The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 3

by Nora Roberts

  “I don’t know anything about murder. I don’t know anything about that! And if Jerry . . . Jesus. Jesus.”

  She was starting to sweat. How many times had she gone back over the scenario Tyler had painted in Jerry’s apartment? How often had she wondered if what he’d said, even part of what he’d said, was true?

  If it was, she’d be connected. It was time, she decided, to break the link.

  “I’m willing to play hardball to get what I want, in business. I don’t know anything about murder, about product tampering. I passed Jerry some information, yes. Gave him a heads-up on Sophia’s big centennial plans, the scheduling. Maybe he asked about personal business, but it wasn’t anything more than office gossip. If he had anything to do with Tony . . .”

  She trailed off, and her eyes glimmered with oncoming tears. “I don’t expect you to believe me. I don’t care if you do. But Tony meant something to me. Maybe, at first, I started seeing him because I saw it as another slap at Sophia, but it changed.”

  “You were in love with him?” Maguire infused her voice with sympathy.

  “He mattered to me. He made me promises, about my position at Giambelli. He’d have made good on them, I know it, if he’d lived. I told you before, I’d met him in Sophia’s apartment a couple times. Not,” she added, “the night he was killed. We were cooling it awhile. I admit I was upset about that at first. Rene had her clutches in him deep.”

  “It hurt you when he married her?”

  “It pissed me off.” Kris pressed her lips together. “When he told me they were engaged, I was angry. I didn’t want to marry him, for God’s sake. Who needs it? But I liked his company, he was good in bed and he appreciated my professional talents. I didn’t care about his money. I can make my own. Rene’s nothing but a gold-digging whore.”

  “Which is what you called her when you phoned her apartment last December,” Maguire stated.

  “Maybe I did. I’m not sorry for saying what I think. Saying what I think’s a long way from having anything to do with killing somebody. My relationship with Jerry’s been professional, right down the line. If he had anything to do with Tony, or any of the rest, it’s on him. I’m not swinging with him. I don’t play the game that way.”

  “Some game.” Maguire slid behind the wheel. “Give me a nice, clean ‘I killed him because he cut me off on the freeway’ any day of the week.”

  “Drake’s running scared. Shaking down to the toes. She thinks DeMorney set all this up and she’s in line to take the fall.”

  “He’s a slick son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah. Let’s pump up the pressure on him. The slicker they are, the harder you squeeze.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  He wasn’t going to tolerate it. The idiot police were certainly on the Giambelli payroll. He had no doubt of it.

  Of course they could prove nothing. But the muscle in Jerry’s cheek twitched as doubts danced in his head. No, he was sure of that. Sure of it. He’d been very, very careful. But that was beside the point.

  The Giambellis had publicly humiliated him once before. Avano’s affair with his wife had put his name on wagging tongues, forced him to change his life, his lifestyle. He could hardly have remained married to the unfaithful slut—particularly when people knew.

  It had cost him placement and prestige in the company. In his great-uncle’s eyes, a man who lost a wife to a competitor could lose accounts to a competitor.

  And Jerry, always considered the La Coeur heir apparent, particularly by himself, had been taken down a painful peg.

  The Giambellis hadn’t suffered because of it. The three Giambelli women had remained above it all. The talk of Pilar had been respectful sympathy, of Sophia quiet admiration. And there was never talk of the great La Signora.

  Or hadn’t been, Jerry reminded himself. Until he’d made it happen.

  Years in the planning and stylish in its execution, his revenge had cut through to the core of Giambelli. It had sliced through the family, keen as a scalpel. Disgrace, scandal, mistrust, and all brought about by their own. Perfection.

  Who’d been taken down a peg now?

  Even with all his planning, his careful stages, they were turning it on him. They knew he’d bested them, and they were trying to drag him under. He wouldn’t permit it.

  Did they think he’d tolerate having his associates speculate about him—a DeMorney? The idea of it made him shake with black, bitter rage.

