A Good Day for Chardonnay

by Darynda Jones

  “Do any of them haunt you?”

  “Yes.”

  Too much of a gentleman to ask her which ones, he nodded but kept silent, so she explained. He needed to know she was far from perfect. Everyone was. “My very first case as a detective.”

  He leaned onto his elbows, his interest piqued.

  “Missing boy. The father on trial for securities fraud. The mother a puddle of nerves.”

  “What happened?”

  The tightening in her chest proved she was still not over it. Over him. A five-year-old boy with huge brown eyes and a nuclear smile. He’d haunted her dreams for seven years. “He … we never found him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. Just know, Rojas, we can’t win them all. We do the best with what we have and try to make it home to our loved ones every night.” When he only nodded, unconvinced, she added, “And I chose you for a reason. Never doubt that. But if you need to talk about anything, you know where I live.”

  “Thanks, boss.”

  Zee walked into the station, dart gun in hand, and Rojas almost broke his neck to get a clear view.

  He nodded a hello as she walked past the office door, then said, “That girl can shoot.”

  “Yes, she can.”

  “Remind me not to piss her off.”

  “Don’t piss her off.” Sun motioned Quincy back into the office when he questioned her with a wave. “I think we both need to stay on the straight and narrow where Zee is concerned.”

  “She would never shoot me,” Quincy said as he walked in to hand her a form that needed her signature. “What with us being twins and all.”

  Rojas scoffed. “You’ve clearly never had a real sibling.”

  Quincy scratched his brow with his middle finger as Sun studied the form.

  Rojas chuckled.

  Oh yeah, they were going to get along great.

  “Is raccoon chow even a real thing?” she asked when she looked over the new expenditures Quince was trying to sneak through.

  Before he could answer, Salazar walked into the office and spotted the sleeping prisoner. “Oooooh,” she cooed, rushing forward and poking her finger through the bars. Sun made a mental note to schedule wildlife training ASAP. “He’s so cute.”

  “I call dibs on partner-in-petty-crimes,” Quince said.

  Salazar pouted, her baby face appearing even younger. “I’m never going to get a partner-in-petty-crimes. I even wished for one on a shooting star when I was a kid.”

  How sweet.

  He draped an arm over her shoulders. “It’ll happen. Someday when you least expect it, bam. Your soulmate will appear. Your spirit animal. Your partner-in-petty-crimes. It’s kismet.”

  “You think so?”

  He turned her to face him and bent until they were eye-to-eye. Thus, a lot. “I know so. You can’t give up hope, Salazar.”

  The young deputy rewarded him with a sheepish grin. “Thanks, Chief Cooper.”

  Sun laughed softly and grabbed her bag. “I’m heading home. You guys need to do the same. Big day tomorrow. Huge.” She opened her arms wide to demonstrate. “Massive day.”

  Everyone stopped and gave her their full attention.

  “What’s tomorrow?” Quince asked.

  “Sunday.”

  “And?”

  “My day off.”

  “That constitutes a big day?”

  “It does when I haven’t had a day off in four months.”

  “That’s not true.” He held up an index finger. “You took a day off when you chased Doug under Cargita Bridge and knocked yourself out.”

  Doug had decided to flash his greatest assets to Mrs. Papadeaux one time too many. Sun wasn’t chasing Doug so much as Mrs. Papadeaux. She was trying to kill him with a melon baller. Sun thought Doug would’ve learned his lesson the last time Mrs. Papadeaux chased him out in traffic and caused a pileup in their tiny town. Alas, he did not.

  Sun still had nightmares about the woman’s plans for Doug and how the melon baller fit in. “There was a snake,” she said defensively from over her shoulder. “It startled me. And that was half a day. It doesn’t count if you’re unconscious.”

  “Really? Then I haven’t had a day off in years. I demand back pay!” he called out to her as she exited the station.

  Her phone rang. She checked the ID. Auri. Her auburn-haired juvenile delinquent. Her reason for living and trying really hard not to go to prison for murder.

  She tapped the screen. “Hey, bug bite.”

