Page 77 of Bay of Plenty

“Kingi, I’m sorry—I want to spend the evening catching up. But we have to talk now. Can you think of anything else? Something Snow’s told you when he comes up here?” He winced when Snow’s name was mentioned, but I had to keep pushing. I thought about a list of things for him toconsider. “Something about his day, his wine-making process, some phrase he uses that might indicate he’s connecting with someone new, a trip he’s planned, any changes in his life? Even if it seems trivial or unrelated?”

He got to his feet, paced, then wheeled around to face me, arms crossed, knuckles white. Our eyes met, and I stiffened, scared he’d turned against me.

“I brought you in because I knew for sure Snow wasn’t involved,” he said. “And I wanted to make sure he and Rangi weren’t wrongly accused.” He took a few craggy breaths and slowed down. “I know Snow better than anyone, and I can say this for certain—he wouldn’t go near something like this. For a start, he’s content with his life and has no interest in money. But most important, he hates all those hard drugs, saw what P did to me all those years—it bloody near killed me. But it also nearly killed him, watching.”

I dragged my damp hands down my pant legs. “I’m sorry. It must be rough to think about.” I tried to hold his stare. “But there’s no other explanation.”

He flung his arms to the sky. “You have something against the guy, and you’re warping this whole thing to blame him.”

“Kingi, that’s not fair.” I pressed a hand to my throat. “You’re the one who got me in; you trusted me to find the truth. These are the facts. Snow’s the owner of the winery. His name’s on all the documents. It’s hard to fathom how he doesn’t know about this, that he’s not in charge. I know he’s your friend. That’s incredibly tough, especially as he’s been there for you all these years.”

Kingi slung our plates, cutlery, and pans in a bucket of soapy water and kicked at the embers, biting the inside of his mouth.

“Your facts, your truth,” he spat out. “Like your Fontainestory. You were so sure the poor guy was the hero, and the titled guy was the bad guy.”

My heart snagged. I clutched at my elbows, curling in on myself. Ah, of course. He’d kept track of me. Kui had sent him all my articles through the years, so it made sense that she’d also sent the damning pieces about me.

He went on. “You’ve always had some grudge against Snow, and I thought you’d outgrown it. Now he says you’re jealous of his relationship with your parents. Yeah, that’s bloody hard, but this is vindictive. You’re making a case against him.”

Tears threatened, but I swallowed them back.

“You talk about a grudge like it’s completely irrational, like he didn’t bully me mercilessly for a year before he left school. And the bullying continued for three more years. He even warned me that he was going to make me pay for telling Sarge about Janey’s note.”

Kingi glared into the bush, then back at me, his eyes now empty. “We’re done. I took a chance giving you the tip-off, but it was a mistake.”

Distressed, I tried to pull us out of this. But I knew what I had to say next would be even more painful for him.

“Kingi, please—let’s think about this. You contacted me instead of going straight to Snow. Doesn’t that mean that, deep down, a small part of you is worried Snow might be involved?”

He jerked back, shocked, then angry, like I’d thrown a barbed ball at his face. An invisible wall slammed between us.

“Look, I’m grateful you came up here to warn me about DOC.” His voice was empty. “But as soon as it’s light, you need to go.”

His words rang in my ears, stealing my last scrap of hope.

That night, I lay awake in bed, my brain buzzing. Kingi had his back turned to me. His pained sigh filled me with a knife-edged heartache. Outside, the bush quivered with animals on the move, as though something threatening had been released into the air.

My eyes laser-beamed around the room, trying to figure out why Kingi had such a total block when it came to Snow. I flashed back to CeeCee and Snow’s cottage. The surf magazine in the spare bedroom. Clothes in the closet, too many for a visitor. The main bedroom, decorated in peach and three different kinds of vintage floral wallpaper. However much I tried to resist gender stereotypes, I couldn’t help but wonder if Snow was part of that decision. Maybe Snow did sleep in that spare room. But why?

In this room. The razor, the matching pairs of UGG boots, two toothbrushes, the surf magazine. Not the things per se, but that Kingi tried to hide them. He was close to Snow, so close, blindly loyal. As if…

Oh God.

I’d been thinking about this all wrong.

Chapter Fifty-One

Day Eleven

Saturday, Day of the Auction.

My spine stiffenedwith fear and dread. I wanted nothing more than to race home. But I’d die on that path if I left now. A door clanged shut in my mind. I wouldn’t get any further with Kingi on the heroin case or Janey. Worse, Kingi was going to tell Snow everything. I’d come up here hoping to find the final piece of the puzzle. Instead, the investigation was about to be blown.

Snow and Kingi were a couple.

I tossed and turned all night, wrestling with what I could have done or said to hold on to our friendship, knowing I could have steered us in one direction. But I must have gone to sleep, because I woke in the dark with Kingi standing over me, shaking my arm.

“A helicopter is out there, searching, maybe looking to land,” he said.

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