A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones

12

If it turns out you’re not an afternoon person, either, we can help!

—SIGN AT CAFFEINE-WAH

Sun hung up with the DA, scrubbed her face, then headed into the bullpen. “Rojas!” she shouted, even though he was only a few feet away from her. Her conversation with the surly DA had not gone well, but she finally convinced him to have Wynn Ravinder transported to Santa Fe. The fact that she had to resort to blackmail did not sit well with either of them, but the married father of two shouldn’t have asked her out last year.

Zee had cued up the Quick-Mart video showing the argument between their victim, Keith Seabright, and one of his assailants, but that could wait. She needed to know more about these men casing the town. And Zee wasn’t at her desk anyway.

Rojas jumped and turned to her, his burnished skin glowing healthily in the soft morning light. He looked good. Better than he had when she’d met him four months ago, before she sent him off to the police academy.

“Let’s grab a cup.”

He grinned, hopped up, and followed her to Del Sol’s latest and greatest coffee shop, Caffeine-Wah.

The owners, Richard and Ricky, two of her best friends from Santa Fe, opened the establishment when Sun found out she’d been elected sheriff. They’d wanted to put a shop in Del Sol for a long time. Her win gave them the perfect excuse, as they wanted to remain close to Auri. Sun understood. They’d helped raise her, after all. Which would explain Auri’s incredible taste in clothes. She sure didn’t get that from her mother.

However, neither of her friends were in. The girl behind the counter said they had to run to one of their Santa Fe stores that morning, but they’d be back soon. She and Rojas ordered, then sat at a bistro table near the front window.

He pushed a few buttons on his phone and handed it to her.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“The guys casing us.”

She looked up in surprise. “You got pictures of them already?”

“I did. Do you recognize any of them?”

She scrolled through the shots, about ten each of three different men. Rojas was right. They were literally just standing around. Window-shopping or reading a paper or sipping tea on the veranda of the Del Sol Diner. “How did you already get pictures of them?”

“You were busy with the DA. He really seems to like you.”

“Yeah,” she said with a soft chuckle. “He’s a peach. I don’t recognize any of them. Do you?”

“Nah. Sorry, boss.”

She noticed a couple had visible tattoos. “What about their ink?”

“That one,” he said, scrolling back until he came to the stocky one with the tattoo of a scorpion on his hand, “is La Cosa Nostra.”

She gaped at him. “Really?”

He laughed. “No.”

“Rojas,” she said, admonishing him while fighting to keep a straight face.

“But that’s what’s weird. None of their ink is local. A couple of their tattoos are exactly the same, so they’re affiliated. I guarantee it. Just not with anyone around here.”

“Around here as in Del Sol?”

“Around here as in the whole of New Mexico. If I had to guess, I’d say they’re East Coast.”

“Wonderful.” Because that was what she needed. A crime war on her turf. His teasing about La Cosa Nostra may have not been that far off the mark. “Which ones have been to prison?”

He pointed out two of the three. The stocky one with the scorpion tattoo and a taller one wearing a black leather jacket from the seventies.

“The third one,” he said, scrolling to an older gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair and a spray tan if Sun ever saw one. “I’m just not sure about him. If he did do time, he did it well. Probably a higher-up of some kind. I can run facial recognition when we get back, but I doubt we’ll get a hit. We need someone with access to a federal database.”

“I can ask my contact in the FBI.” She looked out and studied the two men she could see from her vantage. “How do you know all of this? What’s the giveaway?”

“It’s in the eyes. The way they move. Their posture.” He looked at her. “You ever notice how men in prison either hunch or stand ramrod straight with their chests puffed out?”

She thought back and nodded. “I do actually. It always seems to be one or the other.”

“And therein lies the tell. The differences in the pecking order.”

“What about the ones that do neither?” she asked, thinking of Wynn Ravinder. He didn’t seem to feel the need to put on a show. As though he were just as relaxed in prison as Sun was at the spa.

