A Bad Day for Sunshine--A Novel

by Darynda Jones

  Still, she settled a warning glare on him.

  He cleared his throat and made a correction. “Vicram. Sorry, love. Still can’t get used to that.”

  “I’ve been a Vicram for over fifteen years.”

  “I’m set in my ways.”

  “Well, I can’t get used to the He-Man you’ve become.” She squeezed his biceps. “How much do you eat?”

  “Don’t you worry, gorgeous. It’s all muscle.” He flexed the guns for her appraisal.

  Sun snorted. Flirting was a part of their shtick. They’d done it since they were kids, before they’d realized what it meant. But now they were in a professional relationship. Their playful banter would have to stop … eventually.

  He gestured toward the building. “You ready for this?”

  She studied the letters again, her stomach doing somersaults. “I don’t know, Quince. How’d they do it?”

  “I can’t be sure, but I’d bet my last nickel they used a stencil.”

  “You’re funny.”

  “I like to think I am.”

  “Spill,” she said, infusing her voice with a warning edge.

  Quincy laughed and decided to study the snow. “Let’s just say your parents are very talented.”

  Talented they may be, but Sun was genuinely worried about her mom and dad. “They got me elected, Quince. Without my knowledge.”

  He winced and patted the air, urging her to keep it down.

  She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper, which probably carried farther than her voice would have. “How is that even possible? There was a debate, for God’s sake!”

  “You did great, by the way. I especially liked your ideas on how to eliminate drunk driving.”

  Sun pinched the bridge of her nose, wondering how she managed to debate the previous sheriff when she’d had no clue she was even in the running. “Someday you’re going to have to tell me how they did it.”

  The grin he wielded like a rapier served two purposes: to disarm and to charm.

  And here Sun thought herself immune to the charisma of Quincy Cooper. Well, okay, she was immune, but she could see the appeal. The allure of the chick magnet—his words—he’d become.

  In high school, Quincy had been popular enough. Very well liked. But he’d never been what one would call a ladies’ man. Now, the chunky—his description—former sugar addict looked less like a huggable marshmallow and more like a boulder. His waist had narrowed and his shoulders had widened and his smile had grown into something girls of all ages longed to gaze upon every chance they got.

  What did the women at her mother’s book club call him? Ah yes. Stupid hot.

  She’d certainly give him that. But deep down, she still saw that sweet kid who fought back tears after skinning his knees on the playground.

  And now, after almost fifteen years, the Dynamic Duo—a.k.a. Quincy and Sunshine—was finally back together. Sun could hardly believe the roller coaster of events that had led her here.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay with my being your boss?”

  Her chief deputy snorted. “Like anything has changed. When haven’t you bossed me around?”

  “Good point.” She hadn’t planned on bringing it up so soon, but she needed to know what awaited her. “All right, Q. Cards on the table. Is the mayor going to let this rest?”

  Mayor Donna Lomas seemed to be the only one questioning the legitimacy of Sunshine’s win over Del Sol’s former sheriff. Well, besides said former sheriff. And Sunshine herself.

  Quincy turned away from her, but she saw the muscles in his jaw flex as he worked it, a sure sign that not everything was popping up daisies in the Land of Enchantment.

  “I don’t know, Sunny. She’s pretty worked up about the whole thing.”

  “And she should be.” Sun collapsed against her cruiser. “I mean, isn’t there someone more qualified? You know, someone sheriffier?”

  “Okay,” he said, joining her at the cruiser with arms folded across his chest, “let’s think about this. You have a master’s degree in law enforcement. You single-handedly solved one of the highest-profile cases the state has ever seen. And you were the youngest officer to make detective in New Mexico history.” He tilted his head. “I’m thinking no.”

  Sun straightened, faced him, and adjusted his tie before replying, “First off, I have a master’s degree in criminal justice, not law enforcement.”

  “Same dif.”

  “Second, I was the third-youngest officer to make detective in New Mexico history. I was only the youngest in Santa Fe history.”

  “Well, then, I take back everything I said.”

  “And third, no case is ever solved single-handedly.” She patted his cheek. “You should know that by now, Chief Deputy Cooper.”

  He let a calculating smile widen across his face. “Keep telling yourself that, peaches. I read the file.”

  “Hmmm.” Refusing to argue the point, she returned her attention to the building.

  “I’ll give you a minute,” he said, starting for the door. “Let you gather yourself. Make a grand entrance.”

  “Great, thanks,” she said, neither grateful nor thankful.

  After he disappeared, she drew in a deep breath and watched it fog in the air when she exhaled before grabbing a box of her personal effects and copies of all the open cases out of her back seat. Then she locked up the cruiser and went inside the pueblo building via a side door.

  A hallway separated the station from a small jail that sat in back. From that point, her entrance involved two electronically coded doors in which her master key came in very handy. Once inside, she stopped to take in her surroundings.

  The station was nice. More up to date than she’d imagined it would be. Drywall with a light beige paint made up the bulk of the surroundings, but the renovators had kept much of the older wood accents. Remnants of an earlier version of the establishment.

