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

Sun no longer cared what her attentions would do to the boys. They would be traumatized regardless. She gathered them in her arms and hugged, making sure to avoid the scorched parts of their shirts. To her eternal joy, they hugged her back.

Adam visibly shook, but either Elliot was amazingly well-trained or he was in shock. He wasn’t shaking at all, but he did hold on to her for dear life.

Then he turned and hugged Levi.

“What do you say we get you to your mom?” Sun said.

Adam nodded and wiped at his eyes.

She stood and nodded to Levi. “Thank you.”

He didn’t respond. He stared at her neck instead before walking closer and doing some checking of his own. “He got you.”

“No. That’s not my blood.”

“It is.”

Sun felt and realized the bullet had grazed her before ricocheting off the propane tank. “Oh.” She drew her hand back for a look. “It’s not bad. I’m fine.”

The worried expression on his face confirmed he wasn’t so sure. It left her warm and fuzzy inside, but she had to stay focused. She turned to Quincy. “How did you and Zee know Carver was up here?”

“Carver?” he asked, gaping at the assailant. “That was your date?”

“My parents set me up with an assassin.”

“Told you,” Rojas said, still panting. “Sociopath.”

“If you didn’t know he followed us up here, why did you run all that way?”

“We figured out that the third guy staking out the town wasn’t at the hotel. We thought maybe he’d slipped past us on the trail.”

A soft groan echoed off the rock walls around them.

Elliot cringed and looked at his brother. “He woke up.”

“Excuse me?” Sun said.

“Thank goodness he didn’t die,” Adam said. “Mom would be so mad.”

Elliot grabbed the charred lantern, eased around Carver’s body, and ducked back through the alcove. “Careful,” he said, stepping gingerly toward the edge of a very large, very dark hole bordered by a layer of rocks. He held the lantern over it and Adam shined a flashlight.

Sun, Levi, and Quincy looked over the edge. At the bottom of what looked like a mile-deep hole lay a man in a suit. He raised an arm against the light.

“Our third man?” Sun asked Quincy.

“I’d say so.”

“And the money?” She looked at Elliot.

“Yeah, I moved it.”

The man lay on a cushion of hundred-dollar bills. He laughed softly and called up to them. “I can think of worse ways to die.”

A couple of the plastic-wrapped blocks of money had broken open and hundreds spilled out around him.

“Still,” Sun said. “I know fifty million is a lot of money, but I didn’t think it would be quite that voluminous.”

“Try one hundred and fifty million,” the man countered.

“Holy cow,” Rojas said, leaning over the edge, shining his own light into the man’s eyes. “You a cop?” he asked him.

“DEA.”

“I suspected as much in town.”

She stared at Rojas slack-jawed. How the hell did he know these things?

“DEA?” Adam asked. He punched his brother on the arm. “We are in so much trouble.”





22


Some days you are on top of the world.

Other days you are on top of the world,

only naked and screaming profanities

at your individual strands of hair.

We can help. Stop in for a free consultation.

—SIGN AT DEL SOL MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES




They would never have let her come. Auri knew that. Given the circumstances and what she’d already put Mrs. Fairborn through, her grandparents would never have let her come talk to the woman. She had no choice but to sneak out once again.

“This is the last time,” she told Cruz when he picked her up down the block.

The impish grin he wore created a dimple on one cheek. “You know they’re going to come in and check on you. They were checking on you every thirty minutes all day. And then they’ll never let me see you again.”

“Don’t be silly. I told them I was going home to take a shower.”

“A home that’s thirty feet from their back door. They can check there, too.”

“I turned on the water and cranked up the radio.” When he gave her a less-than-convinced look, she added, “Really loud. And do you know how long it takes me to shower and get ready for bed?”

“Sadly, no.”

“Oh.” She felt heat rise up her neck. “Well, trust me. I just bought us an hour.”

“What if something goes wrong and that hour turns into twenty to life?”

“What could possibly go wrong?” she asked. “We aren’t breaking in this time. We’re apologizing for breaking in, and while you distract her, I’ll steal the necklace.”

He nodded but kept the grin in place. He knew her too well.

She talked a good talk, but her nerves were frazzled and fried like her mom’s hair that time she got a perm. Auri was not cut out for a life of crime, even one designed to benefit Mrs. Fairborn. Once Auri managed to snatch the necklace and get it back to the Press family, she was hanging up her black mustache for good. And then, after the elderly woman passed away, Auri would tell her mom where she really got the necklace from and prove the drifter, Hercules Holmes, innocent. At least, that was her plan.