A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones

26

Beer: So much more than just a breakfast drink.

—SIGN AT THE ROADHOUSE BAR AND GRILL

“Are you kidding me?” Sun walked in to find her parents frantically searching for her daughter. “You lost her again?”

They turned to her, frazzled and exasperated. Only Aurora Dawn could do that to them.

“You guys are fired.”

A tiny voice floated to them from the doorway. “Hey, Grandma. Hey, Grandpa.”

The queen of mischief hobbled in dragging her IV stand like a set of golf clubs.

“Auri,” Elaine said, rushing to her and pulling her into her arms. Cyrus soon followed. “Where did you go?”

“For a walk.”

Sun crossed her arms over her chest.

Auri caved like a cardboard roof during a rainstorm. “I went to apologize to Mrs. Fairborn.”

“Auri,” Sun scolded, helping her daughter into bed. “That poor woman doesn’t need you traumatizing her anymore. Seeing her without her permission at this point borders on unethical, honey.”

“But you’re about to take her home. It was now or never. And she was moaning.”

“I’m going to check on her. You stay.”

Auri’s tiny shoulders sagged but Sun didn’t miss the reassuring smile she cast across the hall to Cruz. They must’ve been exonerated by Mrs. Fairborn, which would be a weight off her chest.

They were releasing Mrs. Fairborn that afternoon, and Sun offered to drive her home. It was the least she could do, all things considered. She threatened her parents one last time for good measure, then went in search of a serial killer.

“That girl of yours is clever,” Mrs. Fairborn said after an hour of almost complete silence on the ride home. Mostly because she’d fallen asleep the instant they headed out of the parking lot.

“She is. Thank you.”

“Oh, can you run me by the Swirls-n-Curls, honey? I need to grab a couple of things.”

“Of course.” They pulled in back and Mrs. Fairborn handed her a list. Sun laughed and went inside to gather the essentials, which were already bagged and waiting for her.

Next, they went to the grocery store, where Mrs. Fairborn only needed toilet paper and Dr Pepper, and would she mind? Then to the hardware supply store where she swore she needed three rolls of electrical tape. It wasn’t until they ended up at the bait shop that Sun began to suspect the woman was leading her on a wild-goose chase, but to what end?

Sun couldn’t help but wonder if she was afraid to go home. No one would blame her. Several members of the community cleaned the crime scene at her house after forensics finished. They even replaced a couple of broken windows, fixed a leaky faucet, and brought her some individually packaged home-cooked meals.

But she was still attacked in her home. Her sanctuary invaded. The one place she felt safe had been violated. Sun couldn’t imagine how that felt.

“This is the very last stop,” she promised.

“Mrs. Fairborn, is there somewhere else I can take you? You don’t have to go home if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, no, honey. It’s okay. I just have one more thing to get.”

She blinked and looked out her windshield. “At The Angry Angler?”

“Yep.”

“You going fly-fishing?”

“Better. Angry fly-fishing. I hear it’s much more productive if you yell at the fish as you’re pulling them in.”

“I’ve heard that,” Sun said with a snort.

Sun saw Quincy walking in the back.

She opened the door and hopped out. “Quince, wait up.”

He turned. “Hey, boss.” He gestured toward the fishing shop. “Got a call about a disturbance.”

“Stay here, Mrs. Fairborn.” She locked her doors before heading inside, her palm on her duty weapon.

Quincy knocked on the back door and tried the knob. “It’s unlocked.”

She nodded.

He opened the door and they slipped inside to an empty storeroom. After they headed up front and cleared the floor, they looked at each other. The sign on the locked front door read CLOSED.

“No one’s here,” Quincy said, right before they heard a crash.

“Does this place have a basement?” she asked.

They hurried to a set of stairs beside a bookcase, which were not easily visible or accessible. They drew their duty weapons.

“Sheriff’s office!” Quincy said. “Show your hands!”

Sun followed him down a narrow set of stairs into a dark room just as the lights flared to life around them. She was blinded for a few vital seconds. When her vision adjusted, she looked around at a roomful of smiling faces.

She turned to Quince.

He turned to her. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“I was about to ask you that same thing.”

