Sunshine Cottage

by Barbara Cool Lee

  Sunshine Cottage

  A Pajaro Bay Mystery

  Barbara Cool Lee

  Pajaro Bay Publishing

  Contents

  Introduction

  Newsletter

  Copyright & Dedication

  Author's Note

  Hope

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Booklist

  Newsletter

  Charities

  Stay in Touch

  Introduction

  Teresa Soto is hiding from her fellow gang members in the perfect place: the tiny village of Pajaro Bay. But when she falls for the squeaky-clean director of the local youth center, things get complicated. She's one step ahead of the danger on her tail, and may be taking him along for the ride. Should she run, should she hide, or should she stay and fight for the new life she's building based on a big, fat lie?

  Welcome to Pajaro Bay, the little California beach town where the cottages are cute, the neighbors are nosy, and it's always possible to find your personal Happily Ever After.

  * * *

  1. Honeymoon Cottage

  2. Boardwalk Cottage

  3. Lighthouse Cottage

  4. Little Fox Cottage

  5. Rum Cake Cottage

  6. Songbird Cottage

  7. Sunshine Cottage

  8. Riverstone Cottage

  Copyright © 2018 by Barbara Cool Lee

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Neither the author nor the publisher claim responsibility for adverse effects resulting from the use of any recipes, projects, and/or information found within this book.

  This edition published: November 1, 2018

  2020-05-25-J

  Author's Note

  A reader wrote a review of the Pajaro Bay books some time ago, and her words have always stuck with me. She said that in each Pajaro Bay novel, a person comes to the village and is somehow healed by being there.

  That has never been more true than in Sunshine Cottage. I have never written about a heroine who is more in need of healing and redemption than Teresa Soto.

  This young woman has never had a break in her life. She is an afterthought, a discard, a person only used by her own family to make money for them. She has lost the most valuable thing a human being can possess: hope.

  But then she meets a world-weary police detective. She says of him: "Though he had lived twice as long as she had, he hadn't given up on the idea there was something better than this." And in this young woman, the cop sees not only a person who deserves a second chance, but perhaps the daughter he never had. So he offers her a helping hand—and a ticket to Pajaro Bay.

  What will this cynical, unbelieving girl think when she lands in the postcard-perfect little village filled with quirky characters—and a prince charming straight out of a fairy tale? Will she become a part of the community, and build a new life for herself?

  I hope you enjoy following along on Teresa's journey, and, in a time when our own world can sometimes feel as hard and cynical as hers, you can share her feeling of renewal and happiness in this little visit to the world of Pajaro Bay.

  "Hope" is the thing with feathers -

  That perches in the soul -

  And sings the tune without the words -

  And never stops - at all -

  * * *

  And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

  And sore must be the storm -

  That could abash the little Bird

  That kept so many warm -

  * * *

  I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

  And on the strangest Sea -

  Yet - never - in Extremity,

  It asked a crumb - of me.

  * * *

  Emily Dickinson

  Prologue

  Four Months Ago

  Sacramento, California

  * * *

  Nineteen-year-old Teresa Soto sat in the holding cell at the police station.

  A jail cell never changed. It was one of the constants of life, with each element prescribed to illustrate the dismalness of daily existence.

  She thought about that sentence for a minute. Prescribed was the right word, but was dismalness? Dismal fit the bill, but was there such a word as "dismalness"? She wished the cops hadn't taken her phone so she could look it up.

  In any case, the place she sat in checked all the boxes for your typical, dismal police station:

  •Walls painted with the ugliest shade someone could find, almost like they had mixed a bunch of colors together until they created an indefinable slurry that hurt your eyes just to look at it.

  •Floor of cement, stained with something you didn't want to look at too closely.

  •No window to the outside. No glimpse of sunlight or fresh air, because if you were in here, you were beyond redemption.

  •One wall made of bars, just to remind you where you were, in case you were tempted to let your imagination drift off to some pleasant and peaceful place.

  This was a new station to her. She usually got picked up over in the south side of the city. She knew the cops over there. And they knew her. They had their routine down to a science: she'd get warned, advised, picked up, bailed out, fined, and then go back to her own life with a minimal amount of fuss. It felt like being stuck in one of those hotel revolving doors; round and round they'd go, but she never could find the exit.

  She shouldn't have strayed outside her home turf, but she'd gotten spooked away from there and had been keeping a low profile.

