Blood Vines

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Saturday, March 13

11:55 A.M.

Reed reconnected with Tanner outside the tasting room. “How are the tourists?”

“Happily inebriated. Or on the way to it.” She glanced at her watch. “And all before noon.”

“Anybody raise a red flag?”

“Nope. All staying at local hotels and B &Bs. All first-time visitors from out of state. All horrified, and not so secretly thrilled, by the incident.”

Human nature, Reed thought. They could all go home with a vacation story to top all vacation stories, and knowing Treven Sommer, a cache of free wine as well.

“What about the family and employees? Nobody had better access.”

“Deputies took statements. Running background checks on the transient help.”

Reed nodded. “Got to cover bases, but the cost and availability of those dolls limits the suspect pool.”

“My thought as well. What about Clarkson?”

Something in her tone set his teeth on edge. “She was understandably shaken.”

“Did she tell you she’s taken this tour before?” Tanner paused. “Yesterday. One of the guides remembered her. And a guard I spoke to found her in the caves, separated from the group. She told him she was claustrophobic and asked him to lead her out.”

Reed frowned, remembering the episode she’d had in the cave the night of the party. She hadn’t mentioned claustrophobia then. And why would she put herself in that situation not just once again, but today as well?

“There’s more. Apparently, she had a run-in with Clark. He’d been drinking and got up in her face.”

She hadn’t mentioned that, either. Interesting. When he’d questioned her, she’d gotten indignant-like he was the one out of line, for being suspicious. Truth was, he’d be out of line for not being more suspicious.

What a dupe she’d played him for.

“What was the outcome of that?” he asked, voice tight.

“Treven came along, defused the situation. Settled her down. Or so he thought.”

“What does that mean, or so he thought?”

“Maybe she placed the doll in the tank? Payback for him and the entire Sommer clan. For abandoning her.”

He thought of the story his dad had told him about Patsy, what she had done. And how he, Treven and several others had run her out of town. And now this happened, two days later.

“Clark confirmed the story,” she went on. “Was understandably sheepish about his behavior. She made a comment, he said, about the photographs in the museum. How none of them included her, her mother or Dylan.

“Let’s look at this, Reed. A lamb is slaughtered, stuffed under Alex’s bathroom vanity and left for her to ‘find.’ A bloodstained altar is discovered at Bart Park. Alex just happens to be an expert in alternative religious practices. Max Cragan hangs himself. Guess who finds the body? A second mutilated doll turns up-”

“And Alex is there to see it.”

“Yes.”

“And the first doll?”

“Check your calendar. Doll number one turned up on February 22, three days after Clarkson visits you at HQ.”

He did the math and realized she was right.

“Tom Schwann is brutally murdered. Bizarrely, his murder is connected to Clarkson in two ways.”

“The first, his tattoo and her ring. What’s the second?”

“Alberto Alvarez, killed in the same manner as Schwann-”

“Twenty-five years ago. You’re not suggesting a five-year-old child-”

“Committed the crime? Hardly. She’s connected to it because she lived here at the time and occupied the bedroom across the hall from her brother the night he disappeared. For all we know, she might be the one who set Cragan’s cottage ablaze.”

“She wasn’t.”

“You’re so certain? How?”

He met her eyes. “She has an alibi for that night. And for the night Schwann was killed.”

For a long moment, Tanner simply gazed at him. When she spoke, her tone was measured. “I suggest you evaluate your priorities. And if I were you, I’d do it fast.”

Reed managed to hold it together until he’d finished processing the scene. But even as he questioned winery employees and reviewed surveillance tapes and security logs, at the back of his mind, waiting to come barreling out, was his anger at Alex’s duplicity.

He found Rachel in her office. “Has Alex gone?” he asked.

“An hour ago. At least. Is everything okay?”

“Fine. I had another question to ask her, that’s all.”

“She promised she was going home.”

Reed thanked her and headed for his SUV. In typical wine country fashion, Saturday traffic was stop and go. It fueled his anger, and by the time he pulled up behind her Prius, he had to fight to keep it in check.

He climbed out of his vehicle and jogged up her walkway. He rang the bell, then, when she didn’t appear, pounded. “Alex! It’s Reed.”

After several moments, she answered. She wore an oversized sweatshirt and jeans, her hair was sticking out in several different directions and her eyes were red.

“You took the Sommer Winery tour yesterday. You didn’t tell me. Why?”

He’d caught her off guard, as he had meant to. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again.

“Why, Alex?”

She swung the door wider and stepped aside so he could enter. He did and she closed the door and faced him. “I started to last night-”

“I don’t remember that. I remember you kicking me out because I dared to question you.”

Color flooded her face. “I should have. I wanted to tell you everything-”

“But you didn’t. Why, Alex?”

She jerked her chin up. “Because I knew how it would look! Okay? How it would make me look!”

“And how’s that? Guilty?”

“No. Crazy.”

That one caught him off guard.

“I had another episode, in the cave.” She clasped her hands together. “It was worse this time. I had… I really panicked. I felt ridiculous after. And… shaken up.”

She turned and crossed to her living room couch. She sank onto it and dropped her face into her hands.

