by Kaye George
When was the last time she used it? To call and text Tally. It should be right here.
* * * *
Tally was in her office with the door closed, but not relaxing. Not taking it easy. She was distracted and fretting. She needed to tell Yolanda what was going on.
Like a sign from above, her phone dinged. She pulled it from her pocket to find a text from Yolanda. Eagerly, she clicked on it.
meet me at the vin yard
Stupid autocorrect. She knew Yolanda would never spell vineyard that way. She answered, puzzled.
What are you doing at the vineyard?
The answer came immediately.
importent emergency come quick
What on earth was Yolanda doing way out at Kevin’s vineyard? Right now, she should be either in her shop getting things ready for Monday, or in his, helping him do the same. Maybe she had gone there with him to pick up some extra wine.
Tell me. What is it?
There was no answer. She waited a good five minutes. Before this, she had felt mildly queasy. Now she felt a lot more so. Something was very wrong.
She went to the front, where Lily and Molly were both surrounded by customers. Taking Lily aside as she apologized to the buyers, she whispered to her, “Something is very wrong. Yolanda sent me a strange text. It doesn’t even sound like her. I think I have to go check it out.”
“Go, go,” Lily urged. “We’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure? I hate to leave you right now. But something is wrong. I have a very bad feeling about those texts.”
“Come on. You’ve been useless today anyway. Go see what’s wrong with Yolanda. We’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
“Lily, you’re the best.” She wanted to kiss her. Grabbing her purse on her way to the back door, she jumped into her Chevy Sonic and took off.
Chapter 30
Tally pulled onto the dirt and gravel road to Kevin’s place, Bear Mountain Vineyards, about five miles southeast of town. His grapevines and fermenting building were located here, since his tasting room was in town. The sole building on this end of the property was a small storage shed for equipment. She bumped along the rough road, wondering where exactly Yolanda was. There was a truck parked next to the shed, but it wasn’t Yolanda’s sporty Nissan Rogue. It was a dirty green pickup that looked unfamiliar. At first. She took a second look. Had she seen it somewhere before?
She parked beside it and drew out her phone to text.
I’m here. Where are you?
She waited a minute or so before she got another message.
get out of your car walk straight from the back of the shed
Why? What’s going on, Yo?
There was no answer.
She opened her car door and got out, listening. She heard nothing but droning insects and a breeze stirring the leaves of the acres of grape plants. The heat pressed down onto her head and shoulders, trying to grind her into the soil.
“Yo!” she called out. “Yolanda!”
No reply.
Not all of her sweat was from the heat. Ripples of apprehension ran up her arms and her spine. She took a few steps toward the shed, then stopped. She sent a quick text to Jackson, telling him where she was and that something was very wrong with Yolanda. Then she looked at the truck again. It wasn’t Yolanda’s. Had she seen it somewhere before, though? Maybe. If so, where? Maybe Yolanda wasn’t even here. Someone else was, though. Did they have Yo’s phone? They must have, she thought.
Here suspicion was confirmed with the next text she received.
we have yolana. follow instructons and she wont get hurt NOW
She sent another quick text to Jackson.
Don’t call or text Yolanda. Come to the vineyard ASAP.
Then she headed out, walking between the rows of eight-foot-tall trellises, her palms prickling and the hairs on the back of her neck standing as upright as the grape plants.
* * * *
Yolanda remembered what she had been doing when she set her phone on the countertop. Greer had been in the shop, acting strangely, asking for water, then only drinking a bit of it. Had she taken her phone? She picked up her landline to call Tally’s shop and got Lily.
“Tally’s not here,” Lily said. “I thought she went to talk to you. She said she was worried about some texts from you.”
She was also worried about an employee. Greer. She knew it. And her phone was missing right after Greer was in her shop. “Oh, no,” Yolanda wailed. “No no no. Did she say where she was going?”
“Well, no. I thought she went to your shop.”
“How long ago?”
“Gosh, it was over half an hour, I think.”
Yolanda ended the call and perched on her stool, thinking so hard her head hurt. Greer had her phone and had texted Tally. And had gotten Tally to go…somewhere. Where? She called the police station and learned that Detective Jackson Rogers had headed out five minutes ago.
“Where did he go?” she asked.
“Let me see. He told me and I wrote it down,” the dispatcher-receptionist said.
There was a long, maddening pause. Yolanda wanted to scream, Hurry up! Something is very wrong!
“Here it is. He went to the vineyard. That’s what he said. I don’t know what that means. There are a lot of vineyards around here.”
“Thanks, I think I know.”
Had Greer told Tally to drive to Kevin’s vineyard? Why would she do that? And why was the detective on his way there? Did Tally call him? Did someone else? Had something terrible happened?
Chapter 31
Tally parted her lips slightly to quiet her breathing so she wouldn’t be heard by whoever was hiding out here in the vineyard.