A slow, calculating smile spread across Rojas’s face. “Those are the ones with true power. Those are the ones to watch out for.”

A wave of goose bumps raced over her skin. Maybe she was playing with fire by inviting Wynn back into the state, but she wanted to know everything. Especially the son of a bitch who violated her. What she would do with that information, she didn’t know, but at least she would have it.

She looked out the window. “What about anyone else in town? Have you noticed—”

“Him.”

She blinked. “That was fast. Who?”

Rojas pointed to a gray-haired gentleman walking toward the coffee shop. A man who just happened to be her father, Cyrus Freyr.

Sun propped her elbows on the table and faced him. “Have you been messing with me this whole time?”

“No way, boss. Why?”

“That man has never even spent a day in jail, much less prison.”

He eyed the guy again. “Sorry, boss. That man has spent time inside, but from the looks of him, it was maybe a military prison? Or something similar?”

She snorted, then rethought her doubt and turned back to study the man in question. Had he been in jail and never told her?

Her father got a text, turned, and headed back to his SUV down the street.

Sun shook it off and asked, “Can you send those pics to me?”

“Already did. I also set Zee on surveillance until I could brief you. I’ll take over in a few.” He took a sip of his pink lemonade spritzer topped with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry, then pointed. A plainclothes Zee stood browsing the books the Book Nook employees were just now moving onto the sidewalk, her tall, lithe form doing anything but blending in. The girl was stunning, and one of the men they were watching had taken note. A fact that could play in their favor.

She looked back at Rojas’s fruity drink. “It takes a confident man to order a drink like that.”

He tilted his head and smiled in appreciation. “Thank you, boss.”

She laughed and decided to take a second for an impromptu check-in. “Got any questions for me?”

“I have two, if you’re asking.”

She took another draw on her pinon coffee sweetened with hazelnut. “I’m asking,” she said, echoing the conversation they’d had a couple of days before.

“First, why do you call the yellow fire truck Big Red?”

A surprised giggle bubbled out of her. She’d expected something a little more … official, but that worked. “When the town ordered Big Red, they threw a naming party. They were really excited. They chose the name before she was delivered, and while they’d ordered a red hook-and-ladder, she showed up yellow. Unfortunately, they’d already ordered a nameplate for her, so Big Red she is.”

“This town is so weird.”

She couldn’t argue with that kind of solid, fact-based logic. “And second?”

He waited as though contemplating if he should ask. “I know it’s none of my business, boss, and please don’t feel obligated to answer, but what happened to you?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious. “It was only a little box of wine and Quincy drank half of it.”

When he fixed a patient smile on her, she caved.

Poetry Rojas was direct, she’d give him that. She liked it. “You want the long version or the CliffsNotes?”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with?”

Great answer. She told him what happened to her when she was seventeen. How she was abducted and held for five days while the kidnapper demanded every penny her father had, only for her to end up dropped off at an emergency room in Santa Fe with a severe concussion and covered in blood, most of it her rescuer’s.

Sure, she glossed over a few of the sticky points, but her story was out in the world anyway thanks to a few vindictive high school students. One only had to guess the sordid details, because nine months later, a fiery ginger with the lung capacity of a yeti clawed her way out of Sun’s nether region and her world had never been the same.

She also skipped over the amnesia part. She only remembered bits and pieces of her ordeal and was missing almost an entire month beforehand.

“Now can I ask you a question?”

Rojas sat contemplating her story. He swam back to her and said, “Of course.”

“Why did your mom name you Poetry? And how often were you beat up because of it?” she teased. “I love it. Don’t get me wrong, but it’s very unusual. I would think even more so for a boy.”

He smiled as he thought back. “I don’t think she did, in all honesty. She never admitted this, but I think she was going to name me Porter after a jazz musician she was in love with, but the woman entering the information at the hospital couldn’t read my mom’s writing and typed Poetry into the computer.”

