Phần I
The Bellandi Hill payroll records for 2006 were in a cardboard box on the top shelf of the scale-house storeroom, under a dead wasp's nest and a box of Christmas lights. Claire found them at six in the morning, before anyone else was up.
Harvest crew. Cellar crew. Tasting room. Interns.
There were four interns that year. Three from UC Davis. One with no school listed at all, only a phone number with a Sonoma area code and a note in Gloria's handwriting: Walter H.'s boy - V. says treat him right.
HOLLOWAY, GRANT W. - Bunkhouse B.
Claire went to the storeroom window and looked out. The bunkhouses were still there, two long white buildings by the old equipment yard, now used for storing picking bins. Bunkhouse B was the closer one. Its window looked straight across fifty yards of gravel at the side door of the stone winery.
The side door Ines had found locked at midnight.
"You know that's private, right?"
Sam was in the doorway in his work jacket, a thermos of coffee in one hand. He looked like he hadn't slept.
"Grant Holloway was an intern here," Claire said. "In 2006. That harvest. He slept in Bunkhouse B."
"I know where he slept. I carried his bags." Sam came in and took the binder out of her hands and closed it. "He was a kid from Sonoma whose dad wanted him to learn the business from the ground up. He worked hard. He was asleep when it happened. The sheriff asked every single person on this property where they were that night, Claire. Every one."
"And everyone told the truth?"
Sam put the binder back in the box. He put the box back on the shelf. He did it carefully, the way their father used to put back a bottle he'd decided not to open.
"We owe two point three million dollars," he said, without turning around. "The bank calls the note in January. Dad doesn't know. Dad doesn't know what month it is. Paige and I have been holding this place together with tape for four years." He turned. "Grant Holloway is the only buyer in this valley who will pay what Bellandi Hill is worth. If he walks, the bank takes it, and Dad dies in a memory-care facility in Vallejo that smells like soup."
"Dad said he's naming the heir at the last load."
"Dad is going to name me." Sam's voice cracked, just slightly. "Because I'm the one who stayed."