Must Be Murder

by Jen Carter

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2016

  A Kindle Scout selection

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  About the Author

  ONE

  “Don’t look now, but here they come,” Holly muttered.

  I didn’t know why my sister said that. Everyone looked when told don’t look now. It was practically impossible not to.

  Still drying the wine glass in my hand, I turned just in time to see a large group of late-twenty-somethings filing into the tasting room.

  Holly swatted my arm somewhat playfully. “I said not to look,” she said.

  I ignored the swat, partly because I was used to being swatted by my younger sister, but mostly because my good mood began evaporating once I saw the group. I had completely forgotten that they were coming today. As much as I loved helping out at my family’s winery on the weekends, every now and then I’d rather be at home watching movies on my couch. This was one of those times.

  I plastered a smile on my face and watched the joint bachelor-bachelorette party walk across the tasting room toward us. I leaned into my sister, bumping my arm with hers, and said through my smile, “I’m so glad Jason offered to do the tour today so we don’t have to.” Then I finished drying my glass and placed it on a shelf under the bar.

  “Here we go,” Holly said. She pushed her ponytail of unruly black hair over her shoulder and walked toward the far end of the bar where the group had congregated. “Hey guys!” she greeted them. “Welcome to D’Angelo Winery.”

  No one paid any attention to her. A couple girls were pointing at the wall of wine barrels decorating one side of the room. Another group of girls stood in a tight circle giggling loudly. Only about half the guys had made it all the way to the bar. The other half was still trailing through the tasting room. One bachelor was standing next to a high top table where an elderly couple was having a glass of wine, apparently striking up a conversation with them.

  I took a quick head count as I joined my sister: six guys and eight girls.

  Holly didn’t wait for the group to quiet down or turn in her direction. Instead, she forged on as though they were listening. “Angelia, thank you for choosing to spend part of your bachelorette party here.” Then she turned to the guy closest to the bar. “And Shane, thank you for—” she glanced at me before finishing her sentence “—also choosing to have your bachelor party here. Are you all ready for your tour of the winery? Jill over here will let our general manager Jason know you’ve arrived—he’ll be running the tour. While we wait, can I interest you in a glass of Vermentino? It’s our most popular sparkling wine.”

  I smiled at the group, not making eye contact with either Angelia or Shane, and took my cue to go find Jason. As I walked around the bar toward the back of the building where the winery offices were hidden, I heard an older female voice rising over the crowd’s buzzing conversations.

  “Ugh, sparkling wine gives me headaches. Can’t you serve us something better? I like Chardonnay, okay?”

  I closed my eyes for a long moment and took a deep breath. Ah, complaining already. This was going to be even less fun than I originally imagined.

  As I neared the offices, Holly’s little speech echoed in my head. When she had looked at me in the middle of thanking Shane for having his bachelor party here, I knew what she was really thinking. Thank you for not marrying my sister.

  Hear, hear.

  Shane’s name couldn’t be mentioned in front of my sisters without someone saying just that. In my family, he was known for making mistakes, but he did make one really good decision about six years ago—and that was breaking up with me. I didn’t know it at the time, but now I couldn’t be more relieved. Neither could my sisters.

  Hopefully marrying Angelia was also going to be a good decision for him.

  The door to the general manager’s office was opened, and when I rounded the corner, I was surprised to see my older sister sitting at Jason’s desk, furiously typing away on his computer. From the way her head was cocked to one side, I could tell she was holding her cell phone between her shoulder and cheek.

  “Hey Stel, where’s your hubby?” I asked. “That joint bachelor-bachelorette party is here. They’re ready for their winery tour.”

  Stella turned toward me. Frustration masked her face, the expression out of place against her beautifully-sleek bob, perfectly-understated makeup, and trendy dangling earrings. “He’s on the side of the road with a flat tire. He had a meeting down in Escondido this morning and was supposed to be back by now. Of course, his phone is practically dead, so I’m trying to get a tow truck to him while answering ten emails from a frantic bride who’s having her wedding here next month.” She turned back to the computer and began typing like a mad woman again. “Can you do the tour?”

  “Me?” I pointed to myself even though she wasn’t looking. “Are you joking?”

  Her typing didn’t slow. “You and Holly. I’ll get someone to cover for you in the tasting room.”

  Stella was the winery’s event planner, and part of me wanted to suggest that she take over the tour. The smarter part of me knew that wouldn’t go over well, though—not when her husband was twenty miles away, sitting on the side of the freeway in ninety-degree heat with a flat tire and a dead phone.

  She took my silence as compliance and said in a slightly less-intense, sing-songy voice, “Thank you, Jilly-bean. Love you.”

  “You better love me,” I said. I trudged back down the hallway, unable to keep myself from cringing at what waited for me in the tasting room.