  “How bad is it?” Auri asked in a hushed voice.

  “He attacked me but I’m okay.”

  “Mom!” she said, ditching the whole covert thing. “He attacked you?”

  “Hopefully I won’t get rabies. Rabies suck. Or sucks. Is rabies plural? Can one acquire a single raby?”

  “What the crap?”

  “Language.”

  “Why did he attack you?”

  “Probably because we were trying to tranquilize him and stuff him into a cage.”

  “Oh, my God! Grandma and Grandpa are never setting you up again.”

  This was far too much fun not to continue. “I agree. This has to stop. I decided about halfway through the date your grandparents have to die.”

  “You can’t kill Grandma and Grandpa. We’ve discussed this.”

  “Can too. You need to dig out your mourning clothes.”

  “You’ll go to jail.”

  “At least six months’ worth.”

  “You know what happens to cops in jail.”

  “Think layers.”

  “Besides, people don’t wear mourning clothes anymore.”

  “All black.”

  “Wait, really? I love black. Can I paint my nails black, too?”

  “I encourage it. You can be Del Sol’s only goth.”

  “Clearly you haven’t been to high school lately. Also, no killing Grandma and Grandpa.”

  “You’re sucking the joy out of my life right now.”

  “I’m a teenager. Isn’t that, like, my job?”

  Sun chuckled. “I’m on my way home.”

  “Grandma made brussels sprout casserole.”

  “So, pizza?”

  “Yes, please. With extra pepperoni.”

  “You got it, kid.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Sun dropped the pizza box on the counter, peeled off her boots, and practically ripped off her bra—without removing her sweater, of course—wiggling out of it before making a beeline for the fridge. There was a bottle of wine in there calling her name. Or calling her names. She could’ve sworn she heard the word lush coming from that general vicinity.

  After filling her glass to the rim, she took out her phone to text Auri about the pizza, when it rang. The caller ID IDed the caller, as was its sole purpose in life. She answered Quincy’s summons with a resounding, brook-no-arguments, “No.”

  “You want to hear this.”

  She took a sip, then shook her head. “No, I don’t. I have a full thirty-six hours off. I’m squeezing every possible second out of them so I can come back refreshed and invigorated and less desirous to kill randomly.”

  “That’s probably a good idea, what with you being the sheriff and all. I’ll just tell the ambulance driver parked outside The Roadhouse to take Ravinder straight to the hospital. You can interview him about the near-fatal stabbing at his bar on Monday when you’re refreshed and—”

  She’d sucked in a breath mid-sip and cut him off with a round of loud, hacking coughs. “I’ll be there in five,” she said, her voice strained.

  After almost leaving without her boots, she jammed her feet back into them, zipped them up, then sprinted out the door, forgetting her bra draped over the back of her sofa. Gawd, she was good at this sheriff thing.

  Skidding her cruiser to a stop like a professional drifter three-point-five minutes later outside The Roadhouse Bar and Grill, she sent dirt flying over Quincy’s cruiser. And Quincy. The station received it
s fair share of calls pertaining to the rather seedy establishment, but never a stabbing. At least none that she knew of.

  The way Sun understood it, the bar was owned by the Ravinder family as a whole, but mostly run by Levi’s uncle Clay and a couple of Ravinder cousins with Levi holding a controlling interest. Or so she’d been told. He seemed to have final say in how things were run. A good thing, since he and his sister were the only levelheaded ones out of the bunch.

  Lights bounced off everything around Sun as she jumped out of her cruiser and ducked under a strip of yellow tape, something she’d seen used only one other time during her four-month stint as sheriff of the sleepy tourist town, and that involved a truck, a herd of chickens, and a pallet of warming lubricant.

  An ambulance and a fire truck sat in the lot along with two of her deputies’ cars, lights blazing in the darkness from all four first-responder vehicles.

  Salazar was already taking statements while Zee held off a small crowd of inebriated gawkers, several of whom were women who just wanted to make sure Levi was okay. Sun didn’t realize her former—and admittedly current—crush had such a dedicated following. Not that it surprised her.

