A Good Day for Chardonnay (Sunshine Vicram #2) - Darynda Jones Page 0,89

be frowned upon.”

“Do you think I care?” she asked, “He can frown all he wants. You know us. You know me. I want you on this case.”

“Okay, besides the fact that this is out of my jurisdiction, why would you want me, Addison? I never found Elliot. I never even got close.”

Addison sank onto the bed. “You’re wrong, Sunshine. You did find him. You almost ruined everything.”

19

If your housekeeping style is best described as

“There appears to have been a struggle?”

Let us help!

—SIGN AT DEL SOL CLEANING SERVICE

After a short period of recovery, Sun asked Addison to explain how she almost found Elliot when she’d always believed she’d never even come close.

“Somehow you connected the dots,” she said, shaking her head. “Dots we never expected anyone to connect. You tracked Elliot and his bodyguard to a house near Tesuque.”

Sun frowned. “No, I was wrong. There was no one there. That house had been vacant for weeks.” Then she remembered the cabin. She turned to Levi. “The pot of beans?”

He lifted a shoulder.

“The house had a loaf of bread on the counter that had about two weeks’ worth of mold on it. It was a setup?” When he shrugged again, she gaped at him, then turned back to Addison. “They had been there?”

“Not had. Were,” she said. “They were in a hideout under the floorboards. You stood right over them. You came within seconds of catching them red-handed, Sunshine. A minute earlier and you would have.”

Sun sat at a small desk chair, unable to believe it. While she was working to find the Kents’ son, they were working to keep him hidden.

“Why?” she asked, even though her research on Matthew Kent’s case told her pretty much everything she needed to know.

“We got a call,” Addison began. “We don’t know from who. A sympathetic party. She told us they were going to kidnap Elliot and hold him until Matthew turned over the money.”

“The fifty million.”

She nodded. “Or more. Who knows? But he swore he didn’t have it. If he did, Sun, I never saw it. Matthew is an asshole. Don’t get me wrong. And he deserved to go to prison for his part in what happened to all of those people, but he would never risk Elliot’s life. He would’ve turned over the money.”

“That’s when you had Elliot kidnapped. Before the real bad guys could do it.”

She nodded. “Matthew found a man willing to help us. I don’t know how or where or who paid him. All I know is that we met Keith Seabright in a dark alley, literally. He explained what we needed to do. Things like, be sure to break the window from the outside. Knock some toys onto the floor. Pull the sheets to one side like the kidnapper dragged him out of his bed.”

“He’s thorough.”

“And then …” A sob wrenched from her throat. “And then we just handed our baby over to him. A complete stranger.” She covered her mouth with a hand as another sob racked her fragile shoulders.

“Did it work?” Sun asked. “Was it the Delmar family? Did they leave you alone after that?”

“After Matthew pointed the finger at them, they backed off. They didn’t know who took him, either, and since they’d been planning to do it, I think the fact that Elliot was yanked out from under them made them take a step back.”

Sun was very aware that Matthew pointed the finger at Antony Delmar. She’d investigated the family for weeks.

“And then?”

Addison drew in a deep breath. “Seabright stayed in the area. For us. For me. After a few weeks, we started to meet up so I could see Elliot in secret. My baby boy. I took every opportunity and probably too many chances, but I saw him every moment I could. I got pregnant right before Matthew’s trial. I had Adam alone. After he got old enough to be curious about Elliot, old enough to ask questions, we told him the same thing Seabright told everyone else. That Elliot—Eli—was his sister’s son.”

Sun sat stunned. All those sleepless nights. All the anxiety and guilt and heartache. Their son’s life was being threatened. They had to make it look good. But damn.

“It was only supposed to be for a little while,” she continued. “He was supposed to miraculously be found. But Matthew swore the Delmars were waiting for him to slip up. That Elliot’s life was still in danger.”

Sun’s brows slid together. “But if they were going to all that trouble to get the money