  His own family had questioned him. Questioned him on business practices. The hypocrites. Oh, they didn’t mind seeing their market share increase. Had they asked questions then? But at the first sign there might be a ripple in the pond, they laid the groundwork to make him a scapegoat.

  He didn’t need them, either. Didn’t need their sanctimonious questioning of his ethics, or his methods, or his personal agenda. He wouldn’t wait for them to ask for his resignation, if they would dare to do so. He was financially comfortable. It might be time to take a break from business. An extended vacation, a complete relocation.

  He’d move to Europe, and there his reputation alone would ensure him a top position with any company he selected. When he was ready to work again. When he was ready to pay La Coeur back for their disloyalty.

  But before he restructured his life yet again, he would finish the job. Personally, this time. MacMillan thought he didn’t have the guts to pull his own trigger? He’d learn differently, Jerry promised himself. They would all learn differently.

  The Giambelli women were going to pay dearly for offending him.

  Sophia zipped through her interoffice e-mail. She’d have preferred attending to the reports, the memos, the questions personally in her San Francisco office. But the law had been laid down. She didn’t go to the city unaccompanied. Period.

  Tyler refused to be pulled away from the fields. The weeding wasn’t complete, the suckering was just begun, and there was a mild infestation of grape leafhoppers. Nothing very troublesome, she thought with a little twist of resentment as she answered an inquiry. The wasps fed on the leafhopper eggs. That’s why blackberry bushes, which served as hosts for the predator, were planted throughout the vineyard.

  Hardly a season passed without a slight infestation. But there were stories, and those who loved to tell them, of an entire crop being devastated by the little bastards.

  She wouldn’t budge Tyler until he was certain it was under control, and by that time, she’d be so busy with the last-minute details of her mother’s wedding she wouldn’t be able to spare a day to go into the office, much less out to the vineyards.

  When the wedding was over, the harvest would begin. Then no one would have time for anything but the crush.

  At least the demands, the tight schedule, helped keep her mind off Jerry and the police investigation. It had been two full weeks since she’d careened around turns with no brakes. As far as she could tell, the investigation was at a standstill.

  Jerry DeMorney was a different matter.

  She, too, had her sources. She was perfectly aware there was talk about him. Questions, not only by the police, but by his superiors. And the board members, led—mortifyingly, she hoped—by his own great-uncle.

  It was some satisfaction to know he was being squeezed, as her family had been squeezed. Between the greedy fists of gossip and suspicion.

  She brought up another e-mail, clicked to open the attached file.

  As she watched it scroll on-screen, her heart stumbled, then began to race.

  It was a copy of the next ad, one set to run in August.

  A family picnic, a wash of sunlight, the dapple of shade from a huge old oak. A scatter of people at a long wooden table that was loaded with food and bottles of wine.

  The image Sophia had hand-picked was of several generations, a mix of faces, expressions, movement. The young mother with a baby in her lap, the little boy wrestling with a puppy on the grass, a father with a young girl riding his shoulders.

  At the head of the table, th
e model who’d reminded her of Eli sat, his glass lifted as if in a toast. There was laughter in the picture, continuity, family tradition.

  This image had been altered. Subtly, slickly. Three of the models’ faces had been replaced. Sophia studied her grandmother, her mother, herself. Her eyes were wide with horror, her mouth gaping with it. Stabbed into her chest, like a knife, was a bottle of wine.

  It read:

  THIS IS YOUR MOMENT

  IT’LL BE THE DEATH OF YOU

  AND YOURS

  “You son of a bitch, you son of a bitch.” She jabbed the keyboard, ordered the copy to print, saved the file, then closed it.

  He wouldn’t shake her, she promised herself. And he wouldn’t threaten her family with impunity. She would deal with him. She would handle this.

  She started to slap the hard copy of the ad in a file, hesitated.

  You’re a handler, Tyler had told her.