“Poetry fits you,” she said. “At least she got your twin brother’s name right. Ramses?”

He shook his head. “His name was supposed to be Ransom.”

“Wow. Your mom was clearly very creative. Another jazz singer?”

“Blues.” A sadness came over him. His parents had died when he and his brother were kids.

“Well, either your mother had horrible handwriting or that nurse needed glasses.”

He looked out the window toward Zee for the fiftieth time in five minutes.

“I frown on office romances,” she said to him, “but not for long. It causes wrinkles. No one needs to see that.”

“What, Zee?” he asked with a scoff. “Never. She’s so far out of my league it’s like we’re not even playing the same sport.”

“Not true.”

“No, for sure. It’s like she’s an Olympic skier and I play stickball with miniature horses.”

“Is that a real thing?”

“I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

She disagreed. Rojas was a little younger than Zee, but only by a couple of years. He was incredibly intelligent, charming, and quite the looker. Zee could definitely do worse.

Then again, so could he. Zee was a goddess among mortals.

Sun wanted to ask him more about how he pulled it off. How he managed to do three years in the state pen in his brother’s stead without being found out, but a nuisance she was going to have to deal with soon walked into the coffee shop.

“Sunshine,” Carver said, strolling up to their table, his coveralls folded down to reveal a T-shirt underneath.

“Hey, Carver. What are you doing here?”

In the four months Sun had been back in Del Sol, she never once remembered seeing Carver Zuckerman. She could’ve just not noticed him, but for him to suddenly be there every time she turned around? Either he was stalking her or … Holy crap. She blinked up at him. He was stalking her. Even more reason to kill her parents.

“Just saw you come in here. Thought I’d come say hey.”

“Oh. Well, hey back.”

“Of course,” he said, growing serious. “I meant what I said. We have a lot in common. I’m here if you need a shoulder.”

What the hell did he think she went through on a daily basis that she needed a man’s shoulder to cry on? Besides, she had Quincy for that.

“I know you have a big case,” he continued. “How’s that going?”

“I can’t really discuss it, Carver.”

“Right.” He shook his head. “But I’m here if you need me. I see a lot more in this town than most.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Well, I won’t keep you.” He stepped closer. “I’d love to see you again, though.”

Was he really going to do this to her here? In front of her deputy?

“I really don’t have time for a social life right now, but if that ever changes …”

“That’s what your mom said. She’s a looker, eh?” He elbowed Rojas’s shoulder.

She rubbed her fingertips over her forehead, her hangover headache coming back with a vengeance.

Rojas watched him leave, and if looks could kill …

“What’s up? Don’t tell me Carver has been to prison?”

“No. He’s too slick.”

“Slick? Carver?”

“He’s a sociopath, boss. Be careful.”

She knew Rojas would be invaluable, but damn. “He lacks some social intelligence, but—”

“He’s a sociopath,” he repeated.

“Okay, then.”

“And he gives me the creeps.”

“Yeah, well, maybe he has nothing else to give, Rojas. Did you ever think of that? No. You only think of yourself.”

“Just be careful,” he said with nary a hint of a grin. And she’d tried hard.

She took another sip, contemplating everything she’d learned in the last half hour. Three things, to be precise. Rojas could look manly even with a pink drink in his hands. Carver was very likely stalking her. And the men who were casing the town, so to speak, were waiting for the sheriff’s department to make a move. She just didn’t know why. Or in which direction.

Oh, and lest she forget, her father had possibly been to prison. And her parents never told her.

“I should probably relieve Zee,” he said. “They’re only going to buy into her book browsing for so long before they catch on.”

“You’ve clearly never gone to a bookstore with my mother.”

He chuckled. “No, I haven’t.”

“If you do, take snacks.” They stood to leave. “I’m going take a look at that surveillance footage and see if we can’t get a ping on Levi Ravinder’s phone.”