  Now the rent payment was late, and she'd gotten desperate. When was the last time she had been arrested? She thought back. January. The rent had been late then, too, and the thought of Mama on the street had made her reckless. Bad things always happened when the rent was due.

  If she couldn't get out of here before night she'd be sleeping on the bare metal slats of the cell's bed. At least it would be quieter here, without Mama and Amy partying while she tried to crash on the sofa.

  If she was lucky tonight, she'd get a good night's sleep, and then there would be time for a jelly doughnut and stale coffee before going to court and bailing out. Things could be worse.

  The side of the cell with bars looked out on the main room where the cops worked, and the desk directly across from her was currently occupied by a very large cop with a very bad mood. He was talking to a pro Teresa had never seen before.

  The pro was twice her age, nearing forty maybe. And she was dead in the eyes in a way Teresa had seen too many times before. The woman wore a super-short jeans skirt, ragged platform heels, and nylons with runs in them. She wasn't even trying anymore.

  The pro looked up and thei
r eyes met, and it hurt, like a stab in the chest. The woman wasn't forty. She was only a few years older than Teresa, maybe twenty-five or so. But every last shred of hope was gone. There was nothing in those eyes but a blankness that came from tuning out the whole world to block out the pain.

  Teresa nodded to her in recognition of their shared predicament. The woman smiled back at her automatically, a rigid, automaton smile that was as empty and soulless as a doll's.

  Teresa stood up and faced the sickly puce cement wall of the cell. It was a prettier sight than those eyes. She pulled her own miniskirt straight, and felt at the seam of the waistline, noticing that it was beginning to give out from age. Her nylons weren't torn, though, she told herself desperately. Not torn at all. She was fine. Things were fine.

  She sat there, stoic, for what seemed a very long time, waiting for the stupid cops to get this over with. It wasn't the first time she'd been picked up, and it wouldn't be the last. It was just a part of doing business. Dealing with cops. The enemy. The ones who constantly caused trouble.

  She looked down at the sleeve of her cheap jacket. Pink satin, like in the movie Grease. She'd read books set in the 1950s, a time where, if you believed the fictional world of the novels, kids lived in small towns and went to school and played sports and hung out at the soda fountain while their loving parents earned a nice living and took care of them and then kissed them goodnight when they were falling asleep in their cozy bedrooms.

  Pure fantasy, of course. Nobody had ever really lived like that.

  She noticed the hem of her jacket sleeve had frayed some more since she'd last mended it. She'd bought the jacket on clearance at Walmart two years ago with the last money Papa had given to her before he died, and now it was falling apart. The zipper didn't work anymore, and the sleeve was ragged, ruining the cute pink puffiness as the stuffing slowly leaked out.

  She would have to throw it away soon. It was the last thing left from Papa, and she started to cry, just sitting there on the hard wooden bench scarred with the graffiti of countless inmates and sniffling, and feeling mad that she couldn't even properly blow her nose because she didn't have a kleenex or anything.

  When a cop finally came to question her he was the bad type.

  Not the type who looked at her all hard and hateful and judging her. Those were easy. This one was the sort who seemed as tired as she was.

  He was older. Graying. Getting a bit round in the mid-section, but he still looked like he could beat you up one-handed if he needed to, in that tough cop way they had.

  He had kind eyes, though, and that could always trip her up.

  The harsh ones were easiest to deal with, because you knew where you stood. You and they were in opposing armies, fighting the endless war of the street. Your side schemed and plotted to eke out some way of living in the rough alleys of life, and they tried to stop you. Simple. Clear. You did the crime and you did the time.

  Her time so far had consisted of a couple of thirty-day sentences for petty stuff, with early release due to overcrowding.

  She'd had enough of a taste of jail to know she didn't want to go back. But just as surely she knew she would be going back. Knew the cycle was endless. Had seen it since she was a baby, watching her father go down for burglary and purse snatching and petty larceny. Had seen her mother picked up for public drunkenness, minor drug offenses, and solicitation. Had seen her big sister go down for shoplifting, and then graduate to outcall, and then teach her how to follow the same path.

  She knew in her gut she'd end up like the doll-eyed woman who'd collapsed an hour ago from an OD, and been hauled off in an ambulance. Or maybe she'd be like Papa, and hand her last twenty bucks to a loved one before heading off to prison to die of a heart attack at the age of 34.

  She looked up at the man who sat opposite her. His kind eyes said he knew how the story ended as well as she did, and he hated it as much as she did.

