A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones

17

Many have eaten here. Few have died.

—SIGN IN THE KITCHEN OF SUNSHINE VICRAM

There were three reasons Auri adored her grandparents. Well, there were a million, but three main ones. One, they loved her. Two, that love was unconditional, no matter how bad she screwed up. And three, they made certain she felt that love to the marrow of her bones.

Even if she was never allowed to see Sybil again after introducing her to a life of crime and degradation. Even if Cruz never wanted to see her again after turning him into one of Del Sol’s most wanted. Even if her mother lost her job and never spoke to her again and they ended up living on the streets of Del Sol, rifling through their neighbors’ trash cans for food, she knew she would always have her grandparents. And that they would feed her.

“How about some pizza?” her grandpa asked after escorting her into the house.

“I don’t deserve pizza,” she said.

His expression turned pensive as he nodded. “You’re right. How about I order it with extra pineapple as punishment.”

She laughed and hugged them both before heading to her room, where she overheard him ordering. Pepperoni with extra pepperoni.

Oh, yeah. They loved her.

She texted Sybil, expecting a furious text from her mother ordering her to never go near her child again. Instead, Sybil texted back. Auri! What happened? What did your mom do? Are you grounded for life? For all of eternity? Are we going to prison? Wait, let me call.

She laughed and picked up mid-ring. “Hey.”

“Hey, Auri. What’s the verdict?”

“Still waiting on the sentence hearing, but so far it looks like prison will not be in our future. Mrs. Fairborn isn’t going to press charges.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“You know what this means, right?”

After a minute, Sybil guessed, “We don’t have to learn how to make weapons out of our toothbrushes?”

“No. Well, yes. But more importantly, it means Mrs. Fairborn is guilty.”

“Holy crap, you’re right! Why else wouldn’t she press charges?”

“Exactly.”

“We have to prove it.”

“We will. I have to fix something first. I just wanted to check on you. Are you grounded?”

She let out a lengthy sigh. “No, but I would feel better if I were.”

“Oh, no.” Dread slid up Auri’s spine like a snake. “What happened?”

“Can you imagine what it was like for my mother, getting a call about me from a sheriff’s deputy after I almost died? Twice? She is so traumatized, Auri, she had to take a sleeping pill and go to bed.”

Tears stung the backs of her eyes. She really knew how to leave a mark. “Sybil, I am so sorry.”

“What? No. That’s not what I was getting at,” she said, her tone edgier than normal, “I am a big girl. It may not seem like it sometimes, but I can make my own decisions, and I chose to do this.”

“Because of me.”

“It was my decision. I am the one who has to live with what I just put my mother through. And my dad. He’s downstairs drinking some of Mr. Ravinder’s moonshine.”

The guilt that swept over Auri made her feel nauseous. No matter what Sybil said, it was entirely, one hundred and ten percent, Auri’s fault.

“Hold on,” Sybil said. “What do you mean you have to fix something? Fix what?”

No way was she going to involve her best friend any more than she already had. “I’ll tell you at school tomorrow.”

“You realize we only have three weeks left,” Sybil said, almost sadly.

A soft laugh escaped Auri. “You are the only person I know who gets sad when school lets out for the summer.”

“I just like seeing you every day.”

“And that has to change why?”

“We can still hang?”

“Sybil St. Aubin, we are going to have a blast this summer. You just wait. If I’m not in jail.”

“You just said … why would you be in jail? Auri, what are you planning?”

“Nothing you need to worry your big brain about. See you tomorrow.”

“Aurora!” she shouted as Auri hung up.

She knew she’d cave if Sybil pressed the issue. She needed to do this alone. She needed to fix her amateur mistake before she could go to her mother again. If she went to her mother again. Maybe, instead, she’d go to Quincy. He’d believe her.

Thing was, she adored Mrs. Fairborn. But did that mean she should just let her get away with murder? If she did, if she let her feelings influence her ability to do the right thing, to bring closure to those families who’d lost loved ones, what would that make her?

