A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(19)

She thought back, trying to remember exactly what hit where when the car came at her as though laser guided. She remembered ducking, because that made so much more sense than jumping out of the way. Sadly, her reflexes weren’t so much catlike as rolypolylike.

The car’s bumper must have hit her shoulder. It was enough to send her sprawling back, a fact that probably saved her life if the placement of the tire was any indication. Three inches closer and she’d be in dire need of a face-lift. As in her face lifted off the floor.

Her phone beeped with a text from Auri. The very Auri she’d just left at school not an hour earlier. She prayed the kid hadn’t actually cut a bitch this early in the semester. She checked the message and breathed a sigh of relief. It was only their standard checkin.

“Knock-knock,” she’d texted.

Sun smiled. “Who’s there?”

“Your mama.”

A bubble of laughter surfaced. “Sweetheart, I know you’re lying. Your grandmother never knocks.”

She received a GIF of a dog on its back in a fit of laughter for her efforts. A breathy sigh of relief slid past her lips. She’d genuinely been worried this last week. Not about Auri cutting a bitch. For the girl’s well-being.

The tribulations of being a parent, she supposed.

She sent her a row of hearts before restarting the journey to her office.

With no time to spare, she began unbuttoning her shirt before she made it there, but something else drew her attention. She looked across the street to see Levi observing from the gas pumps.

She paused, not because she wanted a better look. Well, yes, because she wanted a better look, but it was his expression that stopped her in her tracks.

When his powerful gaze met hers, he lowered his head and stared a solid minute, his fists tightening around a worn cap.

Concern lined his face. And something akin to knowing, as though the crash didn’t surprise him. As though Sun’s presence didn’t surprise him. Then again, why would it? He’d had to have known she’d won the bid for county sheriff.

He wet his lips, the movement so sexy Sun could hardly see straight. Before she could wrench her gaze away, he turned, climbed back into his truck, and took off, heading north toward his family’s land.

“Nope,” Quincy said from beside her. “He hasn’t changed at all.” His tone was teasing, and Sun wanted to punch him in the arm like she had on numerous occasions in high school. “You think maybe we ought to find a missing kid now?”

Sun straightened her shoulders and winced as the fabric of her uniform scraped over the glass in her back. Death by a thousand paper cuts suddenly seemed much worse than she’d previously imagined.

“After we deglass you, that is,” Quincy added.

They started toward her office again, the EMT right behind them, when Anita stepped out of the restroom, her hands pressed against her abdomen.

“Mrs. Escobar, are you okay?”

“Please, Sheriff, call me Anita, and I’m sorry about this.” She gestured toward the bathroom. “I have stomach issues. Every time I get upset or excited or nervous, I have to, you know, find a restroom.”

“That’s . . . unfortunate,” she said, surprised the woman worked at a sheriff’s station. “And you can call me Sun. Or Sunny. Or Sunshine.” She rolled her eyes. She really needed to choose one and stick to it. “I need you to get all the info you can on Mrs. St. Aubin. Her daughter is missing.”

“Again?” Anita asked. Shaking her head, she started for her desk, but Sun stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

“What do you mean? Has she gone missing before?”

Anita closed her mouth as though she’d said something she shouldn’t have. “Nope. Nuh-uh. Forget I mentioned it.” She started for her desk again. “Carry on.”

When Sun’s questioning expression elicited only a shrug from Quincy, she walked back to Mrs. St. Aubin. An EMT was checking her vitals while she cradled a cup of coffee.

Sun knelt in front of her again. “Mrs. St. Aubin, has your daughter ever run away?”

“What? No. She didn’t run away. She just, she was scared. But it doesn’t matter now. We don’t have much time.”

A terrified parent was one thing, but Marianna St. Aubin seemed awfully sure of her daughter’s potential fate. Sun’s suspicious mind began to work overtime. Maybe that little statement about forever meant something, after all.

“Why?” she asked, her voice taking on a harder edge. “Why don’t we have much time?”

Mrs. St. Aubin blinked in surprise, then stumbled through an explanation. “Well, isn’t that what they say? The first forty-eight hours are the most vital?”

She had her there. But still. “You said he.”

“What?” The woman was shaking so badly that hot coffee sloshed over the side of her cup. She gasped and almost dropped it.

“You said, ‘He took her.’ Who is he?”

“No one.” She handed the cup to Zee and brought her scalded hand to her mouth. “I don’t know. It was just a guess. Isn’t it usually a male?” Then she turned, her sense of entitlement taking over. “I don’t see what any of that has to do with my missing daughter, Sheriff. Are you going to do your job or not?”


Mrs. St. Aubin’s words were just as much defense mechanism as entitlement, so Sun didn’t take them too personally. She let the events of the day turn over in her mind before standing and heading back to her office. The deputies were easing the car down the stairs and out of the station as a tow truck waited nearby.