“Thank you for coming up,” he said. “You know I wouldn’t call if it wasn’t an emergency.”
“Okay, keys out?” She walked over and stepped up on the running board. As soon as she flipped up the seat, she spotted the problem.
“Okay, well, if you knew a fraction as much about engines as you do about grapevines, you’d be able to figure it out. Someone cut the line on your primary safety switch.”
“The what? Someone messed with a switch?” Nico craned his head. “How do you know?”
She pointed to the cut wires. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious. They put that in there so if the driver falls off, the tractor shuts off. Without a working safety switch there, the engine could be perfect and the tractor still won’t start. I don’t know of any way to bypass it.”
Nico’s face turned red. “Could it be an accident?”
“I mean…” She shrugged. “It looks cut to me. The wires are pretty clean. You’re gonna need to get someone out here to rewire it if Danny can’t do it.” Henry was the winemaker, but Danny Barba was his foreman on the farm and kept all the equipment working. “I’m gonna say at least a couple of hours.”
“Shit!” Nico slammed his hand on the top of the tractor, and Toni heard something fall from the tractor with a thunk.
She hopped down and stared at what had fallen in the dirt. “Oh my God.”
She covered her mouth with the back of her hand. The queasy stomach she’d been battling all morning roared up with a vengeance. Toni ran for the edge of the field and puked into the grass.
“Toni?” Nico ran to her, but she shook her head and waved him back. “What the hell?”
“Finger.” She cleared her throat and tried not to retch again. “Nico, look.”
“What are you…? Oh fuck.”
That was two fucks in one day. Yep, her Aunt Marta was going to be hearing about that one.
But then again, what else were you supposed to say when a bloody human finger fell out of your broken tractor?
Chapter 2
Detective Drew Bisset stood over the lone finger sitting in the dirt, watching with a frown while one of his officers documented the scene with a camera. He was a handsome man with dark brown skin, dark hair and beard, and a medium build, who carried himself with confident ease.
Drew was the head detective at the Moonstone Cove Police Department. He’d moved to town around five years ago, so people still considered him a newcomer, but he was well liked. Toni had met him the year before when her cousin Max had joined the police department, and she had a lot of respect for the man’s straightforward personality.
Toni had gotten to know Drew better when she, Katherine, and Megan were trying to figure out what had caused the near-shooting that triggered their powers. A mystery that involved one student had grown to be a conspiracy that involved students at the university, a hijacked psychological study, a shady professor, and a grad student with secret empathic abilities like Toni’s.
Not that Drew knew about that last part.
He was frowning at the finger. “And you said it fell out of the tractor?”
Toni nodded and avoided looking at the bloody digit. “According to Nico, the tractor was working fine yesterday, no weird sounds or anything, so I flipped up the seat to see if there was something interfering with the safety switch.”
“And the wires were cut?” He scribbled something in a small notebook.
“Yeah. I flipped up the seat and saw the wires there. They didn’t look worn down or anything, like they were rubbing up on anything—nothing like that—the ends were cut clean.”
Drew looked up at the tractor, then back to the finger. “Could someone have been trying to mess with the tractor and gotten their finger cut off? Lost it in the engine or something?”
Toni shook her head. “I guess anything is possible, but you’d have to be pretty inept to lose a finger cutting a couple of wires. They’re not exactly hard to find.”
Drew crouched down. “The edges of this are pretty rough. It doesn’t look like a clean cut. Almost like it was torn off. And it looks like it’s been exposed for a while.”
Toni shuddered. Accidents on the farm or at the garage were not unheard of, and they were one of the reasons she didn’t wear jewelry, not even tiny earrings. Still, she had no idea how a finger could be torn off while cutting two exposed wires.
“If I’d been checking a belt or something, I could kind of see it but…” She shrugged and tried to calm her stomach, but she wanted to puke again. “Honestly, I have no idea. You’re gonna have to examine the engine, I think. See if there’re any traces of blood in it. Maybe the safety switch isn’t the only thing that was tampered with.”
Nico let out a low groan, and Drew looked up.
Toni tried to send out good vibes, but it was a lot harder to change the temperature of someone’s emotions when she wasn’t in direct contact.
Drew said, “Sorry, Mr. Dusi, but there’s no way that this tractor is going to work today.”
Nico ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Can I at least get my crew going?”
Drew frowned. “Is there a reason you need to rush them out of here?”
“The pinot grapes,” Nico said. “We have to get them today. I’m gonna make some calls about a tractor.” He stalked off toward the barn.
“Pinot grapes?” Drew looked at Toni. “These grapes gonna go bad in a day?”
“It’s the sugar,” Toni said. “The daytime temperatures are supposed to head way up tomorrow, and he’s afraid the sugar levels will spike with the heat, which would throw off the fermentation and change the character of the wine.” Toni glanced at Nico, who was on the near side of the barn, looking like he was about to deck Henry. Or Danny. Or both.
How about that? Henry was here.
Focus on the bloody finger, Toni.
Toni looked away. “That’s his winemaker, Henry Durand, and his foreman, Danny Barba. Henry’s the one who kind of determines what the sugar levels should be. Then Nic’s gotta get the grapes in so they can start the crush.”
Drew pursed his lips, glanced at the men, and nodded. “Okay, I’ll make sure the officer gets all the employees’ names and numbers and we can follow up later. Go tell your cousin he can get his guys working.”
“Thanks.” She glanced at Drew, then back at the finger. Then at Drew again. “One thing.”
“Yeah?” Drew pulled out his phone.
“Can I take off too?” She was dying to get out of there. Not only was the temperature starting to climb, she could see Henry walking toward the workers.
Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Of all the days, not this one.
“Yeah.” Drew waved at her. “Take off. I got your number.”
“Okay.” She hightailed it toward her car but wasn’t fast enough.
“Toni!”
She turned just as she reached her car. Knowing Henry, if she tried to take off, he’d just sit on her hood or something.
Toni looked up. “Hey.”
Henry Durand was the size of a smallish tree. He had narrow hips and a lean torso. He’d told her once he used to mountain climb, and she could see it in the lanky lines of his body. He was about as opposite from her short curvy frame as was physically possible.