A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(98)

“I’ll call Jacobs and meet you at the school.”

“Okay, and Quince,” she added hesitantly, “radio silence on this, okay?”

“Ten-four.”

Levi stood and followed them to the door.

“Thank you again for everything,” Sun said to him.

He looked at Auri, winked, and then walked out with them, only he didn’t go to his truck. He went to her cruiser. He looked over his shoulder and said, “Shotgun.”

Auri laughed and got in the back seat.

“Um, what are you doing?” Sun asked.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“You can’t go with us. This is an official investigation.”

“Yeah, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m a bona fide, sworn-in deputy.”

“The hell you are.”

“The hell I’m not. Ask your boyfriend.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Cooper,” he added.

“We are not—”

“He was there when I was sworn in for a special assignment.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What kind of special assignment?”

“I’m not sure that’s within your pay grade.”

“You know what?” she asked, frustrated. “It doesn’t even matter. You can’t go. You could be the kidnapper, for all I know.”

“I’m a suspect?”

She glared at him. “Everyone is a suspect until they’re not.”

“Well, un-suspect me, because I’m going.”

“Why?”

He leaned over the hood and said, “Because you are taking Red into a potentially dangerous situation, and I like her.”

Sun blinked when he got in the cruiser and closed the door. When it took her a moment to get in, he leaned over the console. “Want me to drive?”

“No, I do not want you to drive.” She got in, slammed her door shut, and jerked her seat belt on. He made her sound like a bad mother. She’d only sent Auri in undercover the one time. She wasn’t a monster.

“You said she traded something?” she asked Auri in the rearview instead of railing at the man in her passenger’s seat.

“What?”

“Sybil. You said she traded something with Aiden for your schedule.”

“Oh, right. Wine from her family’s vineyard.”

“Figures.”

“Why radio silence?” Levi asked her.

“I don’t need to explain myself to you.”

“Humor me.”

“He’s clever, this guy. And good with technology. Surely, he’s keeping tabs on the investigation. I’d like to keep my daughter safe, too.”

“I never doubted it.”

But he did. She could see it on his impossibly handsome face. Either that or she was projecting her own guilt onto him. It happened.


Sun watched as Auri practically sprinted for the faculty entrance when Principal Jacobs opened it and gestured for them to come inside.

“First period,” she said to him, hurrying down the hall.

Sun and Levi followed her, Levi’s presence like an armed nuclear missile with a clock counting down: sweat-inducing, worrisome, and impossible to ignore.

Auri stopped in front of a classroom and checked the doorknob. Finding it locked, she turned and waited for what Sun could only imagine seemed like an epoch, her impatience dancing through her as she shifted her weight from leg to leg.

Quincy emerged from the same hall Jacobs had come from. “You okay, sprout?” he asked Auri when he walked up.

“Yes.” She gave him a hug. “And I’ll be better when we find Sybil.”

“Me, too.”

Quincy acknowledged Levi with the barest hint of a nod. Levi didn’t return the favor. It was a rivalry they’d had since they were kids, and it was ridiculous.

It was also her fault. She should never have told Quincy about the kiss. About the petting. About her heart breaking when he’d ignored her afterward.

Her BFF could hold a grudge until the stars burned out.

Principal Jacobs opened the door, and Auri tore inside, sliding under the desks until she found the one she was looking for.

“Here!” she shouted, and Sun didn’t even have to tell her not to touch anything. Auri knew better.

Sun and Quincy kneeled and looked at the underside of the desk. There was a note taped to it addressed to Auri.

They turned the desk over and carefully removed the note by cutting around it with a pocketknife. Then she handed her daughter a pair of gloves.

Auri filled her lungs, took the blue gloves, and slipped them on. With some help from a chuckling Levi.

“Okay, sit here, hon,” Sun said.

Auri sat at a desk and took the note. After Sun gave her the okay, she unfolded it. But it wasn’t a note. It was a drawing.

She squinted as she tried to figure out why Sybil had drawn her a picture of Auri’s name, graffiti-style. Underneath the pencil drawing was a short note.

“This is the only thing I see clearly. I knew when we met it was all real. I hope you find this. If not, please don’t be sad. I’m just grateful we got to be friends.”

“Mom,” Auri said, her eyes watering, her voice pregnant with panic. “I don’t understand what this means. What if we don’t find her?”