“Please, I can explain everything,” he said, holding up his hands.

“Oh my God!”

Miranda’s heart banged against her ribcage, and she wasn’t sure whether the wild ride or the guy next to her had provoked it. She veered onto the shoulder of the road and hit the brake. As the car came to a stop, she seized his right hand. In the center of his palm, she saw a silver-dollar-sized tattoo of the Earth.

Her father’s strange deathbed prophecy rang in her ears: Your future husband will hold the world in the palm of his hand.

“Oh my God,” she said again. “Who are you?”

“Eli Hart.”

“Heart, as in love?” she asked, placing her hand over her own pounding heart.

“No, H-a-r-t, like a stag. I work at the Meditrina Vineyards in Napa. Or at least, I did. Now I’m running for my life.”

Miranda glared at him. “What did you do, steal the payroll? Poison your boss?”

“Of course not,” he said indignantly. “Hey, what about ‘innocent until proven guilty’?”

“So far, you’re guilty of kidnapping.”

“I apologize for scaring you. I only did it because I was desperate. I couldn’t use my own car. They’d have followed me.”

“Who are they?”

“It’s a long story.” He gave her that sheepish grin again and Miranda felt her heart skip a beat.

“High-concept it for me,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll try. Someone has been killing Meditrina’s grapevines by infecting them with a deadly fungus. I suspected the source might be foreign, so I took samples to a botany professor I know at San Francisco State. Turns out I was right. It’s a disease called Mort Jaune—Yellow Death—that until recently only existed in France. Now the bastards want to eliminate me before I can blow the whistle.”

“Why would anybody want to kill grapevines?”

“Listen, Ms…”

“Miranda.”