Juliet Immortal

to. Ariel’s life still feels so much more distant than it should. I’ve let my own desires take up too much space inside this skin. I’m crowding out information I need to keep Ben safe.
    He
has
to be safe. What will I do if he isn’t? What will I do if I’m too late? What if Romeo has—
    Romeo
. I might not know Gemma as well as I’d like, but I know Romeo. I know the way he works, know the places he encourages his converts to go. He likes isolated locations with a touch of the macabre. Cemeteries, deserted buildings, the ruins of ancient churches. There aren’t any church ruins in Solvang. There are plenty of cemeteries, but it’s raining so hard that they wouldn’t be ideal. Maybe a deserted building, someplace where Gemma knows she won’t be observed.
    Someplace where she can turn off the security cameras and clean up the mess at her leisure.
    One of her father’s barns! But not on the Sloop grounds like yesterday. She won’t want to be seen driving Ben throughthe gate, and my gut tells me he wouldn’t hide under a blanket a second time. But the Sloops own a lot of land, miles of vineyards spread out all over the area, clear down to the ocean. Most of those vineyards have outbuildings to store farm equipment. And didn’t Ben say something about being with Gemma at a barn?
    We made out one time at one of her family’s barns, near my house
.
    I turn on Ben’s road, hoping my gut is steering me in the right direction. I can’t imagine Ben wanting to go anywhere with Gemma. Unless she’s holding a gun on him, she probably suggested someplace close.
    Unless she’s holding a gun …
Her father has quite a collection. It wouldn’t be hard for her to get her hands on one. I should have grabbed something more serious than a paint knife, but Melanie was in the kitchen, standing right in front of the knife drawer.
    I drive faster, scanning the small placards on either side of the road, the ones that name the grape varietal growing in a field and often identify which winery the grapes belong to. The Sloops always have theirs marked and are one of the few companies that bother putting fences around their property. There’s really no reason to. The only people who wander into the fields are drunk tourists wanting their pictures taken with the vines, and they rarely hurt anything.
    I guess even the Sloops know that on some level. The vineyard of chardonnay grapes about a mile past Ben’s house is surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, but no gate blocks the muddy road leading into the fields. I brake hard, sending the back of the car skidding before the wheels catch and turn down the narrow lane. There are tire marks in the soggy earth, and they look fresh.
    A few minutes later, the land dips down, revealing a low spot in the field where the grapevines are half underwater. I brake, second-guessing my instincts until I see the tracks swerving out of the mud on the other side of the standing water. Someone has driven through here recently, and almost got stuck on the way through. Globs of mud cover the grapevines near the tracks, testimony to how the tires spun as they fought their way out of the flooded area.
    Maybe Romeo told Gemma to meet him here for just this reason, knowing that should the rain continue to fall, they’ll all be flooded in on the other side, giving them plenty of time to kill Ben and complete the spell to bind Gemma to the Mercenaries before anyone reaches their location.
    I eye the water. It isn’t moving. I won’t be swept away if I try to cross on foot, but I have no idea how much farther Gemma has driven. Some of the fields are miles across, and I can’t see a barn from here. What if I go on foot and I’m too late, what if those minutes I could have gained in the car make the difference between life and death?
    My foot shifts to the gas pedal and the car eases down the hill. Water rises up the side. Up, up, until I hold my breath, wondering if I’m going to make it. Will the engine stall? Will the tires float up off the ground? Melanie’s tiny Hyundai doesn’t weigh much, and the water is rising, rising, until I could reach out the window and touch it. The car makes a sputtering sound, and I feel the wheels spin uselessly for a second before catching the ground again.
    “Please, please, please,” I mutter, leaning forward in my seat, willing the car to roll just a few more feet.…
    The wheels spin, then catch, spin, then catch, and finally hitthe road on the other side,