You Really Got Me (6 page)

And Kendall had been nervous as hell and lying.

What were she and her brother covering up? It seemed odd. No, it didn’t seem odd, it
was
odd, just one more piece in this messed up puzzle that didn’t fit. They were gonna have to talk to her again. And Kevin.

In his office he devoured the donut in a couple of bites and wished he’d asked for two.

Paul Janko returned later to the station after another visit to the lab. “Interesting information from the guy who last saw her alive, Chief.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“We found some shards of glass in the lab where Natalia Debarros was working that day. Pushed right into a corner, beneath some cabinets, as if they’d been pushed there by a broom. No one else we asked about it knew anything, but this guy tells us he overheard Natalia and Kevin Vioget having an argument. He was in the room next door. He said things got pretty heated.”

“Why the hell didn’t he tell us that before?” Jason slammed a hand down on his desk. “What else did he say? What were they arguing about?”

“He doesn’t know. He couldn’t hear the exact words, but things got really loud, like they were yelling at each other, and she was crying, and then he heard glass breaking.”

“What time was that? Did he go in there? Did he see what was happening?”

Paul looked at his notebook. “He says that was about 1:20, although he wasn’t sure of the exact time. He didn’t go in there. He says he wanted to stay out of it. But he said he saw her after that. They talked about their research projects—apparently they’re both doing research on the same thing.”

“Huh. Phytochemicals.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Jason filed that info away in his brain. He tapped his fingers on the desk. “I think we need to go pay another visit to Kevin Vioget.”

“I think you’re right.”

Her arms full of platters made from recycled wine barrels, Kendall moved across the wine tasting room to a display table, one of several old pine farm tables piled with all kinds of accessories. It looked so pretty, so pleasing to the eye, with a vase of sunflowers in glowing autumn shades and all the lovely gift items.

“That looks really nice,” Dedra said.

Kendall smiled at her employee. “Thanks.”

“You have such a knack for making things look good,” Dedra said. “I wish I did.”

“You have other talents,” Kendall pointed out.

Dedra was a student at the University of California at Las Colinas in the Viticulture and Enology program who’d hoped to be a winemaker someday. She’d worked in the cellars and in the tasting room at Château Vioget over the summer. But early into this school year, she’d dropped all but one of her classes and had asked for full-time work. Kendall had been happy to hire her, but dismayed by Dedra’s decision to drop all those classes. She didn’t get it—Dedra was bright and a hard worker. Yes, she lacked a little confidence in her abilities, but she had a discerning palate and good wine sense. She suspected Dedra’s fiancé had had something to do with her decision.

“You should have seen the couple who came in a little while ago.” Dedra chatted as they arranged the platters. “They were so cute!”

“Mmmhmm?” Kendall adjusted a bowl.

“They had to be eighty years old,” Dedra continued. “
But they were on their honeymoon! Can you imagine? They both had white hair and they were both so little and cute, and totally with it. The woman said–this is so funny–
‘Men are like fine wine. They start out like grapes, and it’s a woman’s job to stomp on them and keep them in the dark until they mature into something you’d want to have dinner with.’”

Kendall burst out laughing. “No!”

Dedra giggled too. “Yes! And the man just smiled and laughed at her. They were adorable.”

“Aw, that sounds sweet.”

“They really were. And they bought six bottles of the Cabernet Franc.”

“Oh my.” Kendall smiled. “Well, that’s good.”

“Where should I put these?” Dedra asked, holding up some pretty pottery dishes.

“Put them here, with the smaller ones in front,” Kendall said. “And those little serving dishes too. They’d be nice for olives, don’t you think?”

“Oh yeah. And we could set some of the jars from Santa Ynez Olives right with them.”

“Great idea.”

They worked side by side in the gift shop area of the tasting room. Dedra bent over the table, moving things around, and her neck, bare beneath her short-cropped spiky red hair, caught Kendall’s attention. “Hey, you got a new tattoo.”

Dedra lifted a hand to the spot just behind her ear. “Oh yeah. You like?”

Kendall smiled. Tattoos weren’
t for her, but lots of girls had them these days. Dedra had a number of them, small and discreet, but definite ink. This one, Kendall had to admit, was kind of pretty–a small trail of pale stars down her neck behi
nd her right ear.

“Very nice,” she said. “Did it hurt?”

“Not that much.” Dedra made a face. “Maybe a little.”

“Oh.” Kendall’s eyes tightened in sympathy. “Does it still hurt now?”

“I’m fine.” Dedra smiled and waved a hand. “It’s nothing, really. I actually like getting it done.”

“I’ve heard it can be…addicting.” Before that session with Jason, she never would have thought pain could be something enjoyable and addicting…but that night, sensation from the strikes of the crop had blurred together into a hot haze. She’d felt light and floating, a warm glow shimmering over her body. The complex mix of wicked pleasure and exquisite pain had become a high she found herself craving like a junkie craves a fix.

“I can see that.”

Kendall refocused on Dedra. “Does your fiancé like it?” Dedra was engaged to another student at UCLC, a grad student with whom she shared an apartment in Las Colinas.

A shadow flickered across Dedra’s face. “Well. He’ll get used to it.”

“He doesn’t like it?”

“It’s not that he doesn’t like it,” Dedra said slowly, looking down at the items on the table. “It’s just that…I didn’t tell him I was getting it done.”

“Oh.” Dedra’s fiancé liked to call the shots in their relationship. Which worried Kendall. A little. It shouldn’t, because Dedra was really just an employee, except she was young and a little diffident, and, well, Kendall couldn’t help but feel a little protective of her. She released a long, slow breath and looked back at Dedra. “Was he okay on Saturday?” she asked.

Dedra looked at her and blinked.