When she scanned the room again, she realized she knew every single person there, including Mrs. Fairborn, whom she’d just locked in her cruiser, and her parents. The same parents she’d just left in Albuquerque.

“Did you lose her again?” she asked them.

Her father grinned. “Don’t worry about the peanut. She’s in very good hands.”

Sun took another sweep and saw Mayor Donna Lomas standing off to the side with her arms crossed over her chest and a satisfied smirk crinkling her mouth.

“You can put those away,” she said, gesturing toward the guns.

They holstered their weapons, and Sun said, “Is this what I think it is?” Eleven of Del Sol’s finest in the basement of an angler’s shop. Because where else would they meet?

“You figured it out,” the mayor said. “Thus, it was time.”

“You figured what out?” Quincy asked her.

“That the mayor,” Sun said, sharpening her gaze on her, “is a bona fide, card-carrying member of the Dangerous Daughters.” That was the only explanation as to why Mayor Lomas would be so insistent that Sun figure out who they are. She had an ulterior motive, Sun just didn’t know what it was.

“They’re real?” he asked.

“They are. And I think I know why.” She eyed Mrs. Fairborn, the only one sitting in one of many chairs strewn about the beautifully appointed room. “This is about the case Auri stumbled onto.”

The twinkle in the older woman’s eyes was infectious. “It is. I told you, that girl of yours is clever. How she found that Press boy is beyond me.”

“The one who tried to kill you?” Quincy asked, his expression filled with horror. Then he frowned at the people standing around, smiling at him like they were part of a cult and he was this year’s sacrifice at the Autumn Harvest Festival. “Would someone fill me in?”

“Absolutely.” The mayor walked up to him and handed him a coin.

“Sordid?” He turned it over. “Son.” He looked back at her. “Yeah, this doesn’t clear anything up.”

“Maybe this will,” Mrs. Fairborn said. She stood, walked over to Sun, and handed her a coin as well.

While Quincy’s was yellow gold, hers was rose gold and heavily worn, the words almost rubbed off completely. She read aloud, as well. “Daughter.” She turned it over. “Dangerous.” She smiled. “The crown, so to speak.”

“That it is.” She cackled and pointed to it. “Don’t lose that. They’re irreplaceable. This coin was made in 1937 by a German clockmaker who dabbled in rare coins and designed the official seal for the Royal House of Ezra.”

Sun’s mouth formed an O.

Mrs. Fairborn giggled. “Just kidding. About them being irreplaceable, that is. I’ve lost my coin twelve—”

“Thirteen,” Elaine said.

“—thirteen times. But it is a pain in the ass to get them replaced. Just sayin’.”

Sun looked around at what would be called the pillars of the community. Not necessarily those who were on the city council or who were in positions of authority. They were the farmers and the business owners. The custodians and the educators. Even the high school principal was there. And the second love of her life, Royce Womack.

She shook her head. “I have to admit, I had no idea about the sons.”

“I’m Salacious,” he said, a wicked grin spreading behind his scruffy beard.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

One by one they were introduced to the Dangerous Daughters and the Sordid Sons. Daughters like Dastardly and Diabolical and Devilish, a.k.a., her mother. And sons like Savage and Sinful and Scandalous, a.k.a., her father.

“We’re being inducted,” she said, feeling both humbled and profoundly underqualified.

These were the sons and daughters of Del Sol. People who were born and raised in the town and hadn’t left for fifteen years like Sun did, though one, Rojas’s tia Darlene, did live in Albuquerque for a few years before coming back into the fold. She was the Daughter Dastardly.

“If you accept,” her mother said.

“And if we don’t?” she asked.

“Well, you’ve already seen our faces, so we’d have to kill you.”

“If you’re taking Mrs. Fairborn’s seat,” Quincy said, looking at his coin, “whose seat am I taking?”

She’d wondered that herself.

Royce dropped his gaze. “Bo Britton, son. Your former lieutenant.”

Bo, much beloved by the community, had died two weeks before Sun took over as sheriff. Quincy looked at the coin in his hand with a new respect.

Sun studied hers. “So, there’s always a baker’s dozen at any given time?”

“Yes,” the mayor said. “Seven women and six men.”

