You Really Got Me (23 page)

“Next of kin?” he asked Jason.

“Parents are here,” Jason replied. “Staying with her fiancé’s family. And of course the fiancé.”

Jim nodded and pushed his glasses higher on his nose. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Let me make a call.” Jason stepped away from the others, around a corner and down a hall. With a grimace, he pulled out his phone and called Kendall’s cell phone. He’d left her asleep in his bed, hadn’t told her what was going on, and he didn’t want to get to the Vioget estate before she was even there.

She answered with a breathy hello.

“It’s me,” he said, lowering his head and rubbing between his eyebrows. “Where are you?”

“Still in your bed. Where are you?”

Shit. “At the lab. Kendall…it’s…not good news.”

“Oh.”

He swallowed. “I’m on my way to your place. You’d better get home as fast as you can, and let your brother and Mr. and Mrs. Debarros know we’re coming.”

After a short silence, she said, “Okay.” She sounded choked. “Jason…”

“I’m sorry, Kendall.”

Neither of them hung up for a long moment, and he listened to her breathe, then finally said, “See you soon.” He ended the call then went back to get Jim.

Jim talked all the way there, not seeming to notice Jason’s distraction and one-word replies. “It’s pretty fucking sad,” Jim said. “Young girl like that. Who the hell would do something like that? And why?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been reading about it in the papers. She had everything going for her. Bright girl, promising research project, about to get married.”

“Yeah.” Something about that research project niggled at Jason’s brain, but he’d think about it later. Right now it was hard to think about anything but breaking the bad news to the Vioget and Debarros families. Especially Kendall.

Why was he so damn worried about her? She hadn’t even wanted Kevin and Natalia to get married. It’s not like she was going to be devastated by this news, personally. Okay, it was bad, yeah, but it was going to be way worse for the others there—the girl’s parents for sure. His stomach cramped at the thought. That had to be the worst. Losing a child. He swiped a hand across his mouth. And Kevin Vioget. The woman he’d loved was gone. He’d be devastated too.

Unless he was the one who killed her.

They drove past the winery, the parking lot still empty of cars at this hour, and parked near the house. They’d barely rung the doorbell when Kendall flung open the door.

She wasn’t wearing the jeans and T-shirt she’d worn to his place last night, now dressed in a pair of slim ankle-length black pants with a white T-shirt tucked into them. Her eyes were huge dark shadows in her pale oval face and sought his as she let them into the house. Their eyes met and held in a heated connection. He longed to touch her, to pull her into his arms and hold her tight, and had to fight back the powerful urge.

She led them to the living room, where Mr. and Mrs. Debarros rose to their feet from the couch they’d been seated on, wearing identical looks of terrified expectation. Kevin Vioget stood by the fireplace. Tall and lean, he appeared to have lost weight over the last week, his loose shirt hanging from his wide shoulders. He thrust his hands into the pockets of faded jeans, shoulders hunched, his mouth a tight line as he watched them walk into the room.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” Jim began. And Jason watched faces crumple into horror and disappointment and grief. Though hope had begun to fade, it had never really gone, until now, until this moment, when the coroner delivered the worst news you could ever hear.

Mrs. Debarros collapsed into her husband’s arms, and he lowered her to the couch and hugged her tightly. Her harsh sobs filled the room.

Jason watched Kevin, saw the man’s face tighten, his hands clench into fists, his eyes get glossy. Then Kevin turned and faced the fireplace, his back and shoulders rigid.

Jason then looked at Kendall and the pain on her face as she gazed at her brother, then at the sobbing Mrs. Debarros, struck a knife blade inside him. How had he come to care so much for this woman? This was such a fucking mess.

But hell, he had to push all the guilt and worry about Kendall aside, make sure he was being professional and rational about this. He needed to focus on Natalia’s family and on promising them that they would find out what happened to Natalia and make sure justice was served. But what if serving justice meant destroying Kendall’s family?

Now he had a murder case on his hands and once again those self-doubts came crowding back. It had taken over a whole fucking week to find the body. It had been in the lab
the whole goddamn time.
They’d been watching those security tapes over and over again, they’d watched her walk out of the building at four forty-two
very much alive. How the hell did they explain that? What the hell had happened? Frustration mounted in him, and he met Kendall’s gaze with a tight-lipped glare of his own.

Determination to see this finished, to find whoever had done this, swelled in his chest, tightened his jaw, and he turned his gaze back to Kevin Vioget. The guy looked devastated, but Jason had met sociopaths who could act out grief convincingly.

Nicki Barden’s words came back to him.
“You have to keep an open mind.”

He’d talked to the officers doing the surveillance, and Kevin hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary since they started watching him, but this most recent development in the case could be amping up the pressure. He didn’t want him to run. Not now.

Kendall wiped tears from her own face and walked over to her brother. She leaned her head on his back, rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Kev,” she said. “I can’t believe this.”

Kevin’s hand came up to cover hers and for a moment, brother and sister stood like that, united, a family. Something Jason didn’t have any more. His throat tightened.

“We’ll need you to confirm that it’s Natalia,” Jim told Mr. and Mrs. Debarros. “If you’re up to it, you can come this afternoon, or tomorrow morning.”

Mr. Debarros nodded, his wife still sobbing uncontrollably, his own eyes damp. “I will come,” he said to the coroner. “I will come today.”

Jim nodded, glanced at Jason. “Okay.” He handed them his card. “I’ll head back to the office now.”

“Please accept my condolences,” Jason said. Mr. Debarros nodded again, despair drawing his features into lines of anguish.

