Part 16 (1/2)

Nothing.

Mike's dad let out a long, impatient breath. ”Cooper. ”

”I know, I know.” Then I added, ”Sir.” I leaned against the mirror, my hand going to the high shelves of wine, the ones put up there just for show-the ones that dated back to the first Jumel years. My fingertips. .h.i.t against one of the bottles, and it started to topple. I cursed, thinking, Oh no, I've really done it now-Sam is going to kill me, when the bottle righted itself. Then, a click.

The wall slowly swung open.

Behind it, an oak door. ”This is where he keeps every thing that no one is supposed to know about.” I could have been wrong, but I doubted it.

Mike's dad stepped forward, tried the k.n.o.b. The door opened. We both looked back, saw no one else in the tasting room, then ducked inside.

”Don't move and don't touch anything,” Sergeant Ring said, pointing to a spot on the floor. ”I'll do the investigating, you got it?”

I nodded and stayed where I was. I didn't know if he'd find anything, but I figured his attention was off me and thinking I'd had anything to do with Megan's disappearance, and we were away from the well's evil vine army. All around, a better situation.

Sergeant Ring wandered off to do his thing. I leaned against the wall. From here, the place spelled office. Desk, chair, a few framed awards. Nothing much. Had I been wrong?

A single tower of wine bottles sat in the corner. Wine bottles I recognized, not because I'd seen them in the tasting room, but because I hadn't seen them in the tasting room.

I'd seen them in the StepScrooge mansion. This was his private stash. The bottles created just for Sam-and no one else.

Wait. That wasn't right.

I thought a second, staring at those bottles, trying to figure out what bothered me about them. But I couldn't put my finger on it, so instead, I just slipped one of the bottles off the pile when Mike's dad wasn't looking and tucked it into my backpack as easily as Winona Ryder grabbing herself a pair of D&G sungla.s.ses.

Mike's dad flipped through a few folders, then picked up two bottles of red and held them up to the light. He grinned.

He wasn't here for clues. If there was any detecting to do, I was going to have to do it. While Sergeant Ring debated between the 1989 and the 1 992,, I pushed off from the wall and sidled up to a small cabinet. It didn't look like much, just an old, beat-up wooden thing, the kind of cabinet sent to the office because it didn't match the house's Better Homes & Gardens perfecto decor. I could see my mother moving in and ordering that thing out.

Keeping my eyes on Sergeant Ring, I flicked open one of the cabinet doors. At first I didn't see anything. The lighting in the office s.p.a.ce was kind of dim, and the cabinet was in shadows. I shuffled a step back, then looked again.

A book. Not like the latest Stephen King bestseller, but one of those old leather kind. There were some letters carved on the top that I couldn't make out, not under the dust on the cover, but it looked old. Really old.

It could have been anything. A family tree. An old Bible. A diary.

”Cooper, you think your stepdad will miss one bottle out of a thousand?”

I jerked back, away from the cabinet. ”Uh a no. Call it evidence. You know, for DNA or whatever.”

Sergeant Ring smiled. He and I, best buds again. He went back to picking the best vintage.

Before I could think twice, I reached in, swiped the leather book, and stuffed it into my backpack in one smooth move. I thought I heard a whispered yes as I did it, as if the creature had seen me.

No. Impossible.

Just as I got back into position against the wall, Sergeant Ring turned around. ”Yeah, well, nothing here. My s.h.i.+ft's over anyway.” He clutched the bottle to his chest.

Yeah. Happy hour again. For the thousandth time, I was glad I hadn't told Mike's dad anything. He was clearly no help with anything but a corkscrew.

I wondered why Sam had hid the room behind a mirror. A secret latch. There had to be something here, maybe in that book. I couldn't be sure until I looked inside, but I wasn't going to do that in front of Sergeant Ring.

I took one last look around the room as the cop was closing the door. On the wall hung a small painting, incredibly detailed given how tiny it was, of two men standing in front of the well, back in its glory days when it had been a real working well, used, I guessed, to water the vineyard. Behind them, the old vineyard lay in neat rows, marching down the tidy acres. ”Wait.”

Sergeant Ring paused.

I stepped back inside the room and stood in front of the oil portrait. The colors were still Crayola bright, as if it had been created yesterday. I couldn't decipher the artist's scrawled name in the corner, but I could read the date.

18o9. The year the vineyard had officially opened for business.

Beneath the painting, the names Auguste and Gerard Jumel were written in a cursive script.

Gerard Jumel. I knew that name.

It was Sam's great-great-great-times-a-gazillion-grandfather. The guy who'd taken the vineyard and made it an international sensation. He'd practically been canonized by the Jumel family for bringing them all these generations of not just money, but megawealth. He'd pa.s.sed on the family secrets for the grapes, something that Sam wouldn't tell anyone except a Jumel heir.

Whatever. I didn't want in on his will anyway.

But a Auguste? I hadn't heard that name mentioned. Ever. Who was he?

”Not bad if you like that landscape c.r.a.p,” Mike's dad said over my shoulder, gesturing toward the painting. ”Though why anyone would want a painting of two guys hanging on their wall is beyond me. Tell your stepdad to get a Hot Babes on Harleys calendar. That's a real wall hanging, if you ask me.”

I wasn't listening. I was staring.

At myself.

In double.

The two guys-and now I realized they weren't men at all, but teens about my age-Auguste and Gerard, standing in front of the well, were twins. And they looked exactly like me.

The doorbell dented beneath my finger, chimes screaming for mercy, but I didn't let go. I fell against the door, panting. After I'd left the winery, grateful that Mike's dad had decided to go home and ”test that wine sample,” I'd booked it for my dad's house. I wanted to look for Megan, but I was too shaken up to go back in the woods right away, and besides, the vine guys were still waiting for me.

I opted for a temporary breather. A second to take all this in and figure out what it meant. What Mike's dad had told me about Sam. Those wine bottles. And now that freaky picture on the wall.

And maybe here, in the safety of the home where I'd grown up, the place where everything had once been okay, those vines wouldn't find me, wouldn't wrap around me, wouldn't drag me halfway across town and back- ”Cooper! What are you doing?” My father opened the door and stared at me, as if the alien mother s.h.i.+p had just dumped me on his doorstep.

”Can I a” I heaved in a breath-at this rate, I was going to need to cart around an oxygen tank. ”Can I come in?”

”Sure, sure.” He opened the door wider and waved me in. ”Does your mother know where you are?”

I sure hoped not. ”Of course.”

A few minutes later, I was sitting on my father's worn brown leather sofa, drinking a c.o.ke. He sat across from me, arms resting on his knees, waiting. My father did that well, sitting as quietly as a potted plant, his gla.s.ses resting on his nose, looking as though they might fall off at any second. He'd warmed up some leftover frozen pizza, the c.r.a.ppy diet kind, but hey, it was food, so I set it between us. We ate a bit, and then I put the c.o.ke can on the old coffee table, the same one we'd had when I was a kid. I thought about that for a moment. Had my mother said to him, You keep the coffee table; I'll take the kids? ”Thanks, Dad.”

”When are you going to tell me?”

”Tell you what?”

”What's going on?”

”Nothing's going on. I was just thirsty and hungry. So I came by.” I pointed at the empty can and started to rise. ”I'm gonna grab another.”