A Bad Day for Sunshine--A Novel Read online

  He nodded. “Stay alive. I’m going to be hungry later.”

  Apparently, Levi had already talked with the field coordinator and the incident commander, letting them know which areas he’d covered. She looked up just as a search team took off on horses, their breaths fogging in the air.

  * * *

  Sunshine walked into the station just as Agent Fields was finishing up his interview with Mr. and Mrs. St. Aubin.

  He motioned for her to join them and welcomed her with a handshake. “Sheriff.”

  “Agent Fields. Mari.” She held out her hand to Mari’s husband. “Mr. St. Aubin. I am so sorry to be meeting you under these circumstances.”

  “Forest, please.”

  They took seats in the conference room so she could go over what they’d discussed and ask any questions of her own.

  Forest St. Aubin was younger than she’d expected, especially since he was so successful running a vineyard and winery. The only clue to his age was his salt-and-pepper hair, which placed him in his early forties, but he looked more like late thirties when she focused on his face. In fact, he looked a little younger than his wife.

  “Have you heard anything?” he asked her, and she couldn’t miss the agony on his face.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What about that Ravinder kid? Jimmy? Do you suspect him?”

  “We aren’t ruling anything out at this juncture. We have a search party looking for him right now.”

  “Do you think … do you think she’s up there with him?”

  “She’ll freeze to death,” Mari said from behind closed fists.

  “We don’t know. But if she is, we’ll find her.” Her words did absolutely nothing to ease the couple’s distress. She looked at the agent beside her, then back to the man on the verge of tears. “Did you guys come up with any other possibilities?”

  Mari wasn’t on the verge of tears. Her cheeks were soaked with the things, her dark hair in a state of turmoil, her nose red.

  “Like I told Agent Fields,” he said, “I can’t think of anyone who would do this. Or why anyone would do this.” He pressed a thumb and index fingers to his eyes.

  She gave him a moment. No need to ask his whereabouts. She could read Fields’s report. His people had probably already checked his alibi. Sun was more interested in the man’s thoughts on Sybil’s prediction.

  As though he read her mind, he said, “I guess you know about Syb’s premonition?”

  “I do. What do you think about it?”

  He scoffed, the sound bitter and resentful. “I think I’m an asshole.”

  Not the direction she’d expected. “Why do you say that?”

  He drew in a deep breath to steady himself, then explained, “All those years, all those times she tried to talk to us about it, and we just dismissed it. Like it meant nothing. Like her fears meant nothing.”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t think that.”

  “She has to. It’s the truth.”

  “But you believe her now?”

  A light sob escaped him. “How can I not?”

  His phone rang, and he checked it. When he didn’t recognize the number, he looked between her and Fields. The agent pressed a button on the digital recorder and nodded to him.

  The man swallowed, then answered on the fourth ring with a shaky, “Hello?” He frowned at them when no one spoke. “Hello? Do you have my daughter?”

  Sun leaned over to the agent’s laptop as he tried to locate where the call originated from. Because the number had come up on the caller ID, he could put it in the program and track it with GPS.

  “Who is this?”

  Mari pressed her hands over her mouth to squelch a sob.

  “Mr. St. Aubin,” Fields said softly, the lines on his face hardening. “It’s coming from your house.”

  Without even a hint of hesitation, Fields took the phone, and the two officers scrambled out of the conference room.

  “Quincy—Deputy Cooper,” she corrected, “follow us with the St. Aubins.”

  “You got it, boss.” He grabbed his jacket as she and Fields ran for her cruiser.

  * * *

  Sun skidded to a halt in the St. Aubins’ drive, careful not to disturb any fresh tire tracks. Snowy footprints on the walkway led to the front door, but the St. Aubins entered and exited through their garage. The tracks were definitely not theirs, though there were any number of law enforcement agents they could have belonged to.

  With gun drawn, she walked through the yard alongside the pathway while Fields flanked her, and Quincy went around the back of the house.

  She gestured toward the front door with a nod. “There’s something on the porch.”

  Fields nudged her arm, wanting to take the lead. He was more old-school than she’d imagined. But she had this. It didn’t look like an explosive device from the size of it. Too small. And pink. Very pink.

  They took up positions beside the front steps and waited for Quincy to come around the other side of the house.

  He jogged up behind her. “Back door is locked. Doesn’t look like anyone has tampered with it.”

  “Is that a phone?” Fields asked.

  “It is.” Sun took the steps, checking the windows as she went. A burner phone sat on a small child’s jewelry box in the snow. The kind that played music when opened.

  Quincy checked the front door while Sun put on a pair of gloves.

  She pried open the box. A little ballerina starting spinning to a chimed version of “Greensleeves.”

  The St. Aubins walked up then, following Sun’s footprints to avoid contaminating the scene.

  “Is this Sybil’s?” she asked Mari.

  The woman’s face morphed into astonishment. “Forest bought that for her on the day she was born.”

  “We lost that years ago in a move,” he said, his voice cracking. “She was what … nine?”

  “Ten,” Mari said. “When we moved into the house on Stanford.”

  “Right. What’s inside?”

