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

Though no one could take Quincy’s place in Sun’s heart, Nancy came in at a close second. She’d been her only true girlfriend in the city and fun didn’t begin to cover Nancy’s list of admirable traits. Sadly, moderation was not one of them.

She texted her back. Let’s make a date, but you have to promise you won’t lose your underwear again. Or hire male strippers.

Her phone dinged almost instantly. LMAO. Deal.

Since the cab of Levi’s truck was filled with a dark and impenetrable silence—he was sulking—Sun decided to stop glancing at his magnificent profile every few seconds and do some research on their stabbing victim. She didn’t know how long she’d have enough of a signal to get internet.

There wasn’t much on the elusive Mr. Seabright. Levi had been right. The guy was a ghost. Other than the fact that there were apparently a dozen Keith Seabrights in the state, after sifting through those, she managed to find a few mentions on various military enthusiast sites.

The only two pictures she found of him were grainy and could have been shots of her great-aunt Sally for all Sun knew. Then a post popped up on Facebook. A pregnant woman in El Paso, Texas, claimed an assailant in a ski mask had hijacked her car with her two-year-old son inside. He held a gun on her and had ordered her to drive out of the city.

They were at a stoplight when a soldier dressed in army fatigues, average height, dark hair, walked across the crosswalk. He looked inside the car and must’ve noticed how scared she was, but she thought he’d kept walking. A few seconds later, the passenger’s side door opened and the man was ripped out.

The woman didn’t hesitate. She floored it and drove straight to a police substation. The post went on to explain the Army had no knowledge of one of their soldiers intervening in a civilian altercation.

A link led to a news clip on the incident. A reporter held a microphone up to a by-the-book police chief. “The move was risky. He couldn’t have known the gun wasn’t loaded. It could’ve gone off and we would never authorize or condone the use of that kind of force.” Another officer came onto the screen. “Let’s call a tomato a tomato. The guy’s a hero.”

Nothing she read about the guy, if any of it was actually about him, led her to believe him capable of kidnapping. She was leaning farther and farther in Levi’s direction and not just physically, because he was like gravity.

“As far as you could tell,” she began, choosing her words carefully, “from the times you interacted with him, Seabright’s nephew, Eli, was not being held against his will?”

After a sideways glance that held more glare than curiosity, he said, “Not at all.”

“And you’re sure he only has him in the summers?” If that were the case, where was Elliot Kent the rest of the year?

His left shoulder rose just enough to make him tighten in reaction to the pain the movement caused. “No,” he said, his voice strained. “Sometimes Eli was with him. Sometimes he wasn’t. That doesn’t mean he snatched the kid.”

He turned up a bumpy mountain road and winced. She pretended not to notice.

“You said he was hypervigilant Saturday night, like he was on a job. What exactly does Keith Seabright do?”

“Odd jobs here and there from what I could tell.”

“So like handyman stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“And that would require the need for hypervigilance? Because building a shelf over someone’s toilet is so dangerous.” When he didn’t answer, she exhaled. Loudly. So he would know she’d done it and she meant every molecule of air that left her lungs, too. “Levi, you’re still legally bound to this office. To the badge. You were deputized, a fact you only seem to remember when it benefits you.”

Former sheriff Redding had been the first to deputize Levi long before Sun came along. Levi was not only a legit businessman despite his upbringing, he was an expert tracker due to his summers being spent with the man many considered to be his biological grandfather.

After another reluctant moment, he caved. “Seabright’s been known to do a side job here and there for certain … government agencies.”

“He’s a mercenary?”

“Only when it’s for a good cause. He left the do-as-you’reordered life ten years ago.”

“I’ve never met a mercenary.”

“That you know of.”

“True. So now he hunts and picks berries and uses gas-generated power to charge his cell?”

“He usually gets his berries from the farmer’s market, but yeah. Pretty much.”

The farther up the mountain they went, the rougher the road became. Sun looked in the rearview to make sure Quincy and Zee were still with them.

“You’re thinking what I’m thinking. He’s staying at Walden’s old place.”

“That would be my guess.”

“You weren’t kidding when you said he lived off-grid.”

“Nope.”

Walden had been living in town for the last few years, which worked better for him since he owned the only convenience-store-slash-gas-station in the area, but he’d once lived in a mobile home on his family’s land. The home burned down, but the hookups were still there.

Sun thought back to how evasive Walden was when they’d questioned him. “I’m beginning to think Walden knows more about Seabright than he’s letting on.”