A Deadly Draught (22 page)

“That’s the only good thing that’s happened since my wayward brother arrived home. The cops are after his ass, and I hope they find him.”

This was all so confusing. I knew Michael wasn’t happy Ronald was here. Ronald had said that, but why so angry?

I got out of the truck, rushed after Michael, and caught him as he was opening the front door.

“What’s going on around here?”

He turned to me, hesitated, then spoke. “You mean you really don’t know?” I shook my head. “Ronald got some big shot lawyer in here, and the court declared all the moves I made since Dad’s death null and void or whatever legal term was used. Anyway, it seems Mother and I had no right to make those decisions unless Ronald was consulted. Now, how the hell could he participate? We didn’t know where he was.”

I seemed to recall that neither mother nor son was eager to locate him until their lawyer insisted. Stanley came back through the door with his briefcase in his hand.

“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer. You can’t just weasel out of the contract we have. I’ll sue you for every last grain of malt.” He pushed past Michael, got into his car, and roared out of the driveway.

“Shit.” Michael sat down on the top step with his head in his hands. “When Ronnie appeared two days ago, I was convinced that we could work things out, but he’d already gotten the wheels in motion with his own lawyer.”

“You can’t blame him, can you? You turned the brewery upside down once your father was dead.”

“I screwed things up, didn’t I?”

I sat down beside him. “Not well thought out or business-like.”

“Don’t you start on me, too. I count on you to be my friend. I couldn’t stand it if you were angry at me.” He reached out and took my hand in his. That’s how Jake found us when he pulled up to the house.

“Any word on Ronald?” Jake asked.

Michael shook his head no. Jake looked at me.

“Hera?”

“As I told you before, he and Deni stayed with me last night but left before I got up this morning.”

“I’m certain the two of you will be sure to let me know if you hear anything.”

The two of us? There was no two of us, and I was tired of being Michael’s friend every time he did something stupid. I pulled my hand free.

“Michael, you’re a real jerk.” Michael’s mouth dropped open, and Jake stopped mid-stride in his walk back to his car.

“What?” Michael’s face was awash with disbelief at my words.

“You want to be my friend, but only when it’s convenient for you, and always when you need something. You’ve known for years I had a crush on you, and you used that to keep me dangling just in case your well of women ran dry. That’s all over now. I’m glad Ronald’s back, and he’s giving you what you deserve. I hope your ass lands in jail. It might teach you some humility.”

“You know I have always loved you, Hera. Now that Cory’s left me, we could be together.”

“Cory left you? I feel so stupid. She dumped you after only several months while I needed all my life to find out what a jerk you are. Goodbye, Michael.”

I stalked past Jake, whose hand was in front of his face trying to hide a smile. I turned and walked back to him.

“You’re only marginally better.” His eyebrow jumped a half inch, and he dropped the grin.

I left the two of them standing there with expressions of confusion on their faces as I drove out the drive. My heart was racing, but I was calm and serene in my own mind. I hadn’t found Ronald as I thought I might, but I had found my backbone.

*

“You said what to him?” Sally giggled with amazement at my gumption.

“Oh, sorry. I shouldn’t have unloaded all this on you, with the baby and all.”

“Don’t be silly. I feel fine, really I do. I’ve made up my mind I’ll tell Michael about my pregnancy and insist that a lawyer set up child support.”

“No regrets over Michael?” I was surprised. I always thought of Sally as having a tender heart, but she also had more determination than I gave her credit for. It was a trait I ought to emulate.

“No regrets. I know Michael would like to believe I loved him, and so would I, given my ideal version of myself, but I think it was a little more on the side of lust than love. I hate to admit this, but I was jealous of you.”

“What?”

“Michael was so desirable, the best catch in town, and you always had him. I mean, he always seemed to come back to you. You’re so tall, and blonde, and sexy, and I’m so short and chubby, and just kind of cute.”

“Dumb, too.”

She grabbed a red curl, twisted it between her fingers, lifted her blue and white pinafore with the other hand and curtsied. “Right, but now I’m smarter.”

“I’ll be right back. Wait here.”