  She hurried past just as Quincy closed the door to the ambulance. He banged on it to give the go-ahead, then brushed himself off as it sped away.

  Her heart sputtered and stumbled before restarting again. Her fingers tingled and she curled them into fists, pressing her nails into her palms. Apprehension had taken a stranglehold. She uncurled the fists. Slid her hands down her hips. Forced herself to calm.

  “Is he okay?” she asked Quince, the thought of Levi seriously injured darkening the edges of her vision.

  “Don’t know.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t look good.”

  It took every ounce of strength she had to not run back to her cruiser and chase after the ambulance. She’d wanted to see him before they took him away. If it were really that bad, she might not get a chance to talk to him before the medical center had to airlift him to Albuquerque.

  Even if she did go to see him at this juncture, she’d only be in the way. She needed to let the professionals do their jobs and, more importantly, she needed to do hers.

  She compelled herself to take a beat, to fill her lungs before asking, “What happened here?”

  Quincy pointed to another taped-off area between two vehicles. A taped-off area drowning in blood. Huge dark shadows pooled between the tires of the vehicles and streaks of it painted the light-colored cars like graffiti. She bit down so hard her jaw hurt and tears stung the backs of her eyes.

  “From what we can tell,” Quince said, leading her closer, “three men jumped a Roadhouse patron and Ravinder came out to help.”

  She closed her lids. Of course, he did. When she lifted them again, Quince had turned around and was gesturing toward the road.

  “He paid the price, too. There’s security footage. We’ll know more once we get a good look, but from what we’ve learned so far, he’s damned lucky to be alive. According to the breakfast club over there,” he said, pointing to the witnesses, “that pickup hit him dead on.”

  Sun stilled. “Pickup?”

  “They backed up and tried to run him over again. Apparently, your guy has the reflexes of a mountain lion. Their words.”

  “I … I thought it was a stabbing.”

  “Right. The victim was beaten and stabbed multiple times. He also has some pretty serious defensive wounds.” He turned back to the blood-soaked crime scene.

  “The victim?” she asked, now frowning in confusion.

  Quincy frowned, too. Then realization dawned and a knowing grin emerged. He took her chin and lifted her gaze to his. “Your guy’s okay, Sunbeam. Toby has him by Big Red.”

  Sun spun around so fast the world tilted. Big Red was the pet name for the only legit fire truck Del Sol had. Also, it was yellow. Not a speck of red paint on her anywhere.

  She looked back at Quincy. “He wasn’t stabbed?”

  “No.”

  “You said he was stabbed.”

  “No, I said there was a stabbing and Ravinder was injured.”

  She gaped at him.

  “Two separate statements.”

  She continued to gape, a pastime she’d been partaking in remarkably often since moving back to Del Sol.

  “Okeydokey.” He gestured toward Big Red. “So, your guy was trying to stop the men who stabbed our victim. Apparently, those particular men didn’t want to be stopped.” He glanced back at the nightmare on Main Street. “Ravinder fought them but they managed to get into their vehicle and drive off. That was when the genius decided to pick a fight with”—he brought out his notepad—“a white Toyota Tundra with Texas plates.” He looked at the fire truck, indicating the surreal creature commonly known as Levi Ravinder hidden behind it. “And here I thought Ravinder was the smart one of the bunch. Seems he didn’t escape the worst of the Ravinder genes after all.”

  She nodded absently, trying her best to use her X-ray vision to see through the emergency vehicle for a glimpse of the fairest Ravinder of them all before remembering she didn’t have X-ray vision. Damn her inability to see through solid objects.

  “We had another ambulance en route, but Einstein over there is refusing to go to the hospital. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”

  “Right. Sure. Okay, well, I’ll try.”

  “Your confidence gives me hope,” he said, his voice full of humor. A laugh a minute, that one.

  Sun rubbed her palms together and walked toward the fire truck. She steeled herself, lifted her chin, and cornered Big Red with a quiet resolve. A resolve that evaporated the minute her gaze landed on the dusty, bloodied figure of Levi Ravinder.

