You Really Got Me (28 page)

She remembered all the times she’d bailed Kevin out. Was he getting progressively worse too? Maybe she was too close to see it, but she had to admit that so far, this was the worst thing that had happened. What if Jason was right? What if Kevin needed to hit that crisis point for him to really realize what he was doing with his life? What if that meant…going to jail?

She stared out into the darkness, the sky glittering with stars, the hills dark shapes in the distance. There are truths about ourselves that we sometimes don’t want to acknowledge. Things we know are there, but that are so deep and painful we don’t want to admit them. She wanted to deny what Jason had said about her, about how she was repeating her mother’s behavior, now with Kevin. She could tell herself it wasn’t the same. She could tell herself that Kevin wasn’t as bad as their dad had been. She didn’t think Kevin was an alcoholic. But she did have to admit he got in trouble when he drank. And she did have to admit she’d bailed him out.

She bent her head and looked at the diamonds on her finger, her mother’s wedding rings. She knew her mother had been trying to keep the family together, to make it look to the outside world that the Viogets were a happy, normal family. And she knew she’d been trying to do that too. She didn’t want another scandal. She didn’t want the media scrutinizing them and their lives and finding out they weren’t perfect.

She knew Jason was working hard to solve this case. She knew how important it was to him. What if he didn’t solve the case? What if he couldn’t find the murderer? What if she and Kevin were standing in his way?

She knew only too well the sense of personal responsibility Jason had. In the context of the things he liked to do in the bedroom, being accountable for his actions became even more important. She trusted him with her safety because she knew he took that responsibility seriously.

There were more people involved than just her and Jason. And even Kevin. Natalia’s parents. All her friends. Everyone was at risk because there was a killer on the loose. She closed her eyes as pain shot through her core. How could she have been so selfish?

She’d been begging Kevin to tell her the truth about where he’d been that weekend and he still hadn’t done it. He wasn’t going to. She nibbled her bottom lip, trying to think of any way she could convince him—but it seemed hopeless.

What she
could
do was tell the police the truth herself.

Jason was a man worthy of her respect and trust, and if she wanted to be worthy of the same, she had to step up. She had to be honest and brave.

They would question Kevin more. Her stomach tightened and her eyes closed. She didn’t know what would happen to Kevin if the truth came out, because she didn’t know the truth, and the fact that he was keeping that from her was driving her crazy. The media might totally trash him. But whatever happened, they would deal with it. They had a good lawyer, she trusted Arman completely to help them. They’d survived once before and they would survive again. She would be there for Kevin. But he’d have to deal with the consequences of whatever he’d done.

She was trying so hard to protect her only family member, that maybe she’d held on a little too tightly. And maybe if she wanted to do the right thing, she had to do the
hard
thing, the scary thing—she had to let go. She’d conquered that fear with Jason because she trusted him to look after her, and now she looked inside herself for the strength to do that again.

Jason arrived at work early the next morning, sleep deprived but gripped by anticipation. He had a murder case to work on. Not that he wanted a murder to happen to generate some excitement in his life. Much as he’d been…well, not bored exactly, just not really challenged in his new job…he’d much rather Natalia Debarros was still alive. And he’d much rather Kendall wasn’t furious with him.

But a challenge, any kind of challenge, always stirred him up, and it did now, despite the confusion in his personal life. Excitement at the work ahead of him mingled with lingering doubts about his ability to solve this case and heartache about Kendall.

They had a shitload of evidence to put together, to organize and analyze. Some of it had already been done—the physical evidence, interviews, evidence logs, investigator reports, photographs and videos of the crime scene. Hopefully they’d have DNA results and an autopsy report as well. They could put together a pretty complete reconstruction of what happened last Saturday in that lab. They knew who had been there, and where in the building each person had gone. The only thing they couldn’t explain was how they had video of Natalia Debarros leaving the building, now the body had been located hidden in the building. They were going to have to look at the video again.

And they didn’t have a motive for whoever had killed Natalia. They didn’t need a motive, but it sure as hell would help.

Jason set the cardboard cup of coffee and the small bag containing his favorite donuts on his desk and shrugged out of his suit jacket. He wanted to look through everything again, all the interviews they’d done, trying to put together a profile of both the victim and the killer. He was going to find something, he was convinced of it, adrenaline surging in his veins like liquid heat. And then there might be a couple of people he wanted to talk to again. But knowing the profile of who he was dealing with would be a major advantage in those discussions.

He was convinced this was not a planned crime. The evidence—the broken shards of glass, the bloody lab coat, the body hidden in the basement—told him this had not been premeditated and carefully planned. Something had gone wrong that Saturday and Natalia Debarros had ended up dead.

He read through the interviews with Natalia’s faculty advisor, Dr. Edor Durban, who’d helped guide her on her research project. And as he read more and more, he sat up straighter, his mind turning things over and processing. And he knew who he wanted to talk to again.

“Chief Holloway. There’s someone here you should know about.”

Jason frowned at the interruption but followed the officer down the hall to an interview room.

Harvest was back-breaking hard work. For the next two months, they’d be working seven days a week, long days too, starting early in the morning. Kendall and Michael worked together each day to determine which sections of the vineyard were ready to pick next.

So much to do. The grapes arrived at the winery by the truckload to be sorted, de-stemmed, crushed and the juice extracted and put into fermentation tanks. All the other tasks—pressing grape skins, putting wine into barrels and the constant cleaning of equipment—also had to be done, not to mention the usual business work.

Normally the thrill of harvest energized her and excited her, the possibilities of the wine they were producing so intoxicating. This year it all seemed pointless. But she had a business to run. People depending on her. It had to be done, and with her usual dedication, it had to be done well. There was no other option.

