Blood Vines

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Wednesday, March 10

5:10 P.M.

Alex swung open her front door. Rachel stood on the other side, expression concerned.

“I heard,” she said. “About you finding Max Cragan. I thought I’d better check on you.”

“I’m okay.” Alex swung the door wider. “Come on in.”

Rachel stepped inside, then held up two bottles of wine. “I brought some liquid painkiller.”

“A two-fisted drinker?”

“I didn’t know how much pain we were in.”

Alex grimaced. “Two bottles might not be enough.”

While Rachel opened the wine, Alex put together a plate of cheese and fruit. They carried it all to the living room and sat.

Rachel didn’t waste any time. “Tell me what happened.”

Alex did, recounting how she had taken Rachel’s advice and paid a visit to the Golden Bow, how the shop owner had put her in touch with Cragan, their first meeting and then his call the night before. “This morning,” she continued, “when he didn’t answer the door, I knew something was wrong, and I-”

The image of the man’s bloated face filled her head and, overcome with emotion, she bit the words back and looked away.

Rachel reached across the sofa and squeezed her hand. “It must have been awful.”

Alex struggled to find her voice. “It was. He… was in his garage. He’d hung himself. He… his face was-”

She couldn’t say any more. Rachel seemed to understand and didn’t press her. They sipped their wine in silence. Minutes passed, but strangely, the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, she found it almost soothing.

“Thank you,” Alex said finally.

Rachel refilled their glasses. “For what?”

“For being here.” She brought her glass to her lips, then lowered it without sipping. “I found my mom, too. It was totally different, but I feel a little like Typhoid Mary.”

“Waiting for the other shoe to drop?”

Alex laughed, feeling the first of the wine’s buzz. “Don’t even say it.”

“A toast!” Rachel said, holding up her glass.

Alex frowned. “A toast?”

“To the earth’s gift of the grape, the gods’ gift of wine and its magical, healing properties. And to sisters.”

Alex tapped the other woman’s glass. “You’re a little nuts, you know that?”

“I do, indeed. But so are you.”

She couldn’t dispute that, though she wished she felt at least a niggling doubt it was true.

“It’s what we lived through,” Rachel said. “How could we not be a bit left of center?”

How indeed? Alex thought of Rachel’s childhood, the traumas she had lived through, and ached for her. “I’m sorry about your mom,” she said. “Your real mom. It must have been rough for you, losing her that way.”

Rachel stiffened. “What do you know about that?”

Alex was taken aback by the ferocity in her tone and expression. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I heard about the accident, how she drowned in a fermenting tank and I just… I’m really sorry. I know what it’s like to lose your mother too soon.”

“Right,” Rachel snapped. “How old are you? Thirty? And she’s been gone a whole month?”

“But I lost her long before that. She was with me physically, but in every other way she was absent.”

The other woman visibly pulled herself together. “She didn’t drown. She asphyxiated.”

Rachel got to her feet and walked to the fireplace. She stared down at the hearth, though what she was seeing with her mind’s eye, Alex could only guess.

“In winemaking there’s a process called punching down. It’s basically pushing the grape skins back into the fermenting wine with what looks like a giant potato masher. It’d be no big deal, except for the amount of CO₂ produced in the process. One whiff too many, you take a header into the tank and it’s all over.”

Alex frowned. She had seen the catwalks around the tanks, had even been allowed to walk on one during a wine tour. She remembered the tour guide talking about the dangers of the CO₂. “That’s what happened to your mother.”

“Yes.” Rachel rubbed her arms. “It still happens, even with all the new equipment and safety standards.”

“No one tried to save her?”

“They had to hold Uncle Treven back.”

“Hold him back! I don’t understand-”

“He would have been overcome as well. And in the time it would have taken to harness him, she would’ve been dead already. None of them were properly rigged,” she added bitterly. “Dad made excuses for them. For not being harnessed.”

Alex didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

“I suppose I understand. They both grew up on a winery. They’d been around the equipment and process from the time they could walk…”

Her voice trailed off and she swung to face Alex. She shook with fury. “No, I don’t understand! She shouldn’t have been up on that catwalk! What the hell was she thinking? No harness? No safety line? She was a mother. I needed her. She was-”

Rachel stopped, struggling, Alex thought, for control. She flexed her fingers. “She was pregnant. Did you know that?”

“Oh, my God. No, I didn’t-”

Rachel sighed, a cross between anger and grief. “Three months along.” She swiped angrily at a tear. “It was a boy. We didn’t learn that until the autopsy.”

