Auri and Cruz were asleep when she got to the hospital. Her parents had gone back to the hotel, and Quincy sat in the room scrolling through his phone. He shot to his feet when she walked in, questioning her with a single look.
“It was him,” she said, breathless from running and panicking and freaking out. “It was Levi. He fought with Kubrick. He got stabbed. He killed him and took me to the hospital and never said anything. After all these years, why wouldn’t he tell me?”
Quincy shook his head and led her out of the room. “That’s not possible. The DNA test. It was Wynn’s blood on Kubrick’s jacket,” he said as they walked toward the elevators.
“Where are we going?” she asked, oblivious.
“Coffee. Unless you want something stronger.”
“I want something stronger.”
They ended up at a bar on Central named after a tenacious frontierswoman and performer in the 1800s.
“It makes no sense,” he said, his brows knitting in confusion.
“They’re related,” Sun said, throwing back a shot of one of Levi’s creations, a butterscotch-flavored moonshine called Warm Butter Moon. It scorched her throat and she coughed before tapping the bar for another.
“I’ve never said anything out loud, but just an FYI, you don’t handle your liquor nearly as well as you think you do.”
“I know. I promise to take this one slower.” It was hot and sweet and delicious, much like its creator.
“And it doesn’t matter. The test would’ve told us if it was a relation or the real deal, and Wynn is the real deal.”
“It was him, Quince.” She ended up downing the drink after all. After another cough, she breathed cool air into her burning lungs, and said, “I remember. Only bits and pieces, but I remember.” She tapped the bar again. The bartender, a woman with rich brown hair and the most incredible gold irises Sun had ever seen, poured her another, but not before raising a quizzical brow.
Sun nodded and the woman poured, albeit reluctantly.
“You do realize that shit is a hundred proof,” Quincy said.
Again, just like its creator.
When she ignored him, he looked at the bartender. “What do you think?” he asked her.
She grinned, forming the most charming dimples at the corners of her mouth, and said, “In my limited experience, it always boils down to one, unmitigated fact. People lie.”
Quincy nodded. “And there you go.”
The bartender winked at him, then went to take another order at the end of the bar. It was a good thing, because next time Sun spoke, she did so with a slight slur. “I agree. People lie. Tests don’t.”
“Sun, you and I both know those tests aren’t foolproof and human error is a real thing, even in the world of forensics.”
“Especially in the world of forensics. It was odd, though,” she said, thinking back. “I’d sent those samples in months ago. True, I held on to them for too long, but it still took longer to get the results than I’d expected.”
“You didn’t get the results.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No. You never got them. You had to call the DPS for the results. And they just happened to be ready on the day you called?”
Sun took a sip of the warm liquid, her thoughts tumbling around in her brain like dice on a craps table. “On the day after we visited Wynn Ravinder in Arizona?”
“What’s the common denominator?”
“Nancy is a good friend of mine,” she said.
“Okay, who’s Nancy and what does she have to do with this case?”
“Nancy works at DPS. She ran the labs for this case.”
He leaned back in his chair. “As my mentor would say, when you’ve eliminated all the impossible crap, whatever crap remains, however improbable that crap may be, must be the true crap.” He turned to her. “I’m paraphrasing.”
She breathed through a head rush as though she were in labor and practicing Lamaze. Then she frowned at him. “I thought Allan Pinkerton was your mentor.”
“He’s my hero. Sherlock is my mentor.”
“I want a fictional character as a mentor.”
“I think Minnie Mouse is still available.”
“Okay,” she said, hopping off the stool, “I’m tired and I’m angry and I have a lot to process.”
“Clues?”
“No, carbs. I have a lot of carbs to process. I had a weak moment on the way over.”
“I hope you don’t think you’re driving.”
“Nope.” She tossed him her keys. “You are. We need to get to Santa Fe.”
He pouted. “I drank, too.”
“You took, like, three sips.”
“I’m being punished for not being a lush?”
“How is catching bad guys punishment?”
A sheepish grin slid across his handsome face. “Good point.”
29
If one day when you’re famous
people will say things like,
“I used to work with her” or
“We were Facebook friends” or
“I’m not surprised she used an axe,”
book an appointment with us immediately.
—SIGN AT DEL SOL MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES
An hour later, Quincy dropped Sun off at an old friend’s house and she found herself in the woman’s living room, drinking a glass of chardonnay and reminiscing about the good old days. Not that Nancy was home yet, but Sun could wait. And she did.
When she heard the keys jingle in the lock at the door, she put the glass aside and watched as the woman stepped inside her dark house. She flipped on the light to the living room, turned, and saw Sun.
“Oh, my God!” she said, throwing a hand over her heart. “Sunshine? What the hell? You scared the shit out of me.”
“Hey, Nance. Long time.”
The woman, a tall strawberry blond with a wide smile and huge brown eyes, put down her bag and grew wary. Glancing around like she half expected a team of law enforcement officers to emerge from the darkness and arrest her, she asked warily, “How’d you get in here?”
Sun lifted the key. “You still keep it in the same place. And you still keep late hours, I see.”
Nancy slipped off her heels, looked at the open bottle of wine, and took a glass out of the cabinet. She walked over and poured herself a couple of ounces, her hand shaking, clinking the bottle against the rim on the delicate glass.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked Sun.
“More like, to whom,” Sun said. “Two names. Wynn. Ravinder.”
Nancy pulled her lips tight through her teeth as she studied her wine. “The man whose DNA was on that jacket?”
“The very one.”
She shook out of her thoughts. “I don’t have the file here. What did you need to know?”
“How he did it.”
“I only run the tests, Sun. You know that.”
“No, right. I know. I’m just wondering how he got you to alter it for him.”
She said nothing for a very long time, then downed the drink in one gulp before pouring another one.
Sun took that as a sign of guilt. “I believe the words you’re searching for are, ‘He blackmailed me.’ Or ‘He threatened me.’ Or, hell, even, ‘He coerced me to do his bidding by discovering my weakness for Oreos and offering me a year’s supply.’ Anything but, ‘I did it because I love him.’ That’s just a little too cliché.”