A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones

28

Free belly rubs with exam!

(Sorry, pets only. And Levi Ravinder.)

—SIGN AT DEL SOL VETERINARY CLINIC

A little while later, Sun lay in his arms. Levi Ravinder’s arms. “What is this?” he asked, lifting up the key she had on a chain necklace around her neck.

“Oh.” She took it and tried to tuck it under the sheets. “It’s nothing.”

He propped himself up on an elbow and brought it out again. Held it between his fingers. Flipped it over and over. “Is this what I think it is?”

When they were kids, the Ravinders had been harassing her one summer afternoon. Hailey, who back then hated Sun with the fiery passion of, well, the sun, ripped off the chain she’d had around her neck, the one with the key to her house, and tossed it down Levi’s shorts.

It was the day everything was truly solidified for her. She fell in love. Because while the Ravinder cousins were hooting and hollering, Levi took out the key himself, fixed the chain, and put it back around her neck.

She learned that day what Levi was really made of, despite his crude upbringing.

“It’s just a key,” she said, trying to take it from him.

He took a closer look at the smiley face she’d engraved into it as a kid. “Is this the key from—”

“That day? Yes.” She snatched it back. “It’s my good luck charm. Everyone needs a good luck charm.”

“You’re right.” He bent and brushed his mouth over her jaw and down her neck.

“Do you have one?”

“Yes,” he said, absently, focused on more productive things.

“Really? What is it?”

He leaned back, the whiskey in his irises glistening, and said, “You, Shine. It’s always been you.”

Her heart swelled. Why had it taken them so long? She had so many questions. So many doubts, but she’d never doubted her feelings for him.

“Now, hush.” He bent again and made his way to a breast. A breast that betrayed her instantly by tightening under his touch. Then he started doing that thing with his tongue again, and her fingers clenched in his hair.

By the time he rolled on top and slid inside her, the pleasure in her core peaked almost instantly. He sucked a breath in through his teeth, then covered her mouth with his as though staking his claim. It was a claim she gladly relinquished.

Perhaps it was the angle of the light.

Levi had stood and was wrapping the towel around his waist again when she noticed them. His skin was so tight against his flesh, they were hard to see, but there on the left side of his lower abdomen were three indents. Three distinct scars. Three straight lines, each one about an inch in length.

Three knife wounds.

Her mind rushed into the past as a flood tide of memories flashed bright and hot. Two men fought in a downpour, but she couldn’t focus. Why couldn’t she focus? Was she hurt? Drugged? She couldn’t tell who the men were beyond the fact that one was young, just a boy, and one was older. Should she root for one or fear both?

The icy rain sliced into her flesh and chilled her bones and yet she was on fire. Hot and cold warred for her attention as the men struggled.

Her mind plucked a fact out of hindsight, a truth she didn’t know back then. One of the fighters was Kubrick Ravinder, the man who’d abducted her fifteen years ago. And the other one … he had to be Wynn. Kubrick’s brother. Because he’d rescued her.

But he didn’t have the scar on his wrist when she interviewed him in prison. Her rescuer had been bleeding from his wrist when he gave her water in his truck. A defensive wound, deep and ugly. A wound Wynn didn’t have. And yet the DNA test came back positive. It had to be Wynn.

Another memory ripped her from the present and dragged her into the past. They fought hard and Kubrick got her rescuer down. He wedged a knee into his throat, baring his teeth like an animal.

She could barely see past the rain, but she heard him when he said, “You’re gonna learn what it means to be a Ravinder, boy.”

Her rescuer scissor-hooked him and slammed him onto the ground. He was fast. Faster than Kubrick. And young. He scrambled on top of the older man before Kubrick could recover. From there, he began punching the older man in the face. Over and over. Pummeling him until he hovered in and out of consciousness. Then the kid did the same thing Kubrick had done to him. He lifted his knee onto the man’s throat and pressed his weight into his larynx.

Her rescuer was so focused on his mission, on crushing the man’s windpipe, that he missed the knife until it slid into his side. Sun realized she had to have known which one to root for even back then, because despite her disoriented state, fear washed over her. He kept the pressure on the man’s throat regardless, as though completely unaware he’d just been stabbed. Kubrick pulled the knife out and slid it into her rescuer again.

