Storm of Visions (3 page)

She was determinedly not looking at Mr. Aggressive, yet she
felt
him frown. He exuded disapproval, and the others picked up on his displeasure.

If she didn’t do something now, everyone would leave—everyone but him—and she’d lose the sale she’d cultivated so diligently. Lifting her voice, she called, “But if you’d like, I can top off your glasses and take you on a quick tour of the winery. It’s cool down in the cellars.” As she expected, the promise of more wine brought an enthusiastic response, and seven of the nineteen tasters followed her through the gift shop and into the working winery.

Mr. Aggressive stayed behind.

Yeah, Michelle’s easy. Put the moves on her.
Never mind that the idea raised Jacqueline’s anger a notch.

A quick survey of the group proved that only the lady visiting from Wisconsin was a wine-tour virgin, so Jacqueline gave her the basics about wine making while lauding the awards Blue Oak Winery had won in the past year. The awards impressed her wine-buying couple and made the Fun Four seriously discuss whether to buy a bottle to take to dinner that night. As they talked and laughed and lingered in the cellar—Jacqueline was in no hurry to return to the tasting room—that faint, cold and now-familiar breeze lifted goose bumps on her skin.

Mr. Aggressive had found them.

He joined the group with an easy swagger. He stood a little apart to listen as Jacqueline recommended Cole’s Chop House for steaks. The wine she dispensed so freely was working on the guests now, and the food discussion turned serious. She found out that two of the Fun Four, the gray-haired man and his blond, laughing wife, owned a cattle ranch in Texas. They knew their leather. “Those are fine gloves.” The wife took Jacqueline’s hand and examined the material and stitching. “Are they in style, or do they protect your hands when you open the bottles?”

When the woman ran her fingertips over the palm, Jacqueline flinched and curled her hand into a fist. “A little of both.”

“So you’re a slave to style?” Mr. Aggressive’s voice was as cool as his manner.

The wife didn’t like his implied criticism, but nothing in her friendly, accented voice or vivacious manner changed. “Bless your heart, sir, but we silly women do love to follow trends and set the fashion.”

Jacqueline glanced at him to see if he realized he’d been mocked and put down, and by an expert.

He smiled crookedly, that half smile that made Michelle pant with desire. That smile clearly indicated he could withstand censure. That smile royally pissed Jacqueline off.

The blond wife turned back to Jacqueline. “Now, where should we have dinner tonight?”

Naturally, they knew their beef, too. Jacqueline was able to assure them that Cole’s was consistently one of the highest-rated steak houses in the country with a wine list that won accolades from the top wine magazines. She casually mentioned that at Cole’s, the Blue Oak eighty-dollar bottle of cabernet sold for one hundred and seventy-five. At that moment, she sold a bottle of cab to the Fun Four, a mixed case to her wine experts, and consoled the lady from Wisconsin about the high prices.

Then she briskly returned the group to the tasting room, where a disgruntled Michelle had lost her marines, lost her schoolteachers, and gained three new guests to tend.

Jacqueline noted with some satisfaction that none of them was likely to buy.

Normally, she would have stepped up to the counter to help. But the afternoon was waning. The Fun Four bought their bottle and moved on to the next winery. The wine experts fought about whether they should purchase another case. The lady from Wisconsin started talking to a new guy, the sunburned man from New Jersey; she’d obviously read the study financed by the wineries that declared tasting rooms were great places to meet men.

And Mr. Aggressive stood silently sipping his wine . . . and waiting.

To hell with him. He could wait forever.

Jacqueline slipped into the back room and picked up the house phone. When the vintner’s wife answered, she said, “Mrs. Marino, the tasting room is slow, it’s an hour until closing, and I’m feeling ill. Would it be possible for me to leave early?”

“Of course, dear.” Mrs. Marino sounded surprised and kind—Jacqueline was never sick. “I’ll come over in case we get a late rush. Will you be all right driving yourself home?”

“Yes. It’s the heat that’s bothering me.”

“And you work too much. I suppose you’ll be wait ressing tonight?”

“I don’t know. I may take the night off.” Although she needed the money. It wasn’t cheap to live in Napa Valley. Her tiny apartment near downtown San Michael, on the second floor of the early-twentieth-century Victorian, cost almost as much as her apartment in New York City, and that was saying something. She could have gone elsewhere—nothing held her in Napa Valley—but she loved the dry warmth, the long rows of grapes, the mountains that cupped the valley, the wineries, their rivalries and alliances, the food, the wine. . . .

She didn’t love the weirdos who popped up occasionally. Guys like Mr. Aggressive, who acted as if he had rights she hadn’t granted him. Rights she would never grant him.

Let Michelle have him. Jacqueline had had enough heartache in her life.

J
acqueline pulled her backpack out of her locker and headed out the rear door to her car, parked under the broad branches of the two-hundred-year-old blue oak that had given the winery its name. The little Civic started right up, and she headed south on Highway 29, the windows wide and the wind ripping through her hair.

The color was like the shimmer of moonlight . . . or so she’d been told. She realized now she should have cut it, and dyed it black, or brown, or purple, or any color besides this freakish platinum. The blond was too distinctive, too easy to spot. More than once she glanced behind her, watching for a strange vehicle with the strange guy in it, but everything seemed normal. All she saw were SUVs full of tourists and faded farm trucks packed with workers. Then, as she pulled into San Michael, she spotted a black Mercedes SL550 with dark-tinted windows, and that chill rippled through her.

Was it him? Not necessarily. There was money here, and a lot of people who drove expensive cars.

But if it was . . . she couldn’t outrun him. She had to outsmart him.

