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

duct tape, rope, and a shovel.

Chief Deputy Cooper responded.

It was the stock boy at Del Sol Hardware.

—DEL SOL POLICE BLOTTER




Mrs. Kent still lived in the same house she had during Mr. Kent’s trial. The same house Elliot went missing from. As happened often in child abduction cases where the children were never found, she’d never moved. She even drove the same maroon minivan, now scarred and falling apart.

Sun knocked on the door, and the woman who answered was hardly recognizable. Her lids were lined with red, her nose pink from a fresh bout of tears.

“Mrs. Kent?” Sun said, stepping closer.

“My husband isn’t home,” she said. She started to close the door, but Sun showed her ID to stop her. It was only then that Mrs. Kent took a closer look.

“I’m Sunshine Vicram. I was the lead detective on Elliot’s case.”

The surprise that registered on her face was unmistakable. “Detective Vicram?” she said, as though unable to believe it.

“Sheriff now. But please call me Sunshine. How are you?”

Her demeanor did a one-eighty. Changed from surprise to wariness. She looked over her shoulder, and said, “I’m okay. Is there—is everything all right? Have you heard anything?”

“May we come in?”

She hesitated, trying to come up with an excuse not to let them in. Apparently finding none, she reluctantly opened the door. She seemed healthy and yet there was a frailness to her. A nervousness.

When Levi stepped across the threshold, she gasped aloud. “Occupational hazard,” he said to explain his general appearance.

“Are you going somewhere?” Sun asked. The entryway was lined with luggage.

A child, no more than six or seven by the sound of his voice, called out to her, “Mom, can I bring Harold?”

“Sure, honey.” She looked back at Sun. “His turtle. I’m … we’re going to my mother’s house in Albuquerque for a few days.” She kept them as close to the door as she could without being rude.

“Oh. Is your husband going, too?”

She bit down. “No. He’s not. In fact, he’ll be home any minute. Is there something you needed?”

“Yes. Do you know a man named Keith Seabright?”

Sun’s poker face needed a little work done—a nip here, a tuck there—but Addison Kent’s needed a complete transplant.

“No,” she said after wresting her expression back into neutral. Sun put a hand on her arm. “Addison, you know you can tell me anything.”

Her nerves fried, she shook her head. “There’s nothing to tell, Sunshine. Is that all you wanted? We need to get on the road.”

A young boy ran into the entryway and plopped down a cage with a turtle in it. “Are you here for Daddy?” he asked.

Levi laughed softly.

“No, honey,” Sun said. “Is this Harold?”

“The second. Harold the first escaped last year.”

“Oh. Little scoundrel.”

He laughed and took off again.

“Addison, are you in danger?”

“What?”

“Your husband just got out of prison and you’re escaping to your mother’s.”

She released a breath she’d been holding. “No. We’re fine. Matthew is just …working through some things.”

“And it would be safer for you at your mother’s,” Sun said, finishing the thought for her.

“Something like that.”

She handed her a card. “Please call me if you hear anything.”

“Anything?” she asked, the wariness back in her voice.

“Anything you feel is important.” Sun gave her a reassuring nod then left her standing in the entryway.

They climbed back into Levi’s truck, but they didn’t talk until he pulled onto St. Francis, heading toward I-25.

“That was interesting,” he said.

“Yes, it was.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I think this entire thing revolves around Elliot’s father, Matthew Kent, and the money they never found.”

“How much?”

“Fifty million, give or take, and that’s the lower end of what the investigators speculated.”

He whistled. “Even I would kill for that much.”

“Really?”

“Depends on how much I like the person.”

“Matthew swore he was simply the fall guy for the whole operation. Said the higher-ups took the money and ran, leaving him holding the empty bag, so to speak. And the FBI scoured the man’s records. If he did hide it, he’s a stone genius.”

“You think now that he’s out someone is coming after it?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“But how does Elliot play into all of this?”

“I don’t know.”

“She has to know he’s alive. Clearly she knows Seabright.”

“I’m shocked you would think that, after that stellar performance she gave in denying she knew him.”

“That was painful to watch.”

Sun laughed. “Poor thing. It all makes so much sense now. The Kents never really, I don’t know, behaved appropriately? Does that sound bad?”

“Not as bad as their faking their own son’s abduction. Who better to have abduct your child than a trained mercenary?”