Cruz wasn’t texting back and worry gnawed at her. She could only hope his dad grounded him and nothing more. She’d screwed up before, but this was catastrophic on several levels. Levels she hadn’t thought of before she decided to take the law into her own hands.

While she waited for word from him, she dug a little deeper into the origins of the necklace. It was so intricately carved, but even if it dated back to the Roman Empire, which that one didn’t, it would still only be worth a few thousand dollars.

The way the family spoke in the interview they gave one reporter, that necklace was a family heirloom and worth more sentimentally than anything material they owned. They claimed the missing girl, Emily Press, was a poor relation and had stolen it when she’d come to visit.

She brought up the picture she’d snapped of the pendant and studied it again, enlarging it this way and that. The oval the cameo was set in wasn’t even real gold. It was brass, bulky, and not particularly pretty, and it had patinaed with age.

“Pepperoni with extra pineapple,” her grandma said as she brought Auri a slice.

Auri clicked out of the camera app and laughed as she looked at the plate. “That doesn’t look like pineapple.”

“Yeah, they forgot it. I could send it back.”

“No!” Auri jumped up and grabbed the plate from her. She was starving. Apparently food in jail was not a given.

“Whatcha doin’?” her grandpa asked. He handed her a glass of sparkling water with cranberry.

“Thanks, Grandpa. Just some homework.”

“If you want to talk about anything …”

“You mean how I ruined the lives of two of my best friends, may have gotten my mom fired, and disappointed everyone I know and love?”

“Yes,” he said with a humorous grin. “But not everyone.”

“You’re not disappointed?”

“Please,” her grandma said with a snort. “You have no idea what your mother put us through. You couldn’t disappoint us any worse than she did that time she threw a party while we were out of town and invited an entire biker gang called the El Choppos, who used my bras to shoot water balloons at the neighbor’s house.”

“Oh,” Auri said, genuinely concerned.

“Her defense was that she only let them use my old bras.”

Her grandpa gave her a stern expression. “If you promise not to invite motorcycle clubs to our house, I think we’ll be golden.”

She giggled. “I promise.”

“Then we’re good, peanut.”

“Always?”

“Always,” he said.

After three slices of pizza, two glasses of sparkling water, and an hour and a half of research, Auri found a relation of Emily Press, the woman who went missing with the necklace.

From what Auri could tell, Billy Press, the owner of a car dealership in Amarillo, Texas, appeared to be in his early thirties. If her calculations were correct, he would be a great-grandson of Emily’s uncle, which would make him her cousin, albeit distantly. She found him on Instagram and sent him a message with the shot of the necklace attached, telling him that she had been researching his cousin’s case and asking if he recognized the pendant.

The message may have been jumping the gun a bit, but her family deserved to know what happened to Emily, and they deserved to get that necklace back.

But then what? Would sweet Mrs. Fairborn go to prison? Because of Auri? Because of her meddling? Her intrinsic need to set the world right? The families deserved to know the truth, but it had been decades. Maybe the truth could wait a little longer.

Still, she had pertinent information on a cold case. Could she be charged with obstructing justice if she didn’t tell the truth?

With head spinning and stomach churning, Auri brushed her teeth and washed her face, then crawled into bed fully clothed. When her grandparents came in to check on her, she closed her eyes and deepened her breaths. They each took a turn kissing her head and her grandma tucked the covers tight before leaving.

Unfortunately, they didn’t close her bedroom door all the way and closing it now would be a dead giveaway, so she would have to risk it. Deceiving her grandparents yet again was giving her heartburn, but she needed to know Cruz was okay. And, more importantly, she needed to apologize to him.

After waiting another half hour, she could hear her grandpa snoring and sprang into action. She hopped out of her window—or rather tumbled out of it—and eased her bike out of the drive.

Two cars passed her and her heart got stuck in her throat both times, praying her mom was still at work. Thankfully, both were false alarms.

Cruz’s house was dark when she rode up, but his dad’s truck was in the dirt driveway. Her heart sank. Had he come back early from his trip because Cruz had gotten into trouble?

