A Bad Day for Sunshine

by Jones, Darynda

  The sting in the backs of Auri’s eyes caused her frustration to spike even further. “I can help, Mom. I’m very good at getting information when I need to, and Sybil is missing. Isn’t that all that matters?”

  Sun sat in the chair next to her. “Sweetheart, did Sybil say anything to you?”

  “Not directly. That’s why I wanted to talk to her friends. She seemed to know something was going to happen.”

  “In what way?”

  “She texted me a couple of days ago.”

  “When you met up at the Pecos?” The Pecos Percolator was one of three coffee shops the tiny town had to offer.

  She nodded. “She was acting strange, saying things like she was so glad we got to be friends, even for just a little while. I didn’t understand, but I think someone was following her, Mom. Or threatening her. I mean, why would she say something like that?”

  Quincy knelt in front of her. “Okay, bean sprout, did she say anything else? Anything that could help us identify who it was?”

  “No. And I didn’t push.” The wetness she’d been fighting slipped past her eyelashes. She swiped at the trail, annoyed. “Quincy, she’s so nice. We have to find her.”

  Without another word, Quincy pulled her into his massive arms. His hug felt like home. Warm and comforting and oddly constrictive.

  Principal Jacobs stood. “Aurora, I need to know you aren’t going to try to hack my system again.”

  Hope blossomed inside her. “I won’t try again. I swear.”

  “Well, then, I don’t see why we can’t let this slide, considering the circumstances.”

  While Mr. Jacobs seemed satisfied, the new sheriff wasn’t so easily placated. Her expression remained impassive as she scrutinized her daughter.

  “Mom?” Auri said, her chest squeezing her lungs until they hurt.

  “And,” the principal continued, addressing the surly woman in black, “since there’s an ongoing investigation, I suppose giving you a copy of Sybil’s class schedule wouldn’t be breaking any laws. If it just happened to slip out of your hand and into someone else’s—like, say, a student’s—that wouldn’t be on me.”

  Her mom deadpanned him. “You’re encouraging my daughter to insert herself into an ongoing missing persons investigation?”

  A wicked smile spread across his face. “I try to nurture the talents of all my students. Not just your daughter, Little Miss Sunshine.”

  Auri almost snorted aloud. Instead, she slammed a hand over her nose and mouth to hold it in.

  Her mom cast him a withering scowl. “You know, you got away with that nickname when I was in high school—”

  “And I’ll get away with it now.”

  Ignoring her indignation, he walked to his office door. “Corrine, could you print a copy of Sybil St. Aubin’s schedule?”

  “Of course,” she said, stuffing the last bite of her sub into her mouth and swinging her chair around to her computer.

  Two office aides had come in to work, a boy and a girl, both of them upperclassmen and each one of them on separate tasks. They both paused and focused their attention when Principal Jacobs walked to the door. But what Auri found interesting was when the principal asked Corrine for the schedule, the guy whipped his head around in surprise.

  He caught himself and recovered quickly, bending over a stack of papers he was separating into three mystery piles, but the knee-jerk reaction was hardly subtle.

  Auri made a mental note to check him out later. Unfortunately, when she turned back to her mom, she realized she’d made the same mental note.

  Auri gestured toward the guy, urging her mom to let her help, to let her question him, but Sunshine fired a warning shot over the bow of her ship. A ship called In Your Dreams.

  As frustrated as Auri was, she did understand. A girl was missing. Her life was in danger. Auri had to remember that. Not only could she get caught up in a bad situation, she could botch the entire investigation.

  But she wasn’t born yesterday. She knew the stakes. And she knew how to handle herself. She prodded her mom to let her help with another pleading glance.

  As the principal droned on about something her mom had done in high school that involved a training bra and a stuffed monkey, her mom cast her a warning glare, ordering her to stand down.

  Auri pursed her lips and lifted her shoulders, pleading.

  Sunshine shook her head.

  Auri spread her hands in the universal gesture for why not?

  Sunshine crossed her arms, refusing to budge.

  Auri crossed her arms, too, and sank down in her seat, literally pouting like a five-year-old.

  Sunshine tilted her head to the side, asking her to understand her position.

  Auri turned her face away, refusing to even try.

  Sunshine released a long sigh.

  Auri kept her gaze averted.

  Sunshine softened her expression.

  Auri sat up and offered up her best look of hope.

  Sunshine caved, and she dipped her head in a barely perceivable nod of approval, but then her expression morphed into a lecture. A long lecture complete with PowerPoint slides and a pop quiz, and she did it all with one ominous glance.

  Auri nodded. She understood what was at stake.

  “And that’s how your mother came to be known as the Masked Potato.”

  Auri sat beaming, then the principal’s words sank in. “The Masked what?”

  “Can I have a moment alone with my daughter?” her mom asked him.

  “Of course.” He grabbed the schedule from Corrine, handed it to the sheriff, and left them alone. Well, almost alone. Quincy was still in the room.

  “That was fascinating,” he said. “Can all mothers and daughters have an entire conversation without saying a word?”

  “Yes,” her mom said before leveling another death stare on her.

