A Good Day for Chardonnay (Sunshine Vicram #2) by Darynda Jones

She tapped on Mrs. Fairborn’s door and eased inside to the sound of a moan. Alarm spurred her forward. She found the woman in bed, an arm thrown over her head, a drink in the other hand, and a horrible moan coming from her throat.

“Mrs. Fairborn!” Auri rushed up to her, dragging her IV stand and knocking it first into a chair and then into an important looking piece of equipment with lots of buttons and lights. “Are you okay? Can I get someone?”

“Oh, it’s you, Aurora. No, I’m fine, sweetheart. I’m just really enjoying the service. Once they figure out I’m okay, they’ll send me home. No one waits on me hand and foot at home anymore. All my servants left me when I never paid them. It’s horrible.”

She took a drink of her juice as though she were sipping a piña colada on the beach. Not that Auri had ever had a piña colada on a beach, or anywhere else for that matter, but someday hopefully.

“I wanted to apologize.”

“For what, sweetheart? For saving my life?”

“No one told you?”

She gave her a patient smile.

Auri pressed her mouth together, trying to gather the courage to tell her the truth. After a couple of false starts, she finally fessed up in a lengthy soliloquy that bordered on Shakespearian. “I’m the one who told Billy Press the necklace was at your house. I mean, I didn’t say your house specifically. I told him it was still at the old boardinghouse. He must’ve figured it out. I took a picture of it because I was going to use it to prove you were a serial killer a long time ago, then I changed my mind about exposing you for being a maniacal murderer because I don’t want you to go to jail since you don’t brush your teeth and I thought I would steal the necklace to botch the chain of custody and give it to my mom so she could get it back to the family, and then I thought maybe you could write a letter so that after you died people would know that the drifter Hercules Holmes was innocent all along.”

“I see,” Mrs. Fairborn said, her brows knitting in confusion.

“Anyway, none of that matters.” She wanted to take Mrs. Fairborn’s hand but didn’t dare. The woman probably hated her. “It’s my fault you were attacked. It’s my fault you and Cruz almost died. He wants me to apologize for him, too, but he has nothing to apologize for. It was my idea. All of it. And I am so, so sorry, Mrs. Fairborn. I promise I will never almost get you killed again if it’s the last thing I do.”

The woman’s pale face softened. “What if I told you I’m glad this happened.”

Auri gaped at her.

“Well, not the getting attacked part or you and Cruz almost dying, but I’m glad you found those articles.”

“You know about the articles?”

“Your grandparents told me. I’ve been silent too long, Aurora. People need to know the truth.”

“The truth?”

“Yes. Elusive as it so often is. The last time I tried to tell it, I was intimidated into keeping my mouth shut. Threatened.” Mrs. Fairborn held out her hand. Auri took it instantly, the elder woman’s smooth skin like tissue paper between her hands. “No more. Women have been intimidated into silence for too long. When we get home and everything returns to normal, you come to my house and we’ll chat. You can be my voice. You can tell the people what really happened all those years ago.”

“You’re not mad?”

“No, sweetheart.”

“So, you’re not going to kill me and bury me under your floorboards?”

A tinny cackle erupted from the woman that ended in a short fit of coughs. “Never,” she said after she recovered.

Sheepish didn’t even begin to describe how Auri felt. But there was still one thing bothering her above all else. “I don’t understand, Mrs. Fairborn. Why was Billy so obsessed with that necklace? It’s an antique ivory cameo, so it is valuable, but I looked them up. They aren’t worth that much. Four thousand dollars? Maybe five? And the casing is just brass.”

“Exactly.” She poked her with a spindly finger, then pointed to her purse, a small fuchsia thing sitting on the overbed table.

Auri handed it to her then watched as she filtered through her belongings.

“And why did that girl’s family make such a fuss about their niece running away with it? They were more concerned about this damned necklace,” she said, lifting the necklace out of her purse, “than they were their own niece.”

Auri gasped. “How did you get it?”

“I insisted the paramedics allow me to grab it when they brought me to the hospital.”

“They let you take evidence from a crime scene?”

“I’m old, dear. You’d be amazed at what you can get away with when people think you’re senile.”

Auri’s admiration increased tenfold.

She took Auri’s hand and placed it on her palm. “I want you to take it.”

Guilt assaulted her with such force, it paralyzed her lungs and stung her eyes. “I couldn’t possibly, Mrs. Fairborn.”

“I insist. You two saved my life.”

“After we put it in danger.”

She gave her a dismissive wave. “Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to. I trust you to do the right thing and think about why that family cared so much about an ivory-and-brass necklace.” She closed Auri’s fingers around it and patted her hand.