She scratched Dog between the ears. “Takes one to know one, I suppose. Someone helped me once. Now I’m paying it back or forward, I guess.”
“I read about you on the Internet.” When Tec had tossed a couple of warnings his way about Greer he’d done some digging. Tec was a man of few words and when he spoke, Mitch listened. “You’ve been through it.”
Her fingers stilled. “So have you. So have the horses and so has this little guy. None of us has a corner on pain and suffering.”
The counselors had tried to talk to him over the last month or two, but he’d never wanted to talk to them. They were good, well-intentioned people but their questions made him mad. Greer never asked questions. As long as he was working, she left him alone. If she saw him sitting, she found a task for him to do.
“So how did you do it?” he asked.
She tilted her head back and his reflection caught in her mirrored sunglasses. “Do what?”
Emotion threatened to break his voice and he paused until he had his voice under control. “Pull yourself up?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. I came out here to live with my aunt and she told me to put one foot in front of the other. But those first days, the idea of one or two steps exhausted me. But she kept giving me chores, forcing me to keep moving.”
“You do that to me.”
“I know.”
“So when did you turn the corner?”
“Honestly, Mitch, I think I’m still searching for that corner. I still don’t think beyond one step at a time.”
“But you plan ahead for the vineyard. I heard you talking about the harvest. You are going to build that winery. You are living.”
“I still believe I’m living for Jeff and Sydney. To squander my life would be an insult to them.” She drew in a breath. “And I’ve fallen for the vineyard. I didn’t expect to but I did. The grapes are like Beauty. They don’t care about my sob story. My emotions. All that matters is to keep working so that the vineyard doesn’t turn on me.”
The pain in his shoulder had been Beauty’s reminder for attention. He was silent for a moment watching as she scratched the pup between its ears. “So the pain never goes away?”
“Not totally. But it lessens a little bit every day. At first it feels like a boulder on your shoulders. And then one day it feels like a handful of rocks. And then pebbles. Always there, but it becomes manageable.”
She wasn’t feeding him rainbows and happy endings. Just honesty. “I’m not sure I want it to go away completely.”
“Me, either. I never want to forget the people I loved.”
A heavy silence settled and for a moment neither spoke. Then he studied Dog. “Shit, that’s an ugly dog.”
She covered the dog’s ears and nodded. “Shh.”
The one-eyed dog stared at him as if challenging his right to be here. “It wouldn’t have lasted a day in the shelter. People want cute and easy.”
“I know.”
“Folks were kind of like that with me when I came home from Iraq. Everyone wanted the war stories. They wanted the glory. But when I tried to tell them it was dirty and ugly and painful, folks just walked away.”
She was silent for a moment. “I have a knack for scaring people off, too. No one knows what to say to me. Hell, I don’t know what I want to say to me.”
Greer wasn’t afraid of scars. Maybe because she was brave or maybe she had so many of her own she didn’t notice them too much anymore.
But he did know she hadn’t walked away from him, those damn horses, or the ugliest dog in Texas. And that counted for something.
“I don’t know why you don’t kill her now. I’m so tired of waiting.”
Jackson hated her voice’s constant buzzing in his ear.
Kill her. Kill her. Buzz. Buzz.
With eyes still pressed to the binoculars’ eyecups, he watched as she handed a mangy dog to her new farmhand. “I just took care of one.”
“But she wasn’t her.”
“It’s not time for her.”
“How do you know it’s not time? My God, all you done is talk about Greer. Elizabeth. Greer. I get sick of hearing about her.”
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
It was getting harder and harder to ignore her. With an effort, he kept his focus on Greer.
He knew a lot about Greer Templeton.
And not simply the information anyone could read about on the Internet. He knew her current daily routine as if it were his own, and he also knew her hopes, fears, and dreams.
He’d come to learn Greer rose at five every morning. She rarely varied her wardrobe, choosing a Bonneville T-shirt, jeans, and the same scuffed boots. He liked the jeans and the way they showed off her narrow waist and hips that rounded just right.
Meticulous watching had taught him her daily order of business was to dress and then to take her first coffee onto the small stone patio adjacent to her house. Overlooking her vineyards, the patio caught the morning sun. Rarely, did she miss a sunrise or raise her cup to it before she took her first sip.
After her coffee, she headed out into the fields to check on her vines and to meet with the farm manager, José. Together the two rode up and down the rows, inspecting branches, the leaf canopy, or sampling grapes. No detail was too small for Greer. She clearly loved Bonneville.
Once her grapes were inspected she returned to the small ranch house she’d shared with her aunt for over a decade and enjoyed a small breakfast. Her tastes were simple, usually toast and an egg. And then it was off for more meetings or trips into the fields. Afternoons were spent working on the books. Last year she’d overseen the building of the new tasting room with the dedication she gave to her vineyards. And now that laser attention would shift to her new winery.
Her days often didn’t end until eight or nine when she’d drag herself back to her home and eat a small dinner. She ate lots of salad, always a side of bread with a little butter and a glass of wine. Merlot was her favorite.
Her routines followed the seasons and this season, summer, was her busiest. Soon the grapes would peak and the harvest would commence. She’d harvest with care, only taking the grapes that were ready, and always patient enough to leave the others behind until they’d ripened.
He was very much like Greer. He understood the best harvester was patient. Like her he understood the best grapes were those that had suffered some hardship, for it was the hardship that truly formed great taste and character. Greer and her grapes weren’t sickly sweet because they’d been tested and tried.
“So when are you going to kill her?”
He lowered the binoculars from his eyes. “Greer, like her grapes, is nearly ready for harvest.”
“What difference does a day or two make?”
“It makes all the difference. It’s the difference between perfection and swill.”
Soon Greer would be ready. Soon he’d harvest her like the others.
Chapter Fifteen
Saturday, June 7, 7 A.M.
An Austin police patrol car spotted Sara Wentworth’s car parked in an industrial lot along the river in East Austin, five miles from where her body had been discovered. He’d called the find in at seven, the very end of his shift.
Bragg had been at his desk when the call had been received. He’d grabbed his jacket and hat and headed out.
As he drove, he realized this had been the first “normal” morning he’d had in months. Mitch had been up early and eager to get to Bonneville, and so Bragg had left with him right after dawn. Before Mitch, he’d worked long, sometimes crushing hours, but since Mitch’s arrival, he’d lingered in the mornings or gotten home earlier. For the first time, his personal life had elbowed ahead of his professional life.
But today, he had his old schedule back. And to his surprise, it didn’t fit as well as it once had. A bit tight and restrictive. Since he’d arrived this morning, he’d not only wondered how Mitch was managing, but Greer as well. Several times, he’d had to resist the temptation to drive out and check on them both.
Bragg spotted flashing police lights. Out of his truck, he settled his white hat on his head and strode toward the police car lights and the yellow crime-scene tape surrounding the white Lexus.
The car’s hubcaps had been stripped and the front driver’s-side window had been smashed and the air bag and radio stolen. It was doubtful the thefts were related to Sara’s death. An unattended Lexus in East Austin attracted thieves like flowers attracted bees. He was amazed any portion of the car remained.