The Villa

crush.
    At least the demands, the tight schedule, helped keep her mind off Jerry and the police investigation. It had been two full weeks since she'd careened around turns with no brakes. As far as she could tell, the investigation was at a standstill.
    Jerry DeMorney was a different matter.
    She, too, had her sources. She was perfectly aware there was talk about him. Questions, not only by the police, but by his superiors. And the board members, led—mortifyingly, she hoped—by his own great-uncle.
    It was some satisfaction to know he was being squeezed, as her family had been squeezed. Between the greedy fists of gossip and suspicion.
    She brought up another e-mail, clicked to open the attached file.
    As she watched it scroll on-screen, her heart stumbled, then began to race.
    It was a copy of the next ad, one set to run in August.
    A family picnic, a wash of sunlight, the dapple of shade from a huge old oak. A scatter of people at a long wooden table that was loaded with food and bottles of wine.
    The image Sophia had hand-picked was of several generations, a mix of faces, expressions, movement. The young mother with a baby in her lap, the little boy wrestling with a puppy on the grass, a father with a young girl riding his shoulders.
    At the head of the table, the model who'd reminded her of Eli sat, his glass lifted as if in a toast. There was laughter in the picture, continuity, family tradition.
    This image had been altered. Subtly, slickly. Three of the models' faces had been replaced. Sophia studied her grandmother, her mother, herself. Her eyes were wide with horror, her mouth gaping with it. Stabbed into her chest, like a knife, was a bottle of wine.
    It read:
    THIS IS YOUR MOMENT
    IT'LL BE THE DEATH OF YOU
    AND YOURS
    "You son of a bitch, you son of a bitch." She jabbed the keyboard, ordered the copy to print, saved the file, then closed it.
    He wouldn't shake her, she promised herself. And he wouldn't threaten her family with impunity. She would deal with him. She would handle this.
    She started to slap the hard copy of the ad in a file, hesitated.
    You're a handler, Tyler had told her.
     
    Suckering the vines was a pleasant way to spend a summer's day. The sun was warm, the breeze mild as a kiss. Under the brilliant blue cup of sky, the circling Vacas were upholstered with green, the hills rolling down lush with the promise of summer.
    His grapes were protected from that streaming midday sun by a lovely verdant canopy of leaves. Nature's parasol, his grandfather called it.
    The crop was more than half its mature size, and before long the black grape varieties would begin changing color, green berries miraculously going blue, then purple as they pushed toward that last spurt of maturity. And harvest.
    Each stage of growth required tending, just as each stage brought the season to its inevitable promise.
    When Sophia crouched beside him, he continued his work, and his pleasure.
    "I thought you were going to hole up in your office all day, waste this sunshine. Hell of a way to make a living, if you ask me."
    "I thought a big, important vintner like yourself would have more to do than suckering vines personally." She combed a hand through his hair, lavishly streaked by the sun. "Where's your hat, pal?"
    "Around somewhere. These Pinot Noir are going to be our earliest to ripen. I've got a hundred down with Paulie on these babies. I say they're going to give us our best vintage in five years. His money's on the Chenin Blanc."
    "I'll take a piece of that. Mine's on the Pinot Chardonnay."
    "You ought to save your money. You're going to need it financing Maddy's brainstorm."
    "It's an innovative, forward-thinking project. She's already buried me in data. We're putting together a proposal for La Signora."
    "You want to rub grape seeds all over your body, I could do it for you. No charge." He shifted, their knees bumped before he laid a hand on hers. "What's the matter, baby?"
    "I got another message, another doctored ad. It came through a file attached to interoffice e-mail." As his hand tensed, she turned hers over so their fingers linked. "I've already called. It was sent under P.J.'s screen name. She hasn't sent me any posts today. Someone either used her computer or had her account information and password. It could've come from anywhere."
    "Where is it?"
    "Back home. I printed it out, locked it in a drawer. I'm going to send it to the police, add it to their pile. But I wanted to tell you first. As much