  She gritted her teeth at the sight of him to keep herself from shouting his name in horror. Her lungs stopped working and she walked through tunnel vision toward him. She’d only had two sips of wine. All of this lightheadedness couldn’t have been the alcohol.

  He sat on a step against the truck, clutching a baseball cap. His tan T-shirt, now dirty and soaked in blood, was ripped across the front showing just enough skin to make Sun’s pulse quicken despite everything. The knuckles on his large hands and his sinewy forearms were covered in scrapes, bruises, and patches of blood, and his swollen left eye showed early signs of blackening.

  His uncle Clay hovered nearby, arms crossed over a barrel chest, a nasty scowl lining his puffy face, and Rojas stood at Levi’s side with questions of his own.

  “JX?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Levi said, twisting the cap in his hands. “That’s all I got.”

  One corner of Rojas’s mouth lifted. “You’re lucky you got that much. I’ve never been hit by a truck, but I don’t think I would’ve been trying to memorize the license plate while it was happening.”

  Sun’s pride swelled just a little. She’d had a good feeling when she blackmailed Poetry Rojas into joining the team. She knew he’d make a great deputy, and so far he had yet to prove her wrong. He was observant, sharp, and good with people.

  She unclasped her hands—thankful she wasn’t in uniform and tainting the professionalism of the station with her actions. She stepped close enough to notice the subconjunctival hemorrhage in his left eye, the blood trapped beneath the clear surface already spreading and encircling his whiskey-colored iris.

  Alarm shot through her again. She cleared her throat and addressed the EMT. “He could have a concussion.”

  All heads turned her direction, including his. He didn’t seem surprised to see her, which, why would he be? Then again, Levi had a perpetual poker face. He wasn’t the easiest person to read.

  “Sheriff.” The EMT stood and offered his hand. “I’ve told him that very thing. I really think he should go in for a couple of X-rays.”

  Levi looked up at her, studying her for a solid minute before dropping his gaze. “I’m fine,” he said, the sharpness in his tone impossible to miss. “If I weren’t, you, Sheriff Vicram, would be the first to kn
ow.”

  Sun tried not to read too much into that statement. She failed. A million interpretations sprang to mind when he was obviously being sarcastic.

  Rojas raised a questioning brow toward her.

  “Thank you, Toby,” she said to the EMT. “They’re right, Levi. You need to be checked out by a doctor.”

  He bit down, his stoic façade cracking. “I need to be on the road chasing down that fucking truck. And I would be”—he gave his uncle a lethal glare—“if someone hadn’t hidden my keys.”

  Surprised, Sun offered the stocky brunette watching from the sidelines a look of bemusement. Clay Ravinder was the last of Levi’s uncles still in the area, and he was about as warm and caring as a pit viper. If he was keeping Levi from going after the truck, he had a reason, and it had nothing to do with Levi’s well-being.

  “Thank you,” she said to him regardless, curious as to what he would say.

  He said nothing. Instead, he sucked on a toothpick and let his gaze rake over her.

  Nice. She turned back to the frustrated man sitting before her. Stepped closer. Lowered her voice. “I could arrest you.”

  Not one to let a foe seize the upper ground, he released an exasperated sigh and stood to his full height of sexy feet, AF inches. “For what exactly?” His voice, as deep and rich as the dark auburn in his hair, flooded her nether regions with warmth.

  Holy hell, she had to get a grip. She swallowed, then said, “For being a stubborn asshat.”

  He let a mouthwatering smirk soften his battered face. “Is that a misdemeanor or a felony?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “I’m trying to decide if it’s worth the jail time.”

  Sun’s stomach did a somersault. It wasn’t until he gave her an inspection as lackadaisical as a summer night that she remembered she wasn’t wearing a bra. She brushed a lock of hair back as an excuse to raise her arm and cover her nigh-exposed assets. Surely, he couldn’t tell with the summery sweater she wore, yet his eyes lingered in that general area for far too long, suggesting she could’ve been mistaken about the sweater’s camouflage capabilities.

  “Well,” he said, seeming to recover when his gaze traveled back to hers, “while we’re on the subject, you need to do a drug tox.”