  “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

  Watching her mom downshift from an enraged law enforcement agent to a worried mom was what she imagined the melting of the polar ice caps looked like.

  “Sweetheart, what you did was serious. Mr. Jacobs could press charges in a heartbeat. And this is a missing persons case. A young girl’s life is at stake.”

  “I know, Mom. But I can help.”

  “And if he comes after you? What then?”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” she said. She considered quoting statistics, but her mom knew them even better than she did. Heck, her mom was the one who usually quoted them to her.

  “It doesn’t usually work that way. We simply don’t know what’s going on. We can’t make assumptions this early in the investigation. If this guy feels like you’re a threat—”

  “I know. But really, Mom, unless he goes to school here, how would he even know I was helping?”

  “And who’s to say he doesn’t go to school here? Do you think high school kids don’t commit crimes?”

  “I know they do. That’s exactly why you need me on the team. I’m your inside man. Only without man parts.” She could tell her mom was coming around to the idea. That meant she was desperate. “I’m your inside girl.”

  “You’re something,” her mom agreed, shaking her head. “I’m just not sure what.”

  Auri jumped up and hugged her. “I’ll let you know if I get any good intel.”

  “Don’t even consider missing class for this.”

  “Never!” she said, running out the door. She was late, yet again, only this time she didn’t care. She had a case to solve. What would Mom do without her?

  9

  Robbery suspect apprehended when Deputy Cooper

  entered the building through a jimmied door and yelled,

  “Marco!”

  The suspect responded with, “Polo,” and was promptly

  arrested.

  —DEL SOL POLICE BLOTTER

  “She’s been doing this for a while now.” Sunshine glanced at the behemoth in the passenger’s seat of her cruiser.

  “The bean sprout? What
do you mean?”

  She turned up Cottonwood Drive, sliding in the melting snow as they conquered a steep incline. “I can’t be 100 percent certain, but I think she was doing some side jobs for her classmates at the academy.”

  “Side jobs?”

  “I believe she fancies herself a PI.”

  “No shit? Do you think that had anything to do with her decision to switch schools?”

  “I don’t know. I’m waiting for her to relax. To get comfortable in her new surroundings. Then I’ll take her into an interview room and give her the third degree.”

  “Good plan. Or you could just ask her over tacos.”

  “The direct approach? Where’s the fun in that?”

  They pulled up to the St. Aubin home for the second time that day just as a text came through from Salazar. The dogs were on the way.

  Two deputies, Zee and Salazar, sat in a cruiser waiting on them.

  “You two start outside,” Sun said when they stepped out. “Canvass the area, but keep it light.”

  “Got it, boss,” Salazar said.

  She studied the front door, a massive oak with decorative carvings. But before they could climb the steps, Marianna St. Aubin rushed out, her cropped hair unkempt, her clothes, the same ones she wore that morning, wrinkled.

  “What happened?” she asked, already breathless when she skidded to a halt in front of them. “Did you find her?”

  “Not yet, but I did get a letter.” Sun handed Mari a copy of the letter Sybil sent her.

  The woman was shivering when she took it.

  “Maybe we should go inside.”

  But Mari was already lost in the letter, her expression full of anguish.

  “Mari,” Sun said softly, but Mari was gone, drowning in a sea of memories and regret as she ran her fingertips over her daughter’s writing.

  “She tried to tell us,” she said, her voice cracking. “For years, she tried to tell us, but we didn’t listen.”

  Quincy put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure that’s not true, Mrs. St. Aubin.”

  She put one hand over her eyes as a flood tide of tears spilled past her lashes. “What have we done?”

  Quincy took her by the shoulders and led her inside the house.

  Sun gave her deputies a nod to get started. They’d been observing, and by their expressions, they were just as heartbroken as she was.

  Inside, Quincy led Mari to a sofa and sat her down before getting her a glass of water. Sun sat across from her, trying to come to terms with the fact that this could all be real. Sybil could very well have prophesied her own abduction. Her own death.

  She knew this town was strange, but come on. Sybil wasn’t even from Del Sol. And she just happened to end up in a city teeming with the strange and bizarre?

  Despite the fact that most of the stories were just hype, there was always that 1 percent. That narrow margin of the unexplained that left her questioning the world she grew up in.

  And now this. She just didn’t know what to think, and as the new sheriff, that was not a good place to be. She couldn’t be the indecisive schoolgirl anymore, no matter what coming back to Del Sol did to her psyche.

  Once Mari had calmed a bit and taken a drink of the water Quincy brought, Sun began. “Okay, Mari, I need to know everything. When did this start?”

  “She was six, I think. She’d had a nightmare like all kids do, but this one changed her.” She focused a laser-like gaze on Sun. “She was never the same after that. Her whole world began to revolve around her fifteenth birthday. She’s told us since she was a kid she would never grow up. Never graduate high school. Never date a boy. We just thought she was being melodramatic.” She dropped her face into the wad of tissues in her hands and let the sobs take over.

  “Start from the beginning, Mari. What exactly did she tell you that night? I just need whatever you can remember.”

  Mari’s story confirmed everything they’d learned from the letter. Unfortunately, that’s all it did. She had no information beyond it. But Sun still had a thousand questions.