“Where would I go? I have to keep the shop open.”

When I returned, I held a bottle of sparkling cider in my hands.

“This should be champagne, but given your condition, it will have to do. A celebration.”

“Okay, but just what are we celebrating?”

“The loss of our old wimpy selves and the location of female determination.”

We drank the cider, made plans for tomorrow’s tasting, and talked about baby names. Sally was certain it would be a boy, while I wished for a girl. Somewhere in our conversation, as customers poured in and out of the shop, Sally asked the one question I wished she hadn’t.

“What about Jake?”

“I gave him the old heave-ho, too.”

“Oh, I don’t think you should have done that.”

“Well, I left the door open a bit.” After all, we were sleuthing partners, weren’t we? Oops. I was having so much fun shedding my dependence on old habits, I forgot I should stop by and let Jake know about the slit hose, but first I needed to visit Jeremiah.

*

I rang Jeremiah’s doorbell with my free hand. In the other, I held a box filled with half a dozen of Sally’s apple fritters, which I knew Jeremiah loved. His sister answered the door.

“He’s much better, and if you have in that box what I think you have, he’ll be in tip-top shape in a jiffy.”

“Fritters? Yum.” He was lying on the couch but raised himself to a sitting position, the better to grab a pastry.

I asked him what happened to his bike.

“I don’t know. It was fine when I rode out to your place, but the tire just kind of peeled off the rim when I hit that bump coming down Carver Hill. It’s getting old, and I guess I should have paid closer attention to my rubber.”

“Brian’s out at the barn now, so I’d better get going. Take what time you need. Rest and get better. You get out of bed too soon, and there’ll be no more pastries for you.”

“I’m sorry about leaving you.”

“I understand. If I got a better paying job, I’d be out of here, too.” I thought joking about his pay at my place might encourage Jeremiah to reveal where his other job would be, but he kept that to himself, and I decided not to pry. At the door, I asked his sister where his bike was.

“In my truck. I picked it up off the road taking him back here from the hospital. I thought about just throwing it out, but he assured me it could be fixed.” Good old Jeremiah. He could fix anything. I would miss him.

“Mind if I take a look at it? Maybe I can get the spare parts for it while he’s recuperating.” She pointed toward her truck in the back of the house.

I leveraged my body onto the tailgate. The bike was in better shape than I hoped. A few of the spokes were broken on the front wheel, and the handlebars were twisted, but the frame looked undamaged. When I examined the front tire, looking for a replacement size, I saw the rubber that gave him the trouble. A five inch slit appeared along the tire, not all the way through the rubber, but deep enough that a bumpy road blew the damaged area open. It reminded me of my slit boiler hose. It was past time for me to let Jake know about these so-called accidents.

*

I called Jake on his cell but got no answer. It was now around midnight. No word from Jake or from Ronald and Deni. I was lying on the cot I set up in the tasting room of the barn, trying to keep my eyes open. An hour earlier, I had turned off the old gooseneck lamp, which I had bungee-corded to a chair back next to the cot. It gave me light by which I could read my book, but the story was boring, and I kept nodding off. I gulped down a cup of coffee while I was reading and another as I lay in the dark. Usually caffeine keeps me awake, but tonight, for some reason, it wasn’t working.

I sat up, pulled on my sweatshirt, and was considering a walk around the outside of the building when I heard a noise from the other end of the barn. It sounded as if someone stumbled into the stack of kegs Brian cleaned the other day and left in the middle of the floor near the fermentation vessels. I grabbed my flashlight. I was familiar enough with the layout of the floor that I wouldn’t need the light, but it would make a fine weapon.

A wave of dizziness forced me back onto the cot.
What the hell?
I grabbed the chair to rise and managed to pick my way toward the brewing area. My head continued to spin, and I feared I would fall, alerting whoever was there to my presence. I gripped the side of one of the tanks to remain upright.

“Crap,” I heard a voice say as I struggled to stay on my feet behind my cover. I tried to let my eyes adjust to the dark, but that did little good as the images in the dim light spun around me. I intended to nab whoever was breaking into my operation and sabotaging it. This time, surprise was on my side, and I meant to take advantage of it if only everything would stand still.