  When I had heard through mutual friends that Shane’s fiancée was having her weekend-long bachelorette party in Otto Viti, I thought it was a little odd. Otto Viti, often called OV for short, wasn’t known as a bachelorette party destination. Decades ago, my grandfather planted one of the first vineyards in Southern California’s Temecula Valley, and while he loved sharing his wine with others, he didn’t like watching partially-inebriated guests drive off to their next wine tasting destination where they likely would become even more inebriated. As wine tasting became more popular, some people solved this problem by renting party BUSES for wine tasting adventures, but my grandfather thought bigger.

  With his endless optimism and imagination, he gathered some of his friends who worked in hospitality, and they came up with Otto Viti. Adjacent to my grandfather’s vineyard, they built an enclave showcasing eight tasting rooms of local wineries, specialty shops, unique restaurants,
and beautiful little hotels. The name meant “eight vines” in Italian—an homage to the eight tasting rooms serving as the cornerstones of my grandfather’s vision. And while the no-driving concept might seem perfect for bachelorette parties, those kinds of parties normally chose party buses over us. It made sense. We didn’t have any nightlife or excitement. We were quiet and quaint—a popular destination for couples celebrating a tenth or twentieth anniversary, groups of middle-aged women escaping their husbands for the weekend, and actual weddings. Rarely did we see a group of late-twenty-somethings at a bachelorette party.

  Then, when I heard that Shane and Angelia were having a joint bachelor-bachelorette party, well, that was even odder. Sure, some people like doing combined parties. But again, in Otto Viti? Then to want a tour of the winery as a whole group? Nothing screamed bachelor party like watching yeast mix with grape juice.

  Okay, but still, all that was fine. The group would come, I could serve a couple glasses of wine in the tasting room, Jason would take care of the tour, and then the D’Angelo family could send the party off to explore the rest of OV. Yes, I’d rather be sitting on the couch at home watching movies, but still, it was fine. And then we’d be able to move on to more important things—like getting ready for next weekend’s big harvest festival to celebrate crush season.

  But Jason was stuck with a flat tire. And I had to do the tour.

  Ugh.

  I approached Holly behind the bar just as she was clearing away some empty wine glasses, which told me that the partygoers used the two minutes of my absence to chug their wine rather than sip it.

  “Jason has a flat tire. I have—” I stopped and corrected myself, “—I get to give the tour. You get to do it, too.”

  Holly’s face broke into a big grin. She leaned into me and let out a low, guttural giggle. “You’ve got to be kidding.” She reached out and squeezed my arm, her eyes smiling. “Just what you hoped for.”

  Before I could warn her not to make it any worse with sarcasm, her face softened into concern.

  “Is Jason okay?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I guess. Maybe I should have asked. I was too stunned to ask.”

  “Hey lady,” someone from the crowd called. I recognized the voice—it belonged to the woman who got headaches from sparkling wine. “I want to buy a bottle of this wine.”

  I looked toward the voice. The woman’s face was free of wrinkles, but her style of clothing betrayed her age. Unlike most of the girls wearing summery dresses or tank tops and skirts, she wore dark pants and a black sweater set. It was an interesting choice for such a hot day, but then again, some of the tasting rooms were a bit chilly. The large buttons on her cardigan matched her heels, purse, and big earrings—all were bedazzled with green jewels. She and Angelia shared the same blue eyes, platinum blonde hair, and high cheekbones. I assumed she was Angelia’s mom. Another wrinkle-free woman stood next to her, this one with auburn hair and a similar sweater set, though hers was purple and without any jeweled buttons. She had to be a friend of Angelia’s mom.

  “Sure thing,” Holly said. She turned to the wall of wine behind us and selected a bottle of our most popular Chardonnay. As she put it in a gift bag, she pointed down the bar toward a young man at the end. To me, she said, “Recognize him? It’s Shane’s brother, Toby. His twenty-first birthday was last weekend, so the bridal party decided to celebrate it here along with all the wedding festivities.”

  I looked down at Toby standing by himself. I hadn’t seen him in a couple years, but he looked the same. Sandy hair, tall, lanky, with a perpetual expression of slight-embarrassment.

  Before Holly walked to the register to ring up the wine, she leaned into me and said, “Great place to celebrate being twenty-one, right? Maybe we can invite him to do sunrise yoga tomorrow morning and then get crazy with some jewelry-making classes in the afternoon. You know, typical Otto Viti shenanigans. I’m sure that’s what he was hoping for.”

  “Why would they want to celebrate his birthday here?” I said under my breath with another glance toward him. A girl who must have been one of Angelia’s friends threw her arm around him and laughed in his ear. Then she turned to laugh with a couple other girls. Toby half smiled and kept his eyes on his wine glass.

  “That’s what I asked him when I poured his wine,” Holly said. “Apparently it was Angelia’s idea. It was supposed to be a nice gesture.”

  “Fail.” I shook my head. “I’m going to say hi.”

  Holly turned toward the register, and I walked toward Toby. Behind me I could hear someone saying, “Hey, can we get this show on the road?” It was the woman with auburn hair standing next to Angelia’s mom.

