“The one who tried to kill you?” Quincy asked, his expression filled with horror. Then he frowned at the people standing around, smiling at him like they were part of a cult and he was this year’s sacrifice at the Autumn Harvest Festival. “Would someone fill me in?”
“Absolutely.” The mayor walked up to him and handed him a coin.
“Sordid?” He turned it over. “Son.” He looked back at her. “Yeah, this doesn’t clear anything up.”
“Maybe this will,” Mrs. Fairborn said. She stood, walked over to Sun, and handed her a coin as well.
While Quincy’s was yellow gold, hers was rose gold and heavily worn, the words almost rubbed off completely. She read aloud, as well. “Daughter.” She turned it over. “Dangerous.” She smiled. “The crown, so to speak.”
“That it is.” She cackled and pointed to it. “Don’t lose that. They’re irreplaceable. This coin was made in 1937 by a German clockmaker who dabbled in rare coins and designed the official seal for the Royal House of Ezra.”
Sun’s mouth formed an O.
Mrs. Fairborn giggled. “Just kidding. About them being irreplaceable, that is. I’ve lost my coin twelve—”
“Thirteen,” Elaine said.
“—thirteen times. But it is a pain in the ass to get them replaced. Just sayin’.”
Sun looked around at what would be called the pillars of the community. Not necessarily those who were on the city council or who were in positions of authority. They were the farmers and the business owners. The custodians and the educators. Even the high school principal was there. And the second love of her life, Royce Womack.
She shook her head. “I have to admit, I had no idea about the sons.”
“I’m Salacious,” he said, a wicked grin spreading behind his scruffy beard.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
One by one they were introduced to the Dangerous Daughters and the Sordid Sons. Daughters like Dastardly and Diabolical and Devilish, a.k.a., her mother. And sons like Savage and Sinful and Scandalous, a.k.a., her father.
“We’re being inducted,” she said, feeling both humbled and profoundly underqualified.
These were the sons and daughters of Del Sol. People who were born and raised in the town and hadn’t left for fifteen years like Sun did, though one, Rojas’s tia Darlene, did live in Albuquerque for a few years before coming back into the fold. She was the Daughter Dastardly.
“If you accept,” her mother said.
“And if we don’t?” she asked.
“Well, you’ve already seen our faces, so we’d have to kill you.”
“If you’re taking Mrs. Fairborn’s seat,” Quincy said, looking at his coin, “whose seat am I taking?”
She’d wondered that herself.
Royce dropped his gaze. “Bo Britton, son. Your former lieutenant.”
Bo, much beloved by the community, had died two weeks before Sun took over as sheriff. Quincy looked at the coin in his hand with a new respect.
Sun studied hers. “So, there’s always a baker’s dozen at any given time?”
“Yes,” the mayor said. “Seven women and six men.”
“And we’re lucky to get that much,” Royce said. “Mrs. Fairborn was very reluctant to let any man have a say in her secret club.”
Mrs. Fairborn nodded. “The women will always have the final vote.”
“Then we’re missing one.” Sun counted again.
“Sinister,” the mayor confirmed. “While you are the reigning queen, so to speak, he would be—”
“The king?” she asked.
“More like the prince,” Mrs. Fairborn said. “No one has more power in this group than the queen. He couldn’t be here today, but he’s already cast his vote.”
“As we all have,” her dad said.
An emotion she hadn’t expected threatened to close her throat. She managed to get out two words: “I’m honored.”
Quincy nodded, unable to speak himself.
Sun helped Mrs. Fairborn back to her chair and knelt in front of her. “This is a big day for you. Passing on the torch.”
The woman nodded sadly. “More than fifty years I’ve been running this town. Well, the most important aspects of it.”
“Why now?”
“I was waiting for you. Thought you’d never come back. Eventually, we realized we’d have to force your hand.”
“You were involved with my parents’ election tampering?”
“Involved? It was my idea.”
Her parents laughed softly. “It was not her idea,” her mom said.
“But why me?” she asked. “I’m honored. Don’t get me wrong, but—”
“A butterfly and a hammer,” the older woman said.
She and Quincy exchanged a quick glance, then asked simultaneously, “A butterfly and a hammer?”
She cackled. “You may not remember this, but when you were very young, I found you in the park cradling a pitiful little butterfly in your hands.”
“King Henry,” she said. She hadn’t thought about him in years. “He was orange and black.”
“Yes. Poor little guy had tattered wings and couldn’t fly. Some boys were laughing and trying to kick it. And you, in all your five-year-old glory, stormed into the middle of their circle and ran them off. Then you picked up the butterfly, cradled it in your hands, and told me you were taking it to the vet.”
“I remember. My mom wouldn’t take it to the vet. She said they didn’t treat insects.”
Mrs. Fairborn nodded. “You were devastated. I’ll never forget the look on your face when your mother told you it was going to die. So you took it home and cared for that poor thing day and night for almost two weeks because you wanted it to feel happy and safe for the rest of its life, no matter how long that would be.”
“You never told me that story,” Quince said.
“I’d forgotten about it.”
“I didn’t,” Mrs. Fairborn said. “Your mother kept me updated. When it died, she was worried she was going to have to get you into grief counseling.”
Sun smirked. “Figures.”
“So where does the hammer come in?” Quince asked.
Mrs. Fairborn practically shimmied with mirth. “When I saw Little Miss Sunshine at the park right after the butterfly’s passing, God rest its soul, she was carrying a hammer.”
Sun frowned. “I don’t remember this part.”
“You stopped at the bench where I was sitting, pointed to the boys who’d been cruel to the butterfly, and told me you were going to take out their kneecaps.” She rocked back and clapped her hands, her laughter filling the room, her glee infectious.
Sun fought a sheepish grin.
“You almost pulled it off, too. I’d never seen boys run so fast in my life. If not for your mother capturing you mid-swing, your parents would’ve had several lawsuits on their hands.”
Sun laughed, thinking back, then asked, “So that’s why?”
The older woman leaned forward. “That was only the beginning. I’ve been watching you, Sunbeam.” She tapped her temple. “You have all the fire and passion I once had. You’re the one I want filling my shoes.”