  Sun pulled out a long lock of red hair, and Mari broke down.

  “We’ll process this,” Fields said. “You get back out to the search.”

  “Thank you. Call me if you find anything.”

  “Of course.”

  * * *

  After dropping off Quincy’s patrol car at the station, Sun and Quincy headed back to the search-and-rescue efforts that were already under way. They did the better part of the journey in complete silence. Quincy broke first.

  “Someone is fucking with us,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “It could be her.”

  “I know.”

  “We can’t rule it out.”

  “I know.”

  Even Sun, with that gut of hers that was never wrong, the one she had to ignore and follow the evidence no matter how it conflicted with her instincts, had to admit the bizarre set of coincidences surrounding Sybil’s disappearance were hard to dismiss.

  Two items from Sybil’s past showing up now? This guy had to have stalked her for years. Stalked the family for years. That kind of patience took incredible dedication and discipline. Talk about holding a grudge.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Quincy asked.

  “No.”

  “Brainstorm?”

  “No.”

  “Spitball?”

  “No. And ew.” When he didn’t ask again, she gave in. “Okay, fine. Let’s say Sybil stashed all this stuff from her past, made up a story about a premonition when she was six years old, and then planned this elaborate scheme to make it look like she was abducted? For what? Why would she go to such lengths for years?”

  “Attention. What else? Her father travels all over the world. Her mother reads romance novels all day. She feels abandoned.”

  “If that were true, if she were really just in it for the attention, why stick to her premonition story when nobody believed her? Her story never wavered. Not once in nine years.”

  “Kid’s smar
t,” he said. “Smart kids can do anything. You of all people should know that.”

  She ignored the compliment. “And if it were her, the abduction would’ve been more obvious. More staged. There would have been signs of a struggle in her room. Not the laundry room. And then she what? She planted that receipt to frame poor Mr. Hughes for buying an energy drink?”

  Quincy held up his hands. “I’m not arguing with you. It’s just all very convenient.”

  “Yeah, well, so are handkerchiefs, but you don’t see me carrying one around.”

  They parked on the side of the road to the search site, and Sun walked to the command tent.

  “Crazy,” Quincy said when he took it all in.

  “You or me?”

  “This whole situation.”

  Dozens of vehicles, both civilian and emergency. Over a hundred people scouring the mountain.

  She put the coffee her mom had handed her on the way in on a folding table and looked at a couple of maps they’d laid out.

  Quincy pulled a pair of official coveralls over his uniform, then accessorized with matching boots and gloves, ready to do his part. “It’s new to me.”

  “Yeah, I’ve only been directly involved in one other search and rescue. Got to know the incident commander.” She pointed at him. “See? Networking. Get to know your fellow law enforcement officers.”

  “What if I don’t like them?” he asked as he slipped on a ski cap.

  They emerged from the tent, ready to face the mountain. Sun had brought her best spiked boots, wiggled into thick black coveralls with her credentials on them, and pulled a knit cap over her ears.

  “I got us an ATV,” Quince said. “The IC is sending us over that hill.”

  “Sounds good to me.” She greeted the Book Babes as they handed out coffee, her deputies that were on-site, and the marshals before getting onto the ATV.

  “What did Melody want?” he asked, shouting over the sound of the motor.

  Sun explained about the possibility that the escaped fugitive, Ramses Rojas, may have saved her daughter’s life. Not just saved it, but risked his own life, his legs, and his freedom to do so.

  They bounced over the hard-packed snow, grateful for the snow tires someone had thoughtfully provided, and searched as deep into the forest as they could before they had to get off and walk. She could hear other searchers, including many of the townsfolk, calling out Jimmy’s and Sybil’s names, and she wondered where Levi was. She’d heard he’d closed the distillery and now had several of his cousins and employees searching as well.

  One would think with that much manpower they’d find Jimmy quickly, and hopefully Sybil. But there was just too much forestland for it to be that easy. Hundreds of square miles, and much of it mountainous. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains were the southern tip of the Rockies. Just as beautiful. Just as hazardous.

  The meteorologist had been right. Thank goodness, because Sun didn’t want to think the woman was all beauty with no brains. The sun came out of hiding and warmed the place to a comfortable sting. Just enough to keep their cheeks cold but not frozen solid. Like a lettuce crisper with the temp set a little too low.

  “Nothing like a brisk stroll through the forest,” Quincy said.

  Every few feet, they stopped, yelled for Jimmy and Sybil, and then waited for a response before continuing. Quincy checked in with their location every half hour.

  After a couple of hours of trudging through the snow, Sun began to worry that three days would not be enough.

  The radio squawked, but the helicopter made a pass overhead, and they didn’t catch what the IC said.

  Quincy pressed the Talk button on the radio. “Say again, command.”

  His voice came back over the speaker. It had a somber tone, and Sun’s heart stopped beating to better hear his message.

  He said quietly, “We have a body.”

  * * *

  “When did you write that?” Auri asked Cruz as they filed into the hall.

  He made the smallest effort humanly possible to shrug, probably to conserve energy should the apocalypse happen. “Last night.”

  “What? After I went home?”