“And we’re lucky to get that much,” Royce said. “Mrs. Fairborn was very reluctant to let any man have a say in her secret club.”

Mrs. Fairborn nodded. “The women will always have the final vote.”

“Then we’re missing one.” Sun counted again.

“Sinister,” the mayor confirmed. “While you are the reigning queen, so to speak, he would be—”

“The king?” she asked.

“More like the prince,” Mrs. Fairborn said. “No one has more power in this group than the queen. He couldn’t be here today, but he’s already cast his vote.”

“As we all have,” her dad said.

An emotion she hadn’t expected threatened to close her throat. She managed to get out two words: “I’m honored.”

Quincy nodded, unable to speak himself.

Sun helped Mrs. Fairborn back to her chair and knelt in front of her. “This is a big day for you. Passing on the torch.”

The woman nodded sadly. “More than fifty years I’ve been running this town. Well, the most important aspects of it.”

“Why now?”

“I was waiting for you. Thought you’d never come back. Eventually, we realized we’d have to force your hand.”

“You were involved with my parents’ election tampering?”

“Involved? It was my idea.”

Her parents laughed softly. “It was not her idea,” her mom said.

“But why me?” she asked. “I’m honored. Don’t get me wrong, but—”

“A butterfly and a hammer,” the older woman said.

She and Quincy exchanged a quick glance, then asked simultaneously, “A butterfly and a hammer?”

She cackled. “You may not remember this, but when you were very young, I found you in the park cradling a pitiful little butterfly in your hands.”

“King Henry,” she said. She hadn’t thought about him in years. “He was orange and black.”

“Yes. Poor little guy had tattered wings and couldn’t fly. Some boys were laughing and trying to kick it. And you, in all your five-year-old glory, stormed into the middle of their circle and ran them off. Then you picked up the butterfly, cradled it in your hands, and told me you were taking it to the vet.”

“I remember. My mom wouldn’t take it to the vet. She said they didn’t treat insects.”

Mrs. Fairborn nodded. “You were devastated. I’ll never forget the look on your face when your mother told you it was going to die. So you took it home and cared for that poor thing day and night for almost two weeks because you wanted it to feel happy and safe for the rest of its life, no matter how long that would be.”

“You never told me that story,” Quince said.

“I’d forgotten about it.”

“I didn’t,” Mrs. Fairborn said. “Your mother kept me updated. When it died, she was worried she was going to have to get you into grief counseling.”

Sun smirked. “Figures.”

“So where does the hammer come in?” Quince asked.

Mrs. Fairborn practically shimmied with mirth. “When I saw Little Miss Sunshine at the park right after the butterfly’s passing, God rest its soul, she was carrying a hammer.”

Sun frowned. “I don’t remember this part.”

“You stopped at the bench where I was sitting, pointed to the boys who’d been cruel to the butterfly, and told me you were going to take out their kneecaps.” She rocked back and clapped her hands, her laughter filling the room, her glee infectious.

Sun fought a sheepish grin.

“You almost pulled it off, too. I’d never seen boys run so fast in my life. If not for your mother capturing you mid-swing, your parents would’ve had several lawsuits on their hands.”

Sun laughed, thinking back, then asked, “So that’s why?”

The older woman leaned forward. “That was only the beginning. I’ve been watching you, Sunbeam.” She tapped her temple. “You have all the fire and passion I once had. You’re the one I want filling my shoes.”

Sun took Mrs. Fairborn’s hands into hers. “Thank you.”

“How did all this get started?” Quincy asked. He brought around a chair for Sun and took one beside them. Everyone else did the same so they could hear the story once more. “The whole Dangerous Daughters thing.”

“Like Sunny said. It started with the missing persons cases. It’s so odd. It just doesn’t seem like that long ago.”

Sun leaned on her elbows and listened.

“Aurora was right. The people who went missing in the late fifties and early sixties, many of them anyway, had stayed with us at the boardinghouse. For almost a decade, travelers and the like just disappeared. Not many, mind you. Maybe one or two a year. Sometimes they’d leave some of their belongings. They’d head out at all hours and we wouldn’t hear about the fact that they never made it to their destinations for weeks. Sometimes months, if at all.”

Royce brought Mrs. Fairborn a cup of tea and put it on a side table.

