Page 17 of Taken Away

“I know you will.”

Aubrey smiled faintly.

It wasn’t exactly comforting.

But then, it never had been.

“I’ll call you after the funeral.”

“I guess I’ll see you in a few days.”

“Count on it.”

“Bye, sweetheart.”

“Bye.”

The line went dead.

Aubrey stared at the phone for a long moment before tossing it onto the passenger seat.

Then she shifted the rental into Drive.

By the time she left town and wound onto the narrow mountain road, her mood had gone from furious to numb.

The asphalt narrowed, shouldered by trees and guardrails. Windshield wipers squeaked once across glass gone dry. Podcasts and email and 202 traffic might as well have belonged to another planet.

The road curved through deep green woods and along the edge of a ridge.

Then the trees broke.

Aubrey hit the brakes.

“Oh my God.”

Blackwood Estate

Blackwood spread below her in two halves.

On the far side of the road, the cattle operation unfurled across the hillside—a wide sweep of pasture dotted with black and brown bodies. Cows grazed with their noses buried in grass while calves bounded awkwardly on too-long legs. A rusted metal gate leaned crooked between weathered fence posts. The old red barn sagged in the middle, its roof patched in places with tin, like the photos her mother had flipped through years ago.

That side looked exactly like the past she’d been told about—muddy, worn, stubbornly alive.

On the other side of the road, something entirely different rose out of the valley.

Black four-board fencing curved down the hill in long, elegant lines, corralling rolling fields and terraced vineyards that climbed the opposite slope in precise green rows. The vines marched up the mountain, neat and disciplined, disappearing into the folds of the Blue Ridge.

And at the center of it all sat the house.

The Victorian was painted a soft sage green with cream trim and intricate gingerbread lacework beneath the eaves. A wide wraparound porch circled the house, its white rockers facing the mountains like an audience.

Tall windows caught the late light and glowed molten gold.

It looked like something out of a movie. Not a real place where people tripped over laundry and paid electric bills.

Her aunt had lived here.

Her aunt had owned all of this.