“So,” Elita said. “I hear you watched You’ve Got Mail last night. You know that’s my favorite movie, right?”

  Of course it was.

  I swallowed the donut bite. “It is a great movie.”

  Elita didn’t respond. I knew she wanted me to feel worse since You’ve Got Mail was her favorite, and in her mind that probably warranted a second apology. I wasn’t going to do it. She got one apology, and that was enough.

  “Jill,” Nico said from across the room. He stood stock-still next to the fireplace with three logs stacked in his arms. His eyes were fixed on the grate in the fireplace. “Something’s not right.” He dropped the logs and climbed onto the raised hearth.

  “What’s wrong?” I stood and strode toward the fireplace. Elita was right next to me.

  “There’s something in here,” Nico said. He reached for the removable grate and tossed it aside. Then he reached into the fireplace again for something else. “Call 911.”

  I pulled my phone from my pocket.

  “What’s happening?” Elita asked. I could feel Shannon stepping up behind us.

  “Nico?” I said, prompting him to continue as I dialed the number.

  But he didn’t have to say another word. As he backed off the hearth, pulling a dark brown tablecloth with him like the ones on the high-top tables, Elita and I could see what had been behind the fireplace grate. Crumpled and splattered with chocolate, it was Katie Foxx.

  FIVE

  Calling 911 was a blur. I knew that I told the dispatcher we found someone unresponsive at Entonces, and I knew that I gave them the address. Had I said anything else? I wasn’t sure. Maybe.

  As I slid my phone into my back pocket, I heard Nico trying to speak with a hysterical Elita. “Where is your mom?” he asked while trying to steer her by the shoulders toward a table. Awkwardly, she craned her neck to keep the fireplace in sight. “Elita, you need to tell us where your mom is,” Nico pressed. “Where is she?”

  Elita shook her head like she didn’t know, but she finally turned away from the fireplace and sat in the nearest chair.

  “Is your mom at home?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Is she at the bed-and-breakfast?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay. Where’s your dad? Is he with her?”

  Elita took a ragged breath, and she managed a few slurred words. “Coffee. Vendemmia.”

  “Go get your mom. I’m going to call your dad. Go.”

  Elita rose from her seat and gingerly made for the door, looking like she might shatter with each step.

  As Nico pulled out his phone to call Eduardo Salizar, I looked back at Shannon who was pacing behind me.

  “This can’t be happening,” she said upon meeting my eyes. Tears streamed down her face. “I talked to Katie yesterday morning. We made plans. I was going to help her move. Then last night when Elita asked me to do the jewelry class, I called Katie to see if everything was okay. Elita hadn’t told me why Katie couldn’t do it today. I left Katie messages, and she never called me back.” She sniffed, stifling a sob, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I went to her old apartment, and she never showed up. What in the world happened?”

  I felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. My head was so light that I couldn’t concentrate, and the additional information from Shannon wasn’t helping me feel more grounded. “I don’t know,” I stammered. “I can’t believe—”

  “Eduardo’s not answering,” Nico said. “Shannon, can you run down to Vendemmia and tell Eduardo we need him here? He’s probably with all his buddies. Don’t let the whole group come back. We don’t need any more people here than necessary.”

  Shannon nodded and took a final swipe at the tears on her face. She gave a little head shake as though trying to escape the grip of overwhelming emotion. “Should I tell him about Katie? What should I say?”

  “Just say there was an accident.”

  She hustled out of the tasting room.

  I turned to Nico once we were alone. “She’s dead?”

  He looked past me to the front door where Shannon had just disappeared, thinking. “She’s not breathing, and she’s unresponsive. I couldn’t find a pulse. Her skin is cold.” He looked back at me, his expression both grim and bewildered. “She was under a tablecloth.”

  “Should I call Detective Fitts?”

  He took a moment to respond. “I don’t know. Probably. I don’t think that Katie broke into Entonces sometime after closing, curled up in the fireplace, and died in her sleep. Something bad happened. The detective is going to be called down here at some point anyway. Yeah, call him.”

