Heard it Through the Grapevine (5 page)

Thinking about his ex-wife, Colt blew out a slow breath. Tessa was really dead. A sadness washed over him at the thought of Gracie growing up without her. Despite the fact Tessa would never be mistaken for mother of the year, she’d loved Gracie in her own way. She’d had no idea how to actually mother her daughter and instead, tried to be a friend. That hadn’t worked.

“Daddy?” a small voice from the bedroom called out.

“In a minute, sugar,” he answered. “Let me make sure the horses
are settled, then I’ll tuck you in.”

He strolled to the barn, his mind still on Tessa. Their marriage had been the biggest mistake of his life, but he had no choice when she’d turned up pregnant. He and Tessa had always been friends in high school, and he and Carrie had even double-dated several times a week with Tessa and David Rivera.

David! What kind of man screws around with his best friend’s girl?

Colt shook his head to clear the image. That was so long ago, but his broken relationship with David had never been mended, even after the divorce. Who could blame him? David had been in College Station thinking his girl was waiting back at home only to discover the person he’d trusted the most had betrayed him.

“Take care of Tessa,” David had begged when Colt dropped out of school his senior year.

He’d taken care of her, all right. His first night in town and a drunken pity party was all he’d needed to end up in bed with her. Not only had he betrayed his best friend, but he’d hurt Carrie in the process. He’d screwed up big time, but not even in his wildest dreams had he imagined the consequences.

He opened the door to the barn. “Whoa, girl,” he said softly to the horse when she jumped up. “Take it easy, Shiloh.”

Tessa had given the pony to Gracie on her seventh birthday. In a way, it was all Gracie had left of her mother.

He rubbed the filly’s head now nudged against his hand, then walked farther into the barn to check on the other two horses. Sure everything was in order, he headed back to the house.

By the time he made it up the stairs to Gracie’s room, she’d fallen
asleep, clutching the floppy-eared rabbit she’d slept with since she was a baby. He reached down, pulled the covers up, and kissed her forehead.

Colt loved his little girl more than life itself. He’d do anything for her. There was no way he’d let anyone take her away from him. Not now, not ever.

Tessa’s death had guaranteed that.

five

The ray of light
peeking in through the half-opened curtain cast a yellow and black pattern across the animal-skin comforter. Making exaggerated circles with his neck to work out the kinks, Jerry Moretti sat up and yawned, nearly causing a tidal wave. His back ached as if he’d slept on a concrete floor instead of the king-sized waterbed Roxy had insisted on.

He glanced at the clock radio on the nightstand. Seven fifteen. He’d had a grand total of three hours sleep last night, not nearly enough to focus on the day ahead. He and Colt were supposed to meet at the winery at nine to filter through Tessa’s desk, looking for anything that might shed some light on her death.

Closing his eyes, his thoughts drifted to his ex-wife and life without her. Since yesterday’s funeral, it was all he could think about.

Truth be told, he’d never really stopped loving her, not even when she’d made life so miserable those last few years before the divorce. Something about that woman had gotten under his skin in junior high when she was the prettiest girl in Vineyard.

Still is
, he thought.

Still was
. He groaned, blinking his eyes open.

Rolling to his left, he glanced at his sleeping wife snoring gent-ly beside him. His eyes traveled to her heaving chest where her double D’s kept perfect time with her slow breathing.

Damn, he’d loved Roxy’s incredible tits the second he’d laid eyes
on her. A buddy had brought her latest video to cheer him up after the divorce was final, and he’d been hooked, intrigued that a woman that small and top-heavy could stay upright without falling on her face. To his amazement, she’d mastered that, staying on her feet even as the young stud in the porno flick banged away, shoving her against the wall with each nine-inch thrust.

Jerry was getting hard just thinking about it.

He’d watched that video more times than he could count. When
he’d heard she was coming to Fort Worth for the stock show with her rodeo boyfriend, he’d finagled an introduction.

Yes siree, money does talk.

He remembered the way her eyes had lit up when she discovered he owned a multimillion-dollar vineyard. Dropping that tidbit of information never failed to get him laid, and it had worked that day, too. He’d conveniently forgotten to tell Roxy he had a partner until they’d slept together.

A smile curved his lips, thinking of wallowing between those massive mounds of flesh. Sucking enormous nipples was at the top of every man’s wish list since the day he was weaned from his mother’s breasts. Jerry was no different.

When Roxy discovered Jerry had signed over half the vineyard to Tessa when he married her, she’d nearly bolted.

Tessa wouldn’t sleep with him until he did. Said not signing the deed over was like telling the world he was only in it for the short haul. He’d wanted the woman so badly he would have given his left nut. Which is basically what he did, along with his right one.