  “Absolutely,” Holly called while working the register. “Is everyone done with the wine?”

  The group shuffled around. Some people moved away from the bar as others moved toward it to put down their wine glasses.

  “Hey Toby,” I said while nearing Shane’s little brother. “I hear it’s your birthday. Happy twenty-first.”

  Toby smiled his embarrassed smile and leaned back from the bar slightly. “Hey, Jill. Thanks. Good to see you. How’ve you been? Still teaching?”

  I nodded. “Yep. I help out here on the weekends and during the summer, but school’s about to start up—so I’m heading back home tomorrow.”

  “Are you still in the Carlsbad school district?”

  “Good memory. Carlsbad, yes. What are you up to these days?”

  He shrugged and turned his wine glass in circles on the bar, his eyes trained on it. “Not much. Still taking classes at the college. Started back a week ago for fall semester. Oh, and getting ready for Shane’s wedding, of course.”

  “Are you the best man?”

  He nodded.

  And as though right on cue, Shane walked up behind Toby.

  “Hey Jill,” he said.

  I smiled and hoped it didn’t come across as forced. Shane resembled Toby with his sandy hair and fair skin, though he was at least a couple inches shorter and stockier. He looked exactly as I remembered him, but nothing about him was familiar. Knowing him seemed like a lifetime ago.

  “Hey Shane,” I said. “Congratulations. The big day’s coming up soon, isn’t it?”

  From the corner of my eye, I could see Holly walking across the tasting room. She turned around and made eye contact with me, motioning toward the door. About half the bachelor-bachelorette party was trailing behind her while the rest stood around the bar, oblivious.

  “Oh, looks like it’s time to go,” I said to the brothers. “Ready?”

  “Actually,” Shane said, “Can I talk to you first? Just really quick?” He looked at Toby, who nodded and then followed the group wandering outside.

  “Sure,” I said. “I just need to send Stella a quick text.”

  I pulled my phone from my back pocket and tapped out a message.

  Send someone to watch the tasting room. We’re leaving.

  A second later she wrote back.

  He’s on his way. You can take the group out. Have fun and thanks.

  I scanned the room. A couple people stood around the high top tables chatting and sipping wine, but Holly and I had served them before the big party came in. The straggling bachelors had figured out they were supposed to go outside and were almost to the door.

  It was probably fine to leave the room for a couple seconds.

  “Let’s follow the rest of them and talk as we walk,” I said. “I don’t want you to miss anything.”

  As we zigzagged through the tables scattered across the tasting room, I realized this was probably the talk that I didn’t want to have—the one I hoped to avoid. I braced myself.

  TWO

  I pushed through the door with Shane following me. Immediately, the hot Temecula wind whipped around us. Wisps of long black hair from my ponytail lashed against my cheek, and I pulled them down with one hand while dropping the sunglasses from my head to my eyes with the other hand.

  “So, what�
�s going on?” I asked in the lightest, friendliest tone I could muster. It was my I’m-pretending-nothing’s-wrong voice. My sisters would have seen right through it, but Shane was never a very good listener. He probably bought it.

  He cleared his throat. “I know it’s kind of strange that we’re having our bachelor and bachelorette party here. Sorry.”

  I shrugged and shoved my hands in my pockets, keeping my eyes on the group in front of us. Two girls staggered off to the left, laughing hysterically. I wondered how many tasting rooms they had visited before showing up at ours.

  “It’s not really a bachelor party destination,” I said, “but if you like wine, it’s a great place to be.”

  “Well, Angelia likes wine. And her mom has a connection here.”

  “Is her mom the one who bought the Chardonnay back there?” I pointed over my shoulder toward the tasting room.

  “Yep.”

  “She looks just like Angelia.”

  “Yep.” Shane cleared his throat again. “You know the store down the street that sells all the chess stuff?”

  “Checkmate?”

  He nodded. “Marlo—that’s Angelia’s mom—her ex-husband is the guy who makes the chess tables sold there.”

  I looked at Shane, trying to connect with what he was saying. It took a moment. “Oh, wait. I know what you mean. The old school desks that no one wants? He’s the one who refurbishes them into chess tables?”

  “That’s him,” Shane said.

  “Those are beautiful. My grandfather has one. It has the inlaid tile chess board like the others, but the border is a beautiful, custom painting of a vineyard. I just—”

  The look on Shane’s face told me he didn’t care, so I stopped rambling.

  “So yeah,” Shane said, “that’s the connection. I didn’t recommend this place or anything.”

  I smiled at my feet. What were the chances that my ex-fiancé’s new fiancée had a connection to OV? Go figure. “Did Angelia know that my family works here? That my grandfather is basically the founder of Otto Viti?”

  “I told her. It didn’t matter.”

  “I bet your buddies were thrilled when they found out you were going wine tasting for your bachelor party. Your brother definitely seemed thrilled.”