“How horrible. I’m so, so sorry.”

“You see why my dad’s the way he is? It’s so easy for Uncle Treven to be strong. He didn’t lose two wives and two sons. It’s easy for Clark and Will to strut around as if they owned the world. They don’t know what it’s like to lose…”

Anger made her tone brittle. So brittle Alex thought it would break. “Their mother is still alive. Still married to their dad. Still… Shit! I hate being like this!”

Alex crossed to her and touched her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Rachel.”

“They’re not like us, Alex,” she whispered. “None of them.”

A lump formed in her throat. Rachel was right. The two of them were bound by shared pain. Losing their brother. Losing their mothers.

She and Rachel truly were sisters.

Alex put her arms around her. Rachel resisted, but only for a moment. She turned into Alex’s hug and hugged her back.

Neither cried. They simply stood that way, holding on to each other-and holding each other up.

As the minutes ticked past, Alex realized how much she had needed this. A sister. A shared past. Someone who understood.

Maybe Rachel had been right the other day when she’d said that Alex being here would bring healing. Hers had already begun.

“I feel like such an idiot,” Rachel said finally, stepping away. “I come over here to comfort you and end up with you comforting me.”

“What’s a sister for?”

Tears filled Rachel’s eyes. “And here I hated your guts when you were five.”

“I have a lot to atone for.”

She swiped at a lone tear that rolled down her cheek. “Hardly. I was a pain in the ass teenager. I owe you.”

“Payback begins now,” Alex teased, and held up her glass. “Time for a refill.”

Rachel laughed. “I’ve got this, you stay put.”

Alex heard her rummaging around, then the distinctive sound of a cork being released from a bottle. Had they polished off the first already?

Moments later, Rachel appeared in the doorway. In one hand she held the now opened bottle of wine, in the other the stainless steel chopsticks-designed by a well-known San Francisco artist-that Tim had given her for her birthday a few years before.

“Wicked-looking sticks.” She tapped them together. “Very cool.”

“They were a gift. From my ex. He loved sushi.”

“Typical man. Gives you a gift of something he loves.”

“I never thought of it that way before.”

“Now you have, so you won’t make that mistake again.” Rachel made her way back into the living room. “Speaking of mistakes, I want to hear all about him.”

“Tim?”

“Yes, him.” Rachel refilled their glasses, then sat cross-legged on the floor.

Alex held up her glass. “Speaking of my ex, he’ll be so jealous when I tell him about this wine. It’s spectacular.”

“It should be. It’s a limited production reserve. A really good vintage. From my private cellar.” She tapped the chopsticks together. “I take it you still talk to your ex.”

“I still sleep with him sometimes.” Alex slapped a hand over her mouth, acknowledging that she needed to stop drinking now. “I can’t believe I shared that.”

Rachel giggled. “Tell me about him.”

Alex did. She shared how they met, why they divorced and about their current relationship. Rachel followed suit, and as the evening progressed and the bottle emptied, they talked, at times as giggly as teenagers, at others fiercely serious.

Alex discovered they had similar beliefs and political views, the same sense of humor. Likes and dislikes. Sometime during the passing hours, it occurred to Alex how alike they were for two people who didn’t share blood.

Or maybe they did. Maybe Harlan Sommer really was her father? She started to wonder it aloud, then decided against it. As close as she felt to Rachel at this moment, she was uncertain how the woman would respond to the question.

Rachel frowned suddenly. “Where’s your ring?”

Alex looked at her naked hand. “Reed took it.”

“Reed took it?” she repeated, words slurring slightly. “Why?”

“He said he needed it for the investigation.”

Rachel leaned against the couch, legs stretched out on the floor in front of her. She’d long ago taken off her boots. She wiggled her stocking-clad toes. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Alex blinked, simultaneously realizing two things: she was completely inebriated and she couldn’t feel her tongue. “What d’you mean?”

“Max killed himself. Right?”

She nodded. “Right.”

“What could your ring have t’do with that?”

Alex gazed at her, struggling to think clearly. “That’s why I was there. T’see if he’d designed it.”

“I’m just saying, Reed’s got some other reason to hold on to it.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Hell if I know.” Rachel looked down at her empty glass and giggled. “Wine’s gone. S’pose I should go now.”

“O’no you’re not.” Alex got unsteadily to her feet. At least the room wasn’t spinning-yet. “What kind of sister would I be if I let you drive now? You’re sleepin’ on th’couch.”