A Good Day for Chardonnay

by Darynda Jones

  “You got it.”

  “Thank you, Deputy,” she said, before yelling over her shoulder at Quincy.

  He was just climbing into his cruiser.

  “Make sure he stays there, Quince! I want at least five X-rays, three blood tests, and a sonogram!”

  “You got it, boss!” He closed his door and eased onto Main toward the Del Sol Urgent Care Center.

  Sun was busy fighting the urge to glance at Levi as Quince drove past when she heard gravel crunching behind her followed by a feminine voice. “Sheriff,” the woman said, trying to get Sun’s attention. “Sheriff Vicram?”

  Sun turned to her. A disheveled brunette with a skintight miniskirt and a puffy pink jacket hurried up to her, which was a feat in those heels. And here Sun thought she’d had it bad.

  “Sheriff, I saw the whole thing,” she said breathlessly, probably due to her jaunt in the six-inch heels.

  “Did you give your statement to one of my deputies?”

  “What?” She came to a wobbly stop and glanced around, wild-eyed. “Oh, yes. Of course. Tricia asked me to come in tomorrow and give an official statement. We went to school together. But you need to know he didn’t stab that man. Levi Ravinder? He—”

  “We know, Miss…?”

  One of her ankles gave way and she veered to the side. Sun bolted forward to catch her, but she recovered like a pro, and said, “Crystal. Crystal Meth.” When Sun’s lids rounded in surprise, she said, “I know. My parents are hilarious. Which is why I’m having it legally changed. Getting a job is a bitch. I usually go by Crys.”

  How could she not know there was a woman in town named Crystal Meth? Sun was starting to like the girl despite herself.

  “He was trying to help his friend. Levi. He didn’t do anything.”

  “We know. He’s not in any trouble.”

  “Oh. I just thought … I mean, you arrested him, didn’t you? I just wanted you to know he didn’t do it. I saw the men who did.”

  Sun gave the girl her full attention. “Can you ID them?”

  “No. Probably not. I’m sorry. I couldn’t really see their faces. The one who did the stabbing wore a baseball cap and the other two wore beanies. Jeans. Dark T-shirts. The only thing I can tell you is that they were all in their late twenties, early thirties? All white with fairly dark hair.”

  Wondering if she should bring her in for an interview immediately before her memory faded as the alcohol evaporated from her system, Sun looked around for Zee.

  “He’d said goodbye to him, you know? The guy. And then—”

  “Wait, who said goodbye to whom?”

  “Levi. We were, um, talking and the guy, his friend, he came outside and said, ‘Later, Rav,’ and a few seconds after that we hear a scuffle.”

  Rav? She let that marinate on her tongue a minute. Savored it. She’d never heard anyone call him that.

  “We look over and these men are beating the guy to a pulp and they have him on the ground kicking him. Levi takes off like a rocket toward them, but before he can get there, one of them pulls out a knife.” Her eyes glazed over. “It happened so fast. They stabbed that guy over and over in a matter of seconds.”

  Sun put a hand on her arm to steady her. “What happened next?”

  “Levi tackled the guy with the knife and the others joined in. I can’t believe he didn’t get stabbed.” She focused on Sun, pleading with her to understand. “He was so fast, Sheriff.”

  “The man with the knife?”

  “No, Levi. So adept. Like the soldiers you see in movies? I’ve never seen anything like it. He took them down like it was nothing even though they got in some good swings and one landed a kick to his face.”

  Every muscle in Sun’s body tensed at the thought of someone kicking Levi in the face. Or anywhere else for that matter.

  “He disarmed two of them and got up, but they were already running for their truck. He caught one, though, and he must’ve really hurt him, because the guy screamed and crumpled to the ground. That’s when they hit Levi with the truck.” She squeezed her eyes shut as the memory washed over her. “He got to the driver’s side door and tried to open it, but the guy locked it, so Levi hit the window.” Her gaze drifted back to Sun. “With his fist. He shattered it. He was just so … so determined. So angry. So…” Her gaze turned wistful. “So powerful.”