“Thank you, Sheriff.”

Sun smiled. Lots of people in town still called Royce “Sheriff.” She loved it. If she could co-sheriff with anyone, it would be with that grizzly bear.

“But it was the Emily Press case that brought it all to the forefront. The papers got wind that she’d stolen a necklace, an old family heirloom, and was headed to Colorado to meet up with her beau when she disappeared.”

“The necklace Billy Press was after?” Quincy asked.

“Yes, sir. That’s when I first started to suspect. I found the necklace in the dresser of my husband, Mortimer. He said Miss Press forgot it when she took off, but I knew. Deep down, I knew he was killing those people for what little they had.”

She took her cup into a shaky hand and sipped to calm herself, a haunted expression on her face. “He killed that sweet girl. He killed them all.”

“I’m sorry,” Quince said.

“Me too.” Sun squeezed her hand. “I think this story should be told. The world needs to know who the real killer was.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that. I have that rascally daughter of yours working on it.”

Uh-oh. Not sure if that was a good thing or a bad one, Sun acquiesced with a nod.

“Mortimer didn’t expect the firestorm he brought down on us. The family wanted that necklace back like the dickens. And, quite frankly, they were willing to move heaven and earth to get it. They had all kinds of investigators comb through this town and the whole area. We even had gen-you-wine Pinkertons in town.”

“Wow,” Quincy said. He’d wanted to become a Pinkerton at one point. Allan Pinkerton had been a hero of his since he’d read about how the man saved Lincoln’s life and helped with the Underground Railroad. “But I didn’t think the necklace was worth that much.”

“According to the family, it wasn’t. Said they wanted it for sentimental reasons.”

“You didn’t buy it,” Sun said.

“Not in the least. But my husband got it in his head it was worth a lot of money to them, so he was going to demand a ransom of sorts. In the meantime, the detectives began to realize that more than a handful of people who stayed at our boardinghouse went missing soon after. It did not look good.”

“That’s when you figured it out?”

“I confronted Mortimer about the killings before he could send his ransom demand.” She took another sip. “Let’s just say, Billy Press was not the first man to die in my kitchen.”

Quincy and Sun both sat back in unison.

“You killed him?” Quincy asked.

“Yes and no. I told him I was going to tell the sheriff everything and, well, he flat did not want me to. Went to kill me with a toaster. When he grabbed it, I plugged it in real fast and he electrocuted himself.” She shook her head. “I kept telling him to fix that old thing.”

Sun covered her mouth and cleared her throat. It was horrific and hilarious at once.

“But with all the detectives running around, and now with Mortimer dead, I was afraid they’d think I was the killer. So, I buried him in the backyard, planted a cherry tree on top, and called it a day.”

That time Quincy covered his mouth under the guise of deep thinking. He scrunched his brows together and everything.

Sun agreed. The image of Mrs. Fairborn hurrying to plug in a toaster to electrocute her husband was too much, but she and Quincy were now in one of those surreal situations where they were making an oath to a group of people that usually—but not always—had motivations and loyalties that lined up with the law. And they’d taken an oath to uphold said law, so what would happen when that was not the case? When one of those group decisions contradicted with their oath? What would they do then?

Mrs. Fairborn’s actions were clearly self-defense. But one thing was certain: the next few months would be interesting. Sun had no doubt.

“As you may have guessed,” Mrs. Fairborn continued, “I couldn’t take it. The guilt was eating me alive. So, about a week after I planted Mortimer, I went to the sheriff, that old bastard Campbell Scott, and confessed everything.” She cackled. “You should have seen the look on his face when I told him.”

“He didn’t think you could do it?”

“Oh, no. He knew I had it in me. I’d gone steady with him before I met Mortimer. The problem was, he was having an affair. He’d found himself a young filly on the side and I knew it. When he figured out I knew the truth and he could lose all that shiny money he’d married into, he told me I was mistaken about Mortimer being the killer. Said I was confused. Said I was—my favorite word—hysterical.”

Ah. One of Sun’s favorite words as well. Not.

“He told me they’d found the man responsible for the missing people over the years. Said a drifter by the name of Hercules Holmes had one of the missing men’s wallets.”

