“Oh, it is true.” He advanced on her, stopping so close she felt his breath stir against her cheek. “What do you think it’s like for them? For all of us? Being reminded of-”

He leaned closer; it took all her strength of will not to back away. “Your mother didn’t just fuck our sons. She fucked them up.”

He turned on his heel and strode to the door. When he reached it, she stopped him by calling out, “It’s not true.”

He froze, then turned slowly to look at her. “Excuse me?”

“What you said about my mother. I know it’s not true. And I’ll prove it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re no longer welcome here, Ms. Clarkson. I’ll have one of the staff escort you out.”

“Don’t bother.” She strode past him and through the door, passing so closely he could have grabbed her. And for one crazy moment, she wondered if he would.

He didn’t, and minutes later she collapsed in her car, trembling so violently she gripped the steering wheel for support.

She’d be damned if she would run and hide. Scurry back to San Francisco and pretend none of this had happened. The way her mother had. No. What they were saying about her mother wasn’t true. She didn’t know how she would prove it, but she would.

Friday, March 12

3:30 P.M.

Alex took Ferris’s suggestion and headed for Sommer Winery. There she discovered that she had arrived in time to make the four o’clock tour, the last of the day. The for-a-fee tour took in both the winery and caves, then ended in the tasting room to sample several Sommer wines.

She bought a ticket, then was directed to the museum for the winery’s history and a short video on winemaking. She made her way there; a half dozen others already waited. Catching parts of various conversations, she learned the Sommer tour was considered one of the best in wine country.

Covered with photographs and other memorabilia, the museum walls served as a visual history of the winery, from its early days making inexpensive jug wine to now, an internationally renowned name in California wine.

But what captured her interest were the labeled photographs. Harlan and Treven as boys, then young men. Harlan’s first wife. Rachel, from infant to the winemaker she was today. Treven’s wife, his son Clark-again glorifying his ascent from childhood athlete and young scholar to company president.

But not a single photograph of her mother or Dylan. None of her.

She must have missed something, Alex thought. She quickly walked the room again, scanning the clusters of photographs.

She hadn’t. It stung. Her mother and Dylan hadn’t even registered as a blip on the Sommer family timeline.

The guide arrived and called them all to join her. The group had burgeoned to twenty-one, Alex saw. She also noted she was the only person traveling without a companion.

The tour began in the crushing area. The guide described the grape-sorting process, how those grapes were mechanically transported to the crusher-destemmer. The machine’s blades and chewers created free-run juice. Nobody stomped grapes with their feet anymore, the guide informed them-only as part of demonstrations or winemaking history lessons.

They moved on to the fermenting tanks. Stainless steel, the tanks stood twelve feet tall and each held three thousand gallons of fermenting wine.

“Notice the catwalks,” the guide said, pointing to them. “The fermenting juice is accessed there for a process called punching down. The process is actually quite dangerous. Every year there are a number of deaths-”

Alex stared at the tanks, at the catwalk, mouth dry, heart pounding. She pictured Susan Sommer, overcome by CO₂ and tumbling into the tank. What had her last thought been? For the baby she carried in her womb? For the daughter she was leaving behind?

“Are there any questions?” the guide asked.

“Wasn’t there an accident like that here?” Alex called out. “Many years ago?”

The guide looked at her strangely. “Not these tanks. The fermenting area has been totally upgraded and modernized since then.”

“Someone died?” a young woman asked, eyes huge.

“Yes,” the guide answered. “A member of the Sommer family. It was a terrible tragedy, and one we prefer not to talk about.”

“What about the other tragedy?” Alex asked, unable to stop the question from springing from her lips. “The kidnapping I read about? That little boy?”

A murmur went through the group. The guide looked uncomfortable. “Dylan Sommer,” she said. “He was abducted from his bed in 1985. The Sommer family has never given up hope that he’s alive and one day will be home.”

Of course they had, Alex thought. Everybody had moved on. There wasn’t even a picture of him in their museum.

The guide cleared her throat. “Now, if there are no more questions, let’s move on to the highlight of our tour, the wine caves. The Sommer caves are some of the oldest and largest of the wine country caves, rivaled only by those at Schramsberg.”

The guide talked while she led them from the fermenting area to the caves. “These were hand-dug which, with twenty-six thousand square feet of tunnels, is simply amazing.

“Caves,” she continued, “are the original green solution to refrigeration. The interior keeps the wine at a comfortable fifty-eight degrees with seventy percent humidity. We store approximately two thousand barrels in ours.”

They reached the cave entrance. Alex’s thoughts flooded with the memory of the other night, of being lost, of panicking.

The smell of incense. The sound of laughter. Her chest growing tight, her heart racing. Panic grabbing ahold of her.

No, she told herself. This moment has nothing to do with that one.

“Prepare yourself,” the woman continued, “between the insufficient lighting and the lichen growing on the ceiling and walls, it’s pretty creepy. But don’t worry, as far as I know, there are no ghosts.”

But there were, Alex thought. Ghosts of the past. Of the life she should remember, but couldn’t.

“Are you all right, dear?”

That came from the woman beside her, a kindly looking senior. The rest of the group, she saw, had entered the cave. Alex forced a weak smile. “I have trouble with closed-in spaces. Is it that obvious?”

“It is. You’re white as a sheet.”

“I’ll be fine.”

The woman patted her arm. “That’s the spirit. Just stick with me. I was a nurse, back in the day.”

They caught up with the group. The tour guide was describing the original process of cave formation. “Chinese laborers were used to dig these caves out of the side of the mountain. You’ll be surprised by the…”

Alex worked to focus on the guide’s words, to slow her heart and breathe evenly and deeply.

“… use only French oak barrels. The barrels cost anywhere from five hundred to two thousand dollars each.”

The group chattered excitedly. Her Florence Nightingale had wandered back to her husband. Blindly, Alex followed the guide, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.

She began to sweat. The clammy sweat of panic. Her heart beat so high and fast it felt as if it had climbed up into her throat.

Why was this happening to her?

Get out, find the exit.

“… high humidity reduces the amount of evaporation from the barrels. Now stay with me,” the guide called, “it’s easy to get disoriented in here.”

Dylan. As her brother’s name popped into her head, so did his image. A beautiful dark-haired baby. Cooing up at her. Smiling.

Then screaming.

Alex stopped. She brought a hand to her mouth. The smell of incense filled her head.

She looked wildly around her. The group had rounded the bend and disappeared from sight. Alex took a step backward. Then another. And another.