She turned off her headlamp as she passed his dad’s window and tripped twice as a result while sneaking up to Cruz’s. She knocked lightly, but nothing happened, so she knocked again.

“You’re going to kill yourself one of these days.”

The high-pitched screech that erupted out of her throat would be talked about for generations to come. The night a velociraptor came to town and woke up the entire population of Del Sol. Some people confused it with the tornado sirens. Others, a newborn sperm whale.

Turning to the godlike creature stepping down from the truck, she clutched her chest and gasped. “You scared me.”

“I never would’ve guessed.”

“Is your dad back?”

He closed the door and dropped his gaze. “Not yet.” After stuffing the keys into his pocket, he walked up to her. “What are you doing here?”

“You weren’t answering your texts. I had to check on you.”

Even in the darkness, Cruz’s eyes shimmered when he smiled. “It was my turn,” he said, leading her to a bench on the front porch.

They sat, the only light radiating from a streetlamp a couple dozen feet away. “For what?”

“I was going to come check on you.”

“Oh, well, my grandparents went to bed early.”

He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Your mom’s going to kill you. Then she’ll kill your grandparents when she finds out how often you sneak out.”

“Oh, they’re already on her hit list. They keep setting her up on blind dates. I had to show you this.” She scrolled through her phone until she came to the picture of the necklace.

He took it to get a closer look. “Is this from Mrs. Fairborn’s house?”

“Yes. It’s like the Hope Diamond of the missing persons cases. I read an interview with one of the victim’s family members. An uncle, I think. It’s like he didn’t even care that his niece was missing. He seemed more worried about this old necklace.”

She showed him the article with a picture of the necklace. “It’s apparently really valuable, but from my research, it’s only worth a few thousand dollars. Nothing that would trump his niece’s safety.”

“Where was it?”

“Hanging from a hook by the door. I grabbed a shot on the way out.” She scooted closer. “This proves it, Cruz. Mrs. Fairborn is a serial killer.”

“Holy shit.” He looked at the picture and compared the two before handing her phone back. “You have to show that to your mom.”

She raised her hand to chew on a nail. “I can’t,” she said from behind it. “What if Mrs. Fairborn goes to prison because of me?”

He reached over and pulled a fallen leaf out of her hair. Evidence of the tumble from her window. “If she goes to prison, it’ll be because she most likely killed lots of people, but I get your point.”

She sat mesmerized by the way his lashes cast a soft shadow on his cheeks for a few seconds, then looked past him at the truck. “Is everything okay?”

“What do you mean?”

She lowered her head and said softly, “I saw you. Deputy Rojas took our phones, but you pulled out another in the holding cell.” Her gaze drifted back to his. “Were you texting Deputy Rojas pretending to be your father? Was that his phone?”

He pulled away from her. Just barely. Just enough for her to notice, and she only did that because a light breeze rushed over a part of her arm he’d been protecting.

“He doesn’t actually know, yet, does he?” she asked, the realization startling. Why did he not only have his father’s truck, but his phone as well?

“I’ll tell him when he gets home.”

“Tomorrow morning?”

When he offered her a barely perceptible nod, she decided to drop it. He was lying. She could tell.

“You’d tell me if something were wrong, right?”

A sad smile spread across a face so handsome it stole her breath. “Right.”

Auri pedaled home more concerned than ever. In the last four months, Cruz’s dad had only let his son drive his truck a few times, and only when he was with him. But now, all of a sudden, he gets to drive it all over town? And Cruz had his phone to boot?

She had to figure out a way to ask her mother about Chris De los Santos, Cruz’s dad, without alerting her to the fact that something wasn’t right. She thought back to the last time she’d seen him. It was before spring break at the end of March. She hadn’t seen him since.

The Saviata Bridge was coming up, a narrow structure that bridged a shallow ravine. Having heard a vehicle approaching from behind her, Auri pulled to the side and waited with eyes closed, praying it wasn’t her mother. Or one of her mother’s deputies. Or her grandparents.

