LITMIR.BIZ

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wouldn’t do that, would he?” Felicia waved the waitress over for their check.

      The young woman shook her head. “Sorry, Rob said your lunch was on him today. No charge.”

      “Well, wasn’t that nice of him? Tell him thanks the next time you see him.” Felicia stood, brushing crumbs off her lap. She followed Angie out to the car. “Wine list done. Now I just have to nail down the microbrew guy. Before you look at me like that, I had a guy lined up, but he bailed on me. Something about his licensing. So I went to this new guy who’s been highly recommended, but he’s been out of town. Don’t worry, I have a backup plan in place in case we can’t get this deal closed. But we’ll be serving domestic beer for a few weeks.”

      “I guess we could open without a beer selection, but it’s not ideal.” Angie opened the car doors. As she looked past the winery down the road that lead to the cabin, she realized she could reach Mr. Moss’s ranch from this side too. Maybe she’d bring Dom out for a walk this afternoon. If she was going to be asked about the guy’s death, maybe she should know more about how he really died.

      “Earth to Angie, what are you thinking about?” Felicia stared at her friend.

      She started the car and pulled out of the driveway and away from the river canyon. “I think I’m taking Dom for a long walk this afternoon.”

      By the time she got Felicia back to the restaurant and drove the rest of the way home, she had started to worry that she’d really tested Dom’s patience. When she opened the back door, he came bounding outside, ran to the patch of grass and did his business. Then he came and gave her loves. She peeked inside the kitchen and was surprised to see no major damage. “What a good boy you were.”

      Mabel squawked like she totally disagreed then scratched at the dirt in front of the garden again. “Not a fan, are you?” Angie asked the chicken, but got no response. The paper had been delivered and was in the small box attached to her mail box post. She and Dom walked out toward the road, with Angie checking to make sure there weren’t any cars coming, then hurried back to the house. Dom went inside first and headed to his food and water bowls. Angie sat at the table and spread out the paper.

      “Long-term Local Citizen Killed in Freak Accident.” She read the headline aloud. Glancing through the article, the reporter said that the body had been found by an early morning hiker coming up the hill from the riverside park below. The article didn’t mention that the police were investigating anyone. She looked at the small map showing the area where the body had been found. As she suspected this afternoon, the winery was just minutes away. When she looked up at Dom, the puppy was watching her closely. Maybe it was for Nona, or maybe she was just curious, but she made a decision. “Let’s go see what we can find out.”

      It was one of the perfect June afternoons she’d remembered from her childhood. Warm, sunny, with a sky the color a painter could only imagine. Coming home to live after losing Nona and closing el pescado had been the right decision. Now, all she had to do was make The County Seat successful and she could stay. Dom barked out the window at a field full of bored Black Angus cows as they drove past.

      “You told them.” Angie glanced at him in the rear-view mirror and grinned at the happy look on her dog’s face. She turned up the tunes and thought about the idea of murder. She wasn’t a trained investigator, but just something in the way everyone apparently knew she’d been out to see Mr. Moss on Sunday made her uneasy. Besides, she was just taking her dog for a walk. If she happened to see where he fell, maybe she could confirm the paper’s report that the death had just been an accident. That would make her feel better at least. Sheriffs don’t come knocking on your door when there’s been an accident.

      She pushed the voice away as she drove by the empty winery parking lot. Apparently, they didn’t get much traffic on weekdays. Even the dining room had been almost empty when they had lunch. Angie had assumed the crowd had already left, but maybe lunch times were just slow. Thankfully, she’d planned on opening only on weekends for the first couple months until they had their feet under them. Once the reservations started filling, she’d add a day or so during the week.

      Angie angled the car down the winding road and just before the road crossed the bridge, she turned left into the park that was supported by the state parks department. Celebration Park was a great place for hiking, cycling, or even fishing. She’d hung out here on many nights with her high school gang, talking about what they were going to do once the graduation bell rang and they were released from their educational prisons. Had Rob Harris been one of that group? Of course, most of the kids talked about getting jobs or leaving town. Angie knew she wanted to go to school, but had no idea for what. General studies, her counselor had suggested, hinting that a major might find her while she tried different careers. The woman had been right.

      She parked the car near the unmanned visitor center and went to the back door to click a leash on Dom and let him out. The center had a map of the hiking trails posted on the front of the building and she paused there, trying to determine where Mr. Moss’s farm was located on the ridge. She ran a finger across the line indicating the path, then angled it down to where she stood. All the trails were named after native birds and the one she thought she wanted was named Red Hawk. She pulled Dom’s leash tearing him away from his watching a bee perched on a wild flower and they started their walk.

      The trail gently angled upward, but Angie could feel the grade increasing as they made their way away from the parking lot. Her throat tickled, making her wish she’d grabbed a bottle of water from the house. Next time, she thought as she pushed her hair out of her eyes. And she wished that she’d put on a baseball cap as well. She knew better than to come hiking unprepared, but then, she wasn’t really hiking, was she?

      Angie paused at a switchback in the trail to glance around. They were about halfway up the hill. Farther down the riverbank, the ridge broke off into a rock canyon wall instead of this hill that allowed them to hike to the top. Of course, rock climbers could probably make the top there, but they didn’t have a hundred-pound St. Bernard on a leash. Dom sat next to her and nuzzled her hand. He was breathing hard as well.

      “You can have some water as soon as we get back to the car.” Angie scratched behind his ear. She kept a bottle of water and a bowl in the car for Dom, just in case. She glanced around one more time. What had she expected to find? All she saw was vegetation and the dirt trail leading farther up the hill. As she examined her surroundings, the sound of someone running down the trail made her focus above her.

      Reana Whiting ran down the trail, alone. Or ran as fast as she could in a pair of stilettos. She was dressed in a red skirted suit that matched her red pumps. Her hair was disheveled and her face looked almost as red as the fabric in her clothes. She saw Angie and skidded to a stop, almost face planting forward when her shoe hit a patch of loose gravel.

      “What are you doing out here?” Angie held Dom close. The woman was excited enough, she didn’t need a large dog giving her the once over. “You really need to learn what casual means.”

      “What?” Reana brushed her hair back with her hands and then pulled on her skirt. “What do you mean?”

      Angie noticed that her realtor had ignored the question she’d asked. She pointed at the woman’s shoes and clothes. “Those aren’t approved for hiking. Unless I missed the memo.”

      Reana paused, straightening her jacket as she apparently thought of what to say. “I should have waited to come down here after work. I just needed some time to think after hearing about Gerald, and this was the first place that came to mind. Then I started walking and before I knew it, I was on the ridge. Now, I’m late for a showing.”

      “I’m sorry about Mr. Moss. The two of you were friends?” Angie knew she was blocking the trail and with those shoes, Reana couldn’t very well just move around her.

      “Not really. I mean, he didn’t like anyone. When I saw you up there Saturday—”

      Angie interrupted. “Sunday. We saw each other Sunday.”

      “No, it was Saturday. I know it.” She looked at her watch

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