“This morning. I woke up and realized the place had been ransacked.”
“So, it hadn’t been ransacked before you went to bed?”
She pressed one side of her mouth together as though reluctant to answer. After a moment, she said, “I don’t know. I was a little … tipsy when I got home.”
“Wanda, did you drink and drive?” How else would the woman not know if her place had been ransacked when she got home?
“What? No,” she said, appalled. “My date drove me home.”
“And had he been drinking?”
“I don’t know. He may have had one or two.”
So, yes. “Okay, hon. Let’s back up. Where were you last night?”
“On a date with a man I met in Santa Fe. He seemed okay.”
“I’ll need his name and contact info.”
Her gaze flew to Sun’s. “Why? He didn’t have anything to do with this and nothing of value is missing anyway. Well, maybe a couple of old coins, but I don’t care about them.”
“You’ve gone through everything?”
“Yes. Mostly. Other than the coins, I didn’t really have anything of value. What little jewelry I had is gone but it wasn’t worth much.”
Sun looked up to get Zee’s attention. “I’m going to bring Zee in, okay? She’ll help with the investigation.”
Again, her gaze flew to Sun’s and she clutched at her arm. “No! You can’t! No one can know. This has to stay between you and me, Sunshine. No deputies. No official report. Nothing.”
More confused than ever, Sun took Wanda’s hand into hers, peeling her claws out of her skin first. She patted her hand and asked, “Bottom line, Wanda. What’s going on?”
Wanda nodded, resigned to her fate, and started over. “Okay, I went on a date last night. When I left, my house was a disaster.”
“So they broke in during the day yesterday?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, no. My house is always a disaster.”
Why didn’t that surprise her?
“What I’m saying is, maybe I just didn’t notice it when I got home.” She hit Sun with a look of hope, desperately wanting to believe that she hadn’t been broken into while she was there. Sun understood that feeling of vulnerability all too well.
“Maybe,” she offered to console her. “Did your date go in?”
“No. He was quite the gentleman. He kissed me goodbye at the door and left.”
The thought of Wanda, who was sixty-five if she was a day, getting kissed on her doorstep after a first date was all kinds of adorable. “Then?”
“Then I went to bed. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary until this morning.”
“And what did you see?”
“My clothes.” She stood and looked out the window to the street beyond. “My clothes were strewn all over my room. They’d gone through my drawers. Through my closet.” Her hands began shaking again as she covered her eyes.
Sun stood beside her. “And?”
“And I don’t care about any of that. I only care about one thing.” She turned to Sun, the desperation back tenfold. “My sewing tin.”
Sun blinked, letting that sink in. “Your sewing tin?”
“Yes. Or, more to the point,” she said, leaning closer and dropping her voice to a whisper, “what’s in my sewing tin.”
Sun nodded as understanding dawned. “I’m guessing it’s not sewing needles.”
“Not even close.”
“Then what?”
“Oh.” She straightened. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Be … cause?”
“Yeah, that’s not a good reason.”
“Sunshine, you have to find that tin. You can’t ask me why. You can’t ask me what’s inside. And you have to keep it off the books. Especially from … Never mind.”
“Especially from who?” Sun prompted.
“That doesn’t matter. I’ll pay you.”
“That’s called accepting a bribe and is, in fact, frowned upon in most law enforcement offices.”
“No, not like that.” She patted Sun’s arm. “Silly rabbit. You know, like a reward.” She tilted her head and winked. Three times. Because the first wink wasn’t obvious enough.
Sun pinched the bridge of her nose, begging the powers that be for patience. She looked over and motioned Zee to come to her office. “Wanda, I’m going to have Zee take you home and get a look at your locks.”
“Sunshine,” she started to protest, but Sun held up a hand.
“I won’t tell her everything, but we do need to take a look, hon. You could’ve been hurt.”
“You won’t tell her about the tin?”
She raised three fingers on one hand and pressed the other to her heart. “Scout’s honor.”
Wanda narrowed her lashes on her. “Were you really a scout?”
“No, but I went steady with one in the third grade.”
“Well, all right then.”
Sun hid a grin and explained the situation to Zee as succinctly as possible, then sent her home with Wanda to check out the scene. Innate curiosity burned in her chest, rather like heartburn. It was probably the cursed muffin. Still, what was inside that tin? What could be that important and yet keep Wanda so secretive? She said it was nothing of value. She meant it was nothing of value to anyone besides herself.
Sun went over what she knew about Wanda as she gathered her things, readying to head to Santa Fe. But first, she opened her office door and threw a muffin at her chief deputy, nailing him on the back of the head. He spun around in his chair and gaped at her.
“That could’ve been a grenade,” she said, shaking her head at him.
He ended his call and stood to follow her out. “Why would someone throw a grenade inside the station?”
“No idea, but you have to stay vigilant and alert at all times. If that had been a real grenade, we would never make it to Tía Juana’s in time for fresh sopas.”
7
If you like to sit by the window and people watch, stop it.
It scares the families inside and you will be arrested.
—PSA FROM THE DEL SOL COUNTY SHERIFF
Her mother had been dodging her calls all afternoon. Sun left three messages and sent a dozen texts. The last one, the one that read Call me with an update or you’ll never see your turquoise earrings again, did not live up to her expectations. Her mother loved those earrings. Instead of an update or an explanation as to why Auri had been crying earlier, her mother simply texted her back with Call your daughter. Which, duh. Sun already knew that. She just wanted a heads-up as to what was going on underneath that submissive hemogoblin of hers. Auri had a way of catching her off guard.
With no other choice, she tapped Auri’s name on her phone as she and Quincy sat at Presbyterian in Santa Fe, waiting for the doctor. Their Jane Doe was in critical, but she was alive. For now, that was enough. Zee and Salazar were checking missing persons reports while Rojas checked for witnesses at the houses nearest the canyon.
“Hey, Mom,” Auri said just as an ambulance brought in a heart attack victim.