Chapter 8

Odette Calloway came out of the estate office with her reading glasses already on.

Fifty-eight years old, silver-blonde hair in a sharp bob tucked behind one ear, cream silk shirtdress, flat leather sandals, a canvas sun hat pushed back on its cord, a thin leather watch. She had owned Valle Escondida since 1998 and she walked like she had owned the ground under her for a hundred years. She was, and always had been, the most beautiful woman on any property she stood on, and she had never once used it for anything.

She walked straight to Prescott and held out her hand.

"Clipboard."

"Odette-"

"Clipboard."

He gave it to her.

She turned it over, flipped two pages, and read the line four up from the recessional.

Reyes Vineyard, founding family - Block 1 blessing, 4:20 p.m.

Struck through in black pen. TBD in the margin.

She turned the page back. She turned it forward again. Then she looked up at the lawn, at the head of the oldest vine row, at the linen napkin somebody had draped over the bronze plaque that morning.

"Nell," she said. "Take that napkin off."

Nell Farraday walked across the lawn in front of half the valley, lifted the linen off the bronze, and held it up.

REYES VINEYARD - ORIGINAL BLOCK, PLANTED 1974.

The lawn made a sound. Not a gasp. Something lower than that. Fifty years of Napa Valley was standing on that grass in good shoes, and every one of them knew that plaque, and every one of them knew it had not been covered this morning by accident.

"Bring the box out here," Odette said. "Put it on the gift table. On that linen."

Tommy carried it himself. He set it down and opened the lid the rest of the way, and then he stepped back, because they were not his to give.

Nell counted them out loud, because somebody had to, and her voice got steadier with each one. Forty small sugar skulls. White icing. Careful, cramped, steady handwriting. Every single one piped with the same name.

Marisol.

"Two for every year," Tommy said, quietly, to nobody in particular. "One for her birthday. One for Día de Muertos, so she'd have a candle somewhere, since I couldn't light one for my own."

Odette reached into her pocket and unfolded a paper copy of the vendor list, the one she had read twice, and held it beside the clipboard.

"The line was on the version my office sent," she said. "It came back with a strike through it. And the pen is in your breast pocket, Blaine."

Nell spoke up, and this time she did not look at Prescott at all. She looked at Odette.

"Three weeks ago he told me the Reyes line was legacy padding." She swallowed. "And at the gate, before the man ever said a surname, he told him there was no Reyes on the property."

Somewhere behind the terrace, a chair scraped.

Dana Whitlock came down the stone steps. Regional vice president of the Meridian Collective, fifty-four, silver streaks through dark hair, a jaw that had ended careers, holding a champagne flute she had not touched.

Odette Calloway looked at her own event director and asked one question.

"Blaine. When did you know his name?"

Prescott opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

And Dana Whitlock said, "Answer her."