Sun wiped at her mouth and glowered at him. “Why didn’t you wake me? I need to call the prison to give them a heads-up.”
“Anita did that for us.”
Anita Escobar was their administrative assistant who moonlighted as dispatch and, honestly, the woman worked more than Sun did.
“She’s already in?”
“Daylight savings time.” He tapped his watch. “She got to the station an hour ago. Also, you snore.”
Her clock had changed from Mountain to Pacific while she slept. Arizona was one of the few states that didn’t honor daylight savings time. A perk that Sun had prayed for since childhood. She hated spring forward with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.
“Keith Seabright?” she asked, inquiring about their stabbing victim.
“Out of surgery. Critical but stable.”
“Oh, thank goodness. I really don’t want any murders on my watch.”
“But multiple stabbings are okay?”
“The jury’s still out.”
“You know it’ll happen, Sunbeam.”
“Bite your tongue. Levi?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. The guy’s a ghost. And nothing on our assailants, either.”
“True. They won’t find Levi until he wants to be found, but I was really hoping to get a hit on that Tundra. No dead bodies along the interstate?”
“Have you been cleaning out your closet again?”
She grinned just as her stomach growled. Taking his reply as a no, she switched her focus and said one word. “Sustenance.”
“I’m not sure what this town has to offer, but I figured breakfast would be in order. We can’t get into the prison until after the nine o’clock headcount anyway.”
“An actual sit-down breakfast? Hell yes. Or I have a can of tuna in my bag.”
“Oh, yeah.” He thought back. “From that time with the thing and the man.”
“Exactly.”
“Sweet, but I don’t think we’ll need it. Anita found us a café close to the prison.”
“Is there anything that woman can’t do?”
“Not that I know of. Maybe pee standing up. Or hot yoga on account of her vertigo. You can tell me all about that dream you had while we eat.”
Startled, she looked over at him. The dream came back to her in a rush. So vivid and gut-wrenching and surreal. She’d had similar dreams before, but this time it rang truer, as though more a memory than a figment of her brain’s hypervigilant imagination.
There was something about the voice. And the hands. If only she could see the man’s face. Either way, she wasn’t sure she wanted to share just yet. Maybe it was only a dream even though it felt real. Dreams did that. They all felt real at the time. But like all of the flashbacks from that period of her life, it was grainy and distorted and more emotion than substance.
Maybe she could use it as a bargaining tool. “I’ll tell you everything about my dream, Chief Deputy Cooper. Right after you tell me what you’re hiding.”
He nodded. “Breakfast in absolute silence, it is.”
Damn. So close.
She brought out her phone to check up on her little pasta primavera, which was a nickname Auri hated. Not that her loathing stopped Sun from using it. Auri would need something to tell her therapist.
After texting the same word seven times and discovering autocorrect changed it to something different each time only after she hit SEND—seriously, how does one go from pumpernickel to colonoscopy—and having her daughter type back things like, Mom, stop, and This is getting painful, and, Mom, really, stop, Sun gave up and called her.
“What the heck, Mom?” she said.
“Sorry. Freaking autocorrect.”
“It’s not autocorrect when you can’t spell.”
“Pumpernickel is a hard word. Now knock-knock.”
“I already know this one.”
“Not this one. It’s new. And you’re on speakerphone. We have to entertain Quincy.”
“Hi, Quincy!” she shouted.
“Speaker. Phone. You don’t have to yell.”
“Sorry!” she yelled to spite her.
“Hey, bean sprout,” he said with a chuckle.
Sun only bristled a little that he got a hi and she got a what the heck. “Knock-knock.”
Auri exhaled. It was a long, drawn-out ode to every tragedy Shakespeare ever wrote. “Who’s there?”
“Pumpernickel.”
“Pumpernickel who?”
“If I had a pumpernickel for every time I found a boy in your room—”
“Oh, my God, Mom! Did you tell Quincy?”
“Tell me what?” Quincy asked, the smirk on his face manifesting in his voice.
“Nothing,” she said.
“Bean Sprout Vicram,” he teased, “did you have a boy in your room?”
“No.”
Sun made a strangling sound, trying to suppress a giggle. “I’m going to assume your grandparents made sure Cruz left you with your virtue intact.”
“Mother.”
Sun’s brows shot up at the formality their relationship had sunk to, and she had a full-on scuffle with the giggle fighting tooth and nail to escape. The kid had a boy in her room. She had to know there would be consequences.
“My virtue is right where you left it.”
“In the laundry room?”
“Are you guys there yet?” she asked, wisely changing the subject.
“Just about. We’re going to grab some breakfast, then hit the prison. I can get some numbers in case you want to invite any more boys into your room once they get paroled.”
“Mother,” she said again. “I’m going to start recording our conversations so I’ll have something to present to the judge during my emaciation hearing.”
When Quincy tossed her a questioning look, she covered the phone and whispered, “Emancipation.”
“Ah.”
“She’s been threatening it for years, but I figure as long as she can’t pronounce it, no judge in the state will know what she’s asking for.”
He nodded and tapped his temple.
“Stellar idea, honey,” she said into the phone.
“Did you find him?” Auri asked, doing a one-eighty.
Because Auri’s tone held a sadness that hadn’t been there a moment earlier, Sun knew exactly who she was talking about. “Not yet, sweetheart. I don’t think Levi will be found until Levi wants to be found.”
“What if he’s really hurt? He could be lying dead somewhere.”
Sun had worried about that very thing. “We’ll find him, bug. Maybe you should ask Jimmy if they’ve heard anything.” A long shot since she’d just spoken to Jimmy, but Levi could’ve gone home last night.
“Okay. I’ll text him now.”
“Let me know. Are you helping your grandparents with the attic?”
“About to. Grandma made pancakes and Sybil is coming over.”
“Awesome. You guys have fun. And keep me updated.”
“Be careful, Mom. You know—”
“Yes,” she interrupted. “I know what they do to cops in jail. You tell me in minute detail every time I threaten to kill your grandparents. Love your face.”