  As I scrolled through the contacts on my phone, sirens screamed in the distance, and Elita came barreling through the front door with her mom in tow. She was still crying hysterically, but no longer was she moving slowly and gingerly. Her long, black hair was scattered across her shoulders like it had been flying about as she rushed to find her mom. Carmelina Salizar was two steps behind and huffing. Her stout body was not used to hustling, and Elita’s frenetic energy wasn’t helping to promote calm.

  “Nico!” Carmelina exclaimed. “What is happening?” Her hand flew to her chest as though that would help steady her breathing.

  I pressed the button on my phone to call Detective Fitts and walked across the tasting room toward the back offices. Nico could handle the people upfront. I needed quiet to speak with the detective.

  “Fitts,” he answered after the third ring.

  “Detective, this is Jill D’Angelo, from Otto Viti. I—”

  “Ah, hell, what do you want?”

  Immediately I regretted calling him. Why did I think that would be a good idea?

  “There’s been an accident,” I said.

  “What? Don’t tell me another body turned up floating in your family’s wine.”

  “No, an employee of the chocolate shop was found in the fireplace of another tasting room. Not my family’s tasting room. She’s cold and not breathing.”

  “You kidding me?”

  “Why would I call you and make up a story like that?”

  He grunted. “I’ll be right there. Don’t touch anything.”

  I hung up. Don’t touch anything, he said, like I was a five-year-old with no manners. Sheesh. I had only known Detective Jared Fitts for a couple months, but my sister Stella had the unfortunate experience of going to high school with him—and even more unfortunate, having to be his partner in Geometry. According to Stella, he always had trouble thinking before he spoke, didn’t like being wrong, and tended to oversimplify. Her assessment held true when I first met him, and I bet nothing had changed since then.

  When I walked back through the doors to the tasting room, Nico was nowhere in sight, and the first responders were trying to get Elita and Carmelina out the front door so that they could do their job. Elita was whimpering and resisting for no apparent reason. Carmelina was demanding answers. As she waved her arms around and shook her head furiously, the bun in her gray hair was starting to unravel.

  “Let’s go,” I said to the Salizar women. “Come on, outside. Carmelina, I’ll tell you what we know once we’re out there.” I took Carmelina by the elbow and nudged Elita’s shoulder toward the tasting room’s front patio.

  Outside, there was a lot to take in. The lights of a fire truck and ambulance flashed and swirled. Nico sat at one of the patio tables talking to a paramedic. Down the street, I heard Eduardo’s voice. I turned and saw him, red-faced and hobbling as quickly down the street as he could. His stomach swayed as his short arms pumped at his sides. Over and over again, he yelled, “What is happening? What is happening?”

  Behind him trailed the group of men that Nico had not wanted to show up—those whom, along with Eduardo, I referred to as the Council of Elders: my grandfather Aldo, Artie Brow from Checkmate, and Morrie Flash from Vendemmia Hotel. A part of me had hoped their morning coffee klatch had broken up by the time Shannon got there, but no such luck. Shannon galloped alongside my grandfather and his buddies, trying to block them from continuing down after Eduardo. But again, despite her valiant effort, no such luck.

  To make matters worse, it wasn’t just the Council of Elders and Shannon heading in our direction. As though Eduardo were the Pied Piper, he was attracting shopkeepers and OV guests with every building he passed, and they were all following behind him and his coffee buddies.

  “What happened?” Eduardo huffed one final time as he reached Entonces’s wrought iron gate. He leaned on it, heaving, sweat beading at his temples, his face contorted with pain and fear.

