A Good Day for Chardonnay (Sunshine Vicram #2) - Darynda Jones Page 0,124

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