Though, by that point, Sun had half a mind to kill the guy. If he wasn’t already dead and lying in a ditch somewhere.

“But you told me to dress breaky-and-entery.” Sybil glanced down. “Those were your exact words.”

Auri studied Sybil’s attire. Black turtleneck. Black yoga pants. Black beanie covering the top of her auburn head with two long braids hanging down to her elbows. She even had black sneakers on. The girl never wore sneakers.

Auri clamped her mouth shut to keep from giggling at her adorable accomplice. “Yes, but I meant understated breaky-andentery. Unassuming. You’re a walking advertisement.”

Sybil dropped her head in shame. “I’m sorry. I’m so bad at breaking and entering.”

That time Auri did giggle. “There are worse things to be bad at. Believe me.”

After leaning closer, Sybil asked, “When are we doing this?”

Auri scanned the halls for the thousandth time, which were starting to empty as the students of Del Sol High filed into their respective classrooms. They were heading into second period, and Cruz was still a no-show. Maybe he’d changed his mind. Maybe he’d really wanted her to get naked with him.

The thought alone caused a warmth to blush across her face. Was he disappointed? The fact that she’d wanted to hold on to her V-card had never seemed to bother him before. He’d never pressured her. Not once.

Maybe it was the whole breaking and entering thing. That would put off anyone.

The bell was about to ring. They’d officially missed their opportunity to skip second. Just as she and Sybil started into class, they heard the metal doors at the back end of the school open.

They turned. Cruz stood holding the door open, waving them over as he kept watch.

Auri’s heart soared. He hadn’t abandoned her.

The two of them hurried toward him. He held it open as they ducked under his arm, then eased it closed until a click that sounded like a thunder strike echoed around them. Auri cringed, hoping the sound didn’t get anyone’s attention.

“Where have you been?” she whispered.

He led them around the back of the main building and into a parking lot only a few faculty members used.

“Sorry. I woke up late.”

The girls giggled. “Your dad didn’t wake you?” Auri asked.

“No, he had to leave early.”

They stopped at a jaw-dropping red Ford Raptor.

“You’re driving your dad’s truck?” Auri asked, surprised.

“Yeah. He let me since I was running so late.”

“Then how did he leave early?”

He frowned in thought, then said, “Motorcycle.”

“That’s a nice truck,” Sybil said, gazing in awe at the massive beast.

Auri agreed. “Can he be my dad, too?” she asked him.

“That would make us siblings, so, no.”

The implications of his statement sent a flutter to Auri’s stomach.

He lifted a sinewy arm and opened the passenger’s door for them. They climbed—literally as the truck sat a thousand feet off the ground—into the cab. When Cruz got into the driver’s seat, the truck fitting him like an Italian glove, he made the climb look effortless.

“I think I’m ready to tackle Mount Everest now,” Auri said, teasing him.

He grinned at her and started the engine.

“You only have your permit,” she said as the beast roared to life. “I can’t believe he let you take his truck.”

He grinned again, only this time the charm had fled and another emotion had taken its place. Apprehension? Sadness perhaps? “That’s why I have this.” He took a cap off the dash and pull it low over his brow.

Auri wanted to ask him about the emotion that flashed across his face, but not with an audience. That was a conversation best saved for another time. The display, however, was about the thirtieth she’d sensed in as many days. Last night, as Auri laid in bed dreaming about Cruz, she thought back to when it all started. He and his father had gone on a fishing trip near Chama in northern New Mexico for spring break. She didn’t see him for over a week, and when she did, he seemed distracted.

Maybe he met another girl while on break. Maybe he didn’t know how to tell her. Sure, he said he was kind of in love with her, but … no buts. She was a big girl. She could take it. What she couldn’t take was being strung along, and she’d tell him that as soon as they were alone.

He put the truck into drive and they headed out of the lot before someone caught them skipping.

