A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(91)

“And if I do say so myself, I’m amazing at reading people. You’re good.”

“Fuck that.” His voice cracked.

She walked around him, leaned against the wall, and waited for him to get it off his chest. It didn’t take long.

“It wasn’t like I didn’t want you to find out. Once I realized it could actually help the investigation, once I knew a little more about what it takes to solve crimes, I was going to tell you, but it had been so long.”

“Sit down.”

“I’m okay.”

But she led him to a chair anyway and sat in the one next to him. “Quincy Lynn Cooper, I hereby absolve you of any wrongdoing, not that there’s anything to absolve, but I want you to know that none of that was your fault, no matter how much your machismo tells you otherwise. I’m only bringing it up now because I can still tell how much it eats at you.”

His blue eyes shimmered with emotion. “I wasn’t there.”

“I know.”

“I was supposed to be.”

“I know.”

“I bailed on you to go out with Kristen Ulibarri.”

“I know. And really? Kristen Ulibarri? She was a little above your pay grade at the time, don’t you think?”

“And . . . wait, you knew it was Kristen?”

Sun smiled until he figured it out.

“Holy shit, that’s how you found out.”

“I’d suspected for some time, but she confirmed a couple of years ago. She was in town and invited me to lunch. It was like this weight she had to get off her chest. She had to apologize for dragging you away from me that night. For making me go into town alone. It all made so much more sense once I knew that.”

He lowered his head into a hand. “I’m so sorry, Sun. If I hadn’t bailed, you never would have been taken.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

He raised his gaze to her. “What do you mean?”

“This is just like Sybil’s case. He’d been planning it for a while. Why else ask my dad for a ransom? He knew he had money and how much. Like almost to the penny. This was not random and would have happened either way. But your not being there that night was a coup for us, trust me.”

“How?”

“I don’t think the guy was planning on taking me that night. I think he had a much better plan, a much solider plan, but he was getting impatient, and with you not being there, I think he saw an opportunity and took advantage.”

“And how is that a coup?”

“Because it was a last-minute decision. And he made mistakes.”

“What kinds of mistakes?”

“I think he was going to take me in the parking lot before I drove off, but someone must’ve interrupted him. Why else let me get into Dad’s truck and drive off if I’d been drugged? I could’ve wrecked and died and ruined the whole plan.”

“I wondered about that, too.”

“He had to have been watching me for weeks. Maybe he followed me there and saw his opportunity. Seriously, how often were we apart?”

“True. If we were out in public, we were out in public together.”

“We were inseparable. Even my mom said so. I think your bailing on me has given us more clues than we’d hoped for.”

“Like?”

“Like he had to get me out of the truck before someone pulled over to help, right?”

“Yeah, sure, but forensics went over that truck—”

“I’m not talking about the truck. I’m talking about the guardrail I hit. Because he had to let me get in the truck and start to drive home, I hit the guardrail. Because I hit the guardrail, he had to pull over and get me out. And because it was all so unplanned, he didn’t have the opportunity to wait the requisite time for the drug to take affect before he pulled me out.”

“Okay, I’m following you. I think.”

“I’ve been remembering things. Like a dream, but still remembering them. When I pulled over, I don’t think I put the truck in park.”

“Well, you were passing out. It’s easy to understand.”

“Exactly. I remembered the truck creeping forward, scraping against the guardrail, and someone screaming. Then I have an image—a grainy, blurry image—of a man trying to wrap his hand with a towel or something. It’s like I’m in the back seat of a vehicle and he’s driving and cursing up a storm and trying to wrap his hand. And it’s red.”

“His hand?”

“No. Well, yes, but the inside of his car. I remember thinking at least the blood wouldn’t show up too badly because it would match.”

“So, when the truck crept forward, his hand got stuck between it and the guardrail?”

“Yes. I think.”

“You know the likelihood of finding DNA evidence at this point.”

She did, sadly.

Zee knocked on the door, and Sun waved her in. “We got a preliminary on the DB, Sheriff. There were definitely two distinct blood types on the clothes. They’ve sent them off for analysis.”

“Good. Did they say what the types were?”

“The first one, O positive, matches that of Kubrick Ravinder.”

“O positive?” she asked, one theory shot to hell. She took a moment to absorb that, to contemplate what that meant. “They’re certain?”