Seabright offered her a two-fingered salute. “Deputy Seabright, reporting for duty, Sheriff.”
“It’s about time,” she said, turning away to put on her sunglasses lest he see her poker face slip. Was he serious? Would he really join her ragtag team of crime-fighters? She’d only issued her idle threat—become one of her deputies or go to prison for kidnapping—two days ago. She figured he would call her on her bluff and go about his merry way, but here he was reporting for duty. In a sense.
She should probably feel guilty about pressing him into service, but he’d been one of the culprits behind an elaborate ruse that had haunted her for years. Her first case as a detective in Santa Fe PD involved a missing boy, Elliot Kent, and had gone unsolved for five years. She thought she’d failed until she spotted Elliot in some security footage at a local convenience store, alive and well. Turns out, Elliot’s parents had faked his kidnapping to keep him safe from a criminal organization his abusive father had become entangled with, and his mother had recruited Seabright to keep Elliot hidden. Five years later, the case came to a head, and they all almost lost their lives. If not for Levi and her expert team, they likely would have. The fact that Seabright fell in love with Elliot’s mother while his father stewed in prison was a plus. Seabright now had a ready-made family who adored him waiting in the wings and, thanks to Sun, a shiny new job to boot.
She was happy for him. And herself. The forty-year-old just got better looking every time she saw him. It could’ve been the glistening dark hair and silvery-blue eyes, but Sun figured it was more the strong jaw and the fact that he could kill a man with a Tic Tac. He would make a great sergeant.
She walked around and took the front passenger’s seat, which both Levi and Quince had left for her. After she clicked her racerlike seat belt and settled into the seat, she asked him, “But for reals, should you be driving? Especially here? Don’t you still have stitches to contend with?”
He had one long arm draped over the steering wheel, the other on the gear shift. “My stitches and I have come to an arrangement.” He put the UTV in reverse and proceeded to do a rumbling three-pointer.
“And what’s that?” she asked over the noise.
“They don’t rip me. I don’t rip them.”
“Sounds legit. Did you rent the house on Apollo?” She’d strongly encouraged her newest extortion-recruited deputy to rent one of the houses in town and move his new family into it as soon as possible. Apparently, he was much better at following orders than her daughter.
“Yes, ma’am. They’re packing as we speak.”
“And the wedding?” she asked, unable to keep the hope out of her voice.
He smirked at her. “She has to get divorced from her criminally insane husband first.”
Her shoulders deflated. “Good point. At least you’re on the right track.”
“I like to think I am.”
Sun nodded her approval. The logistics of how he was going about it all. She looked in the rearview that, from her vantage, just happened to be perfectly focused on the man of her dreams.
He sat staring right back at her.
“So, is your uncle still alive?” she asked as they bounced and splashed through the canyon.
“Two of them are. At least as far as I know. You’ll have to be more specific.”
She turned in her seat to face him—not an easy feat in a four-point harness—and didn’t miss the wince from their driver when he drove over a small boulder. “Clay.”
Levi lifted a perfectly sculpted shoulder. “Maybe. Haven’t seen him for days.”
She could play cat and mouse with him for hours, mostly because she enjoyed it more than breathing, but her worry was too great to be squelched for long. “So, you didn’t kill him?”
He kept his gaze steady under her scrutiny a long moment before answering. “You must think that’s all we Ravinders do. Make moonshine and kill each other.”
In her defense, they did do a lot of both. “Your uncle started it,” she said, defending both him and her thought process at the same time. Word on the street was that Clay wanted nothing more than to kill his nephew, take over the distillery, and reestablish ties with his Southern Mafia connections. She could hardly blame Levi for taking matters into his own hands, but she’d certainly prefer he didn’t.
“Maybe,” he said.
She leaned her chin on the back of her seat. “He didn’t start it?”
One corner of Levi’s mouth rose ever so slightly. Ever so sexily. “It’s a gray area.”
“Ah.” A man with more mysteries than a library. She couldn’t help but notice he sat with his knees far apart, most likely to annoy the other passenger who was also manspreading to assert his dominance, to claim the most territory in the cramped space, their knees almost touching but not daring to. Because guys. “Either way, that doesn’t answer my question.”
Levi looked out the nonexistent window and released a heavy sigh before saying, “If he is dead, I didn’t do it.”
Relief eased the tension in her neck. It wasn’t a 100 percent guarantee that the man was still alive, but she’d take it. She looked over the seat at her chief deputy. “Okay, he’s a lefty, knows the area, and drives a pickup with aftermarket tires.”
Quincy nodded, easily catching onto the fact that she’d changed the subject rather abruptly. “That’s a lot more to go on than I’d anticipated.”
“I agree. Anyone come to mind?”
“No. But only because I’m having a hard time getting past the fact that I’m starving.”
As though on cue, her stomach growled and gurgled in agony, the humiliating sounds heard over the roar of the engine. She couldn’t decide if she was hungry or nauseous. Probably a little of both.
“Me too, apparently. I want another look at the crime scene before we head back, though.”
“Okay, but if I pass out from malnutrition, you’re carrying me into my house.”
5
Whether you like your eggs sunny-side up or in cake,
you’re in the right place.
—SIGN AT THE SUGAR SHACK
Forty minutes. Auri had forty minutes for lunch before the bell rang for fifth period. That gave her ten minutes to walk home and get her bike, ten to ride to Lynelle’s house, ten to talk to Lynelle if she didn’t immediately slam the door in her face, and ten to ride back to school. It didn’t give her a lot wiggle room, but she’d risk it. And if she were tardy to fifth, what would they do to her? It was the last week of school. Even if she were sent to detention, how long could it last?
That morning, she’d made a quick inquiry with a couple of side characters from Lynelle’s posse and learned that her cousin never showed up. Could the woman they found in the canyon really be Lynelle’s cousin? Auri needed to know for certain the girl didn’t show and, if she didn’t, whether Lynelle had heard from her. Auri’s mother had enough to deal with without her daughter sending her on a wild-goose chase.
Thus, after taking a hit of her inhaler, Auri hustled home, snuck around back to get her bike without disturbing—aka, alerting—her grandparents to her presence, and hurried to Lynelle’s.