On the bright side, she now knew there was nothing her parents couldn’t do, nothing they weren’t capable of, so the next time they came to her for help with their computer, she would not fall for it. They were like the Illuminati. Or the KGB. Or Cirque du Soleil.
But election tampering, if getting her elected without her knowledge fell under that umbrella, was a serious offense. Her parents could be arrested. And not in a funny, let’s teach them a lesson way like when she and Quincy threatened to arrest them for harboring a fugitive that time they hid Auri from her after the kid scratched Sun’s cruiser with her bike. She’d even handcuffed her exasperated mother.
Good times.
“What about the other thing?”
“The other thing?” Sun asked, knowing exactly to what she referred.
The mayor put a hand on her hip, not falling for it. “The Dangerous Daughters?”
“Ah. Right. The mythical beings who secretly run the town behind everyone’s back, including the city council’s.”
Sun had heard rumors of the infamous group of women who’d come together to run the town at a time when only men were allowed to sit on the council. It all seemed pretty farfetched. Even if they had existed, surely they didn’t now. That was decades ago.
The mayor seemed obsessed with them, however, and part of the woman’s condition to stay out of the mountain of dirt that constituted Sun’s past was for Sun to uncover the members of the clandestine group. Their negotiations and dealings and general goings-on.
“Exactly,” she said. “I was afraid you’d forgotten about that part of the bargain.”
Ultimatum was more like it. “Like I told you, Mayor, the Dangerous Daughters are just rumor and innuendo. How would a group of women from the fifties secretly run the town? And where would they do it from? Their rest homes?”
The mayor pinned her with a rather evil—and sexy if Sun did say so herself—smirk. “That was the deal, Sheriff. You find out who they are. Or were. Either way, I want the lowdown on that group.”
Sun narrowed her lashes. “Why?”
She snorted. A very unladylike thing to do for such a prominent figure. “This town is considered freakish enough without stories of the Dangerous Daughters getting out.”
“Right. Because that would taint our eccentric reputation.”
The scowl the mayor leveled on her would have melted the face off a lesser sheriff. “You aren’t even pretending to take this seriously.”
“Of course, I am,” she lied. She was throwing all of her acting skills at this.
Though, admittedly, she’d asked around. She even asked her parents. Nada, and they knew everything about the town. No one could tell her anything other than the rumors she’d already heard. Short of scouring old newspaper clippings and police blotters—which she had zero time or inclination to do—she was out of luck.
The mayor lifted her chin a notch. “Maybe I should follow my own advice.”
“That would be new.”
“Maybe I should give you a deadline.”
“A dead what?”
“Give you a little motivation.”
“Motivation is not the problem.”
“Light a fire, so to speak.”
“Does this have anything to do with that glass cliff you mentioned my first day on the job? Because I’m not taking the fall for anyone. If funds have been misappropriated—”
She arched a perfectly coiffed brow. “You know they haven’t.”
Sun frowned, remembering her own brow conundrum. “How do you know I know?”
“Because you’ve looked into every transaction this town has made over the past decade. That’s how I know.”
“How do you know I’ve …” Sun gave up with a frustrated shrug. The woman was right. She’d gone over the town’s records with a fine-toothed machete. “Then what was all of that about? And why do you want to know about the Dangerous Daughters?”
“Strategy.”
“Strategy?”
“You left.” She studied her polished nails. “You’ve barely set foot in this town for fifteen years, then you come back here and think you can just pick up where you left off? You can just take over like you own the place?”
“Wait a minute. You played me?” Sun asked, appalled. And a tad impressed. “You wanted me to comb through those records.”
“And now you’re up-to-date. You know the issues. How each council member votes. Who is in whose pocket.”
Damned if she wasn’t right. Sun had noticed a disturbing trend with a couple of the city council members. A tendency to favor some of the more prominent business members, including one of the new winemakers in town who was getting his way an awful lot.
“Okay. Fine. I’m up-to-date. It worked.”
“Naturally,” she said, her pretty mouth curling up at one corner. “On to the Dangerous Daughters. You have one week.”
“What?” Sun bolted to her feet. “You’re actually giving me a deadline?”
“Like I said, I’m following my own advice.”
“What is it, exactly, you want uncovered?”
“I told you. I want names. I want to know who established it and how. And I want to know what they’ve been up to recently.”
“Mayor,” Sun said from between clenched teeth, “I have a county law enforcement facility to run. Tracking down an elderly group of women who probably aren’t even with us any longer—if they ever existed at all—is hardly a priority. Especially right now.”
She leaned over the desk and said softly, “Then make it one.” Sun bit back her reply as the mayor pivoted on her heels and strode out of the station, saying over her shoulder, “And keep me updated on the stabbing victim.”
Sinking into her chair, Sun stewed all of thirty seconds, then grabbed her phone to text her chief deputy. How long could it take to shower and grab a toothbrush?
Rojas poked his head in just as she hit SEND. “There is a Jimmy Ravinder who would like a word with you before you head out, boss. He said you know him and it’s important.”
“Jimmy?” She rose and looked across the station to the darkened lobby out front. Sure enough, Levi’s nephew, Jimmy Ravinder, was sitting in one of the chairs, twisting his hands. “Why is everyone coming to the station at this hour? Did Zee put up that neon sign we confiscated from the madam again?”
Madam Magdalena, the local cat lady, was nothing if not creative when she had a neon sign made that read CAT HOUSE and put in her window. She insisted it was because she loved cats. And she did, if her nineteen-and-counting feline zoo was any indication. Still, wouldn’t that pastime cost her a bit of business? Surely, some of her would-be patrons were allergic.
He chuckled. “No idea, boss.”
“Thanks, Rojas.” She journeyed through the bullpen to let Jimmy in herself, but when she opened the door, he remained sitting. “Hey, Jimmy. You want to come back?”
He looked so young. His dark blond hair, perpetually cursed with a bout of bed head, stuck up in the back and his spiffy new black-framed glasses fit snug against his face thanks to a band that ran from earpiece to earpiece.
She realized he seemed agitated.