A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones
9
If you refer to your librarian as your dealer, this is the place for you.
—SIGN AT DEL SOL PUBLIC LIBRARY
The more Auri dug, the more convinced she became that sweet little Mrs. Fairborn was indeed a raging, maniacal serial killer. But proving it could be sticky. Her mom would never let her investigate a cold case, especially when one of the pillars of the community was involved, albeit an old and crumbling pillar. So she’d been racking her brain to figure out how to prove the imposter’s guilt.
It took her all day, but she figured out how she could investigate Mrs. Fairborn without her mother finding out. It wasn’t like she could walk up to the woman and ask her if she killed all those people. Auri needed evidence. And there was only one place to get it: Mrs. Fairborn’s house.
She had no choice. She had to break in and find the evidence to nail the wily woman. Of course, she’d feel a lot better about it if Mrs. F. weren’t so danged adorable. Auri just needed to run it by Cruz and Sybil first, but Cruz wasn’t picking up and Sybil’s mom made her turn off her phone to do homework.
If Auri didn’t need a lookout, she would never involve Sybil. And if she didn’t need someone to do the breaking part of breaking and entering—a.k.a. picking locks—she would never involve Cruz. It was simply too dangerous. She could only hope they would make it out of the killer’s lair alive and relatively unmaimed. Then again, the woman had to be in her eighties. How much maiming could she do?
Auri waited for her grandparents to go on their date. Who knew old people dated? Or married people, for that matter? Then she headed off into the evening glow of an orange sun. She needed a car. She was getting her learner’s permit soon, but tonight, she’d have to put foot to bike pedal once more.
After flipping a coin, she rode her bike to Sybil’s first. The sun was setting fast and she figured she had about an hour before her grandparents got home. Although she did leave a note telling them she went to her and her mother’s house to take a shower. That would buy her another twenty minutes, hopefully, because the ride all the way out to the St. Aubin mansion took her twelve.
She dumped her turquoise bike in the tree line that separated their property and the forest beyond.
Ever since Sybil’s abduction and attempted murder, the St. Aubins had ramped up their security. The White House had nothing on them. There were, however, a couple of very slim blind spots Auri could squeeze through. The two girls had mapped them out by having Sybil watch the cameras and Auri walk the perimeter. It worked. They now had access to come and go as they pleased, but they weren’t exactly rebels, so they had yet to use their sneaky escape route to actually escape. It did come in handy, however, when all communication had been cut off.
Auri took out a handful of almonds from her front pocket. Much safer than rocks, as they’d learned a couple of months ago. Explaining the broken glass took imagination and finesse, but Sybil had pulled it off. After all, who would question her heartbreak when a bird flew through her window. There were tears and everything, and Mrs. St. Aubin only cared about consoling her grieving daughter, so she never asked to see the rock-shaped bird.
The girl could act.
Sybil came to her window, a huge smile lighting her face. She checked over her shoulder then motioned Auri up.
Auri had become a master of the trellis. A trellis master. A trellis aficionado. She climbed the thick wooden lattice and eased across the pitched eve to Sybil’s window.
“What are you doing here?” Sybil said after a quick hug, a bubbly giggle turning her voice into musical notes.
Auri clung to the windowsill for dear life, but didn’t dare go inside. It took too long for her to scramble back out the window should she need to flee to a safe distance. “I figured it out.”
“At last! I’m so glad for you, Auri.” She pushed her round glasses up her nose with her index finger, and asked, “What were you trying to figure out again?”
Auri laughed softly. “How we can prove that Mrs. Fairborn is a cold-blooded serial killer.”
Sybil pursed her lips. “It’s always the unassuming ones.”
“Right? So, a lot of the victims’ families describe various items their loved ones had with them at the time of their disappearance.”
“Oh, yeah. I read about a couple of them.”
“I found a complete inventory someone compiled. I figure Mrs. Fairborn must still have some of those items stashed in her house.”
“Makes sense.”
“If we find them, we catch the killer.”
Sybil grinned maniacally. It was a thing of mischievous beauty. No one would suspect the mild-mannered Sybil St. Aubin to have such an adventurous streak. In fact, if they were caught, no one would believe for a minute Sybil had colluded in their shenanigans. Everyone would blame the whole thing on Auri, as they should, which was one reason Auri decided to bring her in. Sybil and her guileless ways would be safe.
But she also couldn’t bring her into this completely clueless to the ramifications should they get caught. “I want you to think about this before you decide,” Auri said. “It could be dangerous, and we’ll only have a short window to get in and get out. But timing is of the essence.”
