1
Welcome to Del Sol,
a town full of sunshine,
fresh air, and friendly faces.
(Barring three or four old grouches.)
Sunshine Vicram pushed down the dread and sticky knot of angst in her chest and wondered, yet again, if she were ready to be sheriff of a town even the locals called the Psych Ward. Del Sol, New Mexico. The town she grew up in. The town she’d abandoned. The town that held more secrets than a politician’s wife.
Was she having second thoughts? Now? After all the hubbub and hoopla of winning an election she hadn’t even entered?
Hell yes, she was.
But after her night of debauchery—a.k.a. her last hurrah before the town became her responsibility—she thought she’d conquered her fears. Eviscerated them. Beaten and buried them in the dirt of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Either Jose Cuervo had lied to her last night and given her a false sense of security, or her morning cup of joe was affecting her more than she thought possible.
She eyed the cup suspiciously and took another sip before looking out the kitchen window toward the trees in the distance. The snow had stopped last night, but it had restarted with the first rays of dawn. Snowstorms weren’t uncommon in New Mexico, especially in the more mountainous regions, but Sun had been hoping for, well, sun her first day on the job. Still, snow or no snow, nothing could stop the brilliance that awaited her along the horizon.
Thick clouds soaked up the vibrant colors of daybreak and splashed them across the heavens like a manic artist who’d scored a new bottle of Adderall. Orange Crush and cotton candy collided and dovetailed, making the sky look like a watercolor that had been left out in the rain. The vibrant hues reflected off the fat flakes drifting down and powdering the landscape.
Sun was home. After almost fifteen years, she was home.
But for how long?
No. That wasn’t the right question. Somewhere between her karaoke rendition of “Who Let the Dogs Out?”—which bordered on genius—and her fifth shot of tequila, she and Jose had figured that out the night before as well.
This was the opportunity she’d been both anticipating and dreading. Since she had a job handed to her on a silver platter, she would stay until she found the man who’d abducted her when she was seventeen. She would stay until he was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. She would stay until she could shed light on the darkest event of her life, and then she would put the town in her rearview for good.
The right question was not how long she would stay but how long it would take her to bring her worst nightmare—literally—to justice.
She tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear and appraised the guesthouse her parents had built, studying it for the umpteenth time that morning. The Tuscan two-bedroom felt bigger than it was thanks to the vaulted ceilings and large windows.
All things considered, it wasn’t bad. Not bad at all. It was shiny and new and warm. And the fact that it sat on her parents’ property, barely fifty feet from their back door, was surprisingly reassuring.
She’d worked some long hours as a detective. Surely, as a sheriff, that wouldn’t change. It might even get worse. It would be good to know that Auri, the effervescent fruit of her loins, would be safe.
The kid felt as much at home in the small tourist town as Sun did, having spent every summer in Del Sol with her grandparents since she was two. The fact that she’d twirled through the apartment when they first saw it like a drunken ballerina? Also a strong indicator she would be okay.
Auri loved it, just like Cyrus and Elaine Freyr knew she would. Sun’s parents were nothing if not determined.
And that brought her back to the malfeasance at hand. They were living in an apartment her parents had built. An apartment her parents had built specifically for Sun and Auri despite their insistence it was simply a guesthouse. They didn’t have guests. At least, not guests that stayed overnight. The apartment was just one more clue they’d been planning this ambush for a very long time.
They’d wanted her back in Del Sol. Sun had known that since the day she’d left with baby in hand and resentment in heart. Not toward her parents. What happened had not been their fault. The resentment that had been eating away at her for years stemmed from a tiff with life in general. Sometimes the hand you’re dealt sucks.
But if she were honest with herself—and she liked to think she was—the agonizing torment of unrequited love may have played a teensy-tiny part.
So, she ran, much like an addled schoolgirl, though she didn’t go far. Also, much like an addled schoolgirl.
She’d originally fled to Albuquerque, only an hour and a half from Del Sol. But she’d moved to Santa Fe a few years ago, first as an officer, then as a detective for SFPD. She’d only been thirty minutes from her parents, and she’d hoped the proximity would make her abandonment of all things Del Sol easier on them.
It hadn’t. And now Sun would pay the price for their audacity, their desperate attempt to pull her back into the fold. As would Auri. The fact that they didn’t take Auri’s future into consideration when coming up with their scheme irked. Just enough to cause tiny bouts of hyperventilation every time Sun thought about it.
Auri’s voice drifted toward her, lyrical and airy like the bubbles in champagne. “It looks good on you.”
Sun turned. Her daughter, short and yet somehow taller than she had a right to be at fourteen, stood in the doorway to her room, tucking a T-shirt into a pair of jeans and gesturing to Sun’s uniform.
Instead of acknowledging the compliment, Sun took a moment to admire the girl who’d stolen her heart about three seconds after she was born. Which happened to be about two seconds before Sun had declared the newborn the most beautiful thing this world had ever seen.
Then again, Sunshine had just given birth to a six-pound velociraptor. Her judgment could’ve been skewed.
Though not likely. The girl had inherited the ability to stop a train in its tracks by the time she was two. Her looks were unusual enough to be considered surreal. Sadly, she owed none of her features to Sunshine. Or her grandparents, for that matter.
Auri’s hair hung in thick, coppery waves down her back. Sunshine’s hair hung in a tangled mess of blond with mousy brown undertones when it wasn’t French braided, as it was now.
Auri’s hazel eyes glistened like a penny, a freshly minted one around the depths of her pupils and an aged one that had green patina around the edges. Sun’s were a murky cobalt blue, much like her grandmother’s collection of vintage Milk of Magnesia bottles.
Auri’s skin had been infused with the natural glow of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. Sunshine was about as tan as notebook paper.
The girl seemed to have inherited everything from her father. A fact that chafed.
“Mom,” Auri said, pursing her pouty lips, “you’re doing it again.”
Sun snapped out of her musings and gave her daughter a sheepish grin from behind the cup. “Sorry.”
She dropped her gaze to the spiffy new uniform she’d donned that morning. As the newest sheriff of Del Sol County, Sun got to choose the colors she and her deputies would wear. For both their tactical and dress uniforms, she chose black. Sharp. Mysterious. Slightly menacing.
And because she wanted to look her best first day on the job, she’d opted for the Class A. Her dress uniform. She ran her fingertips over the badge pinned above the front pocket of her button-down. Inspected the embroidered sheriff’s patch on her shoulder. Marveled at how slimming black trousers really were.