“Yeah, do you know what those psychic abilities are doing to her right now?” Henry asked. “Her filters are completely out of whack. She can feel everyone. She’s got, like, no walls. Every sad or angry or pissed-off person she runs into sends her into a tailspin, and you want to throw her into a crime investigation?”
“She didn’t tell us that.” Megan put her hand on Henry’s arm. “When did that start happening?”
He shook his head. “Like, in the past month or so. Right around the time she started feeling the baby’s emotions. She didn’t want me to tell anyone she’s having a hard time, but she cannot do this.”
Nico hadn’t stopped walking to the greenhouse, so they had to rush to catch up with him.
“Nico,” Megan said. “I’ll ask Katherine and see if she’s willing to help, okay? But we don’t need to ask Toni—”
“Listen.” He spun around with a small smile on his face. “You two seem to forget that I have known my cousin way longer than either of you. I think it’s adorable that you’re trying to protect her. It’s sweet. But if you don’t include her in this” —he looked at Megan— “she will be pissed. Like, very pissed.” He looked at Henry. “I fucking love how much you love that woman, Henry, but if you try to put a fence around her, she’ll throw your fucking balls in a grape crusher, and you know I’m right.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Now tell me what I’m supposed to be seeing out here.”
Henry pointed to a pane of glass next to the frosted glass door. “Push that in.”
“That panel?” Nico pushed it, and with only a slight nudge, the plate of glass fell in and landed on a rag sitting on the workbench.
“I’ll be damned.” Nico easily reached his hand inside and opened the door. “That’s how they got in.”
“I almost didn’t spot it. We were looking for broken panes or smashed glass or something,” Henry told Megan. “But we weren’t finding anything, and the lock wasn’t jimmied, which made the police think that whoever broke in must have had a key.”
“Which meant it would have had to be an inside job,” Megan said. “But they didn’t. They just had a glass cutter.”
“They lucked out where the glass landed,” Henry said. “It would have been easy to push that glass in, open the door, then grab that piece on the way out and set it in with a little glue along the edges the way they did. Not enough to really conceal their steps, but enough so that the break-in wouldn’t be noticeable.”
Nico was chewing on the side of his lip. “When was the last time you were in here?”
“Sunday morning I came in to measure the humidity and open the doors. It was around six in the morning.”
“And I came in about the same time on Monday,” Nico said. “We noticed the theft Tuesday morning.”
Megan said, “So it happened between Monday morning and Tuesday morning. Is anyone in this area during the day?”
Henry shrugged. “Not really, but it’s also not way off the beaten track, you know? You could cut across the back acreage with a truck, but it’d still be noticeable during the day.”
“So they must have come after nightfall,” Megan said. “Nico, you didn’t notice anything Monday night?”
He shook his head. “Ethan has basketball practice, and he doesn’t have his license yet.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Megan should have remembered that. “They have a game on Thursday.”
“It’s a pain in the ass to drive him to school, drive back, and then drive back in to get him, so I usually just take him in and take paperwork with me. Pay bills, return emails while I’m waiting. That kind of thing.”
Megan stared at the back of the house. It was across a pretty expansive lawn, but if anyone was in the house and even glanced out toward the back, they’d have seen a large truck loading grapevines. It would have been a big risk to take.
“What about Beth?” Megan turned to Nico. “Was she home?”
“She usually hangs at her mom’s on days Ethan has practice; then I’ll go pick her up after.”
“So again, this must be someone who knows your routine,” Megan said. “Beth was at Marissa’s, Ethan was at practice, and you were with Ethan, right?”
“Yeah.”
She looked at Henry. “And you?”
“I worked on Monday until about six, then headed home. I needed to cook dinner for Toni.”
“And no one else would be around? No night watchmen or late crew?”
Nico’s expression was grim. “We didn’t think we needed armed guards or alarms. Henry and I were the only two who knew about the Poulsard.”
“So everyone who might be around the house on Monday night was gone. And that was the routine.” Megan nodded. “Who knows your habits well enough to know you were going to be gone?”
Nico shrugged. “Half of Moonstone Cove probably. I don’t exactly keep my life a secret. There’s got to be forty or fifty kids on the basketball team if you count the boys and the girls practicing. Any of their parents would know I’m there on Monday night.”
“So our pool of suspects for this is someone with a kid on the basketball team who knows that you’re usually at practice and away from home on Monday night.”
“Or someone who knows someone with a kid on the basketball team,” Nico said. “Like I said, if you asked six random people in Moonstone Cove where Nico Dusi spends his Monday evenings, half of them I’ll be related to, and the other half still probably know where I am.”
“You really think people are that interested in you?” Megan asked, halfway joking.
“No, it’s just the Cove and they’re bored.” He was staring at the door and didn’t seem to notice Megan rolling her eyes.
She could only roll them so far. Nico had a reputation among the women at the country club. There weren’t many single men in Moonstone Cove; the attractive and newly divorced vintner on the market was the topic of more than a little speculation. There probably were women—and men—who kept track of him.
“Was there anything else you wanted me to see?” Nico asked Henry.
“No, that was it. Just the glass thing.”
“Call Drew and see if his guys noticed it,” Nico said. “Anything else that Megan or the girls need to see right now?” He turned to Megan. “Hey, can you do the thing where you touch something and get a read on who touched it before?”
Her eyebrows went up. “Me? No. I could tear the greenhouse down, but I can’t read anything off it.”
“That’s not terrifying at all,” Henry said quietly.
“Oh, don’t worry. I wouldn’t.” She flashed him her most charming smile. “Probably. But the psychometry thing—I actually do know someone with that gift.”
“Psychometry?”
“Touch telepathy,” she said. “The thing you were talking about.”
“Seriously?” He exchanged a glance with Henry. “Can you call them?”
“I’ll see what I can do. You might need to pay extra for it.”