“Who was Hercules Holmes?” Quince asked.

“Just like he said. A drifter in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“But how would a man passing through town be responsible for all of those other people’s deaths over the years? Didn’t the detectives think of that?”

She shook her head. “They didn’t much care. Once Hercules escaped the jail, their only lead was gone. They had nothing to go on and the family had no way of getting the necklace back. When they found Hercules dead two weeks later, the investigation fizzled.”

“Did they ever find who killed him?”

“No. And it’s funny how I was never brought up on charges myself. I guess Campbell figured if I stayed quiet, he’d stay quiet.”

Sun gave her a dubious grin. “That doesn’t much sound like you.”

“It doesn’t, does it? By that point, I’d had about enough of men and their handling of things around town. We were getting to be a bit of a tourist town, even back then, and I knew things needed to be handled right and corruption needed to be brought to a minimum, so I brought the Dangerous Daughters to life.”

“And later the Sordid Sons,” Cyrus said.

Sun looked up at her dad. So proud of him.

“Also, for the record, the fact that Sheriff Campbell Scott went missing himself a few months later had nothing to do with me.”

Sun and Quincy exchanged glances and decided to let it go. For now.

“Wait,” Sun said, thinking back to her research. “I thought the Dangerous Daughters was formed in the thirties after the mines shut down and a bunch of women were left undefended when the men went off to find work elsewhere.”

Even the mayor was surprised by her question. “You really did your homework.”

“Told you,” Mrs. Fairborn said. She held out her hand and the mayor slapped a five into it. The older woman cackled again and stuffed it into her bra before turning back to them. “I suppose I should have said I brought the Dangerous Daughters back to life. My mother first started them when a group of men came in and tried to take over the town. And the women running it. There were about a dozen men. An outlaw gang called the Oxford Boys.”

“Why?” the mayor asked.

“I think it had something to do with their shoes. All spit shined and fancy.”

“Makes sense.”

“And what’s an outlaw gang to do when it finds a town full of women all alone and defenseless?” When Sun only smiled, she said, “And that, my dear, is the true beginning of the Double Ds.”

“Wow.” Quincy sat back in thought.

“What happens now?” Sun asked. “We’re just part of the gang?”

“You need to learn our mission statement and rules and swear to uphold them, but yeah. For the most part.”

“Rules like?”

“Our main mission is to shift the balance from those susceptible to corruption, those with too much power, and even it out,” her mother said.

Royce expanded on that. “And we cannot ever use our position to gain power or favor for ourselves, to sway a vote on the city council for personal gain that does not benefit the whole town, for example.”

“You’re fighting basic human nature,” Sun said thoughtfully. “Who wouldn’t use their position to get a little extra parking at their business, if possible?”

“Which is why there are thirteen of us. We keep each other in line.”

“Boy, do they,” Ruby Moore, the woman with the affinity for baking cursed muffins, said with a roll of her eyes. “Don’t even try to get special permission to hold a mass séance in the cemetery on All-Hallows Eve. You would’ve thought I was asking permission to kill my husband and bury his body in the backyard.”

The mayor reminded her, “You did ask permission to kill your husband and bury his body in the backyard.”

“I was joking.” She glanced around. “It was a joke.”

“Our system is far from perfect, Sunshine,” Mrs. Fairborn said. “But it’s the best we can make it and it’s worked well for the past fifty-plus years.”

Sun crossed her arms over her chest. “I think it’s amazing, Mrs. Fairborn. What you’ve done.”

“Does that mean you’re in?”

She lifted a shoulder. “I’m in.” Really, how could she not be?

“And you, Chief Deputy Cooper?” Cyrus asked Quincy.

“I was in the minute you gave me this coin.” He admired it again and Sun laughed softly. He was like a chipmunk in fall.

They served a dinner for Mrs. Fairborn, all of her favorites, but Sun could tell she was getting tired.

She pulled her aside. “If you’re ready to get some rest, I can take you home.” The woman did just get out of the hospital, after all.

Was that what all of this was about? Did the sons and daughters choose today because they were worried about her? Or had today been the plan all along and the attack was just bad timing?

