“Or he’s deliberately impeding these investigations,” Quince said.

  “Just thought you should know, boss.”

  “Thanks, Rojas. What is it going to take with this kid?” she asked Quince when she hung up.

  “Right? Never listens. Does the opposite of what her mother tells her to do. Puts herself in danger to help others.”

  Sun frowned at him. “You’re funny.”

  “I can’t help it if the bean sprout didn’t fall far from the tree. Disobedience and rebellion must be genetic traits.”

  “I was not a rebel.”

  “Yeah,” he scoffed, not bothering to argue. “And this case just gets bigger and bigger.”

  “It does.”

  He angled his wide shoulders so he could look at her when he asked, “Do you think we have a serial criminal on our hands?”

  “It’s sure looking like that could be the case.”

  “I’ll call in the dogs.”

  An hour later, after checking in once again with their Jane Doe, they pulled into Del Sol right as both of their phones released an alarm similar to an Amber Alert.

  “What the hell?” Sun took out her phone and showed Quince the logo plastered on her home screen. He showed her his, a matching set.

  “Now?” she asked, astonished the Dangerous Daughters could summon them out of the blue like that. “No one told me we’d be expected to show up for emergency meetings at any time of day or night.”

  “They did, actually.”

  “Well, yeah, but I didn’t think they’d really do it. Summon us like we’re demons from a hell dimension and they found their great-grandmothers’ book of shadows.”

  After he stared at her for a while, he said, “You are an odd person to be around.”

  “This better be important. We have places to be and people to put behind bars.”

  “Are you going to ground her?” he asked.

  “Bug? Only until she’s thirty-five. And to think, every time she promises me something, I believe her. Like I haven’t been in law enforcement for the last ten years.”

  “Yeah, your mom did, too.”

  She gritted her teeth. Auri caught up to the whole of Sun’s rebellious antics years ago and left Sun to breathe the dust in her wake.

  They parked behind the Angry Angler, Del Sol’s favorite—and only—fishing supply store and took the stairs down to the finished basement. The super-secret basement where all the super-secret planning went down. Sun pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head to let her pupils adjust. Sure enough, the gang was all there. Thirteen of the town’s finest, including her parents, the mayor, Mrs. Fairborn, Principal Jacobs, and … and Levi.

  Sun stopped short when she saw him, the Sinister Son in all his sinister glory. Mussed mahogany hair, the tips still damp from a recent washing. Shimmering eyes the color of whiskey-filtered sunlight. Powerful shoulders as though sculpted by Michelangelo.

  “Sunshine,” her mother said, rushing up to her. “I had to leave Cruz at your house.”

  She tore her gaze off Levi. “It’s okay, Mom.”

  “He was reading when we left,” her dad said. “But he did eat a huge plate of pancakes. That many carbs should put him out in no time.”

  “That’s good.” Sun couldn’t stop her gaze from traveling back to Levi every chance it got.

  He sat on a heavy side table in the back of the room, one knee pulled up with an arm thrown over it, and had yet to return the favor. So they were back to ignoring each other. She could deal with that. She could ignore with the best of them. She’d even been called aloof once.

  “Sunshine,” Mrs. Fairborn said, shuffling up to her and Quincy, “as Dangerous, it’s your job to call the meeting to order.”

  Sun had taken Mrs. Fairborn’s place as the leader of the pack, apparently, but hell if she knew what she was doing. Or what any of them did, for that matter. “Okay. Fine.” She walked to the podium at the front of the room, her mouth watering at the smell of fresh coffee, and banged the gavel softly. “I hereby call this meeting to order. Now, what the hell are we doing here?”

  “I’m not sure that’s how it works, Sunshine,” Darlene Tapia said. She’d put down her knitting to offer Sun a withering frown.

  “Guys, I have a couple of pretty big cases at the moment. Quince and I really need to get back to the office.”

  “Sordid,” Mrs. Fairborn said.

  “What? There’s nothing sordid about it. We have to do our jobs.”

  “No, Quincy. In here, he’s Sordid. The Son Sordid to be exact.”

  “Damn straight, I am.” He offered Mrs. Fairborn a fist bump. She gladly accepted, closing her frail hand into a fist Quincy could bump as Sun prayed for patience.

  Principal Jacobs chimed in with, “We need to know what’s going on, Dangerous.”

  “With what?”

  “You can start with that girl Drew found,” Mayor Lomas said, looking like a cover model, the tips of her short sandy bob brushing her shoulders as she spoke. Softly. Sensually.

  Sun rolled her eyes. She seriously needed to get over her crush on the woman.

  She chastised the lot of them with a well-timed glare. “Is that why you brought Quincy and me into the clubhouse? To get the lowdown on our cases?”

