A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(82)

“But, Mom, if you were held for ransom, what did he ask for?”

“Two million.”

“Dollars?” Auri squeaked.

Sun laughed. “Yes. Somehow, the man found out about the nest egg your grandpa had built up. He’s a shrewd investor. And some guy decided he wanted it.”

“Is that why you didn’t call the cops, Grandpa?”

“It is. He said if we did, he’d kill her. And to this very day, I think he would have. I’m not saying we made the right decision, but if I had to do it over again, I don’t think I would change anything.”

“So, you paid it and he took her to the hospital?”

“No. We waited for instructions on the day we were supposed to drop it off, but none ever came.”

“We were worried sick, sweetheart,” Elaine added. “We thought something went wrong.”

“We thought he’d killed her,” Cyrus said, his voice flat. He looked away, and Auri’s expression softened on him.

“That’s when we decided to risk it,” he said. “We called in the sheriff at the time, Royce Womack, and told him everything. He got the state police involved instantly, but before anything came of it, we got a call from Santa Fe PD.”

“Someone had dropped your mom off at the hospital,” Quincy said.

“Who?”

Sun shrugged. “We don’t know. He didn’t stick around. We have footage, but it’s grainy and impossible to make out a face. It was like he knew where to look and where not to.”

“What could you tell about him? Was he short? Tall? Big or skinny?”

Sun smiled. “He seems young in the video. Very young. He wore a hoodie and a baseball cap and, if I’m not mistaken, he was injured. There was a huge dark stain on the hoodie, and one of the nurses said it looked like blood.”

“It wasn’t yours?” Quincy asked.

“It could have been, but he was really favoring his left side, like he’d been hurt. And there was a ton of blood.”

“He carried her in,” Cyrus said, “put her on a gurney, called out to a nurse, then ran before she could get close.”

“Why would he take you to the hospital before he got the money?”

Elaine started assembling the sandwiches. “We think your mom was injured and he was worried she wouldn’t make it.”

“But if all he cared about was the money, and he’d threatened to kill her anyway . . .”

“Welcome to my world,” Sun said, her daughter every bit as inquisitive as she ever was. “I’ve watched that footage over and over. I just have no clue who it is. I can’t see a face when I get my glimpses of that time, either, but somehow I feel like the kid in the video doesn’t fit the face in my head.”

“What glimpses?” Cyrus asked, alarmed.

“Right. No more secrets.” She looked at him. “You nailed it, Dad. I have been remembering bits and pieces. It feels a lot like Sybil’s dreams. I see images but can’t make sense of anything.”

His mouth thinned into a straight line. “I was worried about that. You’ve seemed—”

“Worried? Because I did win an election I never entered.”

“Is the stress of all this causing more memories to surface?”

She took his hand. “Dad, no. I’ve been getting glimpses of the abduction for years now. Just images, really. I’ve even remembered a couple of things that have happened before the abduction that I’d forgotten. Just silly little things, but it’s something.”

“And?” Quincy asked.

“And what?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He sat back in the recliner. “I thought the whole no-more-secrets thing applied to the present tense as well.”

She frowned at him. “It does.”

“This morning?”

She crossed her arms. “I was getting to that.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“What happened this morning?” Auri asked, her voice hurried. “Besides finding Jimmy. I’m so glad, Mom.”

“Yeah, well, that was all Levi.”

“Man’s a machine,” Quincy said.

Sun hid the pleased smile from him, then she looked at Elaine. “Mom, can you come in here?”

“Of course.” Elaine put down the knife, picked up the sandwiches, and joined them, but Sun could tell she was a little nervous.

“During the SAR mission, I found a crumbling shed near Estrella Pond. I didn’t think much of it, but it did grab my attention. I went to check it out and . . . I remembered.” She drew her bottom lip in through her teeth. “That’s where I was held.”

The surprised looks on her parents’ faces left little to the imagination.

“I remembered the smell most of all. But also the tiny windows. And the mattress. And the spiders.”

“Spiders?” Auri asked, horrified. “There were spiders?”

“Yes, but I barely remember. You have to think of what I do remember as more like a snapshot than an actual event. I’m still missing so much, but I know I was held in that shed and that’s where we found a body.”

“I heard that,” Elaine said. “At the search site.”

“Do they know who it is?” Auri asked Sun.