Katrina was about to ask if there were people in the SEALs he could talk to after something like that, but all that came out was a gasp when she stumbled over something and almost fell.Darwin tightened his grip on her hand, keeping her from completely embarrassing herself and falling on her butt.
“What the hell?”Darwin murmured.
For a second, Katrina thought he was asking why she was so clumsy, until she realized he wasn’t looking at her.Instead, he was focused on whatever she’d fallen over.
She leaned closer, trying to see what he was looking at, but the shadows cast by the trellises were obscuring it.At least until Darwin took out his phone and illuminated the scene.That’s when she recognized exactly what the shape on the ground was.And the large pool of darkness surrounding the still form.
Katrina might have screamed.She wasn’t quite sure because she was more concerned with scrambling away from the dead body.The only thing that stopped her retreat was the grape trellis she backed into.
“Who is that?”she asked in a trembling voice.
Darwin didn’t answer.Instead, he crouched down and rolled the man over, then reached out to press two fingers against the side of the man’s neck.
“Oh, crap,” Darwin muttered.
Not sure she really wanted to know what he was talking about, Katrina found herself inching closer anyway.The man’s crisp white dress shirt was soaked red with blood.And there, to the left side of the material covering the man’s chest, was a neat hole the size of her pinkie finger.He’d been shot.
Her gaze traveled upward to the man’s face, and she gasped when she realized it was Arthur Davis, one of the men who’d argued with her father that morning.The same Arthur Davis who’d been with Rhett on the vineyard tour today.
Yeah.
Oh, crapwas a good way to put it.
* * * * *
“Tell me again what the two of you were doing out there in the grape fields at this time of night?”Detective Ferguson from the Escondido Police Department asked, pen still poised over his spiral notebook, his expression suggesting he wouldn’t believe them any better this time around than he had before.
Darwin had to bite his tongue to keep from saying something he shouldn’t, instead glancing at the many vehicles parked in front of the resort.In addition to Ferguson’s unmarked car, there were a few patrol cruisers, an ambulance, a crime scene SUV, and the medical examiner’s vehicle.For reasons that didn’t make a lot of sense to him, they all had their lights on, illuminating everything with strobing red and blue flashes.Guests there for the wedding were gathered around in small groups, taking in the scene like it was something from a movie.Katrina’s parents, sister, and brother looked particularly curious.
“As we’ve already told you, Katrina and I were taking part in a scavenger hunt and were looking for a red potted plant so we could take a picture of it,” Darwin said, turning back to the gray-haired detective and once more holding up the scavenger list.
Ferguson had been there for almost two hours, and the man still seemed more interested in poking holes in their explanation of events than in figuring out who killed Arthur Davis.
The detective lifted a brow.“And you expected to find this potted plant in the middle of the grape fields?”
“The clue said tolook for the plant where it should be, but where you’ll never think to look,” Katrina said.“Plants grow in the ground, and the fields behind the resort were definitely the last place we expected it to be.”
“Uh-huh,” Ferguson said.“And you just happened to stumble over the body?”
“Well, he was on the ground,” Darwin said, fully aware he probably sounded like a smart-ass and not caring.He and Katrina found Arthur’s body.They didn’t murder the guy.“And it was dark.”
Ferguson’s eyes narrowed.“I don’t think I appreciate your tone, Mr.Sutton.”
Well, Darwin didn’t appreciate his treating them like suspects.Before he could say as much, Katrina spoke.
“Detective, it reallywasdark out there, and we were talking, so we weren’t paying attention to where we were going.”
The detective didn’t seem like he believed them, but apparently couldn’t figure out a way to prove they were lying.
Ferguson gave Darwin a sharp look.“You already admitted to checking for a pulse.If you knew the man was dead, why did you flip him over?”
“Because checking his pulse only told me that Arthur’s heart wasn’t beating.He could have had a heart attack for all I knew.I flipped him over, ready to start doing CPR,” Darwin explained.“Then I saw the large bore rifle bullet hole through the heart.That’s when I realized that there was nothing I could do.”
“Rifle bullet?”Ferguson repeated with another eyebrow twitch.“What, you’re a CSI tech now?Expert on cause of death and bullet caliber, are you?”
“No, I’m not a CSI tech,” Darwin said, pretty much done with this idiot.“But I am a Navy SEAL, and I’ve seen at least a hundred gunshot wounds.I know the difference between the entry wounds made by a handgun versus a rifle.This was definitely a good-sized rifle.And based on the angle of the wound, it’s likely the shot came from above.Like the killer had forced Arthur Davis to kneel on the ground before shooting him.”
Ferguson didn’t have anything to say to that, but only because his attention was drawn to Jameson and Rhett walking toward them, along with a harried-looking man in a slightly rumpled suit.