  Suckering the vines was a pleasant way to spend a summer’s day. The sun was warm, the breeze mild as a kiss. Under the brilliant blue cup of sky, the circling Vacas were upholstered with green, the hills rolling down lush with the promise of summer.

  His grapes were protected from that streaming midday sun by a lovely verdant canopy of leaves. Nature’s parasol, his grandfather called it.

  The crop was more than half its mature size, and before long the black grape varieties would begin changing color, green berries miraculously going blue, then purple as they pushed toward that last spurt of maturity. And harvest.

  Each stage of growth required tending, just as each stage brought the season to its inevitable promise.

  When Sophia crouched beside him, he continued his work, and his pleasure.

  “I thought you were going to hole up in your office all day, waste this sunshine. Hell of a way to make a living, if you ask me.”

  “I thought a big, important vintner like yourself would have more to do than suckering vines personally.” She combed a hand through his hair, lavishly streaked by the sun. “Where’s your hat, pal?”

  “Around somewhere. These Pinot Noir are going to be our earliest to ripen. I’ve got a hundred down with Paulie on these babies. I say they’re going to give us our best vintage in five years. His money’s on the Chenin Blanc.”

  “I’ll take a piece of that. Mine’s on the Pinot Chardonnay.”

  “You ought to save your money. You’re going to need it financing Maddy’s brainstorm.”

  “It’s an innovative, forward-thinking project. She’s already buried me in data. We’re putting together a proposal for La Signora.”

  “You want to rub grape seeds all over your body, I could do it for you. No charge.” He shifted, their knees bumped before he laid a hand on hers. “What’s the matter, baby?”

  “I got another message, another doctored ad. It came through a file attached to interoffice e-mail.” As his hand tensed, she turned hers over so their fingers linked. “I’ve already called. It was sent under P.J.’s screen name. She hasn’t sent me any posts today. Someone either used her computer or had her account information and password. It could’ve come from anywhere.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Back home. I printed it out, locked it in a drawer. I’m going to send it to the police, add it to their pile. But I wanted to tell you first. As much as I hate the idea, I suppose the thing to do is call a summit meeting so everyone in the family’s aware and on guard. But . . . I wanted to tell you first.”

  He stayed as he was, crouched, his hand dwarfing hers. Overhead a cloud teased the edges of the sun and filtered the light.

  “Here’s what I want to do. I want to hunt him down and peel the skin off his bones with a dull knife. Until that happy day, I want you to promise me something.”

  “If I can.”

  “No, Sophie, there’s no if. You don’t go anywhere by yourself. Not even from the villa to here. Not even for a walk in the gardens or a quick trip to the goddamn mini-mart. I mean it.”

  “I understand how worried you are, but—”

  “You can’t understand, because it’s unreasonable. It’s indescribable.” He tripped her heart by bringing her free hand up, pressing his lips to the palm. “If I wake up in the middle of the night and you’re not there, I break out in a cold sweat.”

  “Ty.”

  “Shut up, just shut up.” In one fast and fluid move, he got to his feet to walk off the nerves and the rage. “I’ve never loved anyone before. I didn’t expect it to be you. But it is, and that’s it. You’re not doing anything to mess this up for me.”

  “Well, naturally, we can’t have that.”

  He turned, gave her a look of profound frustration. “You know what I mean, Sophie.”

  “Fortunately for you, I do. I don’t intend to mess this up for you, or me, either.”

  “Great. Let’s go pack your things.”

  “I’m not moving in with you.”

  “Why the hell not?” Frustration had him dragging his hands through his hair. “You’re there half the time anyway. And don’t give me that lame excuse about needing to be home to help with the wedding.”

  “It’s not a lame excuse, it’s a reason. Potentially a lame reason. I don’t want to live with you.”

  “Why? Just tell me why.”

  “Maybe I’m old-fashioned.”

  “Like hell you are.”

  “Maybe I’m old-fashioned,” she repeated, “in this one area. I don’t think we should live together. I think we should get married.”

