Deadly Offer (3 page)

No coffee, and her beloved pet had not been fed. Even if Selena had left early for some reason, say a doctor’s appointment in the city, she would have taken care of Jasper. Dan swallowed. His throat was tight and he could feel his heart thumping in alarm. Something was wrong.

“Sorry, Jasper, you’ll have to wait a few more minutes.” The cat seemed to consider his words and then turned and crept soundlessly out of the kitchen. Dan put down the filter full of coffee and followed the feline into the dining room, his boots making the wide floorboards creak. Nothing amiss in here—the long farmhouse table graced the center of the room, a mismatched but pleasing assortment of old press back chairs on either side. He entered the casually furnished living room where Jasper jumped on an overstuffed yellow loveseat and prepared for a nap.
Nothing.

Dan licked his lips and mounted the old farmhouse’s narrow stairs. They were stenciled in a simple pattern of grape leaves, grapes, and words, the letters spelling out a winemaking adage as one climbed the stairs.
With wine and hope, anything is possible.
Selena herself had stenciled the saying. It was an old Spanish proverb that had been her mantra since the early days of the business.

There were four small bedrooms upstairs, a bathroom, and a cozy, bookshelf-lined study that Selena used as a private office. The vineyard’s real office was in the new barn, where both Dan and Selena had computers and all of the associated office machinery—a copy machine, fax, and printer. He glanced in the study, and then checked the guest rooms. His heart thudding in his chest, he entered Selena’s sunny bedroom.

The four-poster double bed was made up with a light-blue chenille bedspread and blue-flowered pillows. It had not been slept in. Dan wasn’t aware how he knew this, but instinctively he felt sure it was true. He shook his head, uncomprehending, trying to reason where Selena could be. He’d taken yesterday afternoon off, but Selena had said nothing that morning about going out of town.

He scanned the room quickly, noticing a small dark mound on the floor. He took a few steps and smelled a foul odor.
Jasper!
The cat had left a little “present” for his mistress by the base of the bed. Dan gritted his teeth, strode to the bathroom for some toilet paper and a wet paper towel, and quickly cleaned up the mess.

That unpleasant chore completed, he wasted no time in bounding down the stairs and back outside. Had Selena left the property? Dan jogged to the old barn, a handsomely restored building housing equipment as well as Selena’s small Subaru truck. He peered in a window. The truck was parked and empty. Dan Stewart felt the first pricklings of fear.

Where was she? Lying on some small corner of the property, her ankle twisted? Or worse?

Dan sprinted to the five-year-old building housing the vineyard’s office, tasting room, and production room, a structure Selena called the “new barn.” Designed to look as if it was original to the property, the new barn was painted red with white trim, and sported a cupola with a jaunty rooster weathervane atop. He tried the door. Locked, but Dan knew where Selena kept a hidden spare key. He opened the door and went in.

He glanced around the tidy room. The message light on the phone blinked and a fax waited in the basket of the machine. No sign of Selena. That meant she had to be somewhere on the grounds of the vineyard.

He raced out, his mind forming a quick search plan. Start at the house and work outward in concentric circles, he thought. Encompass the pool and the olive grove …

The pool
. His body flooded with a cold dread as he remembered Selena’s penchant for a daily late afternoon swim. Before he knew it, he was poolside, his adrenalin having carried him the one hundred or so yards without his even remembering. The water was clean, an unnaturally bright blue, and the surface and bottom of the pool were clear.
Thank God
, he breathed.
Thank God.

He turned to start his methodical search. A raven, wings inky black against the sky, whooshed by his head. He twisted toward the bird and caught a glimpse of something pink and white draped at the side of the hot tub.
A towel. So Selena had been here for a swim.

He crept toward the colorful piece of fabric, a feeling of impending doom settling upon his body like a wet, heavy blanket. He leaned forward, not wanting to look, but knowing he must.

A bathing-suit clad body lay curled in a semi-fetal position on the bottom of the hot tub. A long black braid strained upward toward the surface, as if the figure was a marionette on a string. Dan Stewart gasped. He knew that braid; he recognized the navy swimsuit.

He leapt into the water, struggling to get a grip on Selena’s body, the Spanish proverb echoing like a bad dream in his head.
With wine and hope, anything is possible.
He clasped his hands around Selena’s water-logged corpse and pulled her to the surface. Her arms splayed out as the body rotated face-up.