  Desks took up most of the main room, and a glass wall separated the public entrance and the administration area up front.

  Quincy, who was pretending to be hard at work, spotted her first. He turned in his chair, and the sound of typing and papers shuffling ceased immediately from the other deputies present.

  “Hey, boss,” Quincy said, leaning back into a giant stretch. “Oh, I meant to ask, how’s the bean sprout?”

  She nodded to the two other deputies present and the office manager, who doubled as dispatch. Anita Escobar—no relation—was a pretty woman in her early thirties with a wide smile and thick, blond-streaked hair she always wore in a ponytail. According to Sun’s ever-studious mother, Anita’d had her eyebrows tattooed on. So, there was that.

  Turning back to Quince, Sun balanced her box on two stacks of files that took up half his desk and picked up a pen with a gold deputy’s badge on it. After clicking it open and shut several times, trying to decide if she should steal it or if blatant theft would set a bad example for the other law enforcement officers in the room, she said, “Everyone at school thinks she’s a narc.”

  “Sweet. Less trouble she can get into.”

  She returned the pen and narrowed her gaze on him. “It’s bizarre how much we think alike. The accusations stem from a certain raid on a certain New Year’s Eve party at the lake.”

  “Oh, snap. They think she called us?”

  “They do.”

  He snorted. “Like anybody needed to call. Don’t they know the secret annual New Year’s Eve party at the lake is the least secret event in this town?”

  “Kind of like Mrs. Sorenson’s breast augmentation.”

  He laughed out loud, then sobered, his expression wilting a little. “Those aren’t real?”

  Sun consoled him with a pat on his head. She knew he’d take it hard.

  “Poor kid,” he said, switching back to Auri. “She’s so great. Are you sure she’s really yours?”

  “I hope so. She borrows my clothes.”

  She thought back longingly to an amazing burgundy sweater that
had never been the same after Auri wore it on a field trip to the zoo in Albuquerque. Something about a boy named Fred and a monkey named Tidbit.

  She snapped out of it when she realized all work had come to a complete standstill and her staff was gathering around the coffeepot. She leaned closer to Quince. “Should I address the troops?”

  “Price is still out on a call. And besides, you have a visitor.” He gestured toward what she assumed was her office.

  “Already? I just got here.”

  “Yeah, well.” He cringed, his face lined with sympathy. “Proceed with caution. She’s been waiting for twenty minutes.”

  “And you kept me standing outside chatting for ten of them?” When he offered her a noncommittal shrug, she dropped her head, dread leaching into her pores. “Christ on a cracker.”

  “Good luck,” he said like a manic cheerleader after one too many energy drinks. Then he abandoned her in her time of need to join the other cowards hovering around the coffeepot.

  With a withering moan, she lifted her box and headed toward her office to meet her fate.

  3

  Faculty parking only.

  Violators will be given a pop quiz.

  —SIGN AT DEL SOL HIGH SCHOOL

  “Aurora?”

  Auri had just taken a hit off her inhaler. She put it away and smiled at the administrative assistant behind the counter. “That’s me.” She didn’t bother giving the woman her nickname. She doubted they’d talk often.

  “Ah yes.” Corrine Amaia, if her nameplate was to be believed, gathered a few papers and handed them to her one at a time. “Okay, the top one is your locker number and combination. Put that somewhere safe.”

  “Gotcha.” Auri took the paper and stuffed it into her binder.

  “This is the handbook with the school song and dress codes and such.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And this one is your schedule.”

  Auri brightened, excited to see what her classes were. The usual suspects, of course, but she’d been hoping for a couple of electives her private school hadn’t offered.

  Trying not to look overly enthusiastic, she took the paper and perused it. She had the state requirements, as expected—English, history, geometry, physical science, and social studies—along with visual arts and American Sign Language.

  “Nice,” she said, more than pleased. She’d requested three electives, but had only really wanted ASL.

  Her old school, a private school in Santa Fe, which also happened to be the home of the New Mexico School for the Deaf, didn’t have ASL as an elective, a fact that astounded her. It was only one of several reasons Auri had agreed to transfer here.

  Corrine finally stopped long enough to get a good look at the new recruit. “Aren’t you lovely,” she said, her tone part surprise and part matter-of-fact.

  “Oh,” Auri said, embarrassed. “Thank you.”

  “My daughter, Lynelle, is a freshman, too, if you need someone to show you around. Help you find your classes.”

  “I had an offer over break, but thanks so much.”

  “Of course. Let me know if you have any questions.”

  Auri nodded and headed out for her first day at Del Sol High. She glanced around for the girl she’d met at the party, then walked to the vending machines by the front office. They’d made plans to meet there, but the deputies came and everyone scattered. She hoped the girl, who was a freshman as well, a redhead as well, and new as well—though not quite as new as Auri—didn’t forget. But that scenario was looking likelier and likelier.

  She waited until first bell, but the girl was a no-show. She could hardly blame her. Auri was now officially an outcast. A pariah. A persona non grata, if the glares of hostility were any indication. Squelching her disappointment, she decided to get on with her day.