“I guess I am getting a little tired,” Mrs. Fairborn said. She reached into her mammoth bag and handed a small tin to Sun. It was an antique sewing kit, the box rusted and the paint peeling. “This is for you. She who wears the crown …”

“Mrs. Fairborn, I am beyond honored to have been accepted into this organization, especially considering the limited seating, but the crown? For me to be Dangerous … I mean, the others have been here so much longer. They’ve put in the time and served the town.”

“Sweetheart.” She patted her arm. “I chose you as my successor over ten years ago.”

Sun felt her eyes widen. “I don’t understand.”

“The way you handled … well, everything. I knew you were the one.”

The abduction. Of course. “I hardly handled anything, Mrs. Fairborn. It happened. I just dealt with it the best way I knew how. If it weren’t for my parents, I would’ve been lost.”

“That’s all any of us can do, love. But I disagree. I think, with or without your parents, you would’ve handled it all exactly the way you did. Not with anger or resentment, but with dignity and grace and, dare I say, a healthy dose of fuck you.”

A bubble of laughter erupted from Sun’s chest.

“You refused to let what happened stop you, to use it as a crutch, and you’ve only ever done right by that baby girl of yours.”

“She’s easy to do right by,” Sun said, her appreciation boundless.

Mrs. Fairborn pushed the tin into her hands. “Like I said, she who wears the crown …”

Sun opened it. It was an assortment of odds and ends one might find at the bottom of a junk drawer. She rifled through it and brought out an old driver’s license.

“Eugene Cosgrove,” Mrs. Fairborn said. “Thirty-four years old. Steelworker from Pittsburgh. Headed to California for the American dream. Went missing November of ’59.”

She put it back and brought out a tortoiseshell comb.

“Virginia Bagwell. Fifty-four years old. Frontierswoman and explorer. Shot two men dead while helping to save a family in south Texas from a racially motivated attack. Went missing August of ’63.”

She placed it gently in the box and brought out a gold band.

“Martin Gallegos. Thirty-eight years old. Headed to California to look for work. Left behind a wife and six children. Went missing May of ’61. His youngest son went on to head one of the most successful detective agencies in the Southwest.”

She rubbed her fingertips over the tarnished gold, put it back, and pulled out a silver money clip.

“Darren Honeywell. He was an asshole.”

She replaced the clip with a soft laugh and picked up a vial of perfume.

“Emily Press. Twenty-three years old. Took a necklace worth a couple hundred dollars at the time that was left to her specifically by her grandmother and ran from her abusive uncle. Went missing April of ’65.”

“You have all of these memorized,” Sun said, astonished and heartbroken at the same time.

“It’s all in my notes. All the people. All the families. I found Mortimer’s trunk in the carriage house after he died. Took me years of research to figure out who some of them were. Three were drifters I could find nothing on. And two more are still unaccounted for. I thought maybe you could pick up where I left off.” She handed Sun a file folder. The first page was a photo of the old-fashioned leather trunk.

“How do you know for sure there were twenty-three?”

She pointed to a strap on the top. “He kept a running tally. Notches in the top of the trunk. I could only find information on twenty-one. But the trunk and everything in it is yours. And Aurora’s, of course. I have a feeling she would love to try to find the last two of my husband’s victims. To be able to contact their families and let them know what happened to their loved ones.”

“There are twenty-four notches,” Sun said, counting again.

“Yeah, that last one is for Mortimer. Thought he’d like to see how it felt to have one’s entire life reduced to a notch in a leather strap.”

Sun studied the frail woman at her side. Marveled at her tenacity. “Have you contacted any of these families yet?”

“Nah. I don’t figure they want to hear from the widow of the man who killed their loved ones. You can, though. I’m sure they would like answers, even sixty years later.”

“You realize Auri is going to take this and run with it.”

The older woman’s eyes sparkled with warmth. “I’m counting on it.”

A little while later, Quincy walked up to her as everyone sat around a table, an Arthurian round table made of thick wood and iron hardware, laughing and talking about Mrs. Fairborn and her antics. Her penchant for confessing to every crime ever committed came up often and lent itself to a lot of hearty laughter.

It was simply one of her quirks. How she coped with the horrors she’d endured, perhaps.