Dan felt as if he would vomit.

Selena’s lovely face was bloated nearly beyond recognition, her lips puckered and grayish blue. She was staring at him with glistening brown eyes, eyes that would never again catch his from across a room. Dan heard a throaty cry, low-timbered, like a lion’s roar of intense pain, and as he struggled to heft Selena’s streaming body up onto the cement, he realized that the primitive sound came from him.

Two

Darby Farr jumped into
her red Karmann Ghia cabriolet and started the engine. Nearly nine a.m. on a Friday and she was in her characteristic morning rush. Impatient to be at the office and doing the work she loved, she first grabbed her smart phone and checked quickly for messages and e-mails.

Some were predictable: clients wanting to see property; clients wanting to sell property. As one of the busiest brokers in southern California, Darby was never without a long list of people to contact, and she scrolled through the myriad e-mails with practiced speed. A few messages were personal. Her friend in Florida, Helen Near, had written several chatty paragraphs describing a particularly challenging golf game; her friend in Maine, Tina Ames, announced in two terse lines that she and her long-time boyfriend were finally “getting hitched.” Darby smiled and continued scrolling, vowing silently to respond later in the day.

The last message from an unfamiliar Japanese name puzzled her.
Kenji Miyazaki.
She clicked open the e-mail and checked the signature. Mr. Miyazaki was a senior vice-president of the mega-company Genkei Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in Tokyo.

Darby skimmed the e-mail, her stomach tight. Finally she shoved her phone in her pocketbook and backed out of the driveway.

Cruising through the laid-back community of Mission Beach, Darby hardly noticed the throngs of skateboarders, runners, and mothers pushing strollers. Instead, she thought back to her earlier dealings with the drug company’s president, Mr. Kobayashi, and the shocking family secret he had helped her uncover.

It all stemmed from a book that described Japanese atrocities in China during the Second World War. Darby’s maternal grandfather, Tokutaro Sugiyama, had been mentioned in the book. Mentioned?
Heck,
Darby thought,
he’d been named a war criminal.

It was a secret Darby’s mother had discovered as well.

And now someone else—Kenji Miyazaki—wanted to meet with Darby to discuss the “incident.” She had never heard his name. Who was he, and why was he contacting her?

Her stomach clenched once more and the taste of acid rose in her mouth. Whether it was from the Red Rooibus or her anxiety, she wasn’t sure. She took a deep breath, fighting the feeling of nausea, and accelerated toward the freeway exit.

It happened in Japan, more than fifty years ago,
she told herself.
My grandfather is dead. My mother is dead. What does a mystery from the past have to do with me?

Out of what seemed like nowhere, flashing blue lights appeared in Darby’s rear view mirror. She slowed her Karmann Ghia to a crawl, looked back in the mirror, and groaned.

It was a car from the San Diego Police Department. The officer inside motioned, and Darby pulled over as soon as it was safe. A beefy, dark haired man in uniform emerged from the black-and-white vehicle and ambled slowly toward her car.

“Thought that was you, Darby.” He had an affable grin, this young police officer, and Darby recognized him as a client she’d helped purchase his first home just the year before.

“Eric … it’s good to see you.” Embarrassed, she gave a small smile. “I guess I’m in too much of a hurry this morning, is that right Officer Sanchez?”

“Going twenty-five miles over the speed limit, so you might say that.” Eric Sanchez’s voice turned serious. “Wish I could give you a warning, but I’ve got you on the radar. What are you in such a hurry for? You late for a big closing or hoping to get a jump on the weekend?”

She shook her head. “No excuses—I’m just on my way to work.”

“You’re lucky you weren’t a half mile farther down the road. You’ve got a school zone coming up, and that would be a criminal charge.” He jotted a few things down on a pad. “I’ve got to go back to my vehicle and write this up.”

Darby nodded and watched him walk away. Her throat was suddenly dry and she grabbed a water bottle from the back of the car and took a long swig.
A criminal charge would jeopardize my real estate license.
Her hands shook as she put down the bottle.
But I would never speed in a school zone, would I?

