“Are you sure you’re going to be okay with my being your boss?”
Her chief deputy snorted. “Like anything has changed. When haven’t you bossed me around?”
“Good point.” She hadn’t planned on bringing it up so soon, but she needed to know what awaited her. “All right, Q. Cards on the table. Is the mayor going to let this rest?”
Mayor Donna Lomas seemed to be the only one questioning the legitimacy of Sunshine’s win over Del Sol’s former sheriff. Well, besides said former sheriff. And Sunshine herself.
Quincy turned away from her, but she saw the muscles in his jaw flex as he worked it, a sure sign that not everything was popping up daisies in the Land of Enchantment.
“I don’t know, Sunny. She’s pretty worked up about the whole thing.”
“And she should be.” Sun collapsed against her cruiser. “I mean, isn’t there someone more qualified? You know, someone sheriffier?”
“Okay,” he said, joining her at the cruiser with arms folded across his chest, “let’s think about this. You have a master’s degree in law enforcement. You single-handedly solved one of the highest-profile cases the state has ever seen. And you were the youngest officer to make detective in New Mexico history.” He tilted his head. “I’m thinking no.”
Sun straightened, faced him, and adjusted his tie before replying, “First off, I have a master’s degree in criminal justice, not law enforcement.”
“Same dif.”
“Second, I was the third-youngest officer to make detective in New Mexico history. I was only the youngest in Santa Fe history.”
“Well, then, I take back everything I said.”
“And third, no case is ever solved single-handedly.” She patted his cheek. “You should know that by now, Chief Deputy Cooper.”
He let a calculating smile widen across his face. “Keep telling yourself that, peaches. I read the file.”
“Hmmm.” Refusing to argue the point, she returned her attention to the building.
“I’ll give you a minute,” he said, starting for the door. “Let you gather yourself. Make a grand entrance.”
“Great, thanks,” she said, neither grateful nor thankful.
After he disappeared, she drew in a deep breath and watched it fog in the air when she exhaled before grabbing a box of her personal effects and copies of all the open cases out of her back seat. Then she locked up the cruiser and went inside the pueblo building via a side door.
A hallway separated the station from a small jail that sat in back. From that point, her entrance involved two electronically coded doors in which her master key came in very handy. Once inside, she stopped to take in her surroundings.
The station was nice. More up to date than she’d imagined it would be. Drywall with a light beige paint made up the bulk of the surroundings, but the renovators had kept much of the older wood accents. Remnants of an earlier version of the establishment.
Desks took up most of the main room, and a glass wall separated the public entrance and the administration area up front.
Quincy, who was pretending to be hard at work, spotted her first. He turned in his chair, and the sound of typing and papers shuffling ceased immediately from the other deputies present.
“Hey, boss,” Quincy said, leaning back into a giant stretch. “Oh, I meant to ask, how’s the bean sprout?”
She nodded to the two other deputies present and the office manager, who doubled as dispatch. Anita Escobar—no relation—was a pretty woman in her early thirties with a wide smile and thick, blond-streaked hair she always wore in a ponytail. According to Sun’s ever-studious mother, Anita’d had her eyebrows tattooed on. So, there was that.
Turning back to Quince, Sun balanced her box on two stacks of files that took up half his desk and picked up a pen with a gold deputy’s badge on it. After clicking it open and shut several times, trying to decide if she should steal it or if blatant theft would set a bad example for the other law enforcement officers in the room, she said, “Everyone at school thinks she’s a narc.”
“Sweet. Less trouble she can get into.”
She returned the pen and narrowed her gaze on him. “It’s bizarre how much we think alike. The accusations stem from a certain raid on a certain New Year’s Eve party at the lake.”
“Oh, snap. They think she called us?”
“They do.”
He snorted. “Like anybody needed to call. Don’t they know the secret annual New Year’s Eve party at the lake is the least secret event in this town?”
“Kind of like Mrs. Sorenson’s breast augmentation.”
He laughed out loud, then sobered, his expression wilting a little. “Those aren’t real?”
Sun consoled him with a pat on his head. She knew he’d take it hard.
“Poor kid,” he said, switching back to Auri. “She’s so great. Are you sure she’s really yours?”
“I hope so. She borrows my clothes.”
She thought back longingly to an amazing burgundy sweater that had never been the same after Auri wore it on a field trip to the zoo in Albuquerque. Something about a boy named Fred and a monkey named Tidbit.
She snapped out of it when she realized all work had come to a complete standstill and her staff was gathering around the coffeepot. She leaned closer to Quince. “Should I address the troops?”
“Price is still out on a call. And besides, you have a visitor.” He gestured toward what she assumed was her office.
“Already? I just got here.”
“Yeah, well.” He cringed, his face lined with sympathy. “Proceed with caution. She’s been waiting for twenty minutes.”
“And you kept me standing outside chatting for ten of them?” When he offered her a noncommittal shrug, she dropped her head, dread leaching into her pores. “Christ on a cracker.”
“Good luck,” he said like a manic cheerleader after one too many energy drinks. Then he abandoned her in her time of need to join the other cowards hovering around the coffeepot.
With a withering moan, she lifted her box and headed toward her office to meet her fate.
3
Faculty parking only.
Violators will be given a pop quiz.
—SIGN AT DEL SOL HIGH SCHOOL
“Aurora?”
Auri had just taken a hit off her inhaler. She put it away and smiled at the administrative assistant behind the counter. “That’s me.” She didn’t bother giving the woman her nickname. She doubted they’d talk often.
“Ah yes.” Corrine Amaia, if her nameplate was to be believed, gathered a few papers and handed them to her one at a time. “Okay, the top one is your locker number and combination. Put that somewhere safe.”
“Gotcha.” Auri took the paper and stuffed it into her binder.
“This is the handbook with the school song and dress codes and such.”
“Thanks.”
“And this one is your schedule.”
Auri brightened, excited to see what her classes were. The usual suspects, of course, but she’d been hoping for a couple of electives her private school hadn’t offered.
Trying not to look overly enthusiastic, she took the paper and perused it. She had the state requirements, as expected—English, history, geometry, physical science, and social studies—along with visual arts and American Sign Language.