Deadly Offer (20 page)

Darby shook her head. The flash of the knives’ silver blades was hypnotic.

“It’s in the old barn behind the tasting building. Margo’s two ponies are kept there—for tonight at least. In the back of the barn is a wooden door, and stairs leading down to the cave. Watch out because they are really punky. There’s another way down from the outside, but it’s even more rotted. Wish I could take you over there and say goodbye to it myself, but I’m kind of in the middle of things. Want a flashlight?”

Darby nodded. She managed to thank Tim when he handed her a battery operated flashlight from a kitchen drawer.

“Tell her I’m going to be about half an hour with this risotto and the chicken you so thoughtfully cooked,” he said, pulling the dish Darby had brought out of the refrigerator. “Andrea’s out for a walk and should be back any moment.” He looked up. “You’re welcome to stay for dinner if you’d like.”

“Thank you. I’ve already eaten.”

“Okay, then.” He put down the knives and stirred the contents of the pot. “Another time, perhaps.” He cocked his head. “You feeling okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” Darby backed out of the kitchen and headed for the old barn, the flashlight gripped tightly in hand.

Eighteen

Darting black shapes flickered
across the darkening sky as Darby hurried across the grass to the small wooden barn. Perched on the side of the Contento’s rows of Chardonnay grapes, the little structure was charming, although in dire need of repair. Was it to be destroyed along with the cave? Darby wondered why the family would demolish such an important part of their history, but then, the whole vineyard was their heritage. Maybe one compromised building wasn’t worth renovation.

She heard the soft snuffling of the ponies as she approached. She whispered calming words to them, hoping to ease their anxiety over a strange person in their midst. “Easy, easy. It’s okay.” She’d never had a horse as a girl, but one of her clients outside of Mission Beach had invited her to ride several times, and she found she had a natural affinity for the powerful animals. “Ssshhh, it’s okay.” She stroked the soft muzzle of one of the ponies, wishing she had brought along apples as a peace offering.

Darby took a deep breath. Her heartbeat had finally slowed to a normal rhythm.

He freaked me out with those knives,
she admitted to herself, wanting almost to chuckle at the absurdity of her fear.
I’ll laugh about it when I’m back at Carson Creek
, she thought. Now it was time to find Margo.

She whispered once more to the ponies and began searching for the wooden door. It was located in the corner of the old barn, as Tim had described, and Darby saw that it was ajar. Calling out to Margo, she flipped on her flashlight and peered into the door and down the stairs into darkness. “Margo?” she called again.

“Down here.” The voice came from below. Darby began descending the steps, testing each step for rotted wood as Tim had recommended. One plank sagged nearly completely under her weight; she yanked back her foot and found sturdier purchase. When at last she touched the solid earthen floor of the cave, she swept the beam of the flashlight around the dark walls, shiny with moisture, and cautiously straightened up.

She could stand, but just barely. Water trickled down her neck and a constant faint dripping punctuated the quiet. Jumbled in one corner, Darby saw what looked to be the decomposing remains of several wooden barrels, no doubt for aging wine, along with a few broken bottles scattered about the dirt floor. Webs from long-dead spiders made a lacey design against the moist rocks. The air was musty and damp, like a very deep hole.

“Margo? I need to speak with you. About what your father told you before he died.”

“I’m saying goodbye to these caves.” Her voice was distorted. Darby shivered and edged toward it. Finally her flashlight flickered on Margo’s blonde hair.

“Let’s go back up where we can talk.” It was a good thirty degrees colder underground, and already Darby was chilled.

Margo pivoted slowly toward Darby. Her arm was extended, almost as if she was pointing. She was holding something shiny.

“Let’s not.” The thing in her hand was a revolver, trained directly at Darby’s chest.

“What?” Darby gasped. “What are you doing?” She looked up at Margo’s face. What she saw made her heart nearly stop.

The person holding the gun was not Margo Contento. Darby watched in horror as the imposter’s free hand ripped off a blonde wig to reveal a chic brunette bob.

———

Dan Stewart was experiencing every parent’s worst nightmare: he could not find his child.

From the moment he’d entered the house, he’d sensed something was terribly wrong. Sophie wasn’t in her room; nor was she anywhere in the small but comfortable house that they shared.

He checked his cell phone. No calls from her; no responses to his text messages. No answer when he dialed her phone.

He swallowed the panic that was rising like bile in his throat. This was his fault, this was because he was a terrible parent; this was because he was too focused on the vineyard and not on this real job of raising a daughter safely to adulthood. He wanted to cry out in anguish. Instead, Dan forced himself to make a plan.