Both locals and tourists were already out and about, grabbing coffee and shopping with the resident artists. He pointed as they drove past the sheriff’s station. Auri ducked her head. Sybil took a different approach. She undid her seatbelt and nose-dived for the floorboard, her gaze darting about like a cornered animal.

Auri fought yet another giggle, but the events of the next few seconds would teach her not to be so quick to judge. She looked past Cruz just in time to see her mother exiting Caffeine-Wah. The woman in full sheriff regalia stopped and watched as the huge truck drove by.

Cruz shrank back and lifted his shoulder to hide as much of his face as he could, but the movement brought Auri directly into her mother’s line of sight. Their gazes locked for a split second before Auri dove for cover. Straight into Cruz’s lap.

With her face firmly in Cruz’s crotch, Auri asked, “Did she see me?”

“She’s still looking,” Cruz said, his voice suspiciously full of humor. “You’d better stay down there for a while.”

Auri frowned. How long could it take to drive past a coffee shop?

Cruz shook as though laughing.

She raised up. “Cruz De los Santos.”

A pair of dimples appeared on the sides of his full mouth and her ire—fake as it was—evaporated.

“Are you sure Mrs. Fairborn is at the station?” he asked, changing the subject.

“I have it on good authority.”

He cast her a suspicious glance. “What kind of authority?”

“I have an inside man.” Auri did everything but blow on her nails and polish them on her shirt.

“Can I ask who it is?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, Charlie. I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you. Then where would we be?” She looked down at Sybil, who sat hunkered on the floorboard still. “Sweetheart, you can get up now.”

“Oh. Okay.” She scrambled back onto the seat and pushed her glasses up with an index finger.

They pulled onto Mrs. Fairborn’s street, but parked at the end of the block. After a nonchalant walk down a narrow alleyway, they hauled themselves over a wooden fence.

Well, Auri and Sybil did. Cruz walked through the gate and eyed them both like they were crazy. It happened. He also stopped to give Sybil’s outfit a once-over as though just noticing her cat-burglar attire.

Much like Auri had, he suppressed a grin, turned, and strolled to Mrs. Fairborn’s back door like he belonged there.

“See that?” Auri said to Sybil. “We need to act natural. Like we’re supposed to be here.”

“Right.” Sybil, who seemed on the verge of hyperventilating, took a deep breath and nodded. “Act natural. I can do that. I can act natural.”

Auri wanted to laugh, but she was right there with her.

“We’re in,” Cruz said. He’d been kneeling at the back door. He stood and opened it.

“Wow.” Auri stopped, stunned. “You really did it.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted me to do?” he asked, his eyes crinkling with humor.

“Well, yeah. It’s just …”

She crept forward, gazing into the abyss that was Mrs. Fairborn’s large house—or what looked like a mudroom—keeping a watchful eye as though something was going to jump out at her. Now that it was really happening, she was having all kinds of second thoughts.

Panic took hold. Backing away, she looked between her two friends, and asked, “Who wants coffee?” right before she turned and hightailed it over the fence despite a wide-open back gate.

Zee started the video from where Keith Seabright entered the store. Since the Quick-Mart sat right across the street from the sheriff’s station, the station was in the background of one of the four grainy panes. Unfortunately, all four surveillance angles formed four blocks on the single screen, and there was no way to get only one angle per screen as that was how it was recorded. It made deciphering the details even harder.

“Did Mr. Walden give you any trouble?”

Mr. Walden, the owner of the Quick-Mart, could be cantankerous when he wanted to be.

“No,” Zee said with a shrug. “But he did ask me out.”

“He’s eighty!”

“If a day.”

“Does he know you’re a sniper?”

“He does now,” she said with a smirk. “There.” She pointed to the screen as a lean, fit brunette walked in wearing a T-shirt, a pair of army fatigues, and a few days’ worth of scruff. He paid cash for his gas, looked over his shoulder, then left.

