Page 12 of The Fine Art of Faking It
“Davis, are you okay?”
He lifted his head and through blurry eyes spotted Ellery Cozumopolaus-Smith and Bruce Oakleigh jumping out of a jacked-up black SUV. It looked like a hearse with a lift kit.
“’Zat a hearse? Am I dead?” he slurred.
“You’re bleeding,” Ellery said, rushing to his side in her midnight black wool coat. “Bruce, he’s bleeding,” she said again.
Bruce bumbled over, looking nervous.
“Just a bump,” Davis said, weaving away from Ellery’s gloved fingers.
Ellery leaned down and peered into his eyes. “His eyes look funny. Does he have a concussion?” she asked, grabbing an EMT who hurried past with an oxygen mask.
The EMT gave Davis the eye. “He slapped the flashlight out of my hand before I could check his pupils, called me Sally, and told me to get out of his face.”
“I thought you were going to give me a shot,” Davis mumbled.
“With a flashlight?”
“It looked sharp!” His head hurt. His body was cold. And his house was on fire. And it wasn’t quite noon. This was not a great start to the day.
“How bad’s the damage?” Ellery asked, chewing on her purple painted lip and scanning the scene. There were four fire trucks, a police cruiser, and two ambulances in the winery’s drive. More than a dozen people in uniform were running all over the property.
“Why’s it smellsobad here?” Davis wondered. “It’s like a dog barfed up roadkill that died eating garbage.”
Ellery cut a hard look at Bruce who squinted up at the sky. “I don’t smell anything,” Bruce insisted.
“Sweet Jesus. I’ve never smelled anything that bad in my life,” a firefighter said, removing his mask to throw up in the flowerbed.
Bruce began to whistle tunelessly. Ellery pulled out a dainty handkerchief embroidered with skulls and snakes and held it over her nose.
“What are you guys doing here?” Davis asked, curling up on the floor of the ambulance. He wasn’t sure what a goth princess paralegal and the town real estate agent/resident gossip were doing in his front yard on a Sunday morning while part of his home burnt to a smelly crisp behind him.
Ellery and Bruce shared another long look.
“Oh, well. We heard that there was trouble out here, and we wanted to see if we could help,” Ellery said.
Davis’s head hurt too much for him to further question their presence.
“Yes! Neighbors helping neighbors,” Bruce agreed. “We’re here to take you some place warm.”
“Oh. That sounds kind of good.”
“Davis!” Anastasia, the winery’s vintner and resident pain-in-the-ass, crossed the driveway. “The winery is fine,” she announced running a hand through her short shock of gray hair. “Looks like it’s just your house.” She was sixty-two and had worked in the wine industry for almost forty years. His parents had hijacked her from a Napa Valley winery on one of their last trips west. They’d convinced her to give up the California climate for New York’s frigid winters and Blue Moon’s quirky weirdness.
“Winery good,” Davis summarized. “That’s good.”
“I think he’s got a concussion,” Anastasia said in a stage whisper to Ellery and Bruce.
But Davis didn’t care. A kitchen he could rebuild, but burning his family’s winery to the ground only two years after he took over managing operations? That would have been significantly more painful.
“Anastasia, we’re going to take Davis somewhere to get warm and…” she sniffed Davis’s general direction and winced, “maybe a shower.”
Anastasia’s nose crinkled as she caught a whiff of him. “I’ve literally never smelled anything this bad in my entire life, and my dad used to clean septic tanks for a living,” she told them.
Bruce shoved his hands in his pockets. “I still don’t smell a thing,” he insisted.
“Uh-huh,” Anastasia grunted. “Well, get him someplace warm and not smelly. I’ll call when the fire crews have any news.”
