A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(97)

He brightened at that, and Sun was struck with just how wonderful her daughter was. A daily occurrence, yes, but one she cherished.

They sat down to eat, and Sun was so distracted by the god sitting at the table, as one is when gods sit at tables with mere mortals, that she didn’t even notice when the same daughter she’d just praised, the same one she’d just gushed over, snuck off to look at the evidence she’d brought home on the Sybil St. Aubin case.

While her parents made small talk with Levi, asking him about the business and the world of moonshine, Sun downed about half the bottle of Moscato and enjoyed every ounce. Staring into her glass helped her not stare at Levi. Helped her not dwell on how he’d looked in bed that morning. Or what he’d said to her when she’d left.

She was contemplating all the excuses she could come up with to invade his sanctuary again when Auri walked into the kitchen holding a copy of the letter Sybil sent.

“Mom,” she said, her eyes like saucers.

“Auri, you can’t have that.” Sun jumped up to take it from her, knocking her wine over in the process, but the expression on Auri’s face stopped her. “What is it, sweetheart?”

“Why didn’t you show this to me earlier?”

“Auri, you can’t have that. It’s part of an ongoing investigation.”

“But I think there’s a message in this letter.”

“What do you mean?” She hurried around to her, and they looked at the letter together.

“Remember when I told you how I met Sybil and how we hit it off and talked about everything from boys to school?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, her letter says, ‘Please thank Auri for being my friend for a whole week. I’ve never known anyone like her. We were hoping we would have at least one class together, like first period, but just in case we didn’t, we came up with a way to pass notes to each other like spies sending secret messages. Maybe we can still do that someday. I hope she liked me as much as I liked her.’”

“I was going to tell you that part, honey. With everything going on, I just—”

“No, it’s okay, Mom. But I found out something today.” She sank into the chair next to Levi, and if the room had suddenly exploded and blinded her, Sun would still have noticed the arm he put around her daughter’s shoulders.

She melted into a quivering puddle of emotion, but she snapped out of it when Auri continued with, “So I had to practically threaten this kid today.”

“You had to what?”

“Remember the boy? The office aide at school who was very interested in the fact that we wanted Sybil’s schedule printed out?”

“I do,” she said, thinking back. “Average height, Asian, glasses, probably no more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. Hundred ten at most.”

Auri chuckled. “Yes. Aiden Huang. He told me he’d reacted that way because he’d printed out a schedule for someone else, and he thought he was getting into trouble. It was Sybil, Mom. She negotiated a trade with him to print out a schedule before winter break. My schedule.”

“Yours?”

“Yes. Mom, she already knew my schedule. She knew it before the New Year’s Eve party.”

Sun sank beside her. “Okay.”

“So, first off, she struck up a conversation with me, something that, according to everyone at school, she never did. Ever. She was painfully shy. Second, she already knew my schedule when we met at the lake and if we would have any classes together. She’d gotten it from Aiden.”

“Okay. What does it mean?”

“This might sound crazy, Mom, but I think she left a note for me. At school.”

Sun once again marveled at her daughter’s gray matter. Kid would go far. “What do you suggest we do?” she asked, tossing out the bait to see what she would do with it.

“We go to the school.”

“Sounds like a plan, but why not just tell you? Why go to all this trouble?”

“I wondered about that, too.” She crossed her arms in thought. “I think it’s because no one believed her. I think she was worried what I would think. If I would see her as a freak who didn’t want to hang out with her.”

“If she was worried about what you thought of her, she really did want to be friends. That says a lot.”

Auri flashed a timid smile, then said, “We have to get to that school.”

“Yes, we do.” She picked up the phone and called Quincy.

“Quince, who’s the security guard at the high school?”

“Gary Woods. Why?”

“Do you have his number? We need to get over there. Auri caught something in the letter we didn’t see.”

“Figures, the little firecracker. But don’t call Gary. Holy shit. We have a key somewhere. Or call Jacobs.”

“Why can’t I call Gary?” Sun found it odd that even Auri was against the idea of calling the security guard, their school liaison.

Auri was waving her arms, shaking her head and mouthing, “No, no, no, no, no.”

“You remember Barney Fife?” he asked.

“Really? He’s that bad?”

“Oh no. You misunderstand. He makes Barney Fife look like Sherlock Holmes.”

“Ouch.”