“What are we thinking was the big end game?”
“I don’t make assumptions I can’t back up. And what doesn’t add up to me is that Meredith wasn’t paying the bills at the winery. She could have sold the place for a small fortune.”
“Faith inherited on her death as a stipulation of her mother’s inheritance, which would mean her mother could not sell without Faith’s willingness. And I can tell you that woman appears to be holding onto a sinking ship because it’s her father’s wishes.”
“Yes, Faith. I’m still working on figuring out that hot little number.”
That possessiveness flares in me again. “And?” I ask tightly.
“And right now she looks clean, but so does Jesse. Not to mention the fact that you just gave her motive. She wanted to keep the winery, her mother did not. Maybe her mother was trying to force her hand into selling by not paying the bills and destroying the vines. The mother wanted the payday that property would be worth. Faith didn’t. Maybe your father was in on the payday.”
“Sell for the massive profit margin that property and operation are worth or have them taken away.”
“That’s the theory I’m going to work on.”
“Working that theory, Faith would have to have connections to my father, who she’d have had to have killed, right along with her mother.”
“Which I have yet to find.” “What about her sharing a link to anyone connected to my father?”
“Nothing and I dug through layers as deep as a phone book.”
I consider everything he’s said to me. “Meredith forcing Faith to sell and taking off with a hot young thing for the money makes sense to me. What doesn’t is how my father fits into this. Why the fuck was he writing her checks? Wait. Fuck. He wanted in on the sale of the winery.”
“Then why pay Meredith the money?”
“A down payment on him buying it is my guess.”
“But they’re both gone and so is the money.”
“Which means you need to—”
“Find the money. I plan on it.”
“Call me,” I say, but when I’m about to end the connection, he says, “Nicolas.”
“I’d tell you to stop calling me that, but it clearly won’t matter.”
“Be careful with Faith Winter. She could have the money. She could want to sell herself.”
“Then why go through this hell?”
“Because not going through it makes her look guilty. Like I said, man. Be careful.”
With that blow, he ends the call and standing there, aware that I am guilty of not wanting her to be guilty, but no matter how many times I warn myself of this danger, it doesn’t change. I’m going there again. It is what it is. I want her to be innocent. I’m boring myself with the repeat of this conclusion. Accepting what is allows me to manage what is.
Moving on to what I just learned. Yes. Faith has motive to act against her mother, with financial gain, but I don’t believe she wants to sell the winery. More like save it from her mother selling it, but she could have done that through the court system. But to believe that she would have, or could have, plotted out and killed my father and her mother is a stretch I can’t make. I scrub my jaw. But I don’t want to make it either. I just admitted that.
I glance at my watch and then scan the horizon with no sign of Faith. I estimate I have fifteen minutes until Faith will be here. Just enough time to nose around upstairs if I hurry. Scanning the horizon one last time, I settle the curtain back into place, and waste no time making my way to the stairs. I don’t hesitate when I start the straight climb up. I’m helping her. She just doesn’t know it and I’d be fine with her never knowing it, but that’s not possible.
At the last step, I turn right under an archway, and find myself, in a room with a steepled ceiling, that literally stretches the entire top level of the house. The wood floor has been glossed with some sort of finish I assume is easily wiped clean. There are two arched windows consuming the wall in front of me and both ends cap to the space. And there are random easels sitting around the room, all uncovered, all demanding attention I can’t give them. My gaze lifts to a door to my left, which I hope is an office. Moving in that direction, I enter and flip on the light, and sure enough, I find a heavy dark wood desk, a deep leather chair in the corner and random works of art on the wall that are absolutely Faith’s signature strokes and colors. And damn, there really is something sexy about a talent I’ll never have.
Another arched floor-to-ceiling window sits behind the chair and illuminates the room, allowing me to round the desk and sit down without a light, and to quickly locate random financial documents. I pull out my phone, set my alarm for five minutes, and start snapping photos. It goes off right as I find her father’s will, and I risk the extra minute to click shots of it. Out of time, and nowhere near done, I stand up and exit the office. I fully intend to hurry to the archway, but I notice the table and color palette sitting next to one easel, which means it has to be what she was painting yesterday. I take two steps in that direction and stop myself, some instinct in me telling me that looking at that painting is far less forgivable than searching her house, at least now that I have every intention of saving her from the hell she’s in.
I turn back to the door, and that’s when I hear the front door open and Faith’s footsteps downstairs. Fuck. I run a hand through my hair and make an instant decision. I have to own up to being up here and if I let her walk around looking for me that’s only going to make this worse. Inhaling a jagged breath, I walk to the archway and step to the landing above the steps. As if she sensed I was up here, she’s at the bottom of the steps, looking up at me, her blond hair tousled from the wind, her hand on the railing.
She doesn’t speak. For long seconds, she doesn’t move. And then suddenly she is walking up the steps toward me, her pace steady, controlled, anger crackling off of her. She stops in front of me, her eyes meet mine, and it’s not anger that gets me. It’s the wounded look of betrayal. “This is not my house. This is my private work place. This is my sanctuary.” She doesn’t give me time to reply. “You saw it, didn’t you?”
“Faith-”
“I knew it.” She cuts away from me and walks into the studio.
Fuck. What does she think I found? What the hell am I about to find out about this woman that I don’t want to know. I follow her inside the room, but she isn’t headed to the office. She’s standing at the painting she started last night. She stares at it. “Do know why I painted this?”
I walk toward her. “Faith,” I begin again. “I didn’t—”
“Look at this?” She waves her hand in front of it and turns to face me. “You came up here and you didn’t look at my work?”