Page 252 of Taken Away

Red's smile faded.

"Mabel couldn't."

"So she closed the door."

Red looked out across the pasture.

"Mabel said she'd know where to find him if she ever needed to talk to him."

FIFTY

Blackwood Winery

Declan O’Rourke

Declan O’Rourke had already sat with the book club ladies.

They had given him plenty.

Opinions. Memories. Half-truths served with lemon cake. A few sharp observations dressed up as gossip. Enough to convince him that whatever lived between Anne Langford and Mabel Blackwood had roots far deeper than envy, money, or old family pride.

But every story came back to the same name.

Walter.

Walter had been there when the sisters were young. Walter had seen Blackwood before it became polished stone, vineyard tours, and wedding brochures. Walter had watched Anne leave, watched Mabel stay, watched the silence between them grow teeth.

If anyone still carried the truth of those two sisters, it was Walter.

And Aubrey Langford hadn’t hired Declan to admire the scenery.

She’d hired him to find answers.

Declan parked near the tasting room and found a young employee stacking empty crates beside the service entrance.

“I’m looking for Walter,” Declan said.

The young man turned, squinting at him. “Walter Grady?”

“Aye,” Declan said. “Unless ye’ve another Walter haunting the place.”

That earned him a quick smile. “No, sir. Just the one. He’s down at the production warehouse on the lower fifty.”

Declan glanced past the vines. “And where might the lower fifty be, then?”

“Easiest way is to go back out the front gate,” the employee said, pointing toward the drive. “First dirt road on the left. Follow it about half a mile. You’ll see the warehouse.”

“Much obliged.”

Declan returned to his car, but as he pulled away from the tasting room, his mind stayed on Walter.

People like Walter rarely told a story straight the first time. Not always because they were lying. Sometimes because they had lived beside a truth for so long, they no longer recognized it as truth.

He passed through the front gate and took the first dirt road on the left.

The road narrowed almost immediately.

Blackwood disappeared behind him, replaced by brush, fencing, service tracks, and the less picturesque bones of a working property.