She slowly tiptoed through the tall rows of trellises, as quietly as she could, but didn’t hear anything. A rustle in the leaves made her jerk her head around, but no one was there.
Squinting ahead, she thought she saw a shadow moving behind the plants to her right. Then to her left. They were here. Somewhere. Where?
The vision of the green pickup flashed through her mind. It had picked Greer up from work, long before any of them knew that Wendell Samson had escaped from prison.
Without warning, Greer and a man Tally instantly knew was her father sprung upon her, pinning her to the ground. The man held her body down with strong arms and a knee to her chest. Greer clamped a hand over Tally’s mouth, stifling her attempted scream. Greer shucked a backpack off her shoulders, letting it drop in the soft soil.
The look of glee on Greer’s face horrified Tally. Greer glanced to her father for approval and he nodded, stretching her smile even wider.
“Good job, darlin’.”
“Thanks, Dad. Now we need to get rid of her.”
“I guess we do, if she’s figured everything out like you said. You know what to do next.”
Greer produced a vial of liquid from a backpack on the ground one-handed and lifted it to Tally’s lips. “Drink this,” she snarled.
Tally knew what it was. It was the vaping liquid that had killed Fran Abraham. She wasn’t about to swallow it. She clamped her lips tight and shook her head from side to side.
“Hold still,” Wendell growled. “You’re gonna swallow this.”
Greer forced the vial between Tally’s lips and tipped a few drops of it into her mouth, but Tally spit it up into Greer’s face.
“Now you’ve made me mad.” Greer sat back on her heels, her face red from the exertion and the heat.
“Go ahead, tie her up,” Wendell said. “We’ll do something else.”
Greer pulled a length of rope from her backpack with her free hand, handed it to her father, then fished out a rag. She roughly wound the rag around Tally’s head, shoving it into her mouth and gagging her. The cloth smelled like a dirty garage floor. At least it wouldn’t ki
ll her, like the liquid nicotine would.
Wendell took the rope from Greer and trussed Tally’s hands behind her, pulling on the rope to tie the knots. He jerked her arms and sat her up, then wound the rope around the stakes holding up some of the vines, threading it through the plant and the trellis. She ended up sitting with her back to the grape vine, securely fastened and gagged. What else were they planning for her?
Her heart hammered and her breath, behind the filthy cloth, was shallow and fast. Her vision grayed around the edges. She would not pass out. She willed herself to fight the panic. Slowing her breathing, she closed her eyes and felt the fear recede.
She imagined Jackson getting her message, heading out here, and not being able to find her. The tall plants hid everything unless you were lined up with the exact row they were in. She pulled at her bonds and tried to shake the plant to make some noise, but it didn’t budge.
“What do I do with this phone?” Greer asked, holding up Yolanda’s pink phone. How had Greer stolen Yolanda’s phone? Had they harmed Yolanda?
“Yeah, we’ll have to get rid of that. Let me think.” Wendell scratched the three-day growth on his face with a papery sound. His scruffy beard was streaked with gray and didn’t add anything to his harsh looks. His forehead and cheeks were furrowed, like something had raked his face and left rows big enough to plant seeds in.
“Should we just bury it here, with her?” Greer asked.
They were facing away from her, conferring with their heads together, but not caring if she overheard them. Tally flinched.
Her legs and bottom were suddenly ablaze with pain. She looked down.
She was sitting on a pile of fire ants.
She had to move.
“No, we can’t do that,” Wendell said. “They’ll find her body eventually and we don’t want ’em to find the phone, too.”
“You’re right. All those texts are on it. Someone might figure out what we did.”
Pulling at the stake she was tied to, she felt it move slightly. The ground, which was plowed every spring and fall, was soft. If she could pull the stake out of the earth, she could get away.
“Hey, Dad, we should take her phone, too. It has all the texts we sent. They’re in both phones.”
“You’re right.”
Tally gave a mighty jerk. The wood came out of the ground, but was still entangled in the woody plant.
They hadn’t noticed her movements, still conferring together and not paying any attention to their securely-bound captive.
Carefully, ignoring the ant bites, working through the pain, she slipped the rope off the bottom of the stake.
“It’s probably in her purse, Dad.”
Tally’s purse was a few feet away, in the next row, where she’d dropped it when they captured her. They stepped through the opening they’d created to ambush her, into the next row.
Tally sprang to her feet and ran.
Chapter 32
The party was in full swing at Bear Mountain Vineyards. Tally strolled through the large room, up and down the rows of wine racks, chatting with the happy customers who were drinking wine and sampling her wares. She was so grateful that no one was afraid to taste her sweet products. They even ate the Whoopie Pies. Yolanda took orders for gift baskets containing wares from both Tally and Kevin’s places at a table near the front.
The calamine didn’t take away all the pain from the fire ant bites, but she refrained from scratching the backs of her legs or, even worse, her bottom. How would that look?
Lily paused on her way past, holding out a tray of stemmed goblets. “Great turnout.”
