“Degenerate?” he offered. “Yes. For trespassing.”
“Degenerately?”
“Exactly.” She poked Hailey on the shoulder. That’d show her.
“Sunshine,” Hailey said, knowing when to give up the game long before Sun’s brain did.
Sun slammed her lids shut, drew in a deep breath, then squared her shoulders. “Okay, this isn’t what it looks like.”
“Like you two are meeting in secret?”
Her jaw came loose from its hinges. She put it back, then said, “Well, of course that’s what it looks like to the untrained eye.”
“My eye is very trained.”
And then, with the briefest, most ephemeral of flashes, something swept across his face. If Sun had blinked, she would have missed it. The glance. As though his pupils could not resist. The intake of breath. As though his lungs could not stop it. The softening of his features. As though his heart could not suppress its reaction.
Sun stood stunned for an eternity before she gaped at him.
“Hailey Ravinder?” she screeched, only really quietly because they were in a hospital. She stepped closer and spoke through clenched teeth. “That’s who you’ve been pining over for months?”
“What?” He snorted. “No.”
“Pining?” Hailey asked.
“After all this time, after everything we’ve been through, you think you can hide this from me?”
“Look who’s talking.” He gestured toward the two of them. “You two act like you’re plotting to take over the world.”
“We were discussing a town-wide rummage sale, for your information.” Now her brain kicks in.
“Pining?” Hailey asked again, her gaze raking over Quincy like the break room was a desert and he was a sparkling oasis complete with lounge chairs and frou-frou drinks. The kind with tiny umbrellas, only there was nothing—and she would know—tiny about her chief deputy.
He cast his gaze down. “Pining is a strong word.”
“For me?” She stepped closer.
He kicked at the floor with his boot.
Sun looked between the two, more than a little horrified. Not because they weren’t perfect for each other. They kind of were. But because she didn’t see it before.
When an electrifyingly romantic instrumental swept through the ICU over the loudspeakers—or in Sun’s mind, either way—she decided to make her exit.
She walked to Auri’s room in disbelief. Everyone was finding true love but her. Of course, she thought this as she rounded the corner and her gaze landed on the only man she’d ever really wanted. He sat with his back to her, holding Auri’s hand.
“How is she?” her mother said, walking in behind her.
Levi turned and his gaze locked with Sun’s as though he knew what she’d been thinking. Either that or her guilty conscience was projecting again. It did that.
“She’s good, Mom. She hasn’t woken up yet, but—”
“Mom?” Auri’s tiny voice wafted to her.
Sun ran around the bed and took her other hand, carefully since that was the one with the IV.
Her bottom lip quivered. “Mom,” she said, a soft sob escaping her.
Maybe it was a sign of the last couple of days or her guilty conscience projecting again, but Sun knew exactly what her daughter was thinking. “He’s okay, Auri.”
The look Auri gave her dissolved every bone in her body.
“He fought him off, sweetheart. Cruz was admitted with wounds, but he survived the surgery and is in ICU right down the hall.”
Auri’s gaze bounced between Sun and Levi, tears welling between her lashes before she broke down. Sun leaned in and hugged her for a very long time before Levi took over. It was a hard job. They took it in shifts. Her parents chipping in to cover when Sun and Levi needed a break. Even Quincy came in to lend a hand, cradling her to him until they came to transfer her. Each of them careful not to disturb her turban-like bandages.
They wheeled her to her room a little while later, the family following as though they were in a parade.
Quincy leaned close to her. “We need to talk.”
She scowled at him. “I’ll say. You have a lot of explaining to do.”
“Me?” he asked, appalled.
She left it at that. All in all, it had been a very productive morning.
But it was about to get more productive. She had no choice. Now that Auri was out of the woods, for the most part, she had to get back to Del Sol, even for just a few hours, to get on top of everything. Her parents would stay with Auri, but she needed the story before she went.
By noon, Auri was up and eating, a very good sign. Her head barely hurt from the submissive hemogoblin—her words—on the side of her head.
“Okay, bug bite,” Sun said, sitting on the edge of her daughter’s bed. “I need the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
Elaine and Cyrus were in the room, too, as well as Levi and Quincy. They’d kicked the latter out of Cruz’s room to clean the kid’s wounds and change his bandages. Cruz had only awakened a couple of times but they were keeping him pretty medicated. According to the surgeon, the first forty-eight hours were crucial in the fight against sepsis, especially when the intestines had been punctured. The last thing they needed was Cruz fighting them again and ripping something inside.
Auri bit her lip. She wasn’t 100 percent by any means, but she was definitely almost bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Levi sat on the other side of her bed. He took her hand. “I can leave, Red, if that will help.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I almost got Cruz and Mrs. Fairborn killed. You’ll find out eventually either way.”
“Auri,” Elaine said. “That’s not true.”
“It is, Grandma. I wish it weren’t more than anything in the world, but it is. I just—” She looked at Sun. “I just wanted to be like my mom so bad.” A wetness welled between her dark red lashes. “But I’m not. I never will be.”
“Sweetheart, why would you say that?”
“You save people’s lives. I just try to get them killed.”
Levi reached out and wiped a tear streaming down her face. “How about you tell your mom what happened and let her decide if you two are alike or not? You might be surprised.”
He was right. She did tend to put people in danger from time to time. But only if other people were in danger first. It was kind of her job.
“First, I was trying to prove that Mrs. Fairborn was a serial killer, then I was just trying to prove that the drifter accused of the crimes was innocent without getting Mrs. Fairborn sent to prison because she couldn’t make a shank out of her toothbrush, then I just wanted to get the necklace back to its rightful owner, and then everything spun out of control.”
No one spoke for a few minutes, so when Auri swallowed, it seemed really loud.
Sun came around first. “I thought we talked about how unlikely it was that Mrs. Fairborn was a serial killer.”
“I know. I just thought you were wrong.”
“And as far as proving the drifter innocent, that would be very difficult at this late stage.”
“But not impossible,” she argued. “Especially after you see all the things in Mrs. Fairborn’s house. I even thought about asking her to write a confession letter that I could magically find after her untimely death to prove that Hercules Holmes was innocent.”