Slowly she shook her head.
Why am I racing around like a madwoman?
Her career was going well, and even in the flagging market she’d had some impressively large sales. She was fit, thanks to her early morning runs, and reasonably happy. And yet she raced from appointment to appointment, in a kind of a fog, not even enjoying the ride.
I can’t blame it all on my grandfather
, she thought.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
That’s it,
Darby vowed
. I’m going to slow my life down a little. I’m going to focus on the present and stop dwelling on the past.

When Eric Sanchez returned with the ticket, Darby tried not to wince as she looked at the amount: Three hundred and twenty dollars. She sighed and put it on the seat next to her.

“I’m sorry, Darby,” he said, his round face puckered with concern.

“Please, don’t be,” she smiled. “I think it was just what I’ve needed to get my life back on a slower track. Thank you for the wake-up call, Officer Sanchez.”

He blushed a deep crimson. With dimpled fingers he waved as she pulled carefully back into traffic.

———

“You are looking more relaxed than usual,” said Enrique Tomas Gomez, his dark eyebrows lifted in surprise. He plunked a stapler down on his desk. “Should I be concerned?” He was, as always, impeccably dressed in a Joseph Abboud designer suit, his black hair perfectly cut and styled. Darby swung her pocketbook onto a chair and turned to face her assistant.

“I got a ticket getting onto the freeway,” she explained, grabbing a stack of mail and flipping through the envelopes. She paused, opened one, and handed him a check for twenty thousand dollars. “There’s the second earnest money deposit for the Wymans’ purchase of the lakefront house.”

He glanced at the check and nodded. “Tell me more about your run-in with the law,” he urged. “I’m not used to my boss being a ‘bad girl’.” He made little air quotations with his tapered fingers. “You are always so squeaky clean. What some might call boring.”

Darby laughed. Enrique Tomas Gomez, or “ET” as she called him, was an aging Ricky Martin with a sense of humor as big as his wardrobe, which was to say, vast.

“I was speeding. The officer was that young guy who bought the ranch over on Palm back in the spring.”

“The man who was shaped like a little bowling pin?”

“Yup. Eric Sanchez.” She tossed down the pile of mail and faced her friend. “I thought he’d let me go, but I was on his radar. The whole thing made me realize how much of my time is spent racing from one thing to the next. I’m going to slow down a little, see if I can’t stop this frantic pace.”

“Interesting idea,” ET murmured. “We’ll see how far you get, Speedy Gonzalez.”

She laughed again. “Are we seeing Claudia today?” The mother of three school-aged children, Claudia Jones worked part-time as a sales agent at Pacific Coast Realty. She’d joined Darby and ET just a few weeks earlier to help them show property, and was a welcome addition to Darby’s growing real estate team.

“No, today is the day she helps in the little one’s first grade class.” ET moved to answer the ringing telephone, leaving Darby free to think about her own day. Appointments with a few potential listings, but other than that, she was open. Of course, there was always desk work to do. Real estate was a never-ending, twenty-four-seven kind of job in which you could peruse listings endlessly, search the multiple listing system compulsively, contact clients constantly, and farm for prospects until the cows came home. Free time—now there was a concept that was new to Darby Farr.

I could check out an art museum. Something normal people do.

A harsh intake of breath from the other end of the room made Darby look quickly toward her assistant. Something about his posture—the way his back, always ramrod straight, was slumped—made Darby’s heart tighten.

ET clutched the phone in one hand and held one of the wooden desks with the other, as if it was the only thing keeping him erect. Darby searched his face, normally so serene and smooth. What she saw made her wince.

His skin was ashen, his handsome Latin features twisted in an emotion that was clearly pain of the worst sort. Without warning he slid to the floor, taking the phone crashing down with him.

———

Dan Stewart felt trapped in a nightmare from which he could not hope to awake. First the discovery of Selena’s lifeless, bathing-suit clad body, and then the arrival of the emergency medical team, and finally the call he’d known he must make to Selena’s brother Carlos.

It had been, without a doubt, one of the worst things he had ever done in his life. Right up there with the day he’d told his little girl Sophie that her Mommy wasn’t coming back—ever.

Thankfully Carlos had been at his studio, and not on the freeway stuck in traffic or in the middle of a business meeting. Dan gave him the news, as gently as he could, that Selena was dead.

“What?” Carlos’ deep voice was unbelieving, as if he’d heard incorrectly and was trying to understand. Dan repeated his awful message, listening to hear if the words had sunk in.