How stupid was he to lose half his inheritance? His lawyer had warned him not to sign it over, but Tessa had sweet-talked him one night during a hot and heavy make out session that left him crazy when she pulled away. She’d warned their love would never last forever if she wasn’t an equal.

As far as he knew, four years didn’t qualify as forever in any book he’d ever read, and they weren’t even together that long. He didn’t count the last eighteen months before the divorce as a marriage. More like hell.

Soon after the wedding, Tessa had convinced him to build an apartment behind the office so she could sleep there on the nights when she worked late.

Another mistake.

After a year of marriage, she’d worked late so many nights that finally, she had moved all her things to the small apartment. That forced him to seek female companionship wherever he could get it. A man has needs, and Tessa certainly hadn’t offered to take care of his.

When she’d discovered his little liaisons, she’d used it as leverage in the divorce. Then she made sure to align herself so tightly with all their buyers that no one wanted to deal with him anymore.

But that wasn’t all bad. In the two years since their divorce, sales had increased almost forty-five percent. Spirits of Texas was poised for a record-breaking year, and it was only March. Any idiot could see that was the direct result of Tessa’s creative ways of enticing new buyers to stock their products. Their wines were now available at most of the exclusive restaurants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and the international demand was growing.

Despite it all, he’d somehow talked Roxy into marrying him, promising to buy Tessa out within two years. He’d convinced his new wife if she signed a pre-nup, he’d promote her to Vice President of Marketing, giving her access to their day-to-day operations.

Yeah, like that was ever gonna happen.

Number one, Roxy was a high-school drop-out. Number two, half the men in the country had seen her doing what she did best, making it look like every dick she sucked was some god-damn cherry popsicle.

Shit!

He shoved his hand under the blanket and grabbed himself, moving to a rhythm that increased with every thought of what was to come. When he’d nearly reached the edge, he slid over, causing another tsunami, and pulled the remaining covers off Roxy, thanking the gods his wife slept in the buff. The woman was built like a freakin’ brick house. A faint scent of the high-dollar perfume she’d insisted he buy her tickled his nostrils, turning him on even more.

With one swift movement, he positioned himself over her face
as she opened her sleepy eyes. “Show daddy how much you love him,
sweet thing.”

When she didn’t respond, he added, “Come on, baby. Today’s a big day for me. I’m gonna make you very rich before you climb back into this bed tonight.”

Her lips parted as the smile spread. “Bananas are my favorite fruit,” she cooed as her mouth swallowed the length of him.

All thoughts of meeting Colt vanished as the woman worked her magic on him. Silently, Jerry applauded himself for using Tessa’s death to his full advantage. As he exploded into Roxy’s mouth, he knew his life was definitely going to get better now with Tessa out of the way forever.

_____

Lainey stood beside the rental car for several minutes staring at the small rundown house, trying to decide what she would say. She nearly jumped out of her skin when her cell phone suddenly blared.

“Hello,” she answered, grateful for the delay.

“Lainey, are you okay?”

She’d meant to call Dan when she’d returned to the hotel last night after spending the day with her sisters and her mom, but it had been too late. She sighed. That wasn’t entirely true. Although it was late, she’d purposely put it off. He wouldn’t be happy that she intended to stay in Vineyard an extra week.

“I’m fine. I would have called last night, but I got back to the hotel way late.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

Dan Maguire knew her too well. Since the day he’d hired her as an intern on the morning show, he’d been able to see right through her. Tall, handsome Dan with his warm brown eyes and curly hair, now graying at the temples. Ten years older than her, he had been her mentor long before he became her lover.

“I am, really. The funeral was worse than I imagined, but I got through it.”

“How about your mom and your sisters?”

Good ole Dan. Always worrying about everyone. He was a keeper,
definitely. A sudden sadness washed over her. Then why didn’t she want to keep him?

“Last night was hard on everyone, especially when Colt …” she paused. “When the sheriff told us Tessa had been poisoned before the explosion.”

“What?”

“They think it was cyanide. They’re checking through the rubbish
for clues, but they’re saying the gas explosion was only a cover-up.”

“Any suspects?”

“Not so far.” Lainey clamped her mouth shut before adding that even Tessa didn’t know.

“Honey, I’m so sorry.”

If she closed her eyes, she could see his face, caring, comforting. “There’s more,” she said, bracing herself for his reaction. “Tessa left me her half of the winery. She was afraid her partner who, by the way, is her second ex-husband, would try to screw her daughter out of her inheritance.”

“Why you?”

“I don’t know, but I have to stay in town a few more days to work things out with her lawyer. I need to make sure her ex plays fair.” When Dan didn’t respond, she continued, “Can Angie run the show a while longer?”

“Of course she can. She did a good job Friday with Paula DeMarco.”

Lainey frowned. “I’ll bet she did.” Angie Summers had been waiting in the wings for the past nine months like a cat ready to pounce, not only on Lainey’s job but on Dan as well.