Jason paused at the door and looked back at Kendall. God, he wanted to go to her, to take her in his arms…their eyes met across the room, hers red-rimmed and full of pain. Fuck. He couldn’t stand that. His insides churned. But he had to leave with Jim.

“My car’s at the lab,” Jim said. “I’m sure you’re going back there anyway.”

“Yeah.” He had to drag his eyes off Kendall as they left.

He focused on driving, the grief of the family pulling at memories he thought were over, painful memories of the loss of a loved one that he thought had faded with the passing of time.

And they had. But seeing this made him live through that nightmare all over again. He should have known the first time something like this happened all that pain was going to resurface, clawing its way out of his body. He was going to have to concentrate on work, push the memories away, the agony he’d felt that day Stephanie had died. And though he knew he wasn’t responsible for Natalia Debarros’s death, given that Jim had already determined she’d been dead for a week, he felt like he’d failed the family in not being able to locate the body until now. For not being able to confirm to them that their daughter was gone. Daughter—and Kevin’s fiancée, he reminded himself, realizing once again he was making an assumption that Kevin Vioget had known all along Natalia was dead.

It was a valid assumption.

But he knew damn well that old saying about making assumptions and what they made you. He examined his own thoughts over and over again as he drove, ignoring Jim’s chatter, trying to be honest with himself. Honesty was important, and self-deception was just as bad as lying to anyone else. So looking deep inside himself, he tried to decide if he was in fact focusing too much on Kevin Vioget as a suspect in this case.

And the honest answer was, he didn’t know. He didn’t like to think of himself as being predisposed a certain way. He wanted to think of himself as being fair and open-minded. His experience as a cop had to come into play. As long as he used experience in a logical rational way. He had to reconcile the facts with his own feelings and suspicions. As long as emotion didn’t influence him—which his sister’s case might be.

There, he could go that far and say that. Whether that was influencing him negatively in this case he couldn’t say for sure, it was too hard to separate everything, but he’d resolved that he was going to keep an open mind and make sure that he was doing this right. One thing he did know was that if he got too fixed on one solution and it was wrong, he could put the entire investigation in jeopardy. He had to do this right. He had to make sure they covered everything. Every damn thing.

Back at the lab, work continued as evidence was bagged, photographs were taken. Jason found Paul Janko.

“What the hell, Chief? We saw her leaving on the videotape.”

“I know, I know. Shit. We’ll be watching those tapes again. In case we missed something. Somehow.”

“Frame by frame. Feds can do enhancement.” He shook his head in disgust.

“I guess we’re going to be re-interviewing some people.”

Paul sighed. “Yeah.”

“I gotta plan my statement for the press conference,” Jason said, as his cell phone rang on his hip. He grabbed it. “Holloway.”

“Hey, Chief.” It was Cade. “So I guess you want us to keep up the surveillance.”

“Yeah. Definitely. In fact…” Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. “In fact, let’s up the pressure. Let them see your guys. Let them know we’re watching them. We don’t want either of them to skip right now. Vioget talked to us, but he’s lying, and the other guy lawyered up and wouldn’t talk. But if he was to approach us and talk that would be okay.”

“Okay, Chief.”

Chapter Eighteen

Mrs. Debarros had been inconsolable for nearly an hour after the police left. Kendall had sat with her, hugged her, made tea for her, until finally her husband had taken her up to their room. Kevin had disappeared to his room too, after Kendall had tried to talk to him, tried to tell him it was okay to be devastated by this news. He was keeping his feelings inside, not saying anything, and she was worried about him. Worried
about
him and worried
for
him, with this latest development. Now it was even more important that he tell her what he’d been doing last weekend, so she could figure out what to do.

Then his friends arrived, Trey, Christian and Scott, awkwardly quiet and grim-faced, trying to be there for him, nobody knowing exactly what to say. They were good guys.

Kendall called Erin and told her what had transpired.

“Oh my God,” Erin breathed. “Shit. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

The grapes needed to be checked again to see which ones were ready to harvest next, but she was going to have to leave that to Garcia and Michael today. Heavy sadness and responsibility and grief weighed her down.

Natalia was dead. There was some small measure of relief in finally knowing, and yet not really, because they still didn’t know what had happened to her. Someone had killed her, but who? Who would do such a thing? It was inconceivable that such a dreadful tragic thing could happen, had happened apparently in the Vioget Research Center, somewhere that should not in any way be a dangerous place. Kendall couldn’t even wrap her mind around it.

Mindful that there was still a business to run, Kendall walked over to the tasting room shortly before noon. Dedra had not shown up yet. There wasn’t even a message from her on the phone. And there were already hordes of people waiting.

Kendall eyed them in dismay. This was no ordinary September Sunday. Most of these people were likely news reporters snooping for dirt, trying to find some kind of human interest aspect to the story—the wealthy Vioget family involved in yet another scandal.

Her stomach rolled over and churned, and inside the tasting room, behind the locked door, she leaned her head against the wall. Tears stung her eyes and she squeezed them closed and took a deep breath. Business or no business, someone had died and the press had to respect their privacy. And if there were any legitimate customers in that crowd, probably there more out of curiosity than any genuine interest in wine, they’d have to understand that too.

She had to deal with this.

She quickly made up a sign, opened the door and stuck it on the outside of it, then relocked it. She found some poster board in one of the offices and made up two more signs which she’d send one of their cellar workers down to post on a tree at the highway. The tasting room was closed today. And tomorrow.

After that, who knew what would happen. But there was no way they could keep going through this circus. It pained her to do it, but this was a difficult time.

She called her staff to let them know not to come, including Dedra who still didn’t sound well.

She ran into Michael, there to start the crush. “Let’s go into the office,” she said, anxious to get away from the vulturous news people hanging around.