Kate gripped the steering wheel, her heart still hammering in her chest. She hated confrontation, but was indignant that Celeste had accused her of lying. She hadn’t really lied—had she? So yes, she may have hidden the real reason for her visit, but the conversation led naturally to the questions she had about Jenny and her boyfriends and Celeste didn’t seem to have a problem sharing what she knew. She seemed almost eager to gossip about the boys from Winston-Salem Prep and about the fact that Jenny left in the middle of her senior year. So Ms. Duvall played a role in this, too.
By the time Kate pulled into the circular drive at Howard’s Walk, she had put the accusation behind her and refocused on everything else she had learned from Celeste. She was sure she had lost out on covering her art event and there was nothing she could do about that. She could only take what she had learned and find out what she could about this Davis person. It was still a long shot, but at least she had a name to start with.
She went straight to her computer and searched for a website that offered digital yearbooks from every high school in the country. Kate set up an account and requested the yearbooks from 1987, 1988, and 1989 for Winston-Salem Prep.
When the yearbooks were available, she began her search. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for, but was hopeful she would find a new clue.
She scanned through the digital pages of the 1987 yearbook. There were too many names with the first initials of ‘D’ to be able to narrow the photos down to one particular person. She remembered that Jenny and Celeste might have dated football players, so she searched through photos of the football teams. Nothing caught her attention in yearbooks from 1987 or 1988. But when she looked through 1989’s yearbook, she came across a photo of a newspaper article about the state championship football game for that year.
‘Quarterback Davis Wingate led the team to their first state championship in ten years.’
Davis Wingate. There was a corresponding picture. He was dressed in a school football uniform and kneeled with his teammates. He was smiling, looking very confident as the winning quarterback. Kate could tell he was well-built and athletic even under the trappings of the uniform. According to Celeste, this was probably the last guy that Jenny dated before leaving town. What were the chances that there would be more than one student named Davis around the same age as Jenny? Chances were slim, and it was all Kate had to go on at the moment, so she refocused on the article.
Kate searched his features. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t pinpoint it. She shook it off. Maybe she was just simply wishing for it and making something out of nothing. She knew her search was not over yet.
Kate immediately began to Google everything she could find about Davis Wingate. There were many results returned, and she diligently searched through each one for some clue that the person had graduated from Winston-Salem Preparatory School. Some were obviously too old or too young. Some were obituaries but she searched through those, too. She cross-referenced the possibilities against social media, taking copious notes. Finally, she narrowed it down to one person.
Davis Wingate was born July 1, 1971, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was a graduate of Winston-Salem Preparatory School in 1989 and was the owner of Wingate Winery in Pine Ridge, New York.
Kate’s hands were shaking as she scrolled through the information on the screen. She hadn’t thought it would be this easy. Of course, she could be assuming too much. There was a possibility that she was mistaken. But at least it was something.
Kate then began to dig deeper into the Wingate Winery and discovered more details about Davis Wingate. He attended North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and graduated in 1993 with a business degree. He then attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York for his master’s in viticulture studies from 1993 to 1995. Wingate worked at various wineries in New York State and France until returning to help run the Wingate Winery which had been bought by his father, Frank Wingate, in 2000. It appeared that when the elder Wingate died in 2017, Davis took over the responsibilities of the winery and now managed it with his wife, Marie.
She studied the photos of him as an adult from the winery’s online presence. It was the same person as in the high school yearbook but in these photos, he was even bigger, brawnier, and intense, not the smiling high school senior from several years earlier. Kate then searched for anything she could find about the Wingates before they moved to New York State. It appeared they were a wealthy family, the father being successful in business in North Carolina and the mother, Delia, had been on the boards of several charitable organizations in Winston-Salem. She confirmed that Frank Wingate bought the winery near the popular tourist destination of Deep Lake and the town of Pine Ridge, New York.
Kate continued searching and taking notes until she heard the pocket door open. Ben joined her at her computer.
“You’ve been in here for a while. It’s way past lunchtime. Are you hungry?”
“Not really. Look at this. I think I’ve found something.”
Ben leaned over her shoulder and saw a name written on her notepad in large, bold print. “Davis Wingate. Who’s he?”