  Another energy-efficient shrug. “Mrs. Ontiveros wanted me to enter one more poem in some contest she helps coordinate, so I told her I’d write her one. I do it all the time.” He offered her an equally energy-efficient grin where only one side of his mouth tilted up. “She loves that shit.”

  “I love that shit, too. That was stunning.”

  He lowered his head, clearly unused to praise.

  “How do you do it? How do you write such beautiful imagery?”

  “My imagery is rarely called beautiful. Did you miss the part about the shredding of flesh?”

  She laughed softly. “No, but it was still beautiful. So, you gonna tell me? How you do it? How you think like that?”

  “I don’t know.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I don’t really think in English, if that makes any sense. I think in pictures. In signs. I signed way before I could talk, and I’ve thought in signs ever since.”

  She gaped at him, but only a little. “Okay, I take back what I said last night. That is officially the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  He flashed a set of blindingly white teeth. “See ya later.”

  Before she could say goodbye, he took off.

  Auri watched him walk away, then she looked around, astonished that the students had pretty much accepted her. She wasn’t getting nearly the number of glares as she was yesterday, and nobody had spray painted her locker or tried to frame her for theft. The day was definitely looking up.

  She turned a corner to get to her next class and saw the L&Ls, Lynelle and Liam with Aiden Huang, the kid she’d interrogated. Liam had Aiden Huang by the collar while Lynelle read him the riot act, poking his chest with a razor-sharp fingernail.

  The kid looked more annoyed than scared at first, but then Lynelle said something, and he paled before her eyes.

  He held up a hand in surrender and took the USB she handed him.

  She fired off one more threat before Liam shoved him away and they walked off into the sunset together. Or the glare from the plate-glass windows at the front of the school. Either way.

  It was a classic love story. One that would be repeated for generations to come.

  Girl asks first boy for a favor. First boy refuses. Second boy grabs first boy by the collar. Girl threatens first boy while second boy shakes him like a rag doll. First boy finally agrees to said favor, and girl and second boy fall in love.

  A tad dysfunctional? Yes.

  Would it last? Not unless they found themselves riddled with bullets like Bonnie and Clyde did before they could realize they weren’t as compatible as they’d originally assumed and spent the next ten years breaking up and getting back together and breaking up again, bringing strife and misery to everyone they came into contact with.

  Fingers crossed.

  Auri sat in her second-period class, Lynelle and Liam completely forgotten as her thoughts traveled once again to Jimmy Ravinder and Sybil St. Aubin.

  Her mom had a good point. They both went missing around the same time. It would be a hard stretch to convince anyone it was a coincidence, but it had to be. Or at the very least, there had to be a good a reason for it.

  First, Sybil and Jimmy didn’t know each other. Auri spoke to Jimmy often. They hung out. They’d been close for years. The fact that she’d had to keep it a secret from her mom was ludicrous on several levels, but her grandparents knew and supported their friendship. They had a special place in their hearts for Jimmy.

  But what they didn’t know was that Jimmy had saved her life when they were kids. Jimmy and one other member of the Ravinder family. No way would she abandon him just because her overprotective mother said the whole lot of them, every single Ravinder, was more trouble than they were worth.

  She couldn’t help but wonder if that carpet diagnosis applied to the Ravinder her mom was in love wit
h.

  The tardy bell rang, and a few seconds later, a television powered up in class. A weekly student news program popped on.

  “Good morning, Lions!” a peppy brunette said from behind an anchor desk. A desk that looked like it had been made from cardboard, but that fact only added to the charm. “Welcome back! This week, we have a special investigative report brought to you by the Journalism Club. Roll it, Aiden!”

  The screen went black, then Lynelle Amaia popped into the frame holding a microphone and standing in front of the sheriff’s station.

  Auri’s palms slickened instantly, and she fought the urge to reach for her inhaler.

  Lynelle wore a million-dollar smile as she took over the spotlight. “Thanks, Callie. We have a special story for all of you Lions out there. If you didn’t already know it, we have a new sheriff.” She gestured to the lettering on the building.

  Auri glanced around, becoming a little concerned. What was Lynelle doing? Besides being really, really perky?

  “So, we decided to check her out—to dig into her past, so to speak—and see what we had to look forward to for the next four years. After all, we got a brand-new lioness in the deal. Aurora Dawn Vicram? Welcome to Del Sol High!”

  Auri froze. This was not happening. Dig into her mother’s past? There was no way they could’ve found out the truth. It was buried along with the Ark of the Covenant, Jimmy Hoffa, and her pent-up emotions.

  “Liam?”

  The camera cut to Liam Eaton in front of the monument the town put up in Auri’s pretend dad’s honor, and the edges of her vision grew dark.

  * * *

  “Jimmy’s uncle found him!”

  Sun practically jerked the radio out of Quincy’s hands, because whomever shouted that Jimmy had been found didn’t seem distressed.

  “Did you find Jimmy?” she asked. “Or a body?”

  She recognized Deputy Salazar’s feminine voice saying, “Um, both?”

  “No,” Sun whispered. Quincy put a hand on her shoulder to steady her.

  “We found Jimmy, but I guess they found a body, too?”