First he called Carson Creek. Darby did not answer. Next, he phoned all of Sophie’s friends, but no one knew where she was. He tried to ignore the pity in the voices of their moms when they offered to help.

What could they do? What could anyone do? It was time to call the police, and time for Dan Stewart to jump in his jeep and roam the valley’s twisting roads.

———

Andrea Contento tossed the blonde wig to the ground and kept the gun trained on Darby. “Get on your knees,” she said, as calmly as if she were ordering a pound of prosciutto at the deli. “Get on your knees and put your hands behind your back.”

Darby’s mind raced. Getting on the ground was not an option the trained Aikido student wanted to take, but the gun-toting Andrea was too far away for Darby to fight.
If I’m closer, I can overpower her.
She decided to try that tactic first.

Darby took a step toward Andrea, her hands raised in submission but at shoulder height where she could quickly maneuver them. “Andrea, I think there has been some misunderstanding.”

“I said, get on your knees,” Andrea barked. “Do it or I swear to God I’ll shoot.”

Darby peered through the darkness into the other woman’s eyes. They were cold and calculating—unflinching.
The eyes are the windows of the soul,
she recalled her Aikido sensei saying as he paced the floor of San Diego’s Academy of Martial Arts. Darby recognized the look of total malice in her opponent’s stare. Those eyes were the eyes of a killer.

She made a quick calculation.

The distance between me and Andrea is too far to knock the gun out of her hands without it going off
.
I’ll have to wait for another opportunity to disarm her.

Darby sank to the damp ground, her knees against the dirt. She’d practiced self-defense many times in the
hanni
position, but it was not one of her favorites.

“That’s better.” Andrea remained where she was, the gun aimed at Darby’s heart. “Drop the flashlight.” The device fell to the ground with a thud, its beam aiming into the darkness. “Now I’m coming over with some duct tape, and if you move a muscle I will blast your internal organs all over this cave. Understood?”

“I don’t get it, Andrea. Why the blonde wig?”

Andrea lowered herself slowly and picked up a roll of tape. She moved toward Darby.

“Was the wig to make me think you were Margo? Is that it?”

Andrea was about two feet away from Darby, still standing above
her with the gun.

“Margo isn’t down here with you, is she?” Andrea was coming within striking range.
Don’t hit the trigger finger
, she remembered her sensei instructing.
If you hit the trigger finger it will cause the gun to be fired.
Darby steeled her resolve, all the while keeping her face calm and watching Andrea’s eyes.

With lightning speed, Darby brought both of her hands down hard on the wrist holding the gun, driving it in a swift counter- clockwise move. It was a last resort tactic, but Darby had to take the chance. With her right hand grasping the handle of the gun, she punched with her left at Andrea’s jugular. In a second she was on her feet with Andrea subdued.

“Now you’re the one who’s going to her knees,” Darby commanded. “Get down.”

Andrea sunk to the ground, moaning. “My neck,” she groaned, her arm massaging the place where Darby had punched.

Darby grabbed the duct tape and ripped off a strip. “Hands behind you, let’s go.”

Andrea put her hands behind her, wincing in pain, while Darby advanced with the duct tape. She bent over, ready to secure Andrea’s wrists, when a force struck, hard, and the damp floor of the cave rose up to meet her.

Andrea had coiled herself into a powerful spring and unleashed pure fury on Darby. The realtor lay on the ground, the gun skittering into a dark corner.

“You little bitch,” Andrea breathed. She gave several savage kicks
to Darby’s stomach, and then ripped off a long strip of duct tape. “Stick out your arms,” she commanded. “Now!”

Darby ignored the piercing pain in her midsection and, acting as passively as possible, stuck out her hands, her wrists touching.

Andrea wound the tape around and through Darby’s wrists until
she was satisfied. She then wrapped her ankles, grunted, and slapped a long piece over Darby’s mouth.

“Now you listen to me. I’m the one in charge of this little party here, so don’t get any more stupid ideas.” She was breathing hard, her chest heaving with the exertion of having bested the younger woman. “You think you’re pretty damn smart, don’t you? You come down here looking for Margo. Well, she can’t help you. She’s tucked away in her office, selling case after case of Contento wine.”

She rubbed the spot on her neck where Darby’s punch had connected with soft tissue. “Luckily you didn’t get me in the face where Tim and Margo might notice,” she spat. She patted her hair. “I’ve been out for a walk, so if I look a little worse for wear, that’s no big deal.” She turned again to Darby. “I was perfectly content to let you head back to San Diego. But you’re like a little dog with a bone. You just won’t give it up.”

