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“Yeah, but where’re you going?”
“Upstairs. To bed.”
He left that line alone and poured them each a glass. “You can spare a few minutes.”
She looked as if she wanted to bolt but took the glass, and together they sat on a bench beneath a willow tree in the backyard.
“How about a toast?” he asked.
“To what?”
“Better days?”
She smiled sadly, and he was undone. For an unreasonable second he wanted to enfold her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right. Instead he studied the ruby-dark depths of his glass. She squared her shoulders and nodded. “Better days,” she agreed, touching the rim of her glass to his. “Lots of them.”
“Amen.”
They both took a sip, and the night seemed to hold them closer. Faint light fell from the windows of the nook where the candle burned, and somewhere down the street a dog gave a soft “Woof.” Crickets chirped from hidden crevices, and the rumble of traffic, slow-moving and sparse, was barely audible.
“So,” she finally said as if the silence between them was unbearable. “How did you just happen to show up at the police station today?”
“When I got back here, I heard what was going on from Mrs. Ellingsworth.”
“Ah,” she said, taking a swallow. He tried not to watch the motion of her throat, but it was impossible. “Discretion isn’t one of Ellie’s strong points.”
“No?”
She frowned at her glass. “No. But she’s honest, kind, loving, fun, and she adores my children.” With a half smile, she added, “I guess I can live with her need to gossip.”
“She’s just lonely. Wants someone to talk to.”
Tiffany nodded and twisted the stem of her glass between her fingers. “So how’s the search coming?” she asked. “Have you found a place for the winery?”
“I’m narrowing it down.”
“To—?”
“A couple of places. One of which is the Wells ranch.”
Tiffany sighed. “It seems we never can get away from that place, can we?”
“I told you I’d help,” he said.
“And I told you I don’t need any.” She took another long swallow from her glass, and he drained his.
“You’re a lousy liar, Tiffany.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You need a lot of help. You’ve got a house that’s falling down around you and a job that takes a lot of your time. On top of that you’re worried about your son, and I don’t blame you. Right now Stephen’s rebelling all over the place. Maybe it has to do with Philip’s death, but maybe it runs deeper. No one knows, but the simple fact is that he looks like he’s been in a prison fight, and he’s probably still in some trouble with the police. Whether you admit it or not, you’re afraid that he’s somehow connected with Isaac Wells’s disappearance.”
“He’s just a boy!” she protested.
“A boy who might know too much. He’s running with a rough crowd, getting into fights, and you don’t know how much else, but the fact of the matter is he ended up with Isaac Wells’s keys.”
“It was a dare.”
“One he shouldn’t have taken,” J.D. said, seeing he