Tally took a glass of wine. Her second. “Yes, I guess our publicity worked. Excuse me, I should say your publicity worked.”
“Dorella is doing a great job,” Lily said, watching the young woman’s curly blond head going back and forth behind the bar, helping Kevin serve drinks from there. “I’m glad you asked her to work tonight.”
Tally looked at Dorella, too, pleased that she had agreed to Tally’s proposal. “She’s going to start at the shop in a couple of days.”
“Great! I really like her.”
Cole had left, but had promised Dorella to return soon to see her. Dorella also, she told Tally, was going to visit him on the road. It was possible that they would stay together, difficult as that might be with Cole’s traveling job.
Lily lowered her voice to ask Tally, “How did you get out of the police station so soon?”
“Detective Rogers knew this was going on, so he let me go after a brief interview. I have to go back tomorrow to give my official statement and sign it.”
“Okay. Molly and I can run the shop.”
Tally spotted Mrs. Gerg hesitating at the front door. She hurried up to her and offered her a glass of wine. Mrs. Gerg took it and downed the whole thing in three noisy gulps. “I’m so glad I found you.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Oh, yes, perfectly. Perfectly all right. I had to find you right away after I found this.” She extracted a complicated mass of metal from her purse. After she shook it out, Tally could see it was, of course, a necklace, one with a great number of adornments handing from the main chain.
“See?” Mrs. Gerg said, proudly. “It’s candy. Like your shop.”
Tally took it and examined the large pendants. Some were lollipops, oblong candy bars, and some were in the shape of wrapped candies with twists of paper at both ends. The lollipop sticks and the edges of the metal paper twists looked dangerous.
“It’s lovely,” Tally said. “Perfect. Thank you so much.” Cautiously, she put it over her head and draped it around her neck. Luckily, she wasn’t wearing a low-cut top. She hoped the metal wouldn’t rip her clothing.
The chirp of her cell phone cut through the murmurs of the crowd and Tally stepped to the side of the room to answer it, though she didn’t recognize the number.
“Sweetheart!” It was her mother!
“How’s it going?” Tally asked. “You got there okay?”
“Yes, we made it to Singapore in record time. No delays, no lost luggage.”
“You deserve some good fortune after what we’ve all just gone through.” Tally heard her dad’s voice in the background, but couldn’t understand his words.
“Yes, dear, I’ll tell her,” Tally’s mother said to him. “He wants you to know how well our show went. We hardly had time to rehearse at all and we’re working with a bunch of musicians we’ve never worked with before.”
“Y’all are pros, Mom. That shouldn’t be a problem.”
“In fact, it’s one of the best shows we’ve ever put on. Here’s your dad.”
Her dad’s voice came on. “Your mom is right. Hardly any rehearsal, no sleep, and we pulled it off. We have another show tomorrow, then we’re going to take a day off before our next gig.”
A day off. Tally smiled. If it were her, she’d probably need a week off. The stamina of her parents amazed her.
“Hey, break a leg. Keep breaking your legs. You’re doing great.”
They said their good-byes. Tally wondered when she would next see her parents.
She felt someone touch her arm and turned.
“I had to come to see this,” a young woman said.
Her pretty, round face and rosy cheeks looked familiar, but Tally couldn’t place her.
“I’m an aide at Setting Sun. I met you when you visited Mrs. Samson.”
“Oh, yes, now I remember you. You helped me find her in the TV room.”
“This is very fun.”
Tally snagged a glass of wine from the tray as Lily passed by again and handed it to her. “It’s nice of you to come.”
“I do hope you visit Mrs. Samson again. She gets lonely.”
Tally felt a pang, knowing that she would be even lonelier in the future, w
ith her daughter locked up in prison. “I’d like to do that.” Tally had a sudden inspiration. “In fact, I’d like to organize some people to regularly visit the ones whose families don’t come often.”
“Some of them don’t have anyone visit. Ever.”
“How sad.”
“That would be a wonderful thing.” The young nursing aide’s cheeks glowed as she sipped the wine and gave Tally a broad grin. “I’m so glad I talked to you.”
“I’m glad, too.”
Tally made a mental note to get that project going as soon as she could. That way, something good would result from the trouble with Greer and her father. She felt her heart glowing to match the young aide’s pretty face.
Note from the author:
Some actual businesses and institutions of Fredericksburg were used. Others were invented. I tried to faithfully represent the existing places that were used, but changed the library hours to suit the story.
Recipes
Whoopie Pies
Cookie tops and bottoms
Make these first:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Cream the butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl.
Add the next three ingredients, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Then slowly add this to the large bowl, while mixing, until combined. Don’t overmix.
Drop the dough onto a greased cookie sheet by the tablespoonful, leaving 3 inches between them.
Bake at 400 degrees for 6–8 minutes. Press with a finger and they should be firm. Cool at least one hour. Then fill.
Marshmallow filling
Make this while the cookie tops and bottoms are cooling.
1/2 cup butter, softened
