A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(37)

“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.

She sent Zee and Salazar to grab lunch so they could get back to guard the perimeter.

“What are you thinking?” Sun asked Quincy as they followed the K-9 unit, searching the grounds for anything out of the ordinary.

When he spoke, his breath fogged in the air. “That I’m cold. And hungry. And that I’m in the wrong business. I need to join the K-9 unit.”

“Right? I’d be horrible, though. I’d call my partner Princess and let her sleep with me.”

“Sheriff?” the officer called out.

They hurried through the snow to where Officer Bones was sniffing the ground excitedly. “Did you find something?”

“Not sure.” He called the dog back and let Sun poke around.

“Here,” Quincy said, brushing snow away with a gloved hand. He lifted a pink button off the ground. It had a tiny blue flower painted on it with brown flecks.

“Is this what he detected?” Sun asked the officer, but he needn’t have answered. The dog barked when Quincy held it out.

“There might be blood on it,” he explained. “Bones is a cadaver dog.”

Quincy dropped the button into an evidence bag, and they combed the entire area more thoroughly, but Officer Bones found nothing else of interest. To him, anyway. Sun found a receipt under a tree a few yards from the house. Thanks to the cover of trees, the ground beneath it was wet but snowless, and the receipt sat under a clump of leaves.

But it was recent enough that the ink hadn’t faded completely despite the weather conditions. It was a receipt from the Quick-Mart convenience store for an energy drink, paid for with cash, and while the date had faded, the receipt number hadn’t. She hoped the store could look up the transaction based on that number and give her an exact date and time.