A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(49)

But Hailey had sought her out for a reason. Her uncle Clay had been trying to worm his way back into the Dixie Mafia. That wouldn’t be a big deal, but he wanted to use Levi’s business as a means to get back in.

“My brother has worked his ass off for that business,” she’d told her on the first meeting. “And my dumbass uncle wants to use it to launder money for the DM.”

Fury and indignation for Levi flooded every cell in Sun’s body. “Surely, Levi would never allow your uncle to do something like that.”

“You don’t understand.” She leaned closer and took Sun’s hands into her own. “Even if Levi refuses, which he will, once the DM sees the potential gold mine of Dark River Shine, they’ll do everything in their power to take control.”

The image sliced through Sun’s thoughts like a straight razor. “Would he ever give in to them?”

“Levant Arun Ravinder? Hell no. He’d go to his grave first, and they will have no qualms about putting him there.”

“What about your uncle?”

“Please, he’d help them dig the grave.”

“Son of a bitch,” Sun said, chewing on her fingernails. “Have you gone to the sheriff?”

“Sheriff Redding? I would, but since he’s in on it . . .”

“Sheriff Redding?” she asked, stunned. She knew the guy was an asshat, but . . .

Hailey nodded. “They’re involved in several business ventures together. And there’s a deputy, too, but I can’t tell which one. I’ve never seen his face.”

“Would you recognize him from his build?”

“Maybe. He looked big. Wide shoulders. But that could’ve been the jacket he wore.”

The blood drained from Sun’s face. Quincy was the tallest deputy Del Sol had at the moment. And he had the widest shoulders by a mile.

“Ever since Levi legitimized the family business, my uncles have been trying to come up with a way to knock him off his pedestal.”

“Of course. He can’t do better than they did.”

“Never.”

Never underestimate the devious nature of a family drenched in crime and blood. “The only thing I can suggest is that we go to the FBI.”

Hailey jerked back as though Sun had slapped her. “I can’t do that. If they find out . . . No, it has to be you. Once we gather enough evidence against my uncle, then you can go to them.”

“Hailey—”

“No. No, Sunshine. I can’t risk my son’s life. Or Levi’s.”

Sun understood more than Hailey could ever know. “If your uncle finds out you’re doing this, he’ll kill you, Hailey.”

She raised her chin a notch and pasted on her brave face. “Let’s make sure he doesn’t find out.”

That was months ago, and she still worried about Hailey’s uncle finding out she’d been gathering intel for her. And she worried about the Dixie Mafia taking over Levi’s operation.

Since then, Sun had been investigating each and every one of her deputies. Well, before they were hers, that is. Even Quincy. Her face-to-face meetings with them served two purposes: to get to know them and to get an initial impression.

None set off any alarms for her, so maybe the elusive Lieutenant Bo Britton was the deputy in cahoots with former Sheriff Redding. He’d been with him the longest. If one of her deputies was corrupt, he or she was an excellent actor. Then again, they’d have to be.

“Okay, enough.” Richard was tearing up even though he had no idea what was going on. “I have to get back. You girls just be safe. Promise me.”

“We promise,” they said in unison.

He got to the door when Sun remembered another promise, one the couple had made to her.

“You still have to teach me that trick with the eyeliner!” she whispered.

“And you still have to teach me how to get away with murder!” he whispered back. “I got people to kill, damn it.”

It worked. Hailey laughed softly.

“Do you know where they’re searching? Where Levi found Jimmy’s prints?”

“It’s over by Dover Pass.”

While Sun knew a few of the names for places in the mountains—like Dover Pass and Strawser’s Holler—she had no idea where any of them actually were. It wasn’t like they were on a map. Not most of them, anyway. But leave it to a family of bootleggers to come up with names and landmarks to navigate the mountain range, because no native New Mexican would ever name anything a holler.

She wrote it into her notepad, anyway. Quincy might know.

“Hailey, what happened to the rest of your uncles?” Sun only knew that Hailey’s mother had died when she was young, and her death was rumored to be about Levi. Their father never believed Levi was his, and Levi’s coloring, so unlike the rest of the Ravinders’, would seem to support that.

If her parents were to be believed, Levi’s father was a Native American. A Mescalero Apache, to be exact, which was why he spent much of his summers on the reservation with a man believed to be Levi’s paternal grandfather.

But then Hailey’s father died about a year later in a car accident, and Levi and his sister were raised by a slew of aunts and uncles. None of them were what anyone would call upstanding.