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

He stopped and the look he gave her would’ve broke her heart if it weren’t so funny. “We’re just going to dump him? Leave him out there all alone and defenseless?”

“He’s a wild animal. Completely untamed. And possibly rabid.”

He lifted the cage onto her desk and studied the hapless creature snoozing away. “That never stopped your parents from caring for you.”

Ouch. “Touché. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that you can’t keep him.”

His shoulders deflated. They’d dealt with wildlife before, but Quincy had clearly grown attached to the menace and their catand-mouse game of tag over the last few weeks.

Sun opened a cabinet and looked at herself in the mirror. Only minor cuts and a tiny bruise on her jaw. Not bad. Her hair, however … She combed through it with her fingers, then gave up, closed the door, and popped a coffee pod into the maker. “I was having such a great hair day.”

Quince chuckled. “Sometimes I forget you’re a girl.”

“Please. Like you don’t have bad hair days.”

“True. Remember our senior pictures?”

She stopped and stared dreamily into the vast oblivion. “How could I forget the greatest memory of my life?”

“And it’s forever commemorated in our yearbook.”

“I’m a little disappointed no one calls you SpongeBob anymore.”

He stuck his fingers through the cage and petted their unconscious guest. “If we did keep him—”

“Quincy,” she warned.

“—and I’m not saying we will, but if we did—”

“Quince.” She knew he would do this.

“—he could be our mascot.” He raised a hopeful gaze. “I’ve always wanted a raccoon to assist me with petty crimes.”

Sun struggled to hide her amusement and joined him in admiring the fluffy furball. “He is adorable.”

“Right?”

She looked at Quince, then back at the raccoon. “He’s kind of like your spirit animal.”

“What if he has rabies, though?”

“Then he would be exactly like your spirit animal.”

Sun’s newest recruit walked in then, Poetry Rojas, freshly graduated from the police academy and looking spiffy in his pressed black uniform.

“Hey, Rojas,” she said.

He handed her a file. “Boss, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” She grabbed her cup and took a long, scalding draw.

“Did you hire me because you feel sorry for me?”

She choked, not sure if it was due to the scalding liquid burning the back of her throat or Rojas’s question. Most likely a combination of the two.

“I’m not a charity case,” he continued. “I want to earn this position on my own merit.”

She tossed in a few last-minute coughs, then asked, “Seriously?”

“No.” He grinned, an enchanting lopsided thing. Never mind that underneath the uniform lay enough ink to print The New York Times for a month. He was a good officer. “It just makes me sound like a better person when I say shit like that.”

She tapped her temple and looked at Quince. “Always thinking, this one.”

“I think,” he said, defensively.

“Mm-hm.” She glanced over the report Rojas had brought in. “I want you to pay attention to this, Quince. Rojas knows how to write up a report.”

“I write reports.”

“Listen,” she said before reading aloud. “‘Single-handedly and with zero safety incidents, updated the communication and output device that utilizes and produces vital information while simultaneously sharing critical data with coworkers and creating a more efficient and productive work environment.’”

After taking a moment to let the sentence sink in, Quince frowned at Rojas and asked, “What does that even mean?”

The glib smirk the new deputy offered her BFF was too much. “I changed the ink cartridge in the printer.”

Sun nodded. “I like the way you think, Rojas.”

“Thanks, boss.” He bent to check out the caged menace snoring away. “How’d it go?”

“I had a raccoon’s crotch in my face for what seemed like hours.”

He arched a brow. “I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing.”

She picked up her cup and took another sip. “I have many sides, Rojas.”

After a quick glance over his shoulder at Quince, he straightened and started to leave, but Sun could tell there was something more lingering just below the surface. He had questions. And doubts. She knew he would.

“Quince, can you give us a sec?”

“Sure thing.” He gave Rojas a challenging stare, one that warmed Sun’s heart. She’d known they would get along when she hired Rojas, and Quincy’s ribbing was proof that she’d been right.

She sat at her desk and motioned for him to sit across from her.

The situation with Poetry Rojas was one that she would never have believed if it hadn’t happened on her watch. Four months ago, U.S. Marshals had descended upon the town of Del Sol searching for an escaped convict named Ramses Rojas, Poetry’s twin brother. What she figured out during the manhunt was that Ramses was actually Poetry. He’d gone to prison in his brother’s stead.