“Why?”
“Because Mrs. Fairborn confesses to every single crime committed in Del Sol.”
“Oh …kay.”
“And there was a crime last night.”
Sybil frowned. “Yeah, but that was a stabbing.”
“Exactly.”
“By three males.”
“Yes.”
“There were witnesses.”
“Yep.”
“And she’ll still confess.”
“Absolutely.”
“Hold on.” She held up a palm, calling for a time out. “Tiny, meek Mrs. Fairborn will confess to stabbing a man and running over Mr. Ravinder with a truck even though several witnesses saw exactly who did it?”
Auri twirled a finger around her ear. “I’m telling you, she’ll probably be in the station first thing tomorrow morning. And a crime like that will take her a while. She confesses in great detail.”
“How will we know she’s actually in there?”
It was Auri’s turn to grin maniacally. “I have an inside man.” Sybil gasped. “Is it Quincy? Should we coordinate with him? Go over the plan? Synchronize our watches?”
She frowned in confusion. “I guess, but why would we want to?”
Sybil blinked at her like she’d lost her mind.
Auri blinked back. “So, you’re in?” she asked after an awkward thirty seconds.
That grin Auri knew and loved reappeared. “I am so in.”
They shook hands to seal the deal, then hugged through the window. “See you tomorrow. Remember, wear something breakyand-entery.”
“You got it. Should I bring my lockpicking kit?”
Auri ogled her. “You can pick locks?”
After a flash of panic raced across her face, she said softly, as though embarrassed, “No.”
“Oh. Darn. Well, that’s okay. Bring it anyway. Maybe Cruz can use it.”
Sybil nodded in excitement.
Auri gave her another quick hug, then walked the narrow strip where the cameras wouldn’t catch her. The sky was beginning to darken and she took a wrong step about halfway. While the camera probably didn’t catch it, light flooded the manicured lawn.
She froze for all of five seconds, then ran for it. Sybil giggled at the window as Auri jumped onto her bike and rode around the perimeter to the drive, her pulse drumming in her ears, half expecting to hear sirens.
She rode as fast as she could for a solid two minutes before slowing down. No sirens. Always a good sign. Now onto her second target, the enigmatic Cruz De los Santos.
Cruz lived much closer to Auri, thankfully, but it still took her exactly ten minutes to make it down the mountain and back into town to his house.
She’d never snuck to Cruz’s house, but she knew his room was in the southwest corner around back. She leaned her bike against a tree and tiptoed around the house. Cruz’s light was on, so she hurried past the dark window of his dad’s room and crept up to his window.
Sheer curtains made it impossible to see clearly inside, but they were just barely open down the center creating a slit that she could see through. That was the exact moment she realized what a god must look like.
Cruz stood at his dresser with a towel around his waist. His dark hair and muscular shoulders glistened in the low light of his room as he searched for an item of clothing. Probably underwear, she realized. Heat spread up her neck. What was she doing?
She stood back and pretended not to have seen him when she knocked softly. He walked over, his blurred image getting closer and closer. She could still run. It wasn’t too late.
Then the curtains were open and his smile hit her like a nuclear bomb.
He raised the window, crossed his arms over his bare chest, and leaned against the frame. “If it isn’t Aurora Dawn Vicram. What brings you to the boonies?”
A grin she couldn’t have stopped with a restraining order spread across her face. “I have a proposition.”
He covered his incredible pecs with his hands, and asked, “Are you here to take advantage of me?”
She snorted. “No. Another kind of proposition.”
“Oh, well, come in anyway.” He gestured her inside, and while climbing into a window seemed great in theory, it was anything but.
He had to reach out and lift her over the sill as it dug into her shins. Her arms wrapped around his neck and he slid her inside where they fell back onto his bed, her on top.
She stilled and waited, making sure his dad didn’t come in.
“You know my dad can’t hear us,” he said, his voice hushed regardless and oddly strained.
Cruz’s dad was deaf, not that he let that stop him.
They waited a moment longer and Auri got to study Cruz’s strong features up close and personal. His eyes shimmered under spiked lashes, but they were red.
She giggled softly and asked, “How long were you in the shower?”
“Not long, why?”
“Your eyes are red.”
He turned his head and squeezed them with a thumb and index finger, then sniffed and said, “Allergies.”
“Are you sure? Your voice seems a bit scratchy.” She lifted a hand to his forehead.
He flashed her a nuclear smile, but it came on the heels of a momentary frown, almost as if he were hiding something. “I’m good. Better now.”