  Sun understood the infatuation all too well. The fact that the girl was outside with Levi and they were, um, talking, didn’t surprise her. Crys was a beauty despite her unfortunate name. Levi would be crazy not to hook up with her.

  She forced the green-eyed goblin back to its corner. She had no right to be jealous. With his looks, she could only imagine all the women he’d been with over the years. All the women who’d thrown themselves at him. Jealousy was such a useless emotion. Despite that fact, she was, and it irked her to no end.

  Another ankle gave way. That time Sun caught her. “How about we sit down?”

  “I’m okay. I only had one drink and I sipped on it all night. It’s these stupid shoes.” She wiped at her eyes, her hands shaking visibly, and Sun realized she wasn’t so much drunk as in shock. Who wouldn’t be after witnessing a brutal attack like that?

  Knowing the girl’s memory would be fine, Sun called out for Toby, the EMT. The guy was packing up. He tossed a bag into Big Red and hurried over.

  “Can you get her to urgent care, Toby?”

  “I’m okay,” she repeated a microsecond before her left leg collapsed. Sun caught her again and righted her the best that she could. It was like trying to hold up a tower of Jell-O.

  “You are two seconds away from breaking an ankle.”

  When she swayed again, the young EMT catching her that time, Sun insisted. “Urgent care, please, Toby.”

  He nodded and took the girl by the arm to lead her to the fire truck. His partner rushed over to help him. Sun figured his concern had more to do with the miniskirt than his occupation, but whatever it took to get the job done.

  “Wait a minute,” Sun said, stopping them.

  They turned back to her.

  “One of the assailants wore a baseball cap?”

  The girl looked up in thought and nodded. “Yes. Blue or black, I think, with red on it? Maybe orange? It was dark, so I can’t be certain.”

  Sun gritted her teeth. “Oh, I can. That son of a bitch.”

  “I’m sorry?” she said, but Sun whirled around and stalked toward her cruiser.

  She should have known Levi was clutching that baseball cap a little too tightly. In all of their years of acquaintance, she had never once seen him wear a baseball cap. Not even as a kid.

  No wonder he knew they were going north. It was a Denver Broncos cap. The assailants were clever enough to drive a truck, probably stolen, with Texas plates, but not clever enough to ditch the one identifying piece of evidence that could lead the authorities in their general direction?

  Of course, the cap could have been planted to throw law enforcement off the trail as well, but for some reason, Levi knew it wasn’t, and she wanted to know why.

  She climbed into her cruiser and called Quincy.

  He picked up and said only two words. “He’s gone.”

  She slammed her lids closed. Son of a bitch. “Put a BOLO on his ass.”

  “You got it.”

  “He’ll be heading north on 25.”

  “Okay.”

  “And extend an invitation to whoever finds him to use a Taser.”

  A knock sounded on her window. She lowered the phone and turned to see Deputy Salazar, bright-eyed and flushed-faced. “Boss!”

  She rolled down her window.

  “Las Vegas PD called,” she said, handing her a note. “They were supposed to get this to you earlier today, but someone dropped the ball. Sounds important.”

  Sun opened the note. Blinked. Read it again. Thought about it. And read it a third time, just to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.

  At one time, Levi Ravinder had four uncles.
All of them, along with his father, were members of the infamous Southern Mafia. Levi’s father, for all intents and purposes, died in a car accident, and his uncles splintered. One was murdered—or killed in self-defense, the jury was still out—on a mountaintop fifteen years ago. One died of cancer. And one, Clay, was alive and well, unfortunately, and living at the Ravinder compound a few miles outside of town.

  The fourth one took an extended vacation courtesy of the Arizona correctional system. Specifically, Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence, about an hour south of Phoenix.

  It would seem that same uncle, Wynn Ravinder, wanted Sun to come to Arizona immediately. He’s dying, the note said, and has pertinent information about your abduction.

  Her abduction. Information about her abduction. Those words were like a sucker punch to her gut. She read them three more times before looking back at the crime scene.

