“I’ll send it immediately.”
She turned to the marshal and offered him a curt not. “Thanks, Deleon.”
He tipped an invisible hat. “Vicram. If you do get a make—”
“I’ll call.”
She started to leave but the captain stepped in her path. She gaped up at him dramatically, to convey her astonishment at the size of the guy’s cojones. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all, as soon as you give me that name.”
“Oh, right.” She snapped her fingers. “I almost forgot. Buffy Summers.”
He took out a notepad and wrote down the name as Deleon fought a grin tooth and nail. Quincy turned away, unable to rein his in. It always was a recalcitrant thing.
The captain closed the pad, proud of himself. “Was that so hard?”
She raised her brows and gestured toward the door. “Do you mind?”
He stepped aside and offered her a sweep of his hand.
“Thanks for your help,” she said to the security guard.
He nodded, clearly in on the joke.
A big fan of the honey-draws-more-flies method, she showed the captain her very best smile, then strolled past him. At least she wasn’t showing her age too terribly if everyone but the captain got her Buffy reference. She dialed Nancy’s number as she and Quince strode toward the exit, but got her voicemail. “Hey, girlfriend,” she said, reinstating the perky bit. “Broke any felons out of prison lately? How about you give me a call when you get a chance?” She lowered her voice, and added, “And you tell that son of a bitch he’s a dead man,” before hanging up, wishing she could’ve slammed down the phone to emphasize her statement, but that never ended well anymore. She set her jaw and turned to Quincy. “They set me up.”
“You really think that was your friend?”
“I can’t be certain, but it makes sense. They’ve been in contact for years. She’s done … questionable things for him.” Nancy had manipulated a DNA test they’d done on the foreign blood found on Kubrick Ravinder’s body. She’d used it to clear Levi’s name and implicate Wynn on Wynn’s orders. The way he explained it to Sun, he was already doing a double life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit. He may as well take the fall for his nephew who killed Kubrick saving Sunshine.
All of these were facts she had yet to share with her chief deputy. If they turned Nancy in, every case she’d ever processed would be questioned. Guilty people would go free for crimes they committed. Even knowing this, Sun found herself struggling with the decision to keep quiet. She would talk with Quincy about it, just not today.
“In what way?” he asked, suspicion knitting his brow.
“For one, she’s been in love with Wynn since they first met. She’s too naïve to realize Wynn is using her.”
“Or she doesn’t care.”
“True. Either way, I can’t be a hundred percent sure it was her, which is why I didn’t divulge her name.”
“Gotcha. Honestly, though, who doesn’t know Buffy?”
* * *
“And you saw him?” Sun asked, marveling at the turn of events. She sat at her parents’ kitchen table with Quincy, Auri, and the aforementioned parents.
“Auri,” her dad said, putting a hand over hers, “why didn’t you say anything?”
This would mark the second time that day former sheriff Baldwin Redding crossed their afore-agreed-upon boundaries and entered Sun’s orbit. She could be optimistic and try to believe he only wanted to talk about the unidentified woman found in the canyon, to see if he could be of any assistance, but she knew better. He’d burn in hell before assisting her on a case.
“I don’t know,” Auri said, lifting a slim shoulder self-consciously. “I mean, it looked like him, but I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”
Auri had French braided her coppery hair that morning, but long, delicate strands had shaken loose throughout the day to frame her angelic face in dancing flames of red. Sun had hoped she would eventually get over how beautiful the fruit of her loins was. The girl had mesmerized her from the moment she was born, like a glistening fairy made of earth and sea and fire, and Auri used that fact strategically any time she got into trouble. So, often.
“Are you okay, bug?”
Auri nodded. “Yeah. I think Sybil got me worked up over nothing.”
Sun wasn’t so sure, but she went along with her daughter’s assessment for her sake. “I understand. Quincy does that to me sometimes, too.”
Quince gaped at her, feigning insult and succeeded in making Auri giggle.
“Oh,” Auri said, opening her laptop and angling it toward them. “This is Lynelle’s cousin Whitney. What do you think?”
Sun leaned in to get a better look at the girl in the picture. “I just don’t know, bug. Our Jane Doe was so bruised and swollen, it’s hard to say if this is the same girl.”
“And our Jane’s hair was dyed purple,” Quince said.
Auri gasped softly. She punched a few keys to bring up all the photos on Whitney’s timeline and pointed. “Look at her clothes. Purple is her favorite color.”
It was true. She wore purple in almost every picture, but her hair had never been dyed that color.
“What color were her clothes when you found her?” Auri asked.
Sun cast a quick glance at her parents before saying, “She wasn’t, hon. She only had a bra and it was pink.”
“Oh,” Auri said, surprised. Sun could see her mind racing a thousand miles an hour. “That poor girl.”
“She’s alive, sweetheart. That’s what we need to focus on right now.”
“And this is a huge help,” Quince added. “Which picture is Whitney’s most recent?”
Auri scrolled back to the top. “She posted this one after her last final.” She pointed out a pic of Whiney throwing papers into the air, a huge smile on her face. “And these were taken about a couple of days before that, when she was studying.” She gestured toward a pic of Whitney sprawled out on a bed in a dorm room, book in one hand, pizza in the other. Though her hair was blond and longer than their Jane’s, she could’ve gotten a new do before leaving Albuquerque or soon afterward.
Sun pressed the PRINT button on one of the more recent photos and waited for her parents’ printer to kick in before saying, “We’ll get on this, bug.”
Her mother stood to get the printout.
“You need to look at her phone log, too,” Auri offered. “She hasn’t checked in since getting to the ski resort, which is very unusual, but maybe they don’t have service there?”
“Maybe not on the mountain,” Quince said, continuing to scroll. “But you know the resort will. She should’ve posted something.”
“Right? She never goes for more than a day or two without posting.”
“Have you seen anything we could use to identify her?” Sun asked. “A birthmark or a tattoo?”
Auri deflated and shook her head. “No. She said somewhere that she wants a tattoo but she’s afraid of needles. Wait, what about her eye color? Whitney’s eyes are blue.”