Quincy? Quincy Cooper? She prayed she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life.
To take her mind off the linebacker next to her, she called Royce Womack. The former sheriff agreed to meet them for coffee later.
He’d become an invaluable asset to her. He’d helped her on a case her first day on the job when the U.S. Marshals were in town hunting for an escaped convict.
“Where are we?” her new beau asked. He stretched and threw in a yawn any lion would be proud of.
“A little over halfway.” The sun had started its descent a few hours earlier and now hung low on the horizon.
“Shit. How long have I been out?”
“Not quite five hours.”
He scowled at her. “I thought we were taking two-hour shifts.”
“That’s so weird. I thought the same thing last night. You hungry?”
“Always.”
“Then you woke up just in time.”
Sun pulled into Gordo’s, one of her favorite restaurants in Gallup, put her cruiser in park, then answered yet another text from Carver asking when he’d get another coffee date.
So she could pay ten dollars for a cup of coffee? No, thank you. She typed, “Out of town. Official business.”
He texted immediately asking when she would return. She groaned and handed the phone to Quince. “You’re my under-sheriff. You take care of this.”
A sly brow raised as though questioning her sanity. She snatched back her phone. There was no telling what Quince would say to him. She shot off a quick reply about getting home late, then climbed out into the unforgiving New Mexico sun.
Apparently giving up on the low-carb lifestyle, she and Quincy both ordered beef enchiladas smothered in green chile with beans, rice, and pepitas. To top it off, they shared a sopapilla since Quincy swore he couldn’t fit anything else into his stomach. Of course, he said that right before he ate four-fifths of the fluffy, honey-filled pillow.
Sun hadn’t had carbs in days. He was lucky he didn’t lose a hand.
Two hours later, after several rousing renditions of “Fancy” by Reba McEntire, they were having coffee in the Presbyterian Hospital cafeteria in Albuquerque with Royce Womack. He was in town picking up a new recruit to RISE, his rehabilitation program. He’d agreed to meet Sun and Quincy there so they could check up on their stabbing victim, Keith Seabright.
“What are our odds?” she asked him after explaining the Wynn Ravinder situation. She’d never had an inmate transferred across state lines, though she knew it happened all the time. But in most of those cases, it was for prosecutorial reasons and the inmate faced new charges once they arrived in-state.
“It can be done,” he said, though he hardly seemed confident. He took a long draw of his coffee. “As long as there’s no extradition with all the legalities that entails, the approval can happen in a matter of hours. You’ll have to convince the DA, of course, and then he’ll have to convince a friendly judge to issue a warrant, but it can be done. I can talk to Gowan. She’d probably do it.”
As judges went, Gowan wasn’t Sun’s biggest fan, but she and Royce always got along. “So what’s the problem?” she asked.
“The problem is a matter of timing. You seem to want this done—”
“Yesterday,” she said a little too enthusiastically.
He scrubbed his face, his scruffy beard the stuff of legend. “She’s on vacation in Sedona.”
“So, tomorrow?”
He chuckled. “You’re killing me, Vicram. Even if I can get a hold of her, you know how the justice system works.”
“I also know how you work.”
“The judge owes me one,” he said. “But even if she signs it tomorrow, it could take weeks to actually get Wynn here.”
“Which is why you’re going to make a few calls to your friends in transportation.”
“Sunny girl, Sunny girl, Sunny girl. If only the world revolved around you.”
“Wait, it doesn’t?”
“The soonest I could get him up here, and that is if everything else falls into place, would be Friday. Thursday at the absolute earliest, and that’s if I can convince the guys at transportation.”
“So call them now. Prepare them.”
“You’re going to have to get that paperwork through ay-sap. How confident are you this will get done?”
“Ninety-eight percent.” She thought about it, then said, “Ninety-seven at the least.” The new DA out of Las Vegas, who served as DA for Del Sol County as well, was not her biggest fan, either, but surely he’d agree this needed to be done. He’d been on her for an update on Kubrick Ravinder’s case. He was about to get one.
“The guys in transport are going to kill me,” Royce said, scrubbing his face again.
“It’s a road trip. Who doesn’t like road trips?”
“The guys in transport.”
“Maybe they should have thought of that before taking a job in transport.”
His expression flatlined.
“Not helpful. Noted. Two words,” she said, leaning in as though she had a juicy secret. “Audio books.”
A charming grin widened his mouth. “I’m pretty sure that’s one word.”
“Tell them I’ll throw in a weekend stay at a picturesque cabin with a small but manageable raccoon infestation right on the Pecos River.”
Quincy choked on his coffee. “You’re bribing transportation with my cabin?”
“What? It’s not like I have one to offer. You can stay with me if they ever take us up on it.”
“I feel violated.”
“I could’ve offered you, instead,” she said with a wink.
Royce laughed softly. “How’s your victim?”
Quincy and Sun had spoken with Keith Seabright’s doctor before meeting Royce, and she finally got a look at their victim. Seabright had scruffy dark hair, a strong jaw, and smooth, sun-kissed skin. Thankfully he was young and healthy.
She looked over her notes and shook her head. “He’s stabilizing. They’re hopeful, but my witness was right. Tox screen showed an almost lethal dose of fentanyl in his system. Levi swears he’s a health nut to an obsessive degree. Has never touched drugs.”
Quincy nodded. “That entire event was set up to make it look like it was a bar fight gone wrong.”
“Someone wanted him dead,” Sun agreed. “And I want to know who.” She looked at Royce. “Thank you so much for meeting us here on your day off.”
Apparently, he was supposed to be fishing when he got a call about a recruit detoxing and had to hightail it back to civilization. “You know how those go, I’m sure.”
“I do, indeed,” she said forlornly.
They said their goodbyes, then went to speak briefly to the charge nurse on Seabright’s ward. Sun started to give her a card, but thought better of it. The middle-aged woman could hardly take her eyes off Quince, so she reached into his pocket and slid her his card instead.
“Will you call Quincy, I mean Chief Deputy Cooper, if there are any changes? Anything at all.”
The woman’s face lit up like she’d just won the lottery. “Of course.”
Quincy questioned her on the way down in the elevator. “First my cabin? Now me? I didn’t realize you were my pimp.”