Kendall tipped her head to one side. “Saturday?” she said again. “He called and you had to leave…?” They’d been working together in the tasting room when Dedra had taken a call from her fiancé, then had to rush out for some reason.

“Oh! Yeah, he was okay. It was a…a family emergency…thing. But it’s all okay now.”

Kendall nodded, but her insides tightened. “I know it’s not my business,” she said softly. “But I care about you. You’re sure things are okay with you two?”

“Things are fine,” Dedra said shortly.

Kendall had had her worries about Dedra’s relationship in the time she’d known her. At first, small things like her fiancé getting angry if he had to wait, or comments about his jealousy, had seemed relatively innocuous, and Dedra always seemed pleased that he cared about her that much. Then one day Dedra had shown up with bruises on her upper arm.

Kendall had tried to gently inquire what’d happened and Dedra had laughed off her clumsiness. After that, Kendall had been more alert to Dedra’s comments about Wade, and the jealousy and the short temper were more worrisome. Dedra was just an employee and it wasn’t Kendall’s place to comment or interfere in her personal life, despite the fact that she wanted to. Only because she cared about Dedra. The same way she cared about all the staff at the vineyard. She couldn’t look after everybody in the world, though sometimes it seemed like she tried. And given how she’d felt about Kevin and Natalia’s engagement, if she expressed concerns about Dedra’s engagement too, she’d probably come across as a frustrated old maid who didn’t want anyone else to get married if she wasn’t either.

Not that she wanted to get married. That was not even on her radar at that point in her life. Her whole adult life had been taken up with raising Kevin after her parents’ death, and keeping the business going, both of those things huge challenges that had taken all her time and energy. She’d dated, even had a couple of relationships, but most of the guys she’d dated had felt like someone else to take care of. But then she’d met Jason…

“Last weekend I ordered some other things for the tasting room,” she said brightly, changing the subject back to business. “I saw some beautiful pottery pieces at the Sunday arts and crafts show in Santa Barbara, so I talked to the artist and she’s going to get me some of her pieces to sell here.”

“Cool.”

The phone rang behind the bar of the tasting room, and Dedra hurried to answer it while Kendall unpacked a box of new gift items.

“Kendall.”

She looked up at Dedra.

“It’s a reporter from the Las Colinas Daily News.”

Kendall’s hands froze holding a boxed corkscrew. “A reporter?”

“He wants to speak to you about Natalia.”

Kendall set down the box and started slowly across the tasting room. A reporter? Holy Angelina Jolie. She had nothing to tell a reporter.

She took the phone from Dedra, who released the hold button. “Hello.”

The man on the line introduced himself as Jack Aravelo from the Las Colinas Daily News and asked if she had any comment about the case.

“No,” she said slowly, her mind whirling. How was she supposed to deal with this? In her experience, this kind of media exposure was never a good thing. Hadn’t that almost destroyed the winery all those years ago? A cold hand of anxiety gripped her in a tight hold. “There’s really nothing to say at this point.”

“Why do you think Ms. Debarros got cold feet and ran away before her wedding?” the reporter asked.

How the fuck was she supposed to answer that? Kendall took a breath and said, “I have no comment about this.” She carefully hung up the phone. She met Dedra’s concerned gaze and sighed.

“Now the news has gotten hold of this,” she said, forcing a smile. She put both her hands to her warm cheeks and rubbed. “Just what we need. If we get any more calls, tell them no comment.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Old memories swirled, reporters hounding her and Kevin after their parents’ death, as if they hadn’t had enough to deal with, and then even years later when the winery was struggling, the media had had quite a blast taking them apart. Kendall’s stomach tightened.

The front door of the tasting room opened and they both turned to greet whoever walked in, but Kendall’s stomach swooped at seeing Jason and Detective Janko again. She took a step toward Jason, anxiety clutching her in cold hands. Why were they back already?

Chapter Five

“What is it?” Kendall asked without even greeting them.

Jason gave a small shake of his head. “We don’t have anything new to tell you,” he said quietly. “But we need to see Kevin again.”

Something must have happened, if they needed to see him again already. Her insides tightened.

“I’ll go find him.”

She hurried through the door into the back, found Kevin in his office. “The police are here again,” she told him. “They have more questions for you.”

He looked up. “They haven’t found her?”

“Apparently not.”

“Shit.” He stood, rubbed his mouth and followed Kendall back to the tasting room. “We can go into my office,” he told the police. Kendall sought his eyes as they turned to leave. She should go with him.

But he turned his back on her, and her stomach knotted as they all disappeared into Kevin’s office. She took a long slow breath. He was an adult.

She caught Dedra’s worried glance. Dedra too knew Natalia, a fellow student at UCLC. They were almost the same age. They had a lot in common. The entire campus was in shock about Natalia’s disappearance, and the university had even offered a reward for information about her.

“What are you going to do?” Dedra asked. “The wedding is in four days.”

“I know.” Kendall took a deep breath. “I know. I’m not sure how long we can leave it before canceling. Natalia’s parents are coming tomorrow. They weren’t going to come until Thursday, but now they’re coming early.”

“I don’t blame them.”

“Yes.” She’d talked to them on the phone several times, and they were becoming more and more distraught about their daughter’s disappearance. Kendall’s heart ached for them. She wasn’t a particularly religious person, but she kept offering up a prayer to please,
please
bring Natalia back safe and sound. Even if she’d changed her mind about getting married. That would devastate Kevin, but not as much as if… Kendall’s mind balked at that thought and she closed her eyes briefly before glancing again at the office where the police were talking to Kevin.

She tried to focus on work, but her thoughts kept jumping around all over the place, her nerves on alert, waiting. Finally the police emerged.