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

“I could totally be your pimp. I’d be the best pimp ever.” She turned to him, wild with excitement. “Think about it, Quince. We could make so much money.”

He offered her a grin straight out of The Gentleman’s Guide to Wickedness and Evil. “We could, couldn’t we?”

Such a charmer.

Her phone dinged and her jaw unhinged when she saw it was Carver yet again asking her if she’d made it back to town. “What the actual hell?” she asked as the elevator doors opened. An elderly woman glared at her for her outburst. She stepped out, offering a sheepish nod of apology.

Quince read the text over her shoulder. “You’re going to have to do something about that guy.”

“Think Zee needs some live target practice? He could even do that zigzag thing. Make her work for it.”





9


If you refer to your librarian as your dealer, this is the place for you.

—SIGN AT DEL SOL PUBLIC LIBRARY




The more Auri dug, the more convinced she became that sweet little Mrs. Fairborn was indeed a raging, maniacal serial killer. But proving it could be sticky. Her mom would never let her investigate a cold case, especially when one of the pillars of the community was involved, albeit an old and crumbling pillar. So she’d been racking her brain to figure out how to prove the imposter’s guilt.

It took her all day, but she figured out how she could investigate Mrs. Fairborn without her mother finding out. It wasn’t like she could walk up to the woman and ask her if she killed all those people. Auri needed evidence. And there was only one place to get it: Mrs. Fairborn’s house.

She had no choice. She had to break in and find the evidence to nail the wily woman. Of course, she’d feel a lot better about it if Mrs. F. weren’t so danged adorable. Auri just needed to run it by Cruz and Sybil first, but Cruz wasn’t picking up and Sybil’s mom made her turn off her phone to do homework.

If Auri didn’t need a lookout, she would never involve Sybil. And if she didn’t need someone to do the breaking part of breaking and entering—a.k.a. picking locks—she would never involve Cruz. It was simply too dangerous. She could only hope they would make it out of the killer’s lair alive and relatively unmaimed. Then again, the woman had to be in her eighties. How much maiming could she do?

Auri waited for her grandparents to go on their date. Who knew old people dated? Or married people, for that matter? Then she headed off into the evening glow of an orange sun. She needed a car. She was getting her learner’s permit soon, but tonight, she’d have to put foot to bike pedal once more.

After flipping a coin, she rode her bike to Sybil’s first. The sun was setting fast and she figured she had about an hour before her grandparents got home. Although she did leave a note telling them she went to her and her mother’s house to take a shower. That would buy her another twenty minutes, hopefully, because the ride all the way out to the St. Aubin mansion took her twelve.

She dumped her turquoise bike in the tree line that separated their property and the forest beyond.

Ever since Sybil’s abduction and attempted murder, the St. Aubins had ramped up their security. The White House had nothing on them. There were, however, a couple of very slim blind spots Auri could squeeze through. The two girls had mapped them out by having Sybil watch the cameras and Auri walk the perimeter. It worked. They now had access to come and go as they pleased, but they weren’t exactly rebels, so they had yet to use their sneaky escape route to actually escape. It did come in handy, however, when all communication had been cut off.

Auri took out a handful of almonds from her front pocket. Much safer than rocks, as they’d learned a couple of months ago. Explaining the broken glass took imagination and finesse, but Sybil had pulled it off. After all, who would question her heartbreak when a bird flew through her window. There were tears and everything, and Mrs. St. Aubin only cared about consoling her grieving daughter, so she never asked to see the rock-shaped bird.

The girl could act.

Sybil came to her window, a huge smile lighting her face. She checked over her shoulder then motioned Auri up.

Auri had become a master of the trellis. A trellis master. A trellis aficionado. She climbed the thick wooden lattice and eased across the pitched eve to Sybil’s window.

“What are you doing here?” Sybil said after a quick hug, a bubbly giggle turning her voice into musical notes.

Auri clung to the windowsill for dear life, but didn’t dare go inside. It took too long for her to scramble back out the window should she need to flee to a safe distance. “I figured it out.”

“At last! I’m so glad for you, Auri.” She pushed her round glasses up her nose with her index finger, and asked, “What were you trying to figure out again?”

Auri laughed softly. “How we can prove that Mrs. Fairborn is a cold-blooded serial killer.”

Sybil pursed her lips. “It’s always the unassuming ones.”

“Right? So, a lot of the victims’ families describe various items their loved ones had with them at the time of their disappearance.”

“Oh, yeah. I read about a couple of them.”

“I found a complete inventory someone compiled. I figure Mrs. Fairborn must still have some of those items stashed in her house.”

“Makes sense.”