A vision hit her of her grandparents going in to check on her and finding her gone. They would panic. They would call her mom, the FBI, and National Guard. And then they would bring in the big guns. Her grandma’s book club.

The car, a tricked-out Nissan with the bass turned up loud enough to set off car alarms all over town, passed by without incident. Or it would have if Auri had been paying attention to her footing.

She was closer to the edge than she thought. Her foot slipped out from under her as the car passed and she tumbled down the ravine. Unfortunately, her bike followed.

Somewhere between doing the splits in midair and trying to balance the bike on the balls of her feet to keep it from crushing her head, she crash-landed on her back and slid the rest of the way down the steep ravine.

She lay at the bottom, listening to the trickle of water that bubbled mere inches from her head. After a moment, it became clear that the person in the Nissan was not going to help. She thought about calling out for help, but her rescuer could insist on calling Emergency, then where would she be?

Pushing against the metal contraption she’d been trapped under, she managed to move it a few inches before her foot slipped and it crashed down on her again. Pain shot through her ankle and shin. Her foot was somehow wedged between a metal bar and the chain.

This was a job for Superman. Or Cruz. Same dif.

After some maneuvering, and a few stabs of pain that had her seeing stars, she jammed her fingers into the slit in her jeans. Her phone, which didn’t quite fit all the way in her front pocket anyway, must’ve flown out during her performance.

She groaned and looked around. Her headlamp, still on, partially lit a small area off to her side. It picked up a flash of color in the dark part of the ravine below the bridge. Surely that was her phone. How to get to it was the real question.

Nothing was broken. She was certain of it. Her foot had decided to jam itself through the metal frame at an odd angle, because that’s what feet do. A car drove over the bridge, but the ravine was just steep enough to make it impossible for them to see her.

Leveraging her weight with her free arm, and wondering when she’d gained a hundred pounds because no way was she this weak, she huffed and puffed until she was a solid two inches closer to the flash of color. Reaching across the handlebars that were above her head, she angled the light for a clearer picture. It didn’t help. She still couldn’t tell what it was. Either way, it wasn’t her phone.

She scanned the area around her and finally saw it a couple of feet up the side. The lamp reflected off it when she moved it in that direction. Now for the real challenge. She had to get her foot free. Then she could get to her phone and call for help if she needed it.

After another test, she gave up and found a stick instead. Careful not to move her foot, she used all the powers of elasticity she could muster from the universe and her body—mostly her body—and reached up to coax her phone closer. After eons of grunting and groaning and sticking her tongue out of the side of her mouth because for some reason that helped, it slid down the ravine straight into her outstretched hand.

It was like she had superpowers. She vowed to use them for good.

With the chain digging into her skin, she was just about to call Cruz when the object not ten feet from her piqued her curiosity again. It wasn’t a usual shape like a bottle or a cup. It was ghostly in appearance and almost swan shaped.

In a last attempt to get a clearer image, she took a picture with her phone. But even with the night-vision mode, the image was grainy. She enlarged it until a shape formed. Something white and puffy. She enlarged the picture even more and just made out the shape of a hand, only it was swollen and disfigured.

Her stomach flip-flopped and clenched. She couldn’t move. Just when she’d convinced herself it was probably a mannequin, the breeze shifted and the putrid scent of death hit her like a wrecking ball.

Her lungs seized and she went completely still, suddenly scared that whatever had happened to the person lying in the ravine could happen to her. She was, once again, smack-dab in the middle of a crime scene. A crime scene that had to be secured.

Glancing around, she lowered the brightness on her phone, now scared she would attract attention, and brought up her contacts. With shaking fingers, she dialed her mother’s cell.

Her mom answered, her tone teasing. “It’s late. And you are grounded from your phone for all eternity. This better be good.”

“Mommy,” she said, her voice as small as she could make it.

Auri could hear the alarm in her mom’s voice when she said, “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“I—I think I found a dead body.”