To her surprise, Kevin agreed to come and help, although this morning he said he’d join them in a little while after he did an errand. The morning began cool, but soon the still unseasonably warm sun shone down on Kendall’s back as she worked. As the day warmed, she shed the hooded sweatshirt she wore and picked in her short-sleeved T-shirt.

She knew her hands didn’t move nearly as fast as the crew they’d hired, but nonetheless she quickly clipped and dropped grapes into the bin at her feet, pushing it along with one foot as she moved down the row, motions that were as familiar and mindless to her as brushing her hair. She heard the rumble of the tractor behind her, driven by one of the cellar hands, and she picked up her bin to load it onto the flatbed trailer. And then she started again.

Nerves danced a jitterbug in her stomach, thinking about what she had to do. They couldn’t put Kevin in jail for something he didn’t do though. Could they? Her stomach tightened even more. She didn’t know much about police investigations. They would have to have evidence that Kevin had done something and she knew they couldn’t. They just couldn’t. Because he hadn’t done anything.

But mistakes had been made in the justice system. People had gone to jail for crimes they hadn’t committed, everyone knew that. Fear and worry clawed inside her despite Arman and Erin’s admonitions to trust the justice system. That could not happen. Kevin was all she had. That familiar terror barged back into her brain, that feeling of being nineteen again, after the accident when they’d taken Kevin away. She paused in her picking to bow her head, eyes closed, the panic buzzing inside her making her lightheaded. Her imagination ran away and she envisioned Kevin being arrested, put on trial, convicted of a murder he hadn’t committed, and put in prison. She’d be alone. He’d be devastated, his life ruined. Another family scandal. Their business would be destroyed. For
what? Who had done this?

If she was going to be honest with Jason, she had to be honest with herself. The truth was, she was falling in love with Jason. She loved submitting to him. He was everything she’d ever dreamed of alone in her bed, those wicked dark dreams of pain and submission. He was the one she wanted to tie her up, hold her down, spank her until pain turned into pleasure. She wanted everything he’d tried to give her.

She swiped perspiration off her forehead with the back of her arm above her gloved hand and tried to calm her racing thoughts.

She knew how important trust was and she’d let him down. She hated that. Faced with losing him, her unwillingness to trust seemed like the worst kind of betrayal.

She did trust him. She trusted that he was doing his job, that he would find the murderer and this would all be okay.

At lunchtime, Kendall took her tired and aching body back to the house, knowing that now she could leave the others to carry on with picking the grapes.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jason’s shoulders were knotted and his neck burned. He lifted a hand to absently rub his neck, his shirt sleeves rolled up, his tie loosened. His stomach felt hollow, coffee and donuts the only things he’d consumed so far and it was well into the afternoon. He really needed some food. But he was on a roll and didn’t want to stop working. He was going to head out shortly with Paul Janko to do more interviews. Maybe he could grab something to eat then.

His cell phone rang and he glanced at the screen. Nicki Barden. “Got the DNA results,” she said without even a greeting.

He sat bolt upright. “Bring them here.”

“No, you come here.”

“Oh, for…fine.” This wasn’t the time for a power struggle. He shoved his phone back into the holster on his hip. He had just risen from his chair when Officer Nelson appeared in his office door.

“Another visitor, Chief,” she said. “Kendall Vioget.”

Jason hated the way his heart bumped in his chest at the mention of her name, kept his face expressionless. What the…why now? He passed a hand over his face. “Okay. I’ll come out there.”

He found her waiting out front, looking so different than many other times he’d seen her. Her dark hair had been pulled into a ponytail and escaping pieces had curled around her face. She wore no makeup, her skin pale and luminous. She had her hands shoved into the pockets of a fleece jacket that hung open over a gray T-shirt and her softly faded jeans clung to her hips and thighs, outlining her slender shape.

“Kendall.”

She turned to fully face him. The dark circles under her eyes tugged at his heart, and he had to stop himself from reaching out and pulling her into his arms. She pressed her lips together. The anguish in her expression tugged at him even more. What was she doing here?

“Can we talk?” she asked, her voice husky.

He was itching to get his hands on the DNA results and she wanted to talk now? But he said, “Of course. We can go in here.” He gestured to an interview room. It was bare and impersonal, blinds on the windows, cold linoleum tiles on the floor. He let her precede him into the room, then closed the door behind them. Again, his hands ached to feel her, to hold her. He took a deep breath.

She sat on a wooden chair. “I would have come sooner,” she began, fingers clasped on the table in front of her. “But we’ve been busy with the harvest and the crush.”

He nodded, recalling what she’d said about how much work was involved in the harvest.

“I thought about what you said last night. What you’ve said before. About letting go. About letting Kevin face the consequences of his actions.”

Hell. He nodded, mouth controlled, eyes trained on her beautiful face, her shaky mouth.

“I know the DNA tests will prove Kevin is innocent.” Her voice trembled. “I have to have faith in the justice system that…that…” She paused and he saw her throat work as she tried for steadiness. “That he won’t go to jail for something he didn’t do.”

Fear shone in the eyes she lifted to his. His stomach clenched hard. Faith in the justice system. But not faith in him. It was crazy how much that hurt.

God, he so wanted to make this all right for her. But once again—he had a job to do. He could not let his personal feelings interfere with what he had to do. He had to do this right. He had to. This time.

And his feelings for Kendall were very personal. After she’d stormed out last night, he’d ached for what might have been between them.

“So I’m going to tell you this,” she continued. “I’m going to tell you about that weekend. When Natalia died. And I guess I’m going to have to face the consequences of my actions too.” Her voice dropped in volume as she struggled to get the words out. “I lied to you, Jason. To the police. Kevin wasn’t home that night. I didn’t see him from that Friday night when I had to pick him up until Sunday evening when he got home.”