A bolt of energy hit them full force.
“Let her go.”
Out of the car now, Christopher broke the man’s grasp and set him off balance. Gabriella scrambled away from the car. The man came back at Christopher full force.
“Run,” Christopher shouted, but the pickup blocked their exit.
She ran, nevertheless, flew to the other side of the car, where Rochelle and Tania Marie huddled. Christopher wrenched the man away from him. But without even looking, the attacker darted out his hand for the rifle.
“No.” Gabriella heard a scream she knew must be her own. But she saw only the rifle, its dark angry shape swinging into position. The exploding shot was the loudest noise she’d ever heard in her life.
Christopher flew back, his body exploding before her eyes, in blood and dust.
Sobbing, stunned, knowing that her life was over, that she was dead, Gabriella stumbled after the others into the building.
Rikki
“Ellen’s gone,” Lucas says. “No one knows where she went. That’s not like her. And Bobby W says the women didn’t show up to meet him at the boat.”
I barely hear him. The briefcase lies open on the seat of the car, and I hold the bills in my hands. The answers are here, I know. The doctor bills, the statements from the clinic, yes. But something else that stuck in my mind now seems more important.
“The mortgage company,” I say. “Julie Larimore made payments to two mortgage companies.”
He kneels down next to the car, watches as I open the envelope I’ve been seeking.
It was here all along. I just haven’t known where to look for it.
I touch the address of the property as the truth sinks in.
“Los Olivos,” I say. “She owned the property the old winery is on. That’s where she went when she disappeared.”
“So, who lives there?” Lucas asks, and I shudder with the knowledge.
“Julie’s father.”
Gabriella
She crouched on concrete, on all fours. Someone had vomited. She could smell it, taste it. She could hear now the words that came from her mouth. “No. No. No.”
“Shut up.”
Tania Marie half dragged her behind a looming vat that smelled of wine-soaked wood.
“Where’s Rochelle?” she managed to squeak.
“Shut up,” Tania Marie repeated, then reached down along the ground. “Look for a rock, for anything. I’ve got one, and I’ll smash the bastard’s head in.”
Gabriella trembled and pressed her forehead against the wood. She had fallen apart, like a bundle of sticks, and at this moment she most wanted to live, she was going to die, the way Christopher had died.
A door opened, not the one they had run through, but far to the right side. The light waited outside. The man came in, closing the door behind him.
“Ladies?”
Gabriella bit her lip to keep from screaming. Tania Marie squeezed her shoulder. Please don’t let him move this way.
“Ladies, we need to talk. There’s been a misunderstanding. There’s nothing to fear here if you just listen to reason.”
The voice was rich, commanding. He talked like a police officer directing traffic around an accident.