“Why, Alex?” he asked, unmoved by her attempt to elicit his sympathy. “Why were you out at Sommer yesterday?”

For a moment she didn’t respond, then lifted her face to his. “After you told me that story about my mom… I wanted to prove it wasn’t true. I called your mother and-”

“My mother?”

“She’d offered to let me look through your family photo albums. Since I couldn’t ask my mother the truth, I had to go looking for it. I figured the photographs couldn’t lie to me.

“I ran into Ferris while I was there. He suggested I go out to the Sommer place, that there were photos there as well. Plus, I wanted to see Mother’s painting, the one in the tasting room, behind the bar.”

Reed knew the painting but hadn’t realized Patsy had created it. “Why not ask Rachel or Treven to show you around?”

She spread her hands. “This was private. The last thing I wanted was to have to discuss it with one of them.”

“And that’s it?”

“Yes.”

“Still covering up, Alex. Why?”

“I’m not!” She fisted her fingers. “You asked me a question. I answered it honestly.”

“You and Clark had a confrontation.”

“Yes.”

“I saw you that night, you didn’t mention it.”

“Banging me doesn’t give you an automatic right to my every thought and feeling.”

“Is that what we’ve been doing? All we’ve been doing?”

She looked away. “It shook me up. He said something… about my mother, about wanting to know… He pinned me against the wall and when I struggled, he refused to let me go.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Treven came along and sent Clark scurrying off. He was very kind to me.”

Reed could picture that. “Anything else?”

She pulled in a shaky breath. “Let’s see, other than your father making it clear that I was to stay away from his sons-”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh yeah, wouldn’t want Patsy’s tainted goods near his precious sons. I guess I’d give you cooties or something.” She held his gaze. “Let’s see, to continue with my really swell day-there was my emotional meltdown during sex and you questioning my motives. I think that sums it up.”

He searched her expression, wondering if her story was true. If it was, he felt both fool and brute, standing there, his accusations still hanging between them.

Reed crossed to stand directly in front of her. “So, why go back today, Alex? After all that, why go back?”

She didn’t blink, though her eyes sparkled with tears. “Because I want to know the truth. Because I need to know it.”

She was either being honest with him or was a liar of monumental skill. He drew her into his arms, against his chest. She melted against him, shuddering.

A part of him hated himself for this. For trusting her. For being here with her despite his partner’s cautioning. Despite his own suspicions.

He’d never played the fool for a woman before; he wondered if he was now.

His cell phone went off and he dug it out of his pocket. “Reed here.”

“It’s Tanner. I connected with the tour guide from yesterday, questioned her in depth.”

“She bring anything new to the party?”

“Yeah, she remembered Clarkson asking about Harlan Sommer’s first wife and the accident that killed her. She also brought up Dylan’s kidnapping. The guide found it weird and it made her uncomfortable.”

“Thanks,” he said, his gaze shifting to Alex. “Anything else?”

“From Schwann’s phone. The odd number he dialed that night was a Red Crest Winery number.”

“That makes sense.”

“I thought so, too. Figured he got tired of waiting, dialed up to the party hoping to snag a ride. He connected with somebody, the question is who.”

“I’ll put that at the top of my list. Thanks.” Reed ended the call and extricated himself from Alex. “I’ve got to go.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Have you told me everything, Alex?”

“Who was that?”

“Tanner.”

“I see. So did she have some new incriminating evidence against me? Some suspicious thing I’ve held back?”

“She questioned your Sommer tour guide from yesterday. The woman said that on the tour, you brought up the death of Harlan’s first wife and Dylan’s disappearance.”

“Was that a crime?”

He searched her gaze. “Why’d you do that, Alex?”

“I can’t believe this.”

“Why, Alex?”

“I don’t know. I was mad. Pushing a point. In all those pictures in the Sommer museum, not one of me, my mother or Dylan.” She tipped up her chin. “You couldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

She didn’t respond. He sensed she was preparing her thoughts, sifting through them to find the truth. Her truth.

Or maybe he was simply naive. The duped homicide detective. Blinded when it came to a woman. He wouldn’t be the first.

She began, speaking softly, “You can’t understand because your roots go deep. You know who you are and where you come from. I don’t have that.

“I feel a connection to this place. Sometimes the connection scares me. Like in the caves.” She looked away, then back at him, expression raw. “This place is part of my history. I want to know the missing pieces. And I want to belong. Did I pass the test, Reed? Am I naked enough now?”

He stood and crossed to her, cupped her face in his palms. “Do you realize how bad all this looks?”

He could tell by her face that she didn’t, not fully. “You being there two days in a row, you asking those questions, your confrontation with Clark-”

“I didn’t leave the doll, Reed. I returned to Sommer today determined to take the tour again and figure out what the hell happened to me in those caves. And since you’re wondering, I didn’t slaughter that lamb and leave it for me to ‘find.’ Nor did I create that altar or kill Max Cragan. I may be nuts, but I’m not that nuts.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy. But I need to know everything. From now on, total, brutal honesty.” He searched her gaze. “The truth is, Alex, whatever’s happening, you’re a part of it.”