  But for some reason, though he had lived twice as long as she had, he hadn't given up on the idea that there was something better than this.

  And those kind eyes were her undoing. They were the chink in the wall between their two sides.

  She grabbed at the only thing she had left to bargain for her life with. The thing that had sent her scurrying like a frightened rat to this unfamiliar part of the city, to end up here, at the end of the line.

  "I saw somebody murdered," she said quietly. "If I tell you about it, can I stay out of jail?"

  Chapter One

  Monday, October 1, 9:00 p.m.

  * * *

  Detective Graham turned in at the bus station. He pulled into a parking spot and shut off the engine. He flicked on the car's interior lights, but didn't glance at the kid in the passenger seat. Didn't want to look.

  This felt like a betrayal.

  She unbuckled her seat belt and he finally turned to face her, this girl who had never gotten a single break in her life, had never been anything but an afterthought to the people around her.

  She gave him that brave look, the one he'd gotten real used to in the four months they'd spent in the safe house. The look that said she knew the cards were stacked against her, but she was going to make the best of it.

  It felt like years since he'd sat across from her in the precinct, since he'd listened with growing shock as she gave a statement that had sent the major crimes unit and the district attorney's office scrambling after the biggest gang leader in the city.

  She had handed them proof, on a silver platter, that Victor "Vic" Vicario was a cold-blooded killer. She could put him away for first degree murder, with gang enhancements that would guarantee that he'd never see the outside of a cell again.

  And no one knew her name. Sealed testimony, quick indictment, grab the perp and go to trial before he knew what hit him. A perfect case.

  Only one small problem. Somehow Vicario figured out they were on to him. He'd slipped through their fingers. Skipped across the border, perhaps. Hiding with family in another state, maybe. Or possibly he was just hunkered down in some safe house right here in the city, like Teresa had been, waiting it out until the coast was clear. A stand off, where each side dug in and hoped the other guy would blink first.

  And the district attorney's office had blinked first.

  The decision came down from on high: it was impractical to tie up some of their best officers to guard one witness. They couldn't just wait around forever, hoping Vicario would make a mistake. It was time to dump Teresa Soto back out on the street to fend for herself.

  Yeah, there was a risk. There was a ten-thousand dollar bounty waiting for the person who could put a name and a face to the anonymous police witness.

  Teresa had risked her life to give them a statement, and Graham argued that they owed her more than a "see you later, kid; good luck staying alive."

  So the DA had agreed to a compromise: stick Teresa Soto in the state witness relocation program. She was entitled to a monthly stipend, a new ID card, and a bus ticket to somewhere far away.

  But where? Where to send her? Where to dump this worthless two-bit hooker with the ability to testify against a gang leader?

  "Who cares?" the DA had said. "Just pick somewhere and get rid of her."

  He smiled at Teresa, a kid who could have been his own daughter, if the fates had been kinder to both of them. A kid who, in the months he'd spent with her, had shown a remarkable intelligence, a kind heart, and a sense of hopelessness that was just plain wrong to see in one so young.

  So he had picked a place. A place he knew well. A place where, just maybe, she could become the person she would have been, if the world had given her half a chance.

  She had gotten to know Detective Graham well enough to see through the mask. He was worried. And that scared her. But she didn't want to let it show.

  "I'll say goodbye here," he said. "I don't want you to be seen with me. Just in case anyone recognizes me as a cop." He didn't look like a cop today, dressed in jeans and sweatshirt, with a 49ers c
ap pulled low over his eyes. He looked like somebody's middle-aged dad dropping his daughter off at the bus station.

  She nodded, then blurted out, "is it too late?"

  He didn't pretend to misunderstand what she meant. "Never," he said firmly. "You're still breathing. That makes it not too late to start over."

  "But I don't know what to do…."

  He reached in the back seat and got the small daypack that held almost everything she owned in the world.

  His eyes seemed to be glistening as he handed it to her.

  "This is your chance, Teresa."

  "Teri," she said automatically. "My name is Teri Forest."

  "Good girl," he said with a smile, and she felt herself smiling back. His approval mattered. She'd learned that in the last few months, months where they'd talked endlessly, months where she'd found out he came from a family of cops, was divorced with no kids, liked to go deep-sea fishing, and was the kind of man who never even considered taking advantage of her. A man who treated her like she had value.

  That had taken some getting used to, but now she was going to miss it.

  She had no real idea where he was sending her. Pajaro Bay, it was called, and he swore it would be worth the long bus trip.