A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(51)

“His family cooked hooch in these mountains for decades,” Sun said. “They had to know that kind of thing.”

“Well, he’s up there with that cracked cousin of his. I don’t know how, though. It’s slick and steep.” He lifted his boots and checked the tread as though that were the problem.

Fields scanned the area, craning his neck to check out the clouds overhead. “We’re going to have to wait until tomorrow. We tried to get a helicopter in here, but the storm’s coming in. It’s supposed to clear out by midnight, though, and warm up in the morning. Might melt some of this snow.”

Sun agreed reluctantly. “In the meantime, there’s a teenage boy wandering around lost.” It broke her heart.

“Not to mention a teenage girl,” Zee said, “possibly kidnapped and being held in these woods.”

“We can look if you’d like, boss,” Quincy said. “I’m game.”

“No. You go home. Get some rest. We have a couple of dozen volunteers showing up first thing tomorrow morning. I need you fresh and warm and”—she stepped closer to her near-frozen chief deputy—“less blue.”

Zee laughed and punched him on the arm. They would make beautiful babies someday if Quincy didn’t fuck it up.

“I’ll get back in time to pick up Auri from school, drop her off at the empty nesters’, then head over to the Quick-Mart.”

Quincy gave her a thumbs-up. “Fingers crossed their security cameras actually work.”

She grabbed a pen and paper out of her cruiser and walked to Levi’s truck. It was locked, of course, and the storm would probably make the ink run, but she left a note on the windshield, telling him about the search party and to let her know if they found Jimmy.

After walking back to the cruiser, she turned to look at the mountain. She should have found the snow-covered trees beautiful, the sun glistening through them stunning, but today, she found the scene treacherous. Deadly. An obstacle she didn’t want to take on.





12


One shot of our espresso, and you’ll

be able to thread a sewing machine.

While it’s running.



—SIGN AT CAFFEINE-WAH

Sun pulled into the parking lot later than she’d hoped. Most of the kids had already gone home. Those that hadn’t were standing around, waiting for their rides or bus, shivering. A fresh helping of snow had been promised, but it was getting colder. Almost too cold to snow.

She put the cruiser in park, then looked across the smattering of students for a head of bright copper. Having no luck, she texted her offspring. “I’m in the parking lot. I got back earlier than I thought I would, so I’m here instead of Grandma. Did she pick you up, anyway? After I texted her that I’d be here? Because I wouldn’t put it past her.”

When she didn’t get a response, she started to worry. Not bad. Just a faint uneasiness in the back of her mind.

She grabbed her phone to text again when a knock sounded on her window.

She lowered it to a pretty blonde with a round face. “Are you Auri’s mom?”

The faint uneasiness catapulted into near panic. “Yes,” she said, making sure her interior turmoil did not leech to her exterior.

“Hi!”

Sun flinched at the girl’s enthusiasm but kept her cool.

“I’m Auri’s friend Chastity. We have athletics together. But there were some girls teasing her in class.”

Sun’s calm exterior evaporated. “Teasing her?”

“Yeah. Just being jerks. You know the kind.”

“Unfortunately, I do.”

“She took off down the street.” Chastity pointed past the school and toward the center of the village, which was the opposite direction of their apartment.

Then it hit her. Damn. It meant Auri had had a worse day than she’d expected.

“Thank you, Chastity.”

The girl beamed at her. “No, ma’am. Thank you.”

Having no idea what the blonde was thanking her for, Sun threw her cruiser into drive and headed toward Town Square.

She pulled into the parking lot and up to the memorial that sat in front of city hall. Auri sat on the side of a memorial fountain. A fountain dedicated to Samson Elio Vicram, Auri’s father for all intents and purposes, as well as other soldiers the town had lost in military combat, some going all the way back to World War I.

But the memorial itself was mostly in memoriam of Samson.

Sun sat beside her daughter, who’d cleared off a spot for her on the fountain when she saw her walking up.

“Hey, Mom,” she said as though she hadn’t a care in the world.

“Hey, bug bite. I was worried your grandmother forgot and picked you up, but then this extremely happy blonde—”

“Chastity.”

“Yes, Chastity told me you’d walked toward Town Square.”

“Yeah, I just wanted to get out. Get some fresh air.”

“Thirty degrees is pretty fresh.”

“I guess.”

“How bad was it?”

“What?”

“The teasing.”

Auri wilted. “Not bad. I’ll probably never live it down, and I’ll need a lot of therapy, but all in all, not bad.”