جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 5

I am kneeling between two rows of Malbec vines with dirt under my fingernails when my phone starts ringing against my hip, and I already know before I answer it that whatever this is, it is not going to wait until after harvest.My sister's name is on the screen. Renata never calls this early unless something is wrong."Turn on channel nine," she says, before I even get a full word out. "Right now, Camila. I mean it."I stand up too fast and feel the blood rush from my head. "I am covered in soil. What is happening.""Just turn it on."I walk back through the rows toward the tasting room, past the crates we filled yesterday, past Diego loading the truck for the morning delivery, and I switch on the old television we keep behind the bar for slow afternoons when tourists want something to watch while they sip.The first thing I see is the Del Prado sign. The second thing I see is my husband standing directly underneath it.Andres is wearing the gray suit I ironed for him two days ago, t

I told Andres I needed to check on the north block before the afternoon heat came in, which was not technically a lie, since I did walk through the north block on my way to the truck, I simply did not mention that I had no intention of stopping there.He offered to come with me. I told him Tomas needed him more, since apparently our vineyard now required an armed security consultation before breakfast, which was a low thing to say, but it worked, because guilt is a very useful tool when you know exactly where someone else's guilt lives.Tomas caught me at the truck anyway."You should not go anywhere alone today," he said, shotgun no longer in hand, thankfully, though I noticed he did not look entirely comfortable without it."I will be fine, Tomas.""Boss said.""Boss does not know everything," I said, and immediately felt strange saying it out loud, because six hours ago I would have said the opposite without thinking twice.Tomas studied me for a long moment, the way men who have s

Nobody argued with Duarte. We simply moved, the way people move when fear finally outranks pride, four adults and one terrified young notary clerk scrambling back into two cars on a gravel road behind a half collapsed chapel, none of us speaking, all of us watching the tree line like it might produce an answer.I drove home with Renata following close behind me, and Ines squeezed into my passenger seat because she said, quite reasonably, that she did not want to be alone anywhere for the rest of the day. I did not blame her."You should not have come," I told her, once my hands had steadied enough to trust them on the wheel. "Whoever sent that text knew you would be there.""I know," she said. "I keep asking myself who else knew about this meeting, and the answer is almost nobody. You, me, and whoever I was foolish enough to mention it to without realizing it mattered.""Who did you mention it to?"She went quiet for a long moment, staring out the window at the vine rows blurring past