  Still no word on the victim, Keith Seabright’s, condition. The forensic team would be there soon, and she would only be in their way if she stayed. Rojas could go talk to Mr. Walden about the argument Seabright got into that afternoon and gather any surveillance footage the man had. The state police were on the lookout for the assailants. As was Levi himself, most likely.

  Nothing was stopping her. If she left now, she could be in Florence by morning. That familiar desire—or blind obsession, as her parents would say—to know more about those five days cinched her stomach tight. A stomach that was suddenly filled with shards of glass.

  Could Levi’s uncle Wynn really know what happened? Was Brick Ravinder really her abductor or was his murder in that vicinity coincidence? And what, if anything, did Levi have to do with it?

  Because of a head injury she’d suffered at the time, Sun could remember very little of those five days or several weeks prior to her abduction. She had glimpses. A patchwork of visions and scents and sounds, but nothing coherent. Nothing cohesive enough for her to stitch the images together.

  And then there was the surveillance footage from the hospital in Santa Fe. Someone had brought her in and left before the nurses could get a name. That someone, tall and slim, clutched his side where a dark stain slowly spread across his hoodie. Whoever brought her to the hospital had been seriously injured at some point, and Sun had about twelve thousand questions as to why.

  She woke up a month later in that same hospital with no memory of what had happened. Two months after that she realized, to her utter horror, that intake had dropped the ball at the hospital. She was pregnant. The monster who took her had violated her.

  Looking back now, it was almost inconceivable how something so precious, so wonderful, could come from such tragedy. But Auri was all of that and more.

  Sun heard Quincy’s voice and realized she was still on the phone. “What’s going on, boss?”

  She snapped out of her musings and lifted the phone to her ear. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “I don’t know. I’m pretty gullible, apparently.”

  Realizing she might need someone to take turns at the wheel of the sixteen-hour round trip, she said, “Pack your toothbrush. We’re going to Florence.”

  “Italy?”

  “Arizona.”

  “So close.”

  4

  Makeup fades. Tacos are forever.

  —SIGN AT TIA JUANA’S FINE MEXICAN CUISINE

  Sun eased open the door to Auri’s darkened room and crept inside. Even though the center of her universe had just turned fifteen, and their house was mere inches away from Sun’s parents’ back door, Auri had a permanent room at her grandparents’ house. If Sun wasn’t home by nine, Auri had to come to Freyr House and stay until Sun got her. Usually when Sun worked that late, however, she just left Auri there until morning—a necessary evil that was becoming a habit of late.

  She’d written her a love note and had planned to leave it on her nightstand, but Auri turned onto her back and raised a hand to shield her hazel eyes from the light streaming in from the hall.

  “Hey, bug bite,” Sun said. She set the note on the nightstand and climbed onto the bed, duty weapon, work boots, and all.

  “Hey, Mom,” Auri said, as Sun reclined against the headboard beside her.

  She’d showered and put on her uniform for the trip, packing only the basic essentials. Toothbrush. Deodorant. A can of tuna because of that one trip that ended so badly.

  She brushed a lock of her daughter’s hair back. “You okay?”

  Auri nestled against her and put her fiery head on Sun’s shoulder. “No.”

  Sun had noticed. Auri’s swollen, red-rimmed eyes said it all. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I hate that you saw Levi like that.”

  “I hate that he was like that at all.” Her breath hitched, crushing Sun. “Why does he have to be so brave? He could’ve been killed.”

  “I don’t know. He’s Levi, for one thing, and the man who was attacked was a good friend of his.”

  “He didn’t even take us into account.”

  “Us?” Sun asked.

  “Yes. What would happen to us if he’d been killed? Did he think of that? No. Of course not. And do you know why?”

  It was apparently a rhetorical question; Auri continued before Sun could guess.

  “Because he’s a guy. With a penis. Penises are stupid.”

  Sun tried not to giggle. “Yes, they are. Penises are very stupid. I don’t want you to ever forget that.”

