The Villa

next stage."
    "Well." Smiling, Jerry poured himself a snifter of brandy. "It's taken you a considerable amount of time to make up your mind."
    "I have a lot to lose."
    "And more to gain. Giambelli's using you, and they'll toss you out without a flinch if it suits their purposes. You know it, I know it."
    "My position is still secure. The reorganization hasn't changed that."
    "For the moment. You'd hardly be calling me if you weren't concerned."
    "I'm tired of it, that's all. I'm tired of not being appreciated for my efforts. I don't care to be watched over and evaluated by strangers."
    "Naturally. Sophia Giambelli and Tyler MacMillan are being groomed to step into the traditional shoes, whether they earn it or not, they'll wear them. Now there's David Cutter. A smart individual. La Coeur is sorry to lose him. He'll be taking a serious look at all areas of the company. A serious look that could very well turn up certain… discrepancies."
    "I've been careful."
    "No one's ever careful enough. What do you intend to bring to the table now? It's going to have to be more than the ante we discussed previously."
    "The centennial. If there's trouble during the merger, bleeding over to the next, banner year, it will eat at the foundation of the company. There are things I can do."
    "Poisoning an old man, for instance?"
    "That was an accident."
    The panic, the hint of whine in the tone made Jerry smile. It was all so perfect. "Is that what you call it?"
    "It was your idea. You said it would only make him ill."
    "Oh, I have a lot of ideas." Idly, Jerry examined his nails. La Coeur paid him for his ideas—his less radical ideas—as much as they did because his name was DeMorney. "You implemented it, friend. And bungled it."
    "How was I to know he had a weak heart?"
    "As I said, no one's ever careful enough. If you were going to kill someone, you should have gone for the old woman herself. With her gone, they couldn't plug the holes in the dike as fast as we could drill them."
    "I'm not a murderer."
    "I beg to differ." You're exactly that, Jerry thought. And because of it you'll do anything, everything, I want now. "I wonder if the Italian police would be interested enough to exhume Baptista's body and run tests if they happened to get an informative and anonymous call. You've killed," Jerry said after a long pause. "You'd better be prepared to do whatever's necessary to back yourself up. If you want my help, and my financial backing to continue, you'll start showing me what you can do for me. You can begin by getting me copies of everything. The legal papers, the contracts, the plans for the ad campaign. Every step of it. The vintner's logs, Venice and Napa."
    "It'll be risky. It'll take time."
    "You'll be paid for the risk. And the time." He was a patient man, a wealthy one, and could afford both. Would invest both, to bury the Giambellis. "Don't contact me again until you have something useful."
    "I need money. I can't get what you ask without—"
    "Give me something I can use. Then I'll give you payment. COD, friend. That's how it works."
     
    "They're grapevines. Big deal."
    "They're going to be a big deal for us. The grapevines," David informed his sulking son, "are what's going to buy your burgers and fries for the foreseeable future."
    "Are they going to buy my car?"
    David glanced in the rearview mirror. "Don't push your luck, pal."
    "Dad, you can't live out here in Nowheresville without wheels."
    "The minute you stop breathing, I'll check out the nearest used-car lot."
    Three months before—hell, David thought—three weeks before that comment would have resulted in his son's frozen silence or a snide remark. The fact that Theo's response was to clutch his throat, bug out his eyes and collapse gasping on the backseat warmed his father's heart.
    "I knew we should've taken those CPR classes," David said absently as he turned into MacMillan Wineries.
    "It's okay. He goes, it's more fries for us."
    Maddy didn't mind being out early. She didn't mind driving around the hills and valleys. What she did mind was having nothing to do. Her greatest hope at the moment was that her father would break down and buy Theo a car. Then she could nag her brother to drive her somewhere. Anywhere.
    "Pretty place." David stopped the van, got out to look over the fields and the workers steadily pruning vines in the frosty morning. "And this, all this, my children," he continued, sliding an arm around each of them when they joined him, "will