  As she searched for her first-period class, she got the occasional curious glance, and even the outright gawk—she blamed her coloring, which was odd even for a redhead—but if she had to put a number to it, she’d guesstimate that more than half the looks directed her way were full of a venomous kind of resentment.

  Who knew denying high school kids the ability to get wasted was such a big deal? If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought she’d set fire to the football uniforms. While the players were still wearing them.

  Just as she started down the hall, she happened to glance back through the open doorway and into the principal’s man cave. She saw a girl lift a wooden carving of some kind off his desk and stuff it into her jacket pocket.

  The principal was in the hall, joking around with a group of kids, so Auri didn’t understand why the girl was in there. But she recognized her from the party. Dark hair. Huge gray eyes. Supermodel attitude.

  So, while the looting was strange enough, the girl turned, looked right at Auri, and winked at her before walking out.

  “See you later, Mom,” she said to Corrine.

  “Bye, sweetheart. Don’t forget about lunch.”

  “I won’t.” The girl, who must have been Lynelle, smirked at Auri as she walked out, and Auri couldn’t help but feel there was a joke hanging in the air and she’d missed the punch line.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she turned to the swarm of kids in the hall half a second before the tardy bell rang.

  She could do this. She’d done it before when they’d moved from Albuquerque, where her mom had been working and going to college, to Santa Fe, where she’d gotten her first job in law enforcement as a patrol officer for SFPD. That had seemed like so long ago, but she owed it to her mom to do her best. To go with the flow. To never—ever—be a burden.

  That was her biggest fear. To be a burden to her mom. Well, any more than she already was.

  God, if only her new friend hadn’t deserted her. She’d felt an instant connection to Sybil. Maybe Sybil hadn’t felt the same about her.

  After wandering the halls longer than she should have, growing more anxious by the moment, Auri finally found her first-period classroom tucked into a corner of the main building. Unfortunately, the tardy bell had rung about two minutes earlier, so plan A, the plan where she would walk in and take a seat before anyone noticed her, fell by the wayside.

  Plan B consisted of two steps. One, pull the fire alarm. Two, reenter the building with everyone else once the firefighters gave the green light. But just as she was about to pull the little red lever, she noticed a security camera pointed in that general direction. Thus, plan B had to be nixed as well. Not that she would have done it, but she would’ve liked the option.

  Left with no other choice, she had to opt for plan C, the worst of the three she’d come up with. It basically involved her walking into the classroom and interrupting a lesson already in progress so that the students would turn en masse and give her their full and undivided attention.

  Great.

  She braced herself and opened the door to Mrs. Ontiveros’s English I. If nothing else went her way that day, at least Auri could tell her grandchildren that plan C had worked brilliantly. Every student turned toward her, and she froze.

  After an eon passed in which she prayed for the earth to open up and swallow her, she tore her gaze off the sea of faces and scanned the room for Mrs. Ontiveros. She’d assumed the instructor would be the only adult in the room. Instead, she found three, all of them standing at the back, staring at her as expectantly as she was staring at them.

  Auri’s cheeks went up in flames. She ducked her head just enough to let her hair cover most of her face as embarrassment infused her entire body with a blistering heat.

  The movement brought her head around, and she realized what they were all looking at before she so rudely interrupted. A boy stood at the front of the room, holding a piece of paper as though giving a report. A boy she recognized.

  She’d seen him a few times at the lake when she’d spent her summers with her grandparents, but she’d never talked to him. In fact, nobody seemed to talk to him for very long. Even though everyone would wav
e at him or try to convince him to join the festivities, he just sort of hung back and watched everyone else have fun.

  But something about him had fascinated her. Now even more so. He was taller than she’d expected. And more … built.

  She thought she’d seen him at the New Year’s Eve party as well, but when she’d looked again, he was gone and there were two patrol cars racing toward the scene in his stead.

  “Can I help you?” one of the adults asked, a tall older woman with dark curly hair and black-framed glasses.

  Auri cleared her throat and started the long walk to the back of the room to hand the teacher her schedule, gazes still locked on her like laser-guided missiles.

  The woman took the paper, welcomed her to the class, and gestured toward a seat, explaining something about a poetry reading, but Auri was already inside herself. Everything outside registered only as a droning hum over the blood rushing in her ears.

  At least the teacher didn’t introduce her to the entire class. Small blessings.

  After she sat down, she ignored the gawkers and fought to claw back out of her self-imposed exile, to reenter the world she shied away from all too often.

  And then she heard a voice, soft and deep and lyrical.

  She looked up. The boy read from the paper he held, and the words rushed over her like cool water. The poem was about a trapped bird, yet even imprisoned, the bird’s powerful wings caused the air underneath them to stir and curl as it fought for its freedom like a hurricane demanding to be set free. One simply had to look close enough to see the power building beneath it before it broke free.

  “One simply has to notice,” he said before folding the paper and stuffing it into his front pocket.

  The class clapped, many with genuine appreciation, and the teacher beamed at him.

  “See?” she said as she walked to the front of the room. She looked back at the other two adults. “What’d I tell you?”