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

The fourth one took an extended vacation courtesy of the Arizona correctional system. Specifically, Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence, about an hour south of Phoenix.

It would seem that same uncle, Wynn Ravinder, wanted Sun to come to Arizona immediately. He’s dying, the note said, and has pertinent information about your abduction.

Her abduction. Information about her abduction. Those words were like a sucker punch to her gut. She read them three more times before looking back at the crime scene.

Still no word on the victim, Keith Seabright’s, condition. The forensic team would be there soon, and she would only be in their way if she stayed. Rojas could go talk to Mr. Walden about the argument Seabright got into that afternoon and gather any surveillance footage the man had. The state police were on the lookout for the assailants. As was Levi himself, most likely.

Nothing was stopping her. If she left now, she could be in Florence by morning. That familiar desire—or blind obsession, as her parents would say—to know more about those five days cinched her stomach tight. A stomach that was suddenly filled with shards of glass.

Could Levi’s uncle Wynn really know what happened? Was Brick Ravinder really her abductor or was his murder in that vicinity coincidence? And what, if anything, did Levi have to do with it?

Because of a head injury she’d suffered at the time, Sun could remember very little of those five days or several weeks prior to her abduction. She had glimpses. A patchwork of visions and scents and sounds, but nothing coherent. Nothing cohesive enough for her to stitch the images together.

And then there was the surveillance footage from the hospital in Santa Fe. Someone had brought her in and left before the nurses could get a name. That someone, tall and slim, clutched his side where a dark stain slowly spread across his hoodie. Whoever brought her to the hospital had been seriously injured at some point, and Sun had about twelve thousand questions as to why.

She woke up a month later in that same hospital with no memory of what had happened. Two months after that she realized, to her utter horror, that intake had dropped the ball at the hospital. She was pregnant. The monster who took her had violated her.

Looking back now, it was almost inconceivable how something so precious, so wonderful, could come from such tragedy. But Auri was all of that and more.

Sun heard Quincy’s voice and realized she was still on the phone. “What’s going on, boss?”

She snapped out of her musings and lifted the phone to her ear. “You’re not going to believe this.”

“I don’t know. I’m pretty gullible, apparently.”

Realizing she might need someone to take turns at the wheel of the sixteen-hour round trip, she said, “Pack your toothbrush. We’re going to Florence.”

“Italy?”

“Arizona.”

“So close.”





4


Makeup fades. Tacos are forever.

—SIGN AT TIA JUANA’S FINE MEXICAN CUISINE




Sun eased open the door to Auri’s darkened room and crept inside. Even though the center of her universe had just turned fifteen, and their house was mere inches away from Sun’s parents’ back door, Auri had a permanent room at her grandparents’ house. If Sun wasn’t home by nine, Auri had to come to Freyr House and stay until Sun got her. Usually when Sun worked that late, however, she just left Auri there until morning—a necessary evil that was becoming a habit of late.

She’d written her a love note and had planned to leave it on her nightstand, but Auri turned onto her back and raised a hand to shield her hazel eyes from the light streaming in from the hall.

“Hey, bug bite,” Sun said. She set the note on the nightstand and climbed onto the bed, duty weapon, work boots, and all.

“Hey, Mom,” Auri said, as Sun reclined against the headboard beside her.

She’d showered and put on her uniform for the trip, packing only the basic essentials. Toothbrush. Deodorant. A can of tuna because of that one trip that ended so badly.

She brushed a lock of her daughter’s hair back. “You okay?”

Auri nestled against her and put her fiery head on Sun’s shoulder. “No.”

Sun had noticed. Auri’s swollen, red-rimmed eyes said it all. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I hate that you saw Levi like that.”

“I hate that he was like that at all.” Her breath hitched, crushing Sun. “Why does he have to be so brave? He could’ve been killed.”

“I don’t know. He’s Levi, for one thing, and the man who was attacked was a good friend of his.”

“He didn’t even take us into account.”

“Us?” Sun asked.

“Yes. What would happen to us if he’d been killed? Did he think of that? No. Of course not. And do you know why?”

It was apparently a rhetorical question; Auri continued before Sun could guess.

“Because he’s a guy. With a penis. Penises are stupid.”

Sun tried not to giggle. “Yes, they are. Penises are very stupid. I don’t want you to ever forget that.”

“I won’t. Don’t you worry.”

Sun had to wonder what Auri’s crush, Cruz, had done to cause such penis-aversion. She’d have to thank him. He probably bought her at least another year before her daughter experimented with the opposite sex.