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this earlier?”

  Mari scoffed. “Would you have believed me?” Before Sun could answer, she said, “I wouldn’t have. It was my own daughter, and I didn’t believe her. Can you imagine growing up like that? With an image of your own death in your head and your parents, the people you are supposed to depend on the most, are the last people on earth to believe you?” She broke down, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed. “What have we done?”

  Sun let the wave die down before asking her next question. “Mari, when Sybil went missing a few days ago—”

  “She was trying to hide out. She thought if she stayed hidden until after her birthday, the threat would pass. But we found her and dragged her back home.”

  Sorrow took control again, and Sun turned to Quincy. “Does Doc Finely still make house calls?”

  Quincy nodded. “He’s mostly retired, but he will take an occasional query.”

  “Why don’t we see if we can get him here.” Quince took out his phone, but she leaned closer and added, “And tell him to bring Valium.”

  “Gotcha.” He left the room to make the call.

  Sun refocused on Mari. “I don’t want you to take our looking into these events as a sign that we are buying this. I need you to be aware of the fact that we must, as law enforcement officers, consider the fact that this is all an elaborate scheme.” It didn’t matter how much Sun believed the girl; it was her job to follow the evidence. Not her hunches.

  At first, Mari started to argue with her, but her own guilt stopped her. Sun could read it on her face.

  “Also, just so you know, a wanted fugitive has been spotted in the area. Have you seen anyone hanging about? Perhaps lurking along the tree line?”

  Although her eyes were wide with worry, she shook her head. “No. I haven’t seen anyone. Do you think—?”

  “No. We don’t. But we can’t rule anything out yet.”

  She nodded, then her eyes widened. “The diary! She kept a diary. Maybe there’s something in there that will help.”

  That had been next on Sun’s list. “Do you know where it is?”

  Without answering, Mari rushed upstairs, almost stumbling in her enthusiasm. Sun followed her to make sure she didn’t disturb anything.

  She lifted a mattress covered in pink and produced a small journal with hearts on it. “She’s been keeping a journal since she was a kid.”

  After slipping on some gloves, Sun took it and placed it inside an evidence bag. “Once it’s processed, I’ll go through it. See if there are any clues that weren’t in her letter.”

  “Thank you,” Mari said, “for taking this seriously even if you don’t believe it.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. And your daughter seems amazing.”

  “She is,” she said, her eyes tearing up again.

  Sun helped Mari to the living room to lie down on the sofa in case Sybil walked through the front door. She’d seen it a dozen times: Parents keeping a constant vigil on doors or windows overlooking the street, hoping for a glimpse of their child coming home. Mari’s rest would probably be short-lived, however, with all the deputies and now the state K-9 unit coming in.

  “He’s on his way,” Quincy said. “And he’s bringing a sedative.”

  “Thank you.” They walked to the front door. “Mr. St. Aubin should be here soon. That should help her. If this is an elaborate hoax, Sybil’s mom would definitely take home the gold statue.”

  He opened the door, and they stepped out into a crisp, sunny day. “I agree, but I’m still not swallowing any of this without a serious dose of reservation. I mean, Sybil could have staged this whole thing for her parents’ sake. To pay them back for not believing her.”

  “True. And we have to take that into consideration, but there’s one more angle we haven’t considered yet.”

  “And that is?”

  “A self-fulfilling prophecy.”

 
; He bowed his head in thought. “In what way?”

  “She could believe this so blindly,” Sun said, hoping against hope that she would be proved wrong, “that she has somehow caused the events to take place. Somehow provoked her own abduction.”

  “Do you think she could have, I don’t know, convinced someone to kidnap her?”

  “It can certainly be done and quite innocently. She could have met someone online, a predator, and mentioned her premonition. He could have convinced her to meet up. Told her he’d keep her safe.”

  “Escobar is working on her online footprint. Maybe something will come up. But what about the fugitive?”

  “Yeah, I need to look into that more. If Rojas is in the area and is in hiding—”

  “He could have convinced her to help him.”

  “Exactly.” Sun filled her lungs. “And again, there is always the possibility that she is in hiding like before, hoping to ride all of this out. For now, this is still a missing persons case, and until we hear otherwise, we need to treat it as such.”

  He nodded. “What next?”

  “Let’s take a look around, see if Zee and Salazar have found anything.”

  “It’ll be hard with this fresh snow.”

  “Where is an expert tracker when you need one?”

  Quincy smirked at her. Rumor had it Levi Ravinder was the best tracker in the state thanks to spending his summers with his biological grandfather, a Mescalero Apache. He’d been recruited several times to help find lost hikers and the like.

  Once the K-9 unit arrived, which included a studly Officer Buchanan and an even studlier—and quite a bit furrier—Officer Bones, the deputies’ investigation had to be suspended. They’d found no footprints, but that wasn’t surprising considering the snow.

  Sun and Quincy looked on as the state police’s K-9 unit did their thing. Admittedly, it took everything in her not to pet the gorgeous German shepherd. How did K-9 cops do it? How could they keep a professional relationship with their fellow officers when all she wanted to do was roll around on the ground and cuddle with them?

  One of the mysteries of life, she supposed.