  Before I could answer, Detective Fitts’ unmarked Impala skidded to a stop in front of the tasting room, and he hopped out. He moved quickly for a guy who must have been at least six-foot-four and looked like an ex-linebacker. His skin was a tinge pinker than I remembered it, and his crew cut looked like it was only a day or two old. He bellowed, “I want everyone gone! All you people who aren’t involved, get out of here.” He walked around the car toward the growing group. “If you own this business or were here at the time of the discovery, step onto the patio, please. Everyone else, get back to your morning.” Fitts’ eyes found me on the patio, and he pointed in my direction. “Jill, you get everyone out of here. I’ll interview you later.”

  Was he assigning me a responsibility? Like he thought he could trust me? Wow. But there wasn’t time to think about that. It didn’t matter. He was in charge, Katie was still curled up in the fireplace, and we still didn’t know what had happened. I just needed to do what he said.

  Lorena Garcia’s musical voice rose from somewhere in the middle of the crowd. “OV Marketplace is open. Jill, we can go there.”

  Perfect. OV Marketplace was only a couple doors down, and it would be pretty easy to fit this crowd in there.

  “Thanks, Lorena,” I said. “Okay everyone, let’s go.”

  As I walked down the street, I realized I was in over my head. Fitts wanted me to get everyone away from Entonces, which probably meant he wanted them dispersed. But everyone was curious and concerned, and Lorena had just offered a place to go. Having a destination had seemed like a good way to get people moving at the moment. But once at OV Marketplace, this group was going to want answers about what had happened.

  And I didn’t have any.

  I also doubted that Fitts wanted me to answer any questions. If I did and he found out, I was certain to be in trouble with him.

  What did politicians and celebrities do when scandals were leaked?

  Deny, deny, deny.

  I pushed open OV Marketplace’s front door and held it as the group filed inside. Lorena directed everyone back toward the small dining area near the deli counter. I followed behind, trying to focus my thoughts. What was I going to say?

  As they assembled at and around the tables, I took inventory. The Council of Elders, minus Eduardo, was sitting at the middle table. Amy’s husband, Will, and his buddy Chris were standing next to Morrie. It made sense that they would be there—they worked for Morrie and were probably at Vendemmia when Shannon arrived with the news. Athena from Circe Winery and her teenage daughter Sophia sat at another table with the sisters who ran Snapdragon Inn flanking them. All five teenage daughters who worked at Jada’s Café stood behind that table. A couple people I didn’t know were sitting at a third table, and a couple others were sprinkled through the group. Nosy OV guests, I supposed.

  “Should I get some coffee?” Lorena asked over her shoulder while pushing through the swinging half-door to the deli counter. “Does anyone want coffee?”

  I shrugged and watched as people whispered amongst themselves. No one answered Lorena, but she bustled around behind the counter, gathering stacks of cups, creamer, sugar, and stirring sticks.

  I shuffled toward the deli counter so that I had something to lean on. My legs felt untrustworthy.

  “I don’t have much to say,” I said. “I don’t think we need to do a question-and-answer or anything. We just needed to move, and Lorena was nice enough to offer us a warm place to get out of the morning chill.”

  “But what happened, Jill?” Artie asked. “Shannon—she ran into Vendemmia and told Eduardo there was an accident at Entonces. Then when we got there, the place was swarming with paramedics.”

  Swarming? I didn’t notice swarming. Either he was exaggerating or I needed to work on my situational awareness.

  The chatter died down as everyone waited for me to respond.

  Deny, deny, deny.

  “I really don’t know what happened,” I said.

  Maybe that wasn’t really denying. After all, I truly had no idea what happened to Katie Foxx.

  “Someone got hurt, yes?” Aldo asked.

  I looked at my grandfather’s concerned face. We had just gone through a huge tragedy at our winery a few months before. I couldn’t believe our community was facing another one.

  “Guys, I’m going to level with you,” I said. “I really don’t know what happened. I think there was an accident, but I don’t have details and don’t want to start any rumors. And the detective will go berserk if I say anything.”

  “But did something happen to one of the Salizars?” The question came from one of Jada’s daughters. I always forgot her name. Jessalyn? Marilyn? It was the oldest daughter, maybe. I couldn’t be sure since I didn’t spend much time with the teenagers in OV.