Rather than going to her apartment, she drove until she found a parking spot beside the old-fashioned town square. It was crowded here, part of the downtown renaissance. Quaint shops faced out on the park filled with grand live oaks and benches where tourists lolled in the shade. Directly across the way stood an old redbrick courthouse complete with white trim and a cupola. Jacqueline loved the courthouse; she liked to look at it, to feel the tug of the past in its ornate styling. She liked to imagine what this town, this wine-producing valley had been like a hundred years ago. When she talked about her decision to live in San Michael, she said the courthouse architecture and the styling of the town were the main reasons she’d chosen to stay in San Michael.

But of course, that wasn’t true. The main reason she’d chosen to stay in San Michael was because it was as far away from New York City in culture and distance as she could be and still be in the continental United States.

Now she scanned the park, looking for Mr. Aggressive.

She saw nothing.

Plucking her cell out of her backpack, she called the winery.

Michelle picked up on the first ring. “Blue Oak Winery, where the hell are you, Jacquie?”

“I didn’t like that guy, and you did, so I left.”

“Like I need you to leave before I have a chance with him?” Michelle was always crabby, and never more so than when she was offended.

“You got a date with him?”

“
No.
About the time I realized you hadn’t come back from the back room, he put the glass down and walked out.”

No wonder Michelle was offended.

Michelle continued. “All he did was ask questions about you, and he didn’t even finish his tasting. Twenty dollars and he didn’t take his second glass. What a loser.”

“Loser” was not the term Jacqueline would slap on that guy. “Okay. Thank you.” She hung up while Michelle was sputtering.

She got out of the car. Locked the doors. Slung her backpack over her shoulder. And started walking.

In Hills’s sales window, a pair of red satin heels with diamond buckles caught her attention. She stopped, stared, and wondered if she could ever afford shoes like that again—and at that moment, she caught her first glimpse of him, a dark reflection in the glass. The other people on the sidewalk hurried past, but he stood still, a little to the side, and when she glanced at him, the way you do in a crowd, without really looking at him—he was watching her.

Tall. Lanky. Dark-haired. Pale blue eyes with the chilling look of a hunter.

She had seen that look before.

Turning away from the window, she hurried down the street, that cold draft on the back of her neck.

Okay. So this wasn’t some kind of bizarre coincidence. He wasn’t here on vacation. He
had
followed her. He
was
there, part of the impersonal crowd that gathered by the crosswalk. No one else was looking at her. Just him.

The light changed. The crowd surged forward. She surged with them.

The heat rose from the sidewalk and through the soles of her running shoes, and in the odor of the hot asphalt, she could almost smell the flames of hell.

For a moment, the colors around her faded, turned pale and sepia-tinted, and inside her head, she heard a faint, constant sound of water dripping . . . dripping. . . .

She staggered and went down on one knee, and the pain brought her back.

Thank God. She couldn’t afford to do this now. She
would not
allow herself to do this now.

Bending her head, she pretended to tie her shoe, and when she stood, Mr. Aggressive had moved on. Darting into the quilting shop, she walked swiftly toward the back.

With a smile, the lone, elderly clerk said, “Hi, I’m Bernice. May I help you with your quilting needs?”

“I’m just passing through.” Jacqueline paused, her attention captured by the long row of scissors hanging from hooks on the Peg-Board wall. “How much are those?”

“The scissors? It depends on the size and the quality, and what you intend to do with them.” Bernice bustled forward, ready to have a long, involved conversation.

Jacqueline scanned the selection, grabbed an eight-inch, fifteen-dollar pair, and flung it on the counter.

“That pair is good as all-around scissors, but if you’re going to be cutting much material, you’d be happier with the slightly more expensive, chrome-plated Heritage Razor Sharpe shears.”

Jacqueline dug out her wallet and flung a twenty on top of the scissors. “I’m going to stab somebody with them.” The plan gave her a fierce satisfaction.

Bernice tittered; then as she stared into Jacqueline’s face, her smile faded. “Well . . . then . . . I suppose they’ll do.”

She backed toward the cash register so slowly, Jacqueline knew she couldn’t wait to be rung up. She had about a minute before Mr. Aggressive realized he’d lost her, retraced his steps, and picked up her trail again. Grabbing the scissors, she said, “Keep the change,” and swerved around the sales counter and into the back room.

“Hey!” Bernice called. “You can’t do that. You can’t do that!”

“Watch me,” Jacqueline muttered. She slipped the scissors in her pocket, and was out the back door and into the alley before Bernice had a chance to say anything more.

Jacqueline took a left and ran hard for the next street. With a glance either direction, she caught another wave of the crowd and headed away from the courthouse. At an opportune moment, she dashed across traffic and ducked into another alley. She hid behind the first Dumpster, a hot, filthy metal bin that smelled like rotting Mexican food. She opened zippers and dug down to the bottom of her backpack, looking for her baseball cap. She found it, gave a sigh of relief as she tucked up her hair, and ran again, away from the crowds, and toward home.

Her apartment was two blocks away on the town’s formerly fashionable drive. If she could reach the old house, she’d be safe. Her stalker would be behind her. She’d have time to figure out what to do.

Call the police?

Not even. Men like Mr. Aggressive had connections that law enforcement respected.

Pack her bags and get out of town?

No way. She’d run before. She wasn’t doing it again.

Hide under the bed?

Yeah, maybe.

She turned onto her quiet street, with its massive oaks and shady yards, and slowed to a walk. She scanned the immediate area.

Mrs. Mallery’s little dog Nicki came out and yapped at her. Nosy, retired Mr. Thomas stopped killing his weeds long enough to ask, “Hot enough for you?”