That time he stopped. Leaned back. Looked at the knife protruding from his gut as though in disbelief. Kubrick pulled it out again and the boy grabbed hold of his abdomen just as the older man slid it in a third time. It sliced into the boy’s wrist as well as punctured his midsection.

When Kubrick slid out the knife to repeat the heinous act a fourth time, the boy moved so fast, Sun’s mind didn’t register it until he held the knife perpendicular to Kubrick’s chest. Right over where his heart should have been if he’d had one.

Kubrick looked at him, hatred twisting his face as the boy rose onto his knees, pressed a palm to the hilt, and shifted all of his weight forward.

It sank into Kubrick’s chest in one smooth thrust. Kubrick stopped moving instantly, but he was still alive as he looked at his opponent, his face the picture of shock.

The boy kept his weight on the knife, waiting it out, his face mere centimeters from Kubrick’s. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen seconds, maybe as little as ten before Kubrick’s gaze slid past the boy and into oblivion.

He rolled off the older man, lay flat on his back for a couple more seconds, then stumbled to her, clutching his side. She looked up, tried to see through the shadows created by the hood, but the rain pelting her face made it impossible. Until one perfectly timed flash of lightning set the area ablaze with light. And in that briefest of moments, she saw him. His perfect face. His sculpted mouth. His strong brow.

Levi.

Her rescuer.

“What are you hungry for?”

She heard his voice from far away, but she was trapped in the past as he lifted her into his arms and stumbled forward. She was so wet he could hardly hold on. He fell to one knee, lifted her again, and charged forward just as she lost her battle with the encroaching darkness.

“I happen to make a mean fajita.”

Sun clawed her way back to the present. Tried to focus on the question. Tried to school her features. But the past kept tumbling around in her mind. She couldn’t get her footing.

“Hey,” he said, concern softening his face. “You okay?” He reached up and brushed something off her face. A tear?

She took the opportunity to look at his wrist. A scar, straight and deep, cut across the top side, probably to the bone, and she couldn’t believe the knife didn’t slice through an artery or sever a tendon.

He was there. If he wasn’t a part of the abduction scheme, why not tell her he rescued her? Why keep that a secret? And how did Wynn’s blood get on Kubrick’s jacket?

She tried to focus through the darkening edges of her vision.

“Vicram?” he said, growing wary.

“Yes.” She snapped out of it the best she could. “I, um, I have to get to the hospital. I told Auri I’d be there hours ago.” She hurried and gathered her clothes, throwing on the blouse braless when she couldn’t locate the damned thing.

He looked around confused, as though trying to figure out what had triggered the change in her behavior. She didn’t give him time to ask. She ran out of there so fast, she left a cloud of dust in her wake. At least it felt that way.

Once she was safely ensconced inside her cruiser, she threw it into reverse, peeled out, and called her lifeline.

She remembered heavy breathing, but not hers. Hers was shallow. Barely enough to form a wisp of smoke on the frigid air. She remembered a heartbeat racing in her ear, but not hers. Hers was weak. Barely enough to push the blood to and from her heart. She remembered a warmth around her, but not hers. She was ice and the warmth was doing its darnedest to keep her from freezing to death. She curled into it, begging for more.

He stumbled again, jostling her against him as he lifted her into the vehicle. Then he stepped back. Tried to catch his breath. Dropped to one knee and clutched his side, doubling over. But she wanted him closer because she was falling again. She didn’t want to lose him.

“Quincy,” she said into the phone as she tore down Levi’s long drive. “Where are you?”

A hand held the back of her head while another pushed a water bottle against her lips. A soft whisper encouraged her to drink. Water flooded her mouth, causing her to choke. She coughed, her stomach muscles writhing and constricting until she vomited.

She remembered the clear liquid soaking into his jacket, onto her pants, and running over the seat of a truck. Mortified, she tried to wipe it off but her limbs were filled with cement. Impossible to lift. And again she fell.

“I’m at the hospital,” Quincy said. “What’s wrong? Where are you?”

The overhead lights blinded her. She felt his warmth again. Heard the heartbeats in his chest. He called out. “Nurse!” But she couldn’t figure out why he was calling for a nurse in his truck.

No, not his truck. Too sterile. Too bright.

His warmth evaporated and the blinding lights overhead rushed past her. People’s faces popped in and out of her vision, all of them talking to her, but she was falling again. She reached out for him.

“Did you get a name?” someone asked.