  Slowly, I said, “I think the Salizars are fine.” I didn’t want to say any more than that. It would be a slippery slope if I got started. Changing the subject, I continued, “Hey, I’ve gotta go. I know it’s hard being in the dark—I’m there, too—but if you all could just stay away from Entonces today, I think that would be a big help to the people working there. And if I find out anything that you ought to know, I’ll pass that information on.”

  I nodded as though affirming my own statement and then made my way toward the front of the store, only pausing a moment upon reaching my grandfather. Leaning down to him, I whispered, “I’ll be back at the house in fifteen minutes if you want to talk.” Then I hastened onward, hoping to avoid any questions called out from the crowd. As I opened the front door, I heard Lorena telling everyone that coffee was on the house.

  I didn’t remember the morning air being quite so shockingly cold when Nico and I first walked to Entonces that morning, but suddenly, the chill made my skin feel raw. I needed to go back to Entonces to speak with the detective, but the thought made my stomach churn. Just as I reminded myself that I didn’t have a choice, my phone rang. I grabbed it from my back pocket. The number displayed on the screen wasn’t familiar.

  “Hello?” I answered.

  “Hey, this is Daniel with the apartment. You know, Katie’s old boyfriend. So, look, I’m sorry that I didn’t call you back sooner. Things have been crazy. Do you still want to come see the place?”

  His voice was far too upbeat for the disastrous morning. And that only meant one thing.

  He didn’t know what happened. He couldn’t have known—not with that happy, upbeat tone.

  Did I need to tell him?

  SIX

  No.

  I didn’t have to tell him. It wasn’t my place.

  And what would I say, anyway? I didn’t even know what had happened.

  But, if someone I loved—or used to love—was hurt or in trouble, wouldn’t I want to know as soon as possible?

  I wasn’t good at making split-second decisions.

  “Hi Daniel,” I said slowly. “Uh, yeah, glad to hear the apartment is still available. But hey, um, have you talked to Katie lately?”

  He huffed, annoyance replacing his upbeat tone. “She was supposed to come get her stuff last night and never showed. I called her a bunch, and she didn’t call me back. Why? Don’t you work with her or something?”

  “I know her from Otto Viti, yes.” I paused. I remembered Shannon saying she had gone to the apartment and Katie wasn’t there. At some point Shannon had left, and according to Daniel, Katie didn’t even show up after that. “When did you try calling her?”

  “I don’t know. She was supposed to be here at seven. I started calling her probably about seven-fifteen. Why?”

  He was going to find out. And he deserved to know. Even if they had a bad break up, they had been in a serious relationship—serious enough to live together. It would be worse if he found out later. In my gut, I knew that was the truth.

  “I think something happened to Katie,” I said. “I don’t know what, but the paramedics showed up here about ten minutes ago.”

  “What? Is she okay?” His annoyance was now replaced with worry. “Where is she?”

  “In OV.”

  The line went dead. It was possible that the call had failed, but it seemed more likely that he had hung up on me. I didn’t call him back. There wasn’t anything else for me to tell him.

  I waited a moment, staring at my phone. Had it been a bad idea to say something about Katie? How could I not have?

  I looked down the street toward Entonces. The thought of going to speak with Fitts seemed even less appealing now that I had tipped off Daniel. Surely that news would make it back to the detective, and he’d yell at me for opening my big mouth.

  I crossed the street and cut around the back of D’Angelo winery to the well-worn path through the vineyard leading to Aldo’s house. The morning’s events looped through my mind as I hiked upward, though by the time I reached my grandfather’s home, nothing seemed clearer than it had upon Nico discovering Katie in the fireplace.

  As I reached the front door, my phone rang again—this time it was Stella.

  “Is something happening at Entonces?” she asked when I answered.

  “Yes,” I answered. “Where are you?”

 

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