“According to Celeste Duvall, he was the last guy that Jenny dated before she left home. Celeste said the girls from Eden Springs used to date guys from Winston-Salem Prep. Jenny was a cheerleader, so I guess it makes sense. The schools were football rivals according to her.”
“Okay, so Celeste Duvall is the woman you went to see in Winston-Salem this morning? I guess the meeting went well?”
Kate frowned. “Well, that’s a whole other story, but it turns out that she was friends with Jenny in high school. But she doesn’t know what happened to her either.”
“So how did you find this guy, Davis Wingate?”
“Celeste said Jenny dated a guy whose first name was Davis from Winston-Salem and I kept searching for the name and finally found this article in one of the Winston-Salem Prep yearbooks.” She pulled up the photo on the computer. “They won the state championship that year and he was the quarterback. It’s not a common name so it must be him.”
“And where is he now?”
Kate showed him the other information she had found. “This is as far as I have gotten. But at least I have a name.”
“I guess it’s a good lead. So what do we do now?”
“I’m not sure exactly. But look at this.” She opened the tab for the Wingate Winery website. “They’re having a wine festival next week. The winery is near the town of Pine Ridge on Deep Lake.”
“What are you thinking, Kate?” he asked guardedly. “I can see the wheels turning.”
She shut down her computer, stood, and took both of his hands in hers. “Well ….”
He sighed. “Let’s have some lunch and figure out if we have time to take a trip to Deep Lake,” he said.
After lunch, Kate returned to her office. She and Ben had decided that they could take some time away from Howard’s Walk for a quick trip and agreed that they deserved some time off anyway. But there was still one obstacle. She needed a cover if she really wanted to get to talk to Mr. Wingate. She could manage without one, but this would give her the opening she needed.
She accessed her email and typed a message to the generic business contact on the Wingate Winery website, introducing herself as a travel journalist who was planning a trip to Deep Lake and Pine Ridge over the week of the wine festival. She asked if she could interview Davis Wingate for her blog, listed several other wineries she had written about, and left her web address for them to verify her credentials. But she realized that he or someone on his staff might check out The Wayfarer before agreeing to an interview and learn more about her than she might want them to.
She opened her website in editor mode and searched for references to Howard’s Walk and Eden Springs, anything personal that might alert them to who she was. Reluctantly, and with some effort and a bit of regret, she deleted what she found and republished it, knowing that it would just be a temporary change.
The email was completed but she could not manage to hit send. Was she doing the right thing? Was there enough evidence to warrant this intrusion into his life? If it ended up that she confronted him about the truth of who he was and he was not her father, the embarrassment would be unbearable. She went back over what she knew so far, and two things made the path clear for her. She had enough evidence that even if it turned out that they were not related, there might be some insight he could give that she couldn’t get anywhere else. And, secondly, she and Ben deserved some time away from Howard’s Walk. No matter what happened with Davis Wingate, the trip would give her great content for her blog. In the end, those were reasons enough for her. She took a deep breath and hit send.
Kate then Googled the rental situation for cottages on Deep Lake. The town of Pine Ridge was situated at the southern end of the lake and seemed charming. The lake itself was surrounded by hills covered with vineyards, reminding her of the picturesque wine country in France and Italy. She was immediately drawn to it from a visual perspective and hoped that the trip would work out.
There weren’t a lot of rental openings even though summer had officially ended after Labor Day weekend. But she narrowed it down to cottages on the west side of the lake, closer to Wingate Winery. After making a few calls, she made a deposit on a cottage called Summer Winds. It had one bedroom and a beachfront with a dock. A motorboat and canoe were available, and it was only two miles from the town of Pine Ridge.
“A relaxing, cozy cottage on beautiful Deep Lake. All the amenities for the perfect getaway,” the rental agency’s website announced.
Kate read the description out loud and was already falling in love with the idea of a getaway with Ben at the quaint, lakeside cottage.
Later that evening, Kate’s phone notified her of an email. It was from Suzy McNeill, a manager at the winery, who said Davis Wingate would be happy to do an interview with her. She said she would meet Kate on Monday, September 13 at 9 AM in the lobby of the winery, and she looked forward to meeting her.
Everything was falling into place. Her interview was scheduled, the cottage was rented, and Billy was back home with his mother. All the work at the gardens was covered for the next few days and finally, even though Kate knew it was secondary to her real reason for going, she and Ben were free to go on a much-needed vacation.