Murder Alfresco #3 Read Free

of twenty until she lost track of the number of sets. The white line lay thickly on the pavement like a satisfying glaze of sugar on gingerbread.
    She’d been jogging down Madrona for some time when she heard a faint new sound. She stopped to listen, holding herbreath so she could hear. She heard the rumble of an engine, and a moment later the crunch of tires moving slowly across gravel. A hundred yards behind her lay the turnoff to Vedana Vineyards, marked by a mailbox and fieldstone pillars. The winery stood back the same distance or more from the main road. She searched the darkness. The outline of the cluster of stone buildings was just visible. From behind them, a light-colored vehicle emerged and turned onto the gravel lane coming toward her. The driver didn’t have his lights on. She watched. Why didn’t they have their lights on? Didn’t they notice? Should she wave them down and tell them? They would figure it out eventually. Besides, what if the driver was not the sort of person she wanted to meet in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night? She looked around. A leafy shrub stood next to the fence a few feet away.
    There would have been plenty of time to move behind the shrub gracefully if she had not stepped halfway on a rock and stumbled when she jumped across the drainage ditch. As she got up, the vehicle, a white pickup truck, pulled out of the driveway and turned toward her. She was standing in plain view when the driver switched on his lights, blinding her as the truck accelerated past. She turned and stared after it. All she could see was its taillights, one more orange than the other, probably a replacement. They shrank away with the sound of the engine and silence took hold of the night again.
    She stood in the road, staring after the truck. Something about it struck her as odd. Why had the driver waited so long to turn on his headlights? And what was he doing at the winery at this hour? Except for a pair of flood lights illuminating a few sections of landscaping, the winery stood in darkness. The stone buildings looked as stoic and somber as always, and the massive oak in the courtyard stood with its usual air of permanence, itsgreat spread of limbs forming a wide canopy. Except that it was not exactly the same. Something out of place swayed from its lowest limb. At this distance, the length of a football field, it was hard to discern the shape. All she could make out was a pale form twisting from the limb like a punching bag. The sight gave her a chill. It reminded her of a deer hung up for cleaning. She thought of what it could be. It was difficult to make out more than a rough outline from so far away. It could be a swing caught at a strange angle, or a piñata hung up for a party, or a kite. It could be any number of harmless objects caught or hung up in the tree.
    She walked back to the driveway leading to Vedana Vineyards. A sign next to one of the stone pillars read, “No public tastings. Tours by appointment only.” She stared at the distant shape hanging from the tree and thought of the white truck. Vineyard surrounded the winery with its bare vines like uniform markers in a vast graveyard. She pulled her scarf closer and started down the gravel road.

2
    The winery and its outbuildings huddled in the mist at the end of the lane. Her steps crunched on the gravel. She thought of the mobile phone in her bag and wished she had remembered to charge it. Staring at the ground in front of her, she walked quickly. Her heart beat faster with each step and her ears strained to hear the slightest sound. Soon she was close enough.
    Wisteria covered the front of the winery. It twisted thickly up posts and tumbled over the eave that shaded the front deck, where a pair of wooden doors were flanked by two large windows. Off to the side of the winery was a small grove of mature olive trees, which Sunny had admired from the road on a number of occasions. The buildings in back were newer and larger, and