Secrets Of Bella Terra

Thank you to the family and staff at Seghesio Family Vineyards for their kindness and patience as I asked questions and stuck my nose into the operations at the winery and vineyards, for guiding me through tastings and most of all for teaching me that “fruit forward with a spicy finish” is not as risqué as it sounds.

A special thank-you to Rachel Ann Seghesio for graciously sharing your stories and histories, and giving me a sense of the family and community that I tried to infuse into the Scarlet Deception series.

Leslie Gelbman, Kara Welsh, and Kerry Donovan, my appreciation for your constant support. More appreciation to NAL’s art department led by Anthony Ramondo. To Rick Pascocello, head of marketing, and the publicity department with my special people, Craig Burke and Jodi Rosoff, thank you. My thanks to the production department and, of course, a special thank-you to the spectacular Penguin sales department: Norman Lidofsky, Don Redpath, Sharon Gamboa, Don Rieck, and Trish Weyenberg. You are the best!

W
ith the precision of a surgeon, he sank the screw into the aged cork, curling it around and around; his experience had taught him to go so far and no farther. Then, working meticulously, he eased the cork out of the plain green glass bottle.

Like so many things in life, these matters took planning and attention to detail; anything worth having was worth waiting for.

This
was worth waiting for.

Although in this case, he had waited almost too long. . . . He was robust, yes, but not a young man. Still, at last, victory was in his grasp. And the victory, he now knew, would be so much more than he’d ever anticipated.

The wet end of the cork was dyed almost black and when he sniffed it, his nose wrinkled in dismay. This bottle on which he’d spent so much time and money was probably like all the rest he had collected throughout the years—so far past its prime as to be undrinkable. Yet tenderly he poured a few sips into the bottom of the stemmed glass and raised it to the light.

He had hoped to see a rich plum color; instead it was a faded, muddy red.

He swirled the wine in the glass, lifted it to his nose, and sniffed.

Not good. Not good at all. There should be fruit and spice. Instead there was cork taint and vinegar.

Still he persisted, filling his glass, sipping the wine, and rolling it across his tongue.

He shuddered at the taste; his eyes filled with disappointed tears.

Yes, people feared him. Yes, people tiptoed around him. Yes, rumors of treachery swirled around him. But really, he had the heart of an artist, and this . . . this setback almost broke that heart.

Another bottle, so rare as to be legendary, and it was spoiled by age and neglect. With great care, he poured the wine down the drain, watching as the liquid stained the white porcelain a reddish brown.

The phone rang, his second line . . . his secret line. He looked at the caller ID with distaste, but answered it anyway.

“Hey! Listen. There’s news I thought you should hear.” Ah, that voice. Brash, confident, a little too loud, like a cheap wine in a handsome bottle.

Lowering his voice to a whisper, he said, “Tell me.”

“Flores got shot dead.”

“Interesting.” His voice rasped.

“He’s out of the picture.”

“Interesting,” he repeated.

“That’s what happens when you go out of town for your talent.”

“Interesting,” he said again, but what he meant was,
Insolent
.

“You want me to take over now?”

He played with the cork, crumbling it between his fingers, watching as the old wine and tannins stained his fingers purple and black. And he thought.

He’d never seen his caller. No need. He knew the type, and he knew the details on this specific tool: ambitious, cruel, easily led with money and flattery. Perfect, if not for the prison time—but that was served in a foreign country under an alias, and, should it become necessary, was easily expunged.

At the silence, the tool’s confidence slipped. “I can do it. I promise. I don’t have to move into place. I’m right here on top of the action. You might as well take advantage of that. C’mon. C’mon. Give me a chance.”

There was so much at stake here. His family’s honor, stained as his fingers. And, of course, the promise of wealth that put his current fortune to shame.

He made his decision, and whispered, “Same terms.”

“Yes! Good! I like the terms.”

“Punishment for failure.”

For the first time the tool paused. “Punishment? What kind of punishment?”

“Punishment,” he whispered again.

“Okay. Okay, sure. I’ll do it. No need to worry about punishment. I can do it. When do you want me to start?”

“Now.” He drew the word out, caressing each sound with his husky whisper.

Then he hung up.

He got out a clean glass, pulled out another bottle of wine, and tried again.

Bella Valley, California

A
s Sarah Di Luca drove along the winding road out of town and back to the home ranch, she heard the whisper of new leaves struggling to be born from the grapevines. The wind that blew through her open window smelled like fresh-turned earth and sunshine on newly mown grass, and the cool air slid around her neck like a luxurious fur. The rows of vivid green vegetation made her smile; another year, another spring, another day. At her age, all of that carried a weight and a joy nothing else could ever replace.

She pulled up to the house, the hundred-ten-year-old homestead that stood on a rise at the far end of Bella Valley, and climbed out of her Ford Mustang convertible. She’d bought the car new in 1967. The official color was “playboy pink”; her grandsons called it “titty pink.” She laughed, figured boys would be boys, and drove more slowly every year. Reflexes, you know.

Old age was not for sissies.

She and her sisters-in-law said that every time they spoke on the phone. If only it weren’t so true.

She put her purse over one arm, fished her grocery bags out of the passenger seat, and looked up the stairs at the wide, white-painted front porch. The treads were narrow and steep, not up to the current building codes, but when the house was built, there were no codes, only tough immigrants carving out places in the heat of California’s central valleys. This house, with its tall ceilings, narrow windows, ornate trim, and root cellar, had been the epitome of the stylish farmhouse.

