A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(112)

She took out her notepad, wrote two words onto a slip of paper, and stuffed it into Quincy’s front pocket. “Do not look at this unless I die unexpectedly.”

“Really?” he said, unimpressed. “This again?”

He had a point. She used to pull the very same antics in school, whenever she suspected someone of wrongdoing but didn’t want to call them out in case she was wrong. But back then, it was more of an insurance thing. That way, if she were wrong, no one would be the wiser. But when she was proven right, she could gloat that she’d figured it out first. Win-win.

Maybe she had been destined for a career in law enforcement, after all.

Holding up a finger over her lips, she said, “Complete radio silence.”

They nodded, and she sprinted to her cruiser.


“Marianna,” Sun said, running up to Sybil’s mom as she swiped her card at a vending machine.

Before she found Mari, she’d ordered Quincy and Zee to join the guard and Deputy Salazar at Sybil’s room, telling them to allow no one, absolutely no one, entrance until she got there. Then she went in search of Marianna St. Aubin.

The woman’s face showed signs of severe stress, and when Sun ran up to her like a shopping addict during a fire sale, she thought the poor thing would faint.

“I’m sorry,” Sun said, holding up her hands in surrender. “Everything’s okay. I just have a couple of questions.”

Mari put a hand over her heart while Sun scanned the small snack area that had been decorated to look like a piazza in Italy. Absolutely charming.

“How is Sybil doing?” she asked in the name of social niceties.

“I just checked in on her. She’s asleep.”

“Good. Good.” She led Mari to a small table and had her sit. “I have what could be considered a very delicate question to ask you.”

She laced her fingers around the soda can she’d been drinking from. “All right.”

“Does your husband have any children from another marriage?”

“Forest? No. Well, none that we know of.”

“We? Or you?”

“What are you getting at?”

Sun took a deep breath, hoping she was not starting something she couldn’t back up. “I could be wrong. I don’t want you to worry he’s been lying to you, and I would be talking to him about this, but my deputy said your husband had to make a quick trip into Santa Fe.”

Mari’s lips thinned. “His daughter was almost murdered, but God forbid he miss an opportunity to get his wine into another national chain.”

“I’m sorry.”

She smoothed her frown. “No, I am. He’s been working so hard. I do understand. And this meeting was set up weeks ago. If he missed it, he may never get a second chance, but some things are just more important, you know?”

“I do,” Sun said, though she saw his side, too. In Mr. St. Aubin’s eyes, his daughter was safe and sound. He could resume his normal activities without worry.

If only that were the case.

“But I have to say,” she continued, “he’s never told me he had a child with anyone else.”

Sun pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “And . . . you?”

The flash of emotion on Mari’s face told her everything. She dropped her gaze to the bank card she’d put on the table. After a long moment of contemplation, she swallowed and said, “He doesn’t know.”

“Your husband?”

She nodded. “He doesn’t know that I had a child. It was . . .” She cleared her throat and began again. “It was a mistake.”

“Mari, we all make mistakes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I didn’t tell my parents for months, until I could no longer hide the evidence.”

“How did they take it?”

She shook her head as though embarrassed. “Anger. Disappointment. Humiliation.”

“So, not well.”

“Nope. Not my parents. See, everyone else makes mistakes. My parents are perfection incarnate.”

“Oh, I think I met them at the fairy ball in Fantasy Land.”

She chuckled, but the memory was a bitter one. “Two hours after I told them, we were at an adoption agency, filling out papers.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I am. They made me feel so ashamed.” She locked a determined gaze onto Sun’s. “I will never let anyone make me feel that way again.”

“Good for you. Did you know the father well?”

“Not really. We’d met at a party. Both of us drunk. He owns a plumbing supply company in Chicago now. Married with three kids.”

“Did you ever tell him about the baby?”

She shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking. He had a right to know, but my parents threatened to kick me out. I was only sixteen, and they did not want that boy in our lives. Like it was all his fault.”

And once again, Sun offered up a silent thank-you to the powers that be for giving her Cyrus and Elaine Freyr.

“I left home soon after that. They never looked at me the same again. I was lost for so long, and then Forest happened.” Her face brightened as a happy memory bubbled to the surface.

“I was a waitress working the night shift when Forest St. Aubin walked in. Or, well, stumbled in. He was so drunk.” She laughed at the memory. “I let him sleep it off in a corner booth, then got him a cab when my shift ended. He came back the next night to apologize, and the rest is history.” She looked at Sun then, as though pleading for her to understand. “They didn’t even let me look at him before they took him. The baby.” She dabbed at the wetness on her cheeks.