She’d been so focused on herself and her own silly life, she hadn’t picked up on the fact that Cruz did seem a bit different lately. Quieter. More reserved than usual. Which, for Cruz, was saying a lot.
“Cruz, is something going on?”
“You mean besides the hottie lying on top of me getting wet?”
“Hottie?” she asked, stunned. When he only grinned, his gaze traveling over her face, his words sank in. “Oh, right, sorry.” She started to squirm off, but he put a hand on her butt and held her to him.
“Hold on a sec. Don’t move just yet.”
Something powerful washed over her when his hand caressed her ass. A warmth spread throughout her body and pooled in her lower abdomen. “Why?”
“Well, I didn’t want to alarm you, but do you remember when I was helping you inside and we fell on the bed?”
“So, like, thirty seconds ago?”
“Yeah, my towel fell off.”
She went completely still, afraid to move. “You mean you’re … you’re naked?”
He nodded.
“Underneath me?”
He nodded again.
“What do we do?” she whispered, and the corners of his mouth formed the most breathtaking grin she’d ever seen. Part humor and part sensuality.
“I figure we have two options.”
“Okay,” she said, her pulse quickening with each sweep of his gaze across her face. Like she was beautiful. Like she could complement the likes of him.
“You can take off your clothes and join me—”
She sucked in a soft breath.
“—or you can close your eyes and roll off me. I promise to get dressed quickly.”
Without the slightest hint of hesitation, she squeezed her eyes shut and rolled.
He laughed and rose off the bed.
She heard him rummage through his dresser, then walk to his closet where a soft swoosh of material echoed in the room.
“Okay,” he said.
She sat up, lowered her hands, and lifted her lashes to find him in a pair of black gym shorts and an army-green T-shirt.
“Is that what you sleep in?” she asked.
“Depends on what’s clean.” He sat beside her. Close beside her. His warmth seeped into her skin. “So, what’s on your mind?”
“Oh, right.” She’d almost forgotten. “When we were helping my grandparents today, Sybil and I found clippings and reports from an old case with multiple missing persons right here in Del Sol.”
He lifted a strand of her hair and studied it. “Okay.”
“Long story short, we’re pretty sure Mrs. Fairborn is a serial killer.”
Surprise took hold of him. “Mrs. Fairborn?”
She nodded.
“The Mrs. Fairborn?”
She nodded again.
“The same Mrs. Fairborn who just celebrated her eightieth birthday?”
“Yep. And we need help breaking and entering into Mrs. Fairborn’s house tomorrow while she’s at the station confessing to stabbing that man at The Roadhouse and hitting Levi with a Toyota Tundra even though she can’t drive and has no car.”
“Okay.” He said it so nonchalantly, Auri tried to figure out how to make him understand.
“You’ll be doing the breaking.”
“Okay.”
“It’s illegal.”
A dimple creased one corner of his mouth. “Did you expect me to try to talk you out of it?”
“No. Well, maybe. A little.”
“The way I see it, if I get caught breaking into a house with the sheriff’s kid, my part in all of it will get swept under the rug.”
“You think my mother would sweep a third-degree felony under the rug?”
“Yes, I do. You’re her daughter.”
She scoffed. “You don’t know my mother very well.”
“I’m not saying you won’t get in trouble. I’m saying I won’t. Because you compelled me.” He tucked the strand of hair behind her ear. “I’d be under your spell. That’s something your mom will understand. I promise. Also, she likes me.”
Auri tilted her head. “She does, doesn’t she?”
“She let me stay in your room when she could’ve arrested me.”
“That says a lot.” Something dinged on Cruz’s small desk and Auri looked over at the clock perched atop it, the red digits forming the numbers eight zero zero.
“Oh, my God.” She catapulted to her feet. “Is that the time?”
“Did you sneak out again?”
“I’m so sorry.” She twirled around, looking for her things even though she didn’t have any. “I have to go.”
“I thought you were going to cut back.”
“My grandparents went out on a date. They’ll be back any second. Is that really the time?”
“Yes,” he said, casting her a sideways smirk.
“I’m dead. I am so dead.” She ran to the window and practically fell out of it. “Oh,” she said, turning back to him once she gained her footing, “wear comfortable clothes tomorrow and shoes you can sprint in, just in case we have to run from my mom.”
“Okay,” he said, watching her from the window.
Auri jumped on her bike and sped off. A light came on in the kitchen as she rode past and blind panic spurred her faster. She could only hope she didn’t get Cruz into trouble.