Now—Sarah climbed to the porch, dropped her purse and bags before the front door, and sank into the big rocking chair—she looked over the valley that stretched sinuously through the wooded foothills of central California. In the lush bottomlands, robust orchards nestled into the layers of thick soil brought down from the mountains. But up here, on the edges of the valley, jutting black stones, the bones of the earth, broke through and challenged the grapevines planted so precariously in the thin soil. Those tough vines grew the best grapes, and those grapes created the wine that in the early part of the twentieth century had made the Di Luca name famous.

Then Prohibition arrived, with the revenuers who smashed their wine barrels and destroyed their chance at prosperity.

As Sarah rocked, the floorboard moaned and complained as if it felt the ache in her back and the tremble in her legs.

In 1921, in a desperate venture, the Di Lucas opened the Bella Terra resort, a place for the wealthy from San Francisco, Sacramento, and, in the thirties, from burgeoning Hollywood. There they rested, relaxed, and were pampered. Now the resort stretched like a jewel among the rows of grapes, the cornerstone of the Di Luca family’s wealth and influence.

It made Sarah’s heart swell with pride to see how thoroughly the Di Luca family had sunk their roots into this valley, to know how the famous and affluent flocked to Bella Terra to vacation.

At the same time, she missed the early days when the wine country was rural, quiet, homey.

But that kind of nostalgia was another sign of old age, wasn’t it? Just like this weariness that plagued her after a mere trip to the grocery store.

Trouble was, she couldn’t let the store deliver, and she couldn’t ask one of the kids who worked at the resort to meet her here and carry her groceries in. She’d done that once and her grandsons, all three of them, had found out within an hour and called to see if she was dying of some dreadful disease.

She
was
dying, but from old age, and death would take its own sweet time. In fact, these days, eighty wasn’t so old.

She groaned and stretched out her legs.

Of course, it wasn’t so young, either.

But she’d always been an active woman, and she was still in pretty good shape. If only . . . She glared at her shoes, ugly, sturdy things with all the proper supports. Some days, she was in the mood to put on heels and dance.

The bunions had taken care of that.

Still, there was no use complaining. There were people in worse shape, and if she slacked off on going to the grocery store and driving herself to church, her grandsons would soon have her wrapped so tight in protective gauze she’d be good for nothing. With renewed determination, she focused on putting the groceries away before the ice cream and frozen peas melted in the heat.

Pushing herself out of her chair, she gathered her bags, opened the front door, and walked down the dim hall, past the parlor on the left and the bedroom on the right, past the bathroom and the second bedroom, and into the big, old-fashioned kitchen. The appliances were new, state-of-the-art, but when the boys had wanted to do a complete remodel, tear out the counters and the cabinets, change the flowered wallpaper, she’d said no. Because, of course, they would have wanted her to move to the resort to avoid the mess and fuss.

She visited the resort occasionally: swam in the hotel pool, enjoyed the occasional massage at the spa, visited with the guests. But she knew that a woman of her age couldn’t move out of her house for a month without pining for the peace and quiet of her own company.

The boys said she was isolated.

She told them she was content.

Dropping her purse and her bags on the table, she briefly noted the cellar door was open—odd, she didn’t remember leaving it ajar—and went to the sink. She adjusted the faucet to line up with the center of the sink—she must have been in a real hurry this morning; she usually left it in its proper position—then looked out the window at her yard.

The boys were always fussing about something. They wanted to bring the driveway around to the back door so she didn’t have to tote her groceries so far, but to do that they’d have to pull out the live oak in the backyard.

The wide, long-branched, evergreen oak had been planted in 1902 by the first Mrs. Di Luca the year she married Ippolito Di Luca and moved into the house as his bride.

Like the house, like the valley, like Sarah herself, the tree had survived storms, fires, droughts, years of prosperity, and years of famine to grow old and strong. Its dappled shade had protected generations of Di Lucas as they played and worked. She wouldn’t have it removed. Not it, nor the rosebushes, now scraggly with age, sent from England in 1940 by young Joseph Di Luca . . . her husband’s cousin. He hadn’t survived that war. Old grief, but still grief. Oh, and not the amaryllis the boys grew in pots every Christmas and then had planted outside . . .

A cool draft wafted across her cheek.

Cold realization struck her.

The cellar door was open.

She turned to look. Yes, it was open, a dark, gaping mouth with a gullet that led to the windowless basement.

Why was the cellar door open?

She had not left it ajar. She knew she hadn’t. She’d raised one son and three active grandsons in this old house, and the entire time, that steep stairway and the cold concrete at the bottom had scared her half to death. One tumble and they would have cracked their little skulls. But she didn’t tell them that. They would have viewed it as a challenge. Instead she told the boys that she kept her wine down there and the bottles needed the dark and the cool temperature to age. They understood. If there was one thing the Di Luca family took seriously, it was wine.

Her wine . . . bottles of wine . . .

Her heart leaped.

She hadn’t left the faucet catawampus, either. She remembered finishing the dishes, wiping the sink with a damp dish towel, and placing the faucet correctly.

Her blood pressure peaked, a nasty feeling that made her light-headed. With her gaze fixed on that open door, she pushed herself away from the sink.

Someone had been in her house. Might still be in her house.

She looked around. Saw nothing else out of place. Saw no one.

She needed to get out.

Her purse and keys were on the table.

Whoever it was, was gone. Surely they were gone.

She walked briskly, quietly to the table and gathered her stuff.

Amazing how the aches and tiredness vanished under the impetus to
get out
.

She turned toward the back door, intent on removing herself from the scene. She opened her purse as she walked, fumbled for her cell phone. She glanced down long enough to locate it, heard the cellar door creak. She half turned to see the door swaying.