As he exited the store, another man, stockier and wearing a baseball cap, bumped into him. Seabright looked like he was going to ignore it, but he suddenly turned on him, the movement so fast it was impossible to make out, and shoved.

The man went flying against an outdoor ice cooler.

Seabright went after him. He dragged him to his feet by his collar, but the man raised his palms in surrender.

Seabright didn’t let it go. He looked down at his shirt, or maybe his arm, then got in the man’s face.

“He wasn’t carrying anything, was he?” she asked Zee.

Quincy rolled his chair over to watch. “I’ve studied this tape a dozen times. Neither was carrying anything.”

“I thought maybe the guy had spilled something on him.”

“Exactly,” Zee said. “Why would he get so upset?”

Quincy scooted closer. “From what Mr. Walden said, Seabright was the most easygoing guy he’s ever met. Nothing fazed him.”

“But look,” Zee said, pointing again. “There’s a stain on his shirt.” She turned to Sun. “This may be crazy, boss, but I think he tried to stab Seabright and failed.”

“Could be, sis,” Quincy said. “Seabright is former Special Forces. He could’ve seen the knife from the corner of his eye and thwarted the attempt.”

“And he clearly has lightning-quick reflexes,” Sun said.

“Maybe the guy didn’t know what he was getting himself into,” Zee added. “Which was why, for their second attempt, they drugged him.”

“Makes sense.” Sun leaned closer. “Damn, I wish we had a better angle.”

There were a few people in the store, and every one of them turned to see what was going on. When Seabright shoved the man one last time and headed for his truck, a dark-colored Dodge, several people went to the window to investigate.

The assailant went the opposite direction.

“There,” Zee said, pointing to the taillight of a light-colored, late-model pickup. “He’s getting into a Toyota Tundra.”

Quincy looked at Sun. “Just like the one used to run your boyfriend down.”

“No plates?” she asked.

“They stayed far enough out of camera range, like they’d cased the store beforehand.”

“Maybe we need to check the footage over a few days.”

“I can do that tonight, boss,” Zee said. “If you’ll buy me some hot wings.”

“Oh, and beer,” Quincy said, suddenly excited to help.

But Sun had spotted an oddity in the video. Sometimes it wasn’t what people were doing, but what they weren’t doing that caught one’s attention.

“Run it back,” she said, squinting at the lower left pane. The high angle showed the rear of the store and the cash registers in the background.

Zee rewound—metaphorically speaking—to when Seabright entered. He paid and headed out of the store, but while everyone inside looked toward the commotion up front, one kid did the exact opposite. He turned toward the rear of the store instead. Toward the camera.

He looked directly at it and raked a hand through his hair, as though purposely showing his face. As though signaling anyone who might be watching.

“What the hell?” Zee said. She leaned closer. “I didn’t even catch that. How did I not catch that?”

“It’s okay, Zee. It took me a moment, too. But watch Seabright.” Sun pointed. “He looks right at the kid before he leaves. Can we zoom in?”

“Not with this program, boss. I can run it through an editor, but the quality is horrible. I doubt we’ll get an ID.”

“We may not need one.” She leaned closer and studied him. A feeling of recognition that started in the back of Sun’s mind hurtled forward. She hit the space bar just as he pulled back his hair. He was thin with dark locks in bad need of a trim, but it was the shape of his face. The bone structure. The nose. The eyes.

“You know this kid?” Quincy asked.

“Yes.” The word came out airy as astonishment thundered through her. Wetness stung the backs of her eyes as she tried to fill her lungs. She would know that kid anywhere. She still carried his picture to this day along with one that showed his age progression. She’d spent months memorizing every line of his face.

“Sun?” Quincy put a hand on her back.

“Unless I’m mistaken, his name is Elliot. Elliot Kent.”

“Okay,” he said, his tone wary. “And that’s of vital interest because?”

She lowered her hands. “Because he’s been dead for seven years.”