A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1) - Darynda Jones Page 0,53
you’re not, you’ll be grounded for the rest of your life and your grandmother is going to pick you up after school.”
“That is the longest name ever. Have you heard anything?”
“Not yet, hon, but we may have a lead. Anything on your end?”
“Nothing substantial.”
Sun swelled with pride. How many kids used the word substantial accurately in a sentence?
“Sybil is nice and smart and cute, but she keeps to herself, and I have yet to find a single student who really knew her. One she opened up to.”
“That’s okay. At least you tried. I’ll be home late.”
“Can I help?”
“Yes. You can go to your grandparents’ house and do your homework. And don’t con them into ordering pizza.”
“Okay.”
“And when you do con them into ordering pizza, at least make sure there’s a vegetable on it. Somewhere. Or a fruit. Pineapple is good, I hear.”
She could almost see the eye roll when her daughter texted back, “Fine.”
Quincy came out in civilian clothes.
Sun gestured him closer as she looked past the guys doing construction and pointed. A rust-colored rooster rushed past, much like the roadrunner in the Wile E. Coyote cartoons. “Isn’t that Puff Daddy?”
“The chicken?” he asked.
“The rooster. And, if I’m not mistaken, that’s Mr. Madrid chasing him.”
A man with more bandages than a six-year-old left alone in a doctor’s office stumbled past the front of the station. The two plodded through the snow. The rooster with relative ease. Mr. Madrid not so much.
“Bold of him to give a station full of deputies front-row seats to his criminal activities.”
“Okay, now we have to arrest him.”
“For what?” she asked. “Technically, poor Mr. Madrid does not have possession of Puff Daddy.”
Quincy snorted. “Not for lack of trying.”
“True. But we have work to do.”
“Fine. I’m heading home to get my mom’s pickup.” He wore a khaki jacket, denim jeans, black-framed glasses, and a baseball cap low over his brow. “They’ll never recognize me in it.”
The Ravinders were painfully private people. They would never let Sun or her deputies on their land without some kind of warrant, but Sun needed to know where Levi was searching. Once they had a location, they could get a warrant to assist. If, and only if, Quincy wasn’t spotted on their land.
If it were up to Levi, Sun liked to think he’d be sensible and allow them access. But she couldn’t take the chance. If Sybil was up there, they needed to know sooner rather than later.
“Thanks, Q. Keep me updated.”
“I’ll let you know where they’re searching.”
He started for the exit, but Fields called out to him, “I’m going with you.”
Quince lifted a shoulder. “I’m just getting a location.”
“Yeah, from what I’ve seen, if they spot you following them, you’ll need more than that thin disguise.”
“Thin?” He gestured to himself as they headed out. “There is nothing thin about my disguise.”
“Other than the fact that there is?”
“I’ll have you know I played the lead in Oklahoma!”
Sun laughed softly, wondering, as Fields probably did, what the hell that had to do with anything.
She waited three more minutes, told Anita she was going out, then headed out the side door as well. After making sure they were gone, she walked around the small detention center and down the alley, careful of the shaded areas where the snow was still high and packed hard enough to be hazardous.
Then again, even butter knives could be hazardous in the wrong hands. Like hers. She’d never been accused of being agile.
Her phone had dinged on the way back to town with a message from Daisy Duke. It simply said, 15. That was twenty minutes ago, so Sun hurried.
She opened the back door to the latest and greatest coffee shop Del Sol had to offer, Caffeine-Wah, and stepped into a dark storeroom. The smell of espresso almost dropped her. She hadn’t realized her levels had plummeted so low.
A small blonde came out from behind a stack of shelves overflowing with coffee of all makes and models. She glanced around, her eyes red and swollen, making sure no one was with Sun, then ran to her.
Sun wrapped her in her arms. “Sweetheart,” she said when Hailey Ravinder began sobbing. “Are you okay?”
“No.” She let another round of sobs quake through her, before saying, “My baby is gone.”
Sun sat her at arm’s length and smoothed back her hair. “Hailey, why didn’t you call me? Holy cow.”
Despite her emotional state, her expression went flat. “Sun, my big brother is the best tracker in the state. What else could you have done?”