She picked up the flashlight and began walking toward the stairs. “Contrary to what you might think, I’m not a bloodthirsty killer. I’m more—opportunistic. So, just like I knew what would happen to Selena, I’ve got a pretty good idea of how you’ll die.” She paused at the first step. “Tomorrow the excavator will come to tear down the barn and you’ll be buried in tons of rubble. Old Vincenzo’s cave will be filled in and you, my darling Darby, will be part of the fill. No one will find you for hundreds of years—if you’re ever found.”

She sighed and put a foot on the stairs. “I’ll be back as soon as I’ve had dinner with the kids. Wouldn’t want them to come looking for me, now would we? I’ll bring you a little bedtime snack that will guarantee you’ll sleep peacefully through the night, despite the nocturnal creatures who’ll be nibbling on you like an old sandwich.” She climbed gingerly up the rotted stairs. “See you soon, Darby.”

Darby wasted no time getting to work on her constraints. She’d deliberately placed her wrists in one of the easiest escape positions; still, it would take time to loosen the tape’s sticky hold so that she could slip her hands free. The strip across her mouth was causing her to gag, but Darby willed herself to ignore it, just like she would not let herself focus on Andrea’s revelations.
My hands are the top priority. I’ve got to get them free
.

The tape bit into her flesh as Darby worked single-mindedly to loosen it. She was so intent on making progress that she did not at first feel something brush against her thigh.

A rat.

Darby squirmed and the animal skittered into the darkness. It would be back, she knew that, and the next time it would be bolder. More determined than ever, Darby rubbed her wrists.

———

Sophie Stewart scrambled in her pocket to turn off her cell phone. It was her father, his ring a bad rendition of the reggae hit, “Red, Red Wine.” She knew she should just turn it off, but she couldn’t bear to. “I’ll be home soon, Dad,” she vowed. “Right after I see what’s so interesting in the old barn.”

She’d watched Andrea Contento head into the structure, and then to her surprise seen Darby Farr go in as well. Minutes later, Andrea had come back out—alone.

Once Sophie saw that Andrea was back in the farmhouse, she headed for the barn. The ponies gave nervous whinnies, lifting their heads in protest, and Sophie soothed them as best she could. Using her cell phone to light her path, she spied a stairway in the corner of the old barn and hurried toward it.

Old farm tools were piled by the stairs, long since replaced with newer and more modern implements. Sophie put a tentative foot on the first stair. It was springy, the wood damp and rotted.

Descending slowly downward, Sophie strained to see anything in the darkness. When her feet were on solid ground, she swept the feeble light around her surroundings.
The cave.
She remembered coming down here once or twice when her father had worked at Contento Vineyards. It was super creepy during the day; at night it was positively horrible.

There was no sign of Darby Farr, and Sophie was about to climb back up the stairs when her cell phone illuminated a long shape. She crept closer. It looked like a human body, a moaning body that was undulating like a caterpillar. Sophie wanted to scream.

Instead she crept closer until the creature raised its head. Sophie leaned closer with the phone’s feeble light and nearly yelped in astonishment. The pupa-like shape was Darby Farr.

———

Detective Nancy Nardone squinted her eyes at Dan, trying to get something out of him that would help her find his daughter.

“Can’t you tell me anything that might shed some light on Sophie’s whereabouts?” she said. “What does she like to do, what are her hobbies? Nicknames?”

“Sophie Doo,” he said softly. He ran a hand through his hair. Maybe this had been a mistake, coming to the police station and asking for Detective Nardone, but Jesus, it had been several hours and there was still no sign of Sophie.

“She used to love the cartoon
Scooby Doo
,” he explained. “It’s about a dog who solves mysteries …”

“I know what
Scooby Doo
is about,” snapped Detective Nardone. “Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” She twirled a pencil in her fingers. “Sophie fancies herself an investigator, and we don’t have to think about it too hard to realize which crime she’s trying to solve.” She snapped her fingers at a nearby officer. “Get on the phone with Contento Vineyards,” she ordered. “Tell them we’re coming over.” She got to her feet and pointed at Dan. “Let’s get going. I have a feeling our
Scooby Doo
hopeful thinks she’s on the trail of a mystery.”

———

Darby winced as the duct tape was yanked off her mouth with a surprisingly hard pull.

“Andrea did this, didn’t she?” The teen felt the tape around Darby’s wrists. “I need something to cut this tape.” She jumped to her feet. “There’s an old piece of metal in the barn,” she breathed. “I’ll be right back.”