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

“That would be new.”

“Maybe I should give you a deadline.”

“A dead what?”

“Give you a little motivation.”

“Motivation is not the problem.”

“Light a fire, so to speak.”

“Does this have anything to do with that glass cliff you mentioned my first day on the job? Because I’m not taking the fall for anyone. If funds have been misappropriated—”

She arched a perfectly coiffed brow. “You know they haven’t.”

Sun frowned, remembering her own brow conundrum. “How do you know I know?”

“Because you’ve looked into every transaction this town has made over the past decade. That’s how I know.”

“How do you know I’ve …” Sun gave up with a frustrated shrug. The woman was right. She’d gone over the town’s records with a fine-toothed machete. “Then what was all of that about? And why do you want to know about the Dangerous Daughters?”

“Strategy.”

“Strategy?”

“You left.” She studied her polished nails. “You’ve barely set foot in this town for fifteen years, then you come back here and think you can just pick up where you left off? You can just take over like you own the place?”

“Wait a minute. You played me?” Sun asked, appalled. And a tad impressed. “You wanted me to comb through those records.”

“And now you’re up-to-date. You know the issues. How each council member votes. Who is in whose pocket.”

Damned if she wasn’t right. Sun had noticed a disturbing trend with a couple of the city council members. A tendency to favor some of the more prominent business members, including one of the new winemakers in town who was getting his way an awful lot.

“Okay. Fine. I’m up-to-date. It worked.”

“Naturally,” she said, her pretty mouth curling up at one corner. “On to the Dangerous Daughters. You have one week.”

“What?” Sun bolted to her feet. “You’re actually giving me a deadline?”

“Like I said, I’m following my own advice.”

“What is it, exactly, you want uncovered?”

“I told you. I want names. I want to know who established it and how. And I want to know what they’ve been up to recently.”

“Mayor,” Sun said from between clenched teeth, “I have a county law enforcement facility to run. Tracking down an elderly group of women who probably aren’t even with us any longer—if they ever existed at all—is hardly a priority. Especially right now.”

She leaned over the desk and said softly, “Then make it one.” Sun bit back her reply as the mayor pivoted on her heels and strode out of the station, saying over her shoulder, “And keep me updated on the stabbing victim.”

Sinking into her chair, Sun stewed all of thirty seconds, then grabbed her phone to text her chief deputy. How long could it take to shower and grab a toothbrush?

Rojas poked his head in just as she hit SEND. “There is a Jimmy Ravinder who would like a word with you before you head out, boss. He said you know him and it’s important.”

“Jimmy?” She rose and looked across the station to the darkened lobby out front. Sure enough, Levi’s nephew, Jimmy Ravinder, was sitting in one of the chairs, twisting his hands. “Why is everyone coming to the station at this hour? Did Zee put up that neon sign we confiscated from the madam again?”

Madam Magdalena, the local cat lady, was nothing if not creative when she had a neon sign made that read CAT HOUSE and put in her window. She insisted it was because she loved cats. And she did, if her nineteen-and-counting feline zoo was any indication. Still, wouldn’t that pastime cost her a bit of business? Surely, some of her would-be patrons were allergic.

He chuckled. “No idea, boss.”

“Thanks, Rojas.” She journeyed through the bullpen to let Jimmy in herself, but when she opened the door, he remained sitting. “Hey, Jimmy. You want to come back?”

He looked so young. His dark blond hair, perpetually cursed with a bout of bed head, stuck up in the back and his spiffy new black-framed glasses fit snug against his face thanks to a band that ran from earpiece to earpiece.

She realized he seemed agitated.

“You arrested my uncle,” he said without looking at her.

“No, Jimmy, I didn’t. Why don’t you come back?”

He stood, but kept his gaze on the floor. “Oh, I thought you arrested him because you think he killed Uncle Brick.”

“Nope. No arrests on that, yet.”

“Okay. Good, because he didn’t do it.”

She stilled, trying to decide how to proceed and how unethical it would be to interview him without his mother present. Even though she’d secretly become friends with the local wildcat known as Hailey Ravinder, the woman would kill Sun first and ask questions later if she did anything to hurt her son. Though the boy did come in on his own accord, he was barely seventeen. And on the spectrum, a fact that would play heavily into Hailey’s decision to kill her, Sun was certain.

“How about we go to my office.”

He shrugged, so she led him to her office and offered him a seat. “Do you want a soda?”

He shook his head, too busy taking in the surroundings. She could hardly blame him. She was quite the decorator.