A Good Day for Chardonnay (Sunshine Vicram #2) - Darynda Jones Page 0,56
doubt.”
“Holy shit.”
“Holy shit, indeed. I’ll get this report to you today. When are you coming to see me?”
She fought through another wave of disbelief, then teased her with, “Call me when you’re naked.”
Nancy giggled and hung up.
Sun walked through a cloud of euphoria and into the bullpen.
“I’m winning!” Salazar said to her. “Confession number fourteen puts me on top.”
Both Salazar and Zee had come in while she was on the phone. Zee cast them both a saucy grin, as though she knew something no one else in the station did.
That fact didn’t faze Sun. Somehow she made it to Quincy’s desk, but her BFF—whom she now knew every inch of—was watching Rojas as he walked to the front door to meet his tia Darlene.
Quincy depressed the TALK button on his radio and said, “Poetry is in motion. Repeat, Poetry is in motion.” He chuckled and turned to Sun. “I’ve been waiting for days to say that.” When he got a look at her, however, he sobered and jumped to his feet. “What’s up, boss?”
Darlene Tapia, Poetry Rojas’s honorary aunt, had brought a basket of homemade breakfast burritos for him and the gang. She handed it over, wrapped the uniformed deputy in her arms, and said, “I am so proud of you, mijo.” She set him back, licked her fingers, and tried to tame a recalcitrant cowlick with her spit.
“Tia,” he said, feigning embarrassment, but he loved it. He adored the woman. Even though she’d only been a neighbor, not a blood relation, she’d practically raised him and his twin brother.
“Boss?” Quincy repeated.
“They got a match.”
His face morphed into a grim expression. “Ravinder?”
“Yes, but not the one we expected.”
“No way.”
She shook her head, still in disbelief. Why? Why would Wynn Ravinder come to her rescue? Why would he kill his own brother trying to save her, if that was what really happened?
He sank back into his chair. “He was telling the truth.”
“Looks like it.”
Quincy stabbed her with a glare. “Then he was in on it. Your abduction. He had to be. Things went south and he and Kubrick fought. You can’t tell me he went there to save you.”
“I don’t know, Quince. None of it makes any sense. There is a part of him that seems …almost noble.”
“You keep saying that, but nobility in that family borders on psychopathic.”
A knock on the front window sounded. Sun and Quincy looked over at Carver. The exterminator waved enthusiastically and pointed to his phone.
Sun lifted hers to read a text from him, inviting her to lunch. She groaned.
Quincy read it over his shoulder. “He’s persistent.”
She typed back, Huge case. Rain check? She hit SEND then waved back at him.
He read it and his manic expression faded. After texting her a thumbs-up, he waved goodbye, a sad, dejected thing.
Rojas walked up. “Want me to take him out?”
“Someone needs to,” Quincy said. “He clearly hasn’t gone out with anyone since the aughts. Is that how he dressed on your date?” he asked Sun.
“What? No. That’s his uniform.”
The guy had been wearing a pair of stained gray overalls with his signature four Cs on an embroidered patch and carrying an aluminum spray can and nozzle.
“What’s up, Rojas?” she asked Poetry when he continued to linger.
“I’ve gone over the footage from the Quick-Mart and it’s impossible to get an ID on the man our victim was arguing with.
“But there was definitely an argument?”
“Oh, yeah. A pretty heated one.”
Zee walked up, holding a black-and-white printout of a screenshot from the altercation. She handed it to Sun and pointed. “That baseball cap? That’s a Denver Broncos hat.”
Sun looked at Quincy. “That’s the cap Levi had at the scene. I’m sure of it.”
“Then he stole evidence from a crime scene. Can I arrest him already?”
“If you can find him. Any of the employees hear anything?”
Rojas pointed to the store owner, who couldn’t have been more than ten feet away from what looked like a very volatile argument. “Mr. Walden swears he didn’t hear a thing.” His expression deadpanned. “My ass. Said Seabright was a semi-regular customer. Always very pleasant. Always paid in cash. But somehow he didn’t have a clue as to what the argument was about.”
“How would he remember he always paid in cash?” Quincy asked.
“No clue, but I’m guessing Seabright was off the grid. Especially if he never used plastic.”
Sun studied Seabright’s profile. The guy was tall with striking features underneath a layer of scruff. “Interesting. Okay, I want to see the footage.”