  “That’s just another . . .” The words sank in, momentarily dulled his brain. “Whoa.”

  “Yes, and with that scintillating response, I need to go back home and call the police.”

  “You know, one day you’re actually going to let me work through a process at my own time and pace. But since that isn’t the case on this one, at least you could ask me in a more traditional way.”

  “You want me to ask you? Fine. Will you marry me?”

  “Sure. November’s good for me.” He cupped her elbows, lifted her a couple inches off the ground. “Which was when I was going to ask you—but you always have to be first. I figured we could get married, have a nice honeymoon and be back home before pruning time. Kind of a tidy and symbolic cycle, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know. I have to think about it. Culo.”

  “Back at you, honey.” He gave her a hard kiss, then dropped her back on her feet. “Let me finish this vine, then we’ll go call the cops. And the family.”

  “Ty?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Just because I did the proposing doesn’t mean I don’t want a ring.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get to it.”

  “I’ll pick it out.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Why not? I’m the one who’ll be wearing it.”

  “You’re the one wearing your face, too, but you didn’t pick that out, either.”

  On a sigh, she knelt beside him. “That makes absolutely no sense.” But she tipped her head onto his shoulder as he worked. “When I came here I was scared and angry. Now I’m scared, angry and happy. It’s better,” she decided. “A lot better.”

  “This is who we are,” Tereza stated, lifting her glass. “And who we choose to be.”

  They were dining alfresco, in a kind of Giambelli reflection of the ad. A purposeful choice, Sophia thought. Her grandmother would stand straight against a threat and kick it dead in the balls if need be.

  The evening was warm, the sunlight still brilliant. In the vineyards beyond the lawns and gardens, the grapes were growing fat and the Pinot Noir, as Tyler had predicted, was just beginning to turn.

  Forty days till harvest, Sophia thought. That was the old rule. When the grapes took color, harvest was forty days away. Her mother would be married by then, and just back from her honeymoon. Maddy and Theo would be her brother and sister, and back in school. She would be planning her own wedding, though she’d pressured Tyler not to announce their
engagement yet.

  Life could continue because, as La Signora said, this is who they were. And who they chose to be.

  “When we have trouble,” Tereza continued, “we band together. Family. Friends. This year has brought trouble, and changes and grief. But it’s also brought joy. In a few weeks Eli and I will have a new son, and more grandchildren. And, it seems,” she added, turning toward Maddy, “a new enterprise. In the meantime, we’ve been threatened. I’ve given considerable thought to what can and should be done. James? Your legal opinion of our options.”

  He set down his fork, gathered his thoughts. “While evidence indicates DeMorney was involved, even perhaps instrumental, in the embezzlement scheme, the tampering, there’s no concrete proof. Donato’s claims notwithstanding, there isn’t enough to convince the district attorney to file charges on those matters, or Tony Avano’s death. It’s been confirmed that he was in New York when Sophia’s car was tampered with.”

  “He would have hired someone,” David began.

  “Be that as it may, and I don’t disagree, until the police have evidence against them, there’s nothing they can do. And nothing,” James added, “you can do. My best advice is to stay above it, let the system work.”

  “No offense intended to you or your system, Uncle James, but it hasn’t been working very well to date. Donato was murdered while he was in the system,” Sophia pointed out. “And David was shot on a public street.”

  “Those are matters for the Italian authorities, Sophie, and only tie our hands all the more.”

  “He’s harassing Sophie with those ads.” Tyler shoved at his plate. “Why can’t they be traced back to him?”

  “I wish I had the answers. This isn’t a stupid man or, thus far, a careless one. If he’s at the core of all of this, he’s covered himself with layers of protection, alibis.”

  “He walked into my apartment, sat down and shot my father in cold blood. I’d consider that, at the very least, a careless act. He needs to be punished. He should be hounded and pursued and harassed, just as he’s hounded, pursued and harassed the family.”