But the dinner, while very nice and nostalgic and heartfelt, saddened Sun to the depths of her soul. The entire town should be celebrating this woman’s life. Not just the people in this room.

Quincy leaned closer and had clearly been thinking the same thing. “This isn’t enough,” he said, sad himself. “After everything she’s done.”

“I agree.” Then a thought hit her. “Hey, remember Gentleman Jack?”

He leveled a stoic expression on her. “What does the hamster you had when we were five have to do with anything?”

“You gave him a wonderful celebration of life when he died.”

He thought back. “Oh, yeah. I did.”

She decided to forgo reminding him how he cried over GJ for days. “Maybe we could do that for Mrs. Fairborn only while she’s still with us. Like on her next birthday.”

He brightened. “I could totally do that.”

“Okay, it’s next week.”

“Oh, hell.” His mind raced. “I have so much to do. I need to call the caterer. And get napkins ordered. And what about a champagne fountain?”

Oh, yeah. He clearly missed his calling. He stood to make some calls.

“You okay, Sunny?”

She turned to see her dad take a seat beside her. “I am. I’m so honored, Dad.”

“But?”

“I’m just not sure I’m the girl for this.”

“I have to be honest. I don’t think Mrs. Fairborn has been wrong a day in her life.”

“She married Mortimer.”

“Touché.”

She laughed, and then thought about what Rojas had said. “Can I ask you something completely unrelated?”

He took a swig of root beer as though it were a microbrew, and said, “Always.”

“There’s no delicate way of putting this, so here goes. Were you ever in prison?”

He’d been in the middle of downing the rest of his brewski when she’d asked. He spit out the last swallow and proceeded to cough for the next five minutes. His face turned a sickly shade of purple and he gagged—a lot—repeating one sound over and over that reminded Sun of someone trying to start a chainsaw.

Clearly, she was on to something.

Her mother rushed over and took the opportunity to beat him senseless, asking if he needed water. Or CPR. Or Vicks VapoRub.

After another couple of minutes where he had to wave off all the expressions of concern surrounding him, he looked Sun square in the face, and said as calmly as a windless summer day, “No. Why do you ask?”

She blinked at him.

Her mother beat him on the back again for good measure.

He blinked at Sun.

“Okay, then,” she said. “We’ll circle back to that. For now, I’m going to go see if Levi wants to have sex with me.”

It was her mother’s turn to cough, only she coughed more delicately, and her gag sounded less like a chainsaw and more like the plumbing had backed up.

On the bright side, her dad got to beat her mom for a bit. Good times.

She pulled the tin box close to her chest, proof that this precious thing called life could be taken away with the snap of a finger. It was too short, and Sun had too many things she wanted to accomplish before her journey came to an end.

Having copious amounts of sex with the man of her dreams had been at the top of her bucket list for decades, and she wasn’t getting any younger. Anything more would be pushing her luck, as they’d never really been on the same page about these things, but she would not go to her grave without having at least tried to have sex—real sex—with the man.

After her mother recovered, she cleared her throat, and said, “Thank God.” She looked at her husband. “We can cancel that idiot Johnson boy.”

“What idiot Johnson boy?”

Her mother opened her bag, took out a sheet of paper, and handed it to her.

Quincy, apparently having finished organizing Mrs. Fairborn’s celebration of life, sat beside her and read over her shoulder. It was a list of names with the three at the top crossed out. Jay Johnson was next.

“You have a list?” she asked appalled. “You’re just going down a list?”

“I like to be organized.”

Quincy leaned over and pointed to a name.

“Joshua Ravinder?” she screeched. “You were going to set me up with Levi’s cousin?”

Her mother pressed her mouth together. “It’s a small town, honey. Our choices are limited.”

Her dad patted her hand. “We didn’t know how else to make you see the light.”

“And what light would that be? The red one? Because you guys clearly shop at Pimps-R-Us.”

Her mother pinched her lips tighter. “Don’t be dramatic, dear. We had to make you realize that nobody else was right for you.”

“Nobody else? You mean other than a hired assassin?”

“You’re never going to let us live that down, are you?”

“Not in this lifetime.”

Quincy put an arm around her shoulders and rocked her as she went through three of the five stages of grief.