“No …” It was a long, drawn-out denial, followed quickly by a painful “How?”

“I don’t know. She was in her hot tub.” Dan nearly choked as he said it, remembering the image of her bloated face, burned on his brain like a brand. Would he ever forget the horrible scene? Would it be his new—and final—memory of his employer and friend? “It may have been a heart attack. The paramedics weren’t sure.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

Carlos was crying, big, racking sobs that filled Dan with despair. Snatches of Spanish words peppered his cries, and Dan knew, without understanding, that they were phrases of anguish.

———

“I cannot believe it,” ET murmured from the passenger side of Darby’s vintage roadster. “I am trying to tell myself that it is true, that my sister is gone, but my heart will not listen.” He was staring straight ahead and as Darby stole a quick glance at him, she felt her own heart constrict with pain.

She accelerated on the nearly empty stretch of highway. Despite the distance, they were driving from San Diego up the coast to San Francisco, and then inland to the Ventano Valley. They had departed immediately after ET’s younger brother Carlos had called, stopping only to grab overnight bags and a full tank of gas.

Darby had called Claudia Jones from her cell phone, explaining over the din of chattering first grade voices about the tragedy.

“Poor ET,” Claudia had clucked sympathetically. She admonished a child to share his Legos, and then switched to her professional voice. “I’ll be at the office in fifteen minutes. Drive safely, and don’t worry about anything on this end.”

Darby thanked her and hung up. She glanced at her passenger, who was staring out the window. As if he felt her gaze, ET turned towards her.

“I can never thank you enough for doing this.” His eyes were moist with tears. “I couldn’t face the airport. Not today.”

Darby nodded. “I understand.” Her assistant was deathly afraid of flying, and although he had put his fears aside once or twice in recent years, she knew that in his present condition boarding an airplane would require more stamina than the poor man could muster. “It’s a beautiful drive. We’re cruising right along.” She gave a small smile. “We’ll be at Carlos’ apartment in the city before you know it.”

He gave a slow nod of his head and turned toward the window. Once again, Darby felt acute stabs of sympathy.

She thought back to what she knew about ET’s youngest sibling, Selena Gomez Thompson. What was it ET had always called her? A free spirit, someone who took risks and was unbounded by society’s conventions. Selena had defied her conservative Mexican upbringing and forged an independent life away from her family, even her brothers who loved her dearly but tended toward overprotectiveness. In her late teens she fled the Mexican town of
Ensenada and settled in San Francisco, living with a group of cyclists in a rundown old Victorian near the Haight-Ashbury
District. When the landlord mentioned he needed to sell the house, Selena borrowed the funds to buy it. “She fixed it up little by little, renting rooms to the other cyclists, and then sold it for a mint,” ET once told Darby. “And then she bought the vineyard.”

Calling the neglected acreage and ramshackle farmhouse “a vineyard” had been a stretch at first, but once again Selena had employed good old-fashioned elbow grease, ingenuity, and all of her savings to get Carson Creek Estate & Winery up and running. Her brothers offered to help, but their sister was stubborn, insisting she could make it on her own. She’d never borrowed a cent from them—until a month ago.

Darby recalled the phone conversation with ET in which he’d quietly requested fifty thousand dollars to help a family member i
n need. From her friend Helen Near’s home in Florida, Darby had
agreed to ET’s appeal immediately and without any questions. She’d
transferred money into his account, not knowing any of the details, because he was her most valued employee and friend. It was only a slip of the tongue that had revealed for whom the money was intended, but Darby still did not know why.

She used her directional and pulled off the highway toward a small gas station with two forlorn looking pumps. “We’re about twenty-five minutes from the city,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt. “I’m going to grab some more gas and a bottle of water. Can I get you something?”

He turned toward her. “A coffee would be nice.”

“Sure.” She climbed out of the car and began pumping her gas. A few minutes later she was in a dingy little convenience store, a water and large coffee in hand.

The woman at the counter’s eyes were ringed with black eyeliner. Blush accented the sagging skin around her cheekbones. She yawned. “Forty-two even,” she said.

Darby handed her a credit card. She glanced at the stack of newspapers on the counter and scanned the headlines, looking, as always, for the byline of a certain British reporter on assignment in Afghanistan. She flipped the paper over and waited for a receipt.