I could just make out a figure near the stack of kegs. Using the tanks as support, I moved toward it but stopped when another person emerged from behind the first. They outnumbered me. As courageous as I wanted to be, tonight I was a dizzy blonde and no match for two of them. I stepped behind my mash tun and waited.

“You told me someone would be here.”

“She’s here. She’s in the tasting room, probably asleep. I put something in her coffee to make her drowsy.”

“Hadn’t you better check to see if she’s out?

It’s now or never,
I thought and flipped on my flashlight. It caught both figures in its beam. I slipped to the floor in a faint.

Twenty-Two

“Wake up. Wake up.” I was at the bottom of a deep well, and Jake was shouting at me from the surface. Then I felt something cold on my face. It wasn’t icy water.

“Good lord, you’re pouring cold beer on me. You could drown me.” I grabbed the bottle out of his hand and looked at it. “It’s a bottle of Ginseng Rush. That’s no way to treat my lager.”

“It was the only thing cold enough to revive you. I tried tap water, but you weren’t coming round.”

“What happened?” I took in my surroundings as I sat up. I was in my own living room on the couch. “How’d I get here? Last I knew, I was in the barn about to catch two prowlers. Did you get them?”

“Sorry. I heard someone run out through the gift shop when I entered your barn door. I thought it was kind of funny you’d leave it open, after Rafe and I took the time to install new locks and all.”

My head felt as if it were about to explode, and there was a funny taste in my mouth. “I think someone drugged me. I heard them say they put something in my thermos.”

“Where’s the thermos now?”

“In the tasting room.” Jake started toward the door.

“No, don’t leave me. You can look at it later.”

“Who had access to it?”

I thought over yesterday’s events. I filled the thermos here right before I left for Sally’s shop, stopped by the barn to check on how Brian was doing. It was in my truck at Sally’s and when I visited Jeremiah. I took it out of the truck when I got home and put it on the bar in the tasting room. I told Jake what transpired.

“I drank several cups of coffee from it while I was reading last night. I wondered why I kept falling asleep. That book was supposed to be a thriller.”

“Did you get a good look at them?”

“Uh, not really. I dropped my flashlight on the floor.”

Jake got out of the chair he was sitting in and walked toward the kitchen. “Now where are you going?”

“Just to get you a glass of water.” He brought it back, and I drank it down in several gulps. It took the vile taste out of my mouth and quenched the parched feeling in my throat.

“What were you doing here? Isn’t it kind of late for official business, although I know you like to take people off guard?” I asked.

“Looking for you. I couldn’t sleep thinking about what you’d said earlier today, well, yesterday. I thought we should talk.”

“Talk?” I swung my legs to the floor and sat up. My head spun only slightly.

“Yes, but first, would you mind telling me why you were sleeping in the barn?”

I told Jake about the cut hose and Jeremiah’s bike.

“Did you keep the old hose? I’d like to see it.”

“Sure, I’ll get it for you, but about that talk.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not interested in talking.” I reached out, grabbed him around the neck, pulled him down onto the couch, and let him figure out the rest.

*

Later, we were reacquainting ourselves for the second time tonight with each other’s bodies, now a little older than when we were in law school, but perhaps a little less rushed in our passion. Oh, yeah, there was a lot of passion there, but we both seemed more interested in taking our time, letting the lust ooze out of our pores rather than racing to a finish line. I think we began to understand better the reason why the tortoise won that race. As we neared the end again, an explosion rocked the night air.

“Wow,” we said in unison, then realized the blast came from outside the house and not from the bed we were thrashing around in. Through the bedroom window, we watched a red ball of light and flame shoot toward the heavens.

“It’s up there beyond the ridge. It’s got to be the old well.” I grabbed my jeans and shirt as Jake searched around the room for his clothes.

“Here.” I handed a pair of jeans to him.

“No, these are yours.”

“Sorry.” I stripped off the too-large jeans I was zipping up and threw them in his direction.

“Shirt. Where’s my shirt?”