“No. He took off. He looked hurt.”

He was gone.

Sun pressed the phone to her ear with a shoulder as she took the turn out of Levi’s drive too fast. Her tires spun and dirt billowed in her headlights. “I’ll be there in an hour,” she said, then hung up as her world spun in circles around her.

Auri and Cruz were asleep when she got to the hospital. Her parents had gone back to the hotel, and Quincy sat in the room scrolling through his phone. He shot to his feet when she walked in, questioning her with a single look.

“It was him,” she said, breathless from running and panicking and freaking out. “It was Levi. He fought with Kubrick. He got stabbed. He killed him and took me to the hospital and never said anything. After all these years, why wouldn’t he tell me?”

Quincy shook his head and led her out of the room. “That’s not possible. The DNA test. It was Wynn’s blood on Kubrick’s jacket,” he said as they walked toward the elevators.

“Where are we going?” she asked, oblivious.

“Coffee. Unless you want something stronger.”

“I want something stronger.”

They ended up at a bar on Central named after a tenacious frontierswoman and performer in the 1800s.

“It makes no sense,” he said, his brows knitting in confusion.

“They’re related,” Sun said, throwing back a shot of one of Levi’s creations, a butterscotch-flavored moonshine called Warm Butter Moon. It scorched her throat and she coughed before tapping the bar for another.

“I’ve never said anything out loud, but just an FYI, you don’t handle your liquor nearly as well as you think you do.”

“I know. I promise to take this one slower.” It was hot and sweet and delicious, much like its creator.

“And it doesn’t matter. The test would’ve told us if it was a relation or the real deal, and Wynn is the real deal.”

“It was him, Quince.” She ended up downing the drink after all. After another cough, she breathed cool air into her burning lungs, and said, “I remember. Only bits and pieces, but I remember.” She tapped the bar again. The bartender, a woman with rich brown hair and the most incredible gold irises Sun had ever seen, poured her another, but not before raising a quizzical brow.

Sun nodded and the woman poured, albeit reluctantly.

“You do realize that shit is a hundred proof,” Quincy said.

Again, just like its creator.

When she ignored him, he looked at the bartender. “What do you think?” he asked her.

She grinned, forming the most charming dimples at the corners of her mouth, and said, “In my limited experience, it always boils down to one, unmitigated fact. People lie.”

Quincy nodded. “And there you go.”

The bartender winked at him, then went to take another order at the end of the bar. It was a good thing, because next time Sun spoke, she did so with a slight slur. “I agree. People lie. Tests don’t.”

“Sun, you and I both know those tests aren’t foolproof and human error is a real thing, even in the world of forensics.”

“Especially in the world of forensics. It was odd, though,” she said, thinking back. “I’d sent those samples in months ago. True, I held on to them for too long, but it still took longer to get the results than I’d expected.”

“You didn’t get the results.”

“Yes, I did.”

“No. You never got them. You had to call the DPS for the results. And they just happened to be ready on the day you called?”

Sun took a sip of the warm liquid, her thoughts tumbling around in her brain like dice on a craps table. “On the day after we visited Wynn Ravinder in Arizona?”

“What’s the common denominator?”

“Nancy is a good friend of mine,” she said.

“Okay, who’s Nancy and what does she have to do with this case?”

“Nancy works at DPS. She ran the labs for this case.”

He leaned back in his chair. “As my mentor would say, when you’ve eliminated all the impossible crap, whatever crap remains, however improbable that crap may be, must be the true crap.” He turned to her. “I’m paraphrasing.”

She breathed through a head rush as though she were in labor and practicing Lamaze. Then she frowned at him. “I thought Allan Pinkerton was your mentor.”

“He’s my hero. Sherlock is my mentor.”

“I want a fictional character as a mentor.”

“I think Minnie Mouse is still available.”

“Okay,” she said, hopping off the stool, “I’m tired and I’m angry and I have a lot to process.”

“Clues?”

“No, carbs. I have a lot of carbs to process. I had a weak moment on the way over.”

“I hope you don’t think you’re driving.”

“Nope.” She tossed him her keys. “You are. We need to get to Santa Fe.”

He pouted. “I drank, too.”

“You took, like, three sips.”

“I’m being punished for not being a lush?”

“How is catching bad guys punishment?”

A sheepish grin slid across his handsome face. “Good point.”