  “I won’t. Don’t you worry.”

  Sun had to wonder what Auri’s crush, Cruz, had done to cause such penis-aversion. She’d have to thank him. He probably bought her at least another year before her daughter experimented with the opposite sex.

  “I have to make a quick trip to a prison near Phoenix, bug. I’ll be back tomorrow night.”

  “Can I come?”

  “No,” she said with a soft laugh. “You need to get some rest. We’ll talk about your impromptu trip to an active crime scene when I get back.”

  “I can’t fall asleep.” She propped herself up onto an elbow to give Sun the full effect of the pout she’d perfected by the time she was two. “Pot’s just not doing it for me anymore. I’m going to have to try heroin.”

  Masterful deflection. Then again, she did learn from the best. “Now, Auri, we’ve talked about this. Heroin is a gateway drug. Try cutting back on the coke, first, okay?”

  “Mom,” she whined and threw herself back onto the bed.

  “I mean it. Two lines a day. Three at the most.”

  “Fine. I’ll cut back.” She rolled back up and batted her dark lashes. “Then we can discuss heroin?”

  Sun tucked a strand of glistening hair behind her ear. “I promise.”

  “Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.” She threw her arms around her, then said, “Safe journey.”

  “Thank you, sweet pea. Now get some sleep.”

  Auri snuggled beneath the covers. Sun kissed the top of the hellion’s head, then stood to find her mother hovering in the doorway, frowning, with her arms crossed over her chest.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “Heroin?” she asked, her tone admonishing.

  She brushed past the older woman, and said, “Better heroin than angel dust, if you ask me.”

  “Everything I touch turns delinquent.”

  “Don’t touch my bills, then.” Sun headed to the living room to find her dad raiding the fridge in his pajamas.

  He looked past the bright light he’d been bathed in. “Hey, sweet pea.”

  “Hey, Dad. I’ll be back by tomorrow night.”

  He gave the room a furtive glance, leaned close, and said softly, “Okay, but try to get back early.”

  Guilt twisted her gut into a knot. She had been relying on her parents a lot lately. Too much. “Of course. I’m sorry, Dad. This whole sheriff gig … the hours are longer than I expected. So much paperwork.”

  “Please.” He snorted and waved away her misgivings. “You know we love having the dumpling here. It’s just that to
morrow night is date night—”

  She pressed a palm to her heart. “That’s so sweet.”

  “—and your mother has discovered gay manga.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “I don’t know what that is, but our love life has never been better. I’d hate for the little redhead to catch onto the fact that her grandparents still have sex, but I can only hold the woman off for so long.”

  “I can’t believe I grew up for this.”

  He took her hand into his. “How is he?”

  The hand he held shook involuntarily, so she pulled it back. “He’ll be okay. I think. I don’t know. He escaped before we could find out for sure.”

  He pulled her into a hug. “He’s something else, that one.”

  Understatement of the century. “Yes, he is. Don’t let Mom touch my bills while I’m gone. Auri would die if our internet got shut off for a late payment.”

  “You got it, kid.”

  “Also,” she said as her mother walked in, “could you guys check in on Auri for the next hour or so. I know it’s late, but—”

  “Of course, we can,” her mom said. “She was so upset, Sunny.”

  “I know. And that’s partly why I want you to keep an eye on her.”

  “Partly?” her dad asked.

  “Yes. I mostly want you to check in on her because she has a boy in her room.”

  The gasp that overtook her mother was a long, drawn-out thing that almost had Sun doubling over. When her mother turned to rush into Auri’s room, Sun grabbed her hand. “It’s okay, Mom. Tonight, she needs a shoulder to cry on. I get that. And I trust Cruz. I do, but if you could just make sure he, you know, leaves in the next little bit? That would be great.”

  Her dad sank onto a stool at the snack bar. “Were we this oblivious when you were growing up?”

  Sun snorted. “Dad, you were in military intelligence. I was lucky to make eye contact with a boy without you noticing.”

  “So, I’m just losing it in my old age.”