“What do you think you can do there that you can’t do from Savannah?”

“Things will go a lot faster if I don’t have to depend on phone conversations.” Dan would think she had lost touch with reality if she tried to explain about Tessa, but he’d really flip out if he knew she and her sisters planned to launch their own investigation into Tessa’s murder. “I’ll wrap things up and head to Florida on Thursday. I’ll see you Friday night.”

Again, he was quiet. “You’re really serious about the Florida job?”

She heard the sadness in his voice. “If I don’t check it out, Dan, I’ll always regret it. It’s something I have to do.”

“I know,” he admitted. “I guess I’ll have to wait till then to find out how you really are. You’ve become too good at hiding things from me.”

Despite the softness of his voice, Lainey heard the thinly veiled sarcasm. “I’ll see you Friday night,” she repeated.

She closed the receiver and changed the ringer to vibrate. Then she sucked in a deep breath and walked to the front porch, knocking quickly before she lost her courage.

In less than a minute, the door flung open, and Lainey got her first glimpse of Carolyn Winters since leaving Vineyard so many years ago. In Carolyn’s younger years, she’d clerked at Servalli’s Grocery Store before old man Servalli closed the doors, but nine years had taken its toll on the once-pretty woman. Now she looked “rode hard and put up wet.”

“Can I help you?” Standing in the doorway in a sleazy robe, Carolyn’s half-smile quickly faded when her eyes widened in recognition.

“Carolyn, I’m Elaina Garcia, Tessa’s—”

“I know who you are. You look just like her.”

Lainey wrinkled her nose. What was this woman smoking? Tessa
had been beautiful her entire life. “I was wondering if I could talk to
you and Joey for a minute.”

Carolyn’s eyes narrowed, lines now creasing her forehead. “What for?”

Lainey shifted uncomfortably. How do you ask a woman if her son had anything to do with killing someone? “I’m only in town for a few days, and I’m trying to get some answers about my sister’s death.”

“Thought it was a gas leak or something.” Carolyn positioned
her body in front of the door, effectively blocking the view as Lainey
leaned forward for a look into the house.

No sign of Joey.

“It was,” Lainey explained, moving to the left slightly so she could see around the woman into the living room. From this angle, there wasn’t much that wasn’t cluttered. Everything from discarded take-out boxes to rumpled clothing strewn around the room, resembling the aftermath of a recent strip tease party.

Lainey’s gaze returned to Carolyn. “Tessa was poisoned before the explosion. It’s on the front page of today’s paper.”

“Poisoned?”

Do you honestly believe this skank reads the paper?

Lainey swung her head around as Tessa walked up behind her, a smirk on her face.

Seriously, Lainey.

Lainey covered her surprise with a cough and focused her attention back on Carolyn, who now looked puzzled and more than a little annoyed.

“What makes you think I know anything about that?” She locked her eyes on Lainey in a challenge.

The last thing Lainey wanted was to put this woman on the defensive. “I’m sure you don’t, but I’d still be really appreciative of any help you can give me. May I come in?”

Lainey’s mouth tilted at the corners as she held Carolyn’s stare.

Good one, Lainey. I had forgotten about your condescending smile. That ‘I’ll let you think you’re important if that’s what it takes to get what I want’ smile. I hated when you used it on me.

Lainey glanced sternly over her shoulder at Tessa before turning back to Carolyn with another convincing smile. “I’ll only keep you a minute.”

Reluctantly, Carolyn pulled the door open and stepped aside. “I have to be at work in an hour, and Joey isn’t home.” She gestured for Lainey to sit on the rundown gold couch which had definitely seen better days.

A dingy gray bra peeked out from between the cushions. Lainey
wondered if Carolyn had gotten lucky the night before, but the belly protruding from the gaping robe as it opened when she walked quickly dispelled that notion. Plainly, life had not been good to this woman. Did she blame Tessa for that?

Before Lainey could speak, Carolyn plopped down on the chair opposite the couch, spilling the half full glass of liquid on the end table. She made no attempt to clean it up, glancing instead at the big clock above the TV. “What do you want to know?”

Lainey swept the empty bag of Cheetos aside before sitting down
.

Tessa plunked down beside her, rubbing her hands together.
Thi
s is gonna be good.

“Tessa was poisoned with cyanide,” Lainey began. “Since we know
cyanide works quickly, it had to have been in something she ate or drank that night.”

“And you’re telling me this, why?”

Lainey ran her hand through her hair and then pushed a palm against her forehead. Dan called this her moving-in-for-the-kill technique, but she had to be careful. One wrong word would piss this woman off, and she’d end up with nothing. She took a deep breath, hoping that four years of guest interviews at KSAV would pay off now.