She unlocked her cruiser and settled inside, thankful she hadn’t dressed so much to the nines as to the five-and-dimes. Sixes at best. Sure, she’d applied makeup, a rarity these days, but she wore a peach summery sweater, faded jeans, and pretty suede boots with just enough of a heel to make her a danger to herself and anyone within a ten-foot radius.
Making a quick U-turn out of the parking lot, she headed toward Quince’s house. She almost felt bad about abandoning her half-date soy latte with a splash of objectification and extra nondairy whipped misogyny. Carver was new in town, the owner and operator of the Four Cs, a.k.a. the Creepy Crawler Critter Control. And he—
Wait. She stepped on the brakes and frowned in thought. How did someone get an RV up three flights of stairs?
Sun had to make the arduous drive through the town of Del Sol to get to Quincy’s cabin. So, like, five minutes. Caffeine-Wah had opened the outdoor area beside their coffee shop. Both locals and tourists sat around a blazing firepit despite the sultry night, listening to an acoustic guitarist and drinking cappuccinos spiked with either Irish cream or Dark River Shine, Del Sol’s homegrown corn whiskey.
Even the newlyweds, Ike and Ida Madrid, were there, with their prize rooster, Puff Daddy, on a leash, much to the delight of the other patrons. Four months ago, those two had been mortal enemies, and yet marriage became them. Surely there was hope for the rest of humanity. And Sun. Eventually.
She glanced over at a couple of the locals as she passed, only mildly curious where one might obtain a leash for a rooster. Bernadette, the owner of Swirls-n-Curls, and Juana, the owner of Sun’s favorite Mexican restaurant, Tia Juana’s, sat at a high table having way too much fun for there to only be coffee in their cups.
The two women were Del Sol natives, born and raised, thus Sun’s mind meandered to the question that had been plaguing her since moving back. She’d been encouraged—a.k.a. blackmailed—into looking into a local myth that had been around for decades about the Dangerous Daughters, a group of women who, according to legend, secretly ran the town.
Because of that, she looked at every woman who’d been born and raised in the small hamlet as a potential Daughter. But she just couldn’t see Bernadette running a town. A bingo parlor maybe, or a speakeasy, but not a town.
Juana, however, was another story. That woman could run a battalion.
Sun took a right at the town square and spotted Doug, their local flasher, walking toward the illuminated park. Painfully thin and wearing his usual trench coat, thick glasses, and a headband with a feather in it, he made a U-turn when he saw her cruiser and headed down a dark alley. She’d clearly foiled his plans for the evening. Served him right. That man was a menace.
Feeling good about the fact that she’d saved an innocent pedestrian from a flashing that could never be unseen, Sun drove out to Del Sol Lake and parked down the street from Quincy’s cabin. Mostly because she had no choice. He’d taken her quite literally when she said to call in everyone.
Two deputies’ vehicles sat on one side of the narrow road leading to his house along with several vehicles whose owners Sun could only speculate. Though one did look hauntingly familiar. White Buick Encore. Cracked taillight. Sign that read HONK IF YOU LIKE THE TACO. Which did not mean what her mother thought it meant.
Sun spared a moment to pinch the bridge of her nose when a hand shot out of a bush and pulled her behind it. Thankfully, the hand was attached to a body. A body named Quincy Lynn Cooper.
Wearing a pair of night-vision goggles that covered the upper half of his face, he dragged her around the cabin and yanked her behind yet another bush, before shushing her with an index finger over his mouth and pointing to his back porch.
“I didn’t say anything,” she whispered, slapping at his hand, annoyed at being yanked while having to navigate the rough terrain in heels.
“He’s there,” Quince said, his whisper much softer than hers. It was then that Sun realized he was wearing full tactical gear to go with the goggles and comm set. It took everything in her not to react, and she fought a strong urge to pinch the bridge of her nose again.
Instead, she looked through the foliage and saw nothing. “Where?”
“There.” He pointed toward the shadows of his back porch. “Somewhere. I heard him, but the coward is too afraid to show his face when I’m around.”
Sun frowned. Stakeouts were not a favorite pastime, and who knew how long it would be before the masked bandit emerged from the home he’d invaded. The same home he’d been invading repeatedly for weeks, according to the behemoth beside her.
Quincy’s small cabin sat on the banks of the Pecos River, and she let the sound of rushing water wash over her. She could even smell it. Fresh and clear. His cabin had previously been a rental for tourists and resembled four others just like it, but they were far enough apart to offer a nice bit of privacy thanks to some strategically placed vegetation.
Maroon paint, in bad need of a fresh coat, framed the exposed pine exterior and wraparound porch that ran the length of the abode. Sun loved little more than sitting on that porch with Quincy, sipping on a glass of chardonnay and watching the setting sun glisten over the Pecos like diamonds and ambers and amethysts. But the sun had set an hour earlier, hence the goggles.
When he handed her a pair along with a comm set and a quick, “Here,” Sun fought a giggle. He’d gone all out. For a raccoon. She took the equipment and feigned a fit of coughs to cover her amusement.
He didn’t buy it. He pressed his mouth together and ignored her as she struggled to untangle a blond lock of hair from a branch, then slipped the headset onto her head.
“Quince,” she said, letting her eyes adjust to the green glow behind the goggles to focus on figure after figure stalking through the forested area, “when I said to call everyone in, I didn’t mean, you know, everyone.”
“Well then, you shouldn’t have said everyone. Besides, I needed help from on high.”
“God?” she asked, fitting the earpiece he handed her into her left ear.
“No, sniper. Zee is on top of Mr. Chavez’s barn.”
A hushed female voice came over the radio. “You look great, boss.”
Then another. Deputy Tricia Salazar, a curvy twenty-something with doe eyes and chipmunk cheeks, was learning to be Zee’s spotter. “I agree. You should wear your civvies more often, boss.”
Sun turned and, even though she couldn’t actually see the deputies atop the rickety barn, flashed them her best supermodel smile. She could only imagine what that looked like with the alien tactical gear on her face. “Thank you, guys.” She tossed her hair over a shoulder. “At least someone noticed.”
“Oh, yeah,” Quincy said, keeping a weather eye on his back porch. “How’d the date go?”
“Well enough to justify a plea of temporary insanity when I kill my parents. Why are you risking my deputies’ lives for a rodent?”
He snorted. “They’ll be fine. Even if they fall, it’s not a tall barn. They’ll shake it off.”
“Like when you fell off your grandfather’s barn and cried for two hours?”
“I was six. What did this one do for a living?”
“You mean after my last blind date, the breatharian life coach?”