expression of sympathy. “Sorry to hear that. What in the world is that all about, eh?”

  Hess leaned forward, literally spitting with anger. “I’ve worked here twenty-five years and now I’m being asked to leave because Todd’s pussy-whipped.”

  Adam blinked. Strong language from such a refined-looking individual. “Oh?”

  Hess kept spewing. “Helen would like to ‘play a larger role in the management of the winery,’” he said, using finger quotes. “So I’m out of here because Todd’s new bimbo wants to play lady-of-the-manor and CFO. It’s disgusting.”

  Hess spouted a constant stream of vitriol for the next five minutes. Adam managed to nod and look concerned and coo in the right moments, but in his mind, he drifted. He supposed he couldn’t blame Hess for being pissed at the loss of his job, but the dude sure wasn’t handling it well.

  His thoughts drifted back to Jess. The morning had been awful. He definitely shouldn’t have said the “small, low-risk” thing. When they next spoke, he needed to make her understand that it hadn’t been some sort of indictment on her abilities. It was just that he wanted her to be safe. Needed for her to be safe. For God’s sake, look what had happened to Celeste!

  His throat burned and he felt pinpricks at the corners of his eyes. Celeste may have had some questionable qualities, but she wasn’t a bad person. He drew in a shaky breath and forced himself to calm down. When this was all over, he’d take the time to grieve for her properly. Maybe he and Tony could do something in her memory. Set up a scholarship fund in her name somewhere. Hold a little wake in a bar, invite Mikey and Carlos. They would definitely pay to publish an obituary in one of those fancy magazines she loved; she’d get a kick out of that.

  Jess needed a fuller explanation of his behavior, he decided. He needed to explain that the crap he’d said this morning just came out of fear. He couldn’t handle it if something happened to her. She’d become his entire world.

  “Helen,” Hess continued, “doesn’t even want to learn anything from me about the winery’s accounting protocols. Can you believe it? I was supposed to spend eight hours with her one day going through them, and halfway through, she interrupted me to ask about the procedures for changing the bank account passwords! Isn’t that absurd?”

  Adam nodded, but wanted to roll his eyes. Even before he’d fallen in love with an IT professional, he knew that of course you’d change passwords when there’s a change in key personnel. Especially if said personnel was a bitter, raving little twerp.

  He glanced down at his phone. Jess should have landed in Texas by now, and she had a bit of a layover before her flight to Chicago. Of course, maybe she hadn’t even gotten on the plane at all. Jess had a stubborn streak and she sure hadn’t been racing to pack her suitcases when he left.

  “That woman
is awfully pretentious, I’d say, for some poor little nobody that Todd rescued from Tokyo,” Hess was saying. “You know Helen isn’t even her real name, right? She just started making everyone call her that because she didn’t like the way Todd pronounced her Asian name. How’s that for pompous!”

  Adam nodded and laughed, but inside he was rolling his eyes. Todd routinely butchered the English language. Adam couldn’t even imagine how he might mangle a foreign name that was already difficult to pronounce.

  He looked at his phone again and decided to get out of there. He was a man that relied on his instincts, and they were telling him that even though Hess was a petty, dislikable individual, he wasn’t a killer. Probably he was just terrified of the enormous life change forced on him.

  He stood to leave. Hess, sensing the loss of his captive audience, began to talk even faster. “She doesn’t even know how to close the books! I scheduled time with her on Thursday morning to teach her the month-end close process, and she canceled on me to have a fancy brunch with some reporter. She’s more interested in being interviewed for some stupid magazine than in actually learning the wine business. She thinks she’s the ‘Real Housewife of Sonoma County’ or something.”

  Adam gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder. “Sorry for all the troubles. Keep your chin up, though. There’s always a market for a good finance man.”

  As Hess slumped on the bar, Adam made his escape. Walking along the path from the tasting room to Todd’s private residence, he pulled out his phone, intending to call Jess. But then he noticed his battery was almost dead, and he didn’t want his phone to die mid-conversation. He and Jess had had enough miscommunication lately without technology getting involved.

  He sent her a text instead.

  I’m sorry about earlier. Am going to eat dinner with Todd, see if anything odd happened at the party. I want us to talk tonight. My phone is almost dead, so I’ll call you when I’m back at the hotel in a couple of hours.