Nico frowned. “What?”
Val appeared to be dying from silent laughter, listening to Megan and Toni talk.
“No.” Toni ignored Nico’s question. “If it was my brother? Yeah. But there have been so many women over the years that offered way more information than I ever wanted to know, so really—”
“What are you guys talking about?” Nico asked.
“Nothing,” Toni and Megan said in unison.
Nico looked at Sully, but the man slowly shook his head.
“Man, don’t ask me to get involved in any of this shit. I’m just here to find some grapevines for a winery guy.”
Nico said, “That’s literally the only thing anyone has said so far that makes sense.” He stuck his hand out. “Nico Dusi. I’m the winery guy. The farmer anyway. I’m the one who grows the grapes.”
Sully shook his hand, then pointed to Val. “I’m Sully and this is Val. She’s gonna help you find your fancy vines.”
“Good.” He sat next to Megan and reached for a bottle of water. “That sounds good to me.”
Chapter 16
“Okay, so around the entrance I got very little. They were using their hands and wearing gloves for sure. For safety or for fingerprints, I cannot tell you. But farther into the greenhouse, I started to get a few brushes.”
“Brushes?” Nico asked.
“For me to feel anything off someone else, I usually have to have skin contact. So at the door, where they wore gloves, I got hardly anything. Once we got into the plants though, it was impossible to hide. Even without skin contact.”
Nico frowned. “Because of the plants?”
Val took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s hard to explain, but living plants do have a level of awareness. It’s not as clear as something off a natural surface or something with a lot of sentiment attached, but I can feel their impressions. In this case, there were two.”
“Two individuals?” Megan was taking notes.
“Two individuals, but there’s an awareness of a third. Maybe someone outside?”
“Possibly someone waiting in the truck,” Nico said. “Waiting to load the vines.”
“How many were there all together?”
“Thirty-seven. Henry kept a running count.”
“And were all of them in good condition?”
“No. That’s part of what’s confusing,” Nico said. “There were at least two that were on their last legs. The cutting hadn’t taken well, and the roots were going dormant. Why would they want those plants too?”
“The impressions I picked up from the other plants in the greenhouse were of someone very focused and very methodical. The individual who did this didn’t want to leave a single thing for you to pick up your research, not even half-dead cuttings.”
“I see.” Nico turned when Henry entered the room, but no one interrupted Val.
Henry walked to Toni’s side and sat beside her.
Megan asked, “Male or female?”
“It’s oddly hard to tell,” Val said. “I usually pick that up right away. And one signature was definitely male. But the other? I could not tell. Could they be gender fluid?”
“Possible,” Toni said. “But not likely. I suspect that we’re simply dealing with a brilliant and brilliantly organized person. That’s the dominant impression, not male or female.”
“How does that help us find her? Or him?”
“It doesn’t, but I think we can probably eliminate anyone with a hot temper or who’s known for being a bully.” Val took a long drink. “I got a flash of someone with long fingers in black gloves taking each branch or stick that fell to the ground and putting them in a sandwich bag.”
“Leaving no trace,” Henry said. “I wonder if I should tell my grandmother and father to be on alert. The original Poulsard vines are in their winery.”
“I’d suggest that unless you know you can solve this in the next week or so.”
Megan tried to imagine anyone she knew in Moonstone Cove doing anything so precise, bench by bench picking up each and every piece of leaf, stick, or root so someone else couldn’t even try to propagate them.
No one sprang to mind.
Moonstone Cove was a small year-round community of artists and chefs and academics and winemakers. They raised cattle and grapes. They taught students.
The university…
Megan said, “Katherine would probably tell us that there are plenty of methodical, precise people at the university. Biologists are precise and might not be okay with unorthodox vine experiments.”
Henry said, “That’s a reach though. I cannot imagine an academic being that upset about a noncertified vine. It’s not exactly an invasive species that could spread. Without the exact right conditions, it’ll flop and die off.”
Nico was focused on Val. “What other impressions did you get?”
“Three people. Two present and one more distant. One man for certain. Then the methodical one that felt ambiguous. I didn’t get much of an impression from the one outside, but let’s assume they’re male too.”
“I think that’s a safe assumption,” Henry said.
“They came in, and they knew exactly what they wanted. They had to look though.”
Nico leaned forward. “Why do you say that?”
“They backtracked several times. The manner of entry was very clean, and they were in and out quickly, but the greenhouse is a bit of a maze. They left a lot of emotional footprints.”
Nico brushed a thumb over his chin, staring at the far wall. “Megan, remind me to get a list of employees who’ve worked here for the past… twenty years or so.” He looked at Megan. “Katherine saw a face?”
“Yes.” Megan took a copy of the picture out of her purse. “It’s not great, but it does give you a bit of an idea. She said he was pretty average-looking.”
“That’ll make it harder to find him.” Nico looked at the sketch. “We usually take a copy of an employee driver’s license, green card, whatever they have for ID. I’m going to look through them to see if anyone looks familiar, but so far, this face isn’t ringing any bells.”
“Good to double-check though, right?”
“Absolutely.”
Val said, “Any other ideas while I’m here?”
Nico narrowed his eyes. “You know, I don’t think there’s anything else here right now, but if Toni’s up to it…”
Toni patted her belly and tried to rise. “I’m good to go! Had a nap this morning and everything.”
Nico nodded. “Then I think it’d be very hospitable to take our visiting friends to Coral Canyon to meet our dear cousin Kellan.”
Toni and Henry took Henry’s truck to Coral Canyon with Val and Sully in the second-row seat, leaving Nico and Megan to drive the fifteen miles into the hills with no one else in Nico’s truck.
It was the first time they’d been alone and away from the winery since Sunday dinner, which wasn’t really alone, which meant it was the first time they’d been truly alone since he’d kissed her the first time. The tension in the truck was palpable.