  The mayor scoffed. “I can get the lowdown any time I want. I’m the mayor. I just thought you could fill in everyone else.”

  “Look, guys, I can’t share the details of active investigations.”

  “Then just share the highlights,” Mrs. Fairborn said. “You know, broad strokes.”

  Sun filled her lungs and tried to give them just enough information to appease them. “Okay, Drew Essary found an as-yet-unidentified woman in Copper Canyon.”

  “So, still no ID?” the mayor asked.

  “Not a solid one. We’re working on it.”

  The group chatted amongst themselves as Sun’s gaze crept toward Levi again. She fought his gravitational force until Mrs. Fairborn spoke again.

  “Item two,” she said, snapping Sun’s attention back to her like a rubber band. “What is your office doing about Clay Ravinder?”

  That caught Levi’s attention. His head whipped around to the elderly woman, his face full of concern.

  “If he’s really got our Son Sinister in his crosshairs,” she continued, “we need to do something about it.”

  Everyone agreed, their heads nodding in unison.

  “How did you even know about … You know what? Never mind. We’re very aware that Clay is trying to wrest control of Dark River Shine from”—her gaze locked with Levi’s for an eternity—“Sinister. I’m working with a couple of people to help bring him to justice before anything like that happens.”

  “And who would those people be?” Levi asked, his voice honed to a glisteningly sharp edge.

  “I can’t say.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  She raised her chin, accepting the challenge. “It’s prudent for the lives of my assets that they remain anonymous.”

  “Speaking of Wynn Ravinder,” her mother said, “we want the test to stand. The test Wynn had doctored.”

  “Mom!”

  “Devilish, sweetheart.” Her mother leaned closer. “In here, I’m Devilish.”

  “I just said my assets need to remain anonymous.”

  “Well, he escaped, so what does it matter now?”

  “He escaped?” Levi asked, his face the picture of astonishment.

  Sun wasn’t buying it. For all she knew, he helped, too. “Yes. He escaped yesterday.”

  “From prison?” he asked, incredulous.

  “No. He had a heart attack—one we believe was self-induced—and escaped when they brought him to the hospital in Santa Fe.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  He huffed out a sound that was part scoff and part laughter, clearly impressed with his uncle. “Not a thing.”

  “Well, if you happen to see him, would you ask him to give me a call?”

  He narrowed his shimmering eyes and nodded. “I’ll get right on that. And since your other source is my sister, just how were you planning to protect her when the shit hit the fan?”

  “Levi,” Sun said, aghast for the second time in five minutes.

  “Sinister, sweetheart.”

  She didn’t spare her mother a glance that time. Levi had just outed his own sister, exposing her part in a very dangerous game of cat and mouse. Sun had no idea how invested the Southern Mafia had become with Clay’s plans for the distillery. Were they in on the planned coup? According to Hailey, they wanted that business for the profits and the money laundering capabilities, and Clay wanted back inside their organization.

  She had yet to figure out how Del Sol’s former sheriff, Baldwin Redding, played into it all, but Hailey assured her, they were planning something big together.

  “Dangerous,” her mother said, drawing her attention away from Levi, “you are not understanding the point of this organization.”

  “I guess I’m not, Mom.”

  “Devilish, sweetheart,” she said, correcting her yet again.

  “Devilish,” Sun said, feeling a little ridiculous. “I don’t care what the point of this organization is. I can’t share sensitive details about a case with you.”

  “It’s okay,” Mayor Lomas said. She stood to address the masses. “I didn’t understand at first, either, Daughters and Sons. She’ll come around.”

  “I doubt I will. I don’t get to break the law because it’s inconvenient.”

  A tiny voice spoke up then, breathy and quivering. Myrtle was quite possibly older than Mrs. Fairborn. “We are the law, Dangerous. At least in this town. And we’ve been protecting it with our lives for decades.”

  Sun released a lead-filled sigh. “I understand, but—”

  “No,” her mother said. She stood and squared off against Sun, her face morphing into a mask of anger. “You don’t understand. You weren’t here when our fallen Son Savage died protecting a group of churchgoers from a maniacal gunman.”

  Sun blinked, taken aback. “When the hell did that happen?”

  “Or when our fallen Daughter Diabolical was killed trying to stop a fire from spreading into town.”

  “Mom,” Sun whispered.

  “Devilish,” she said, clearly fed up with her daughter’s impertinence. “What happens within these walls stays within these walls. No one talks about anything discussed here outside of this room. Ever. If two members want to discuss anything said here, they come back here to do so. We are Del Sol’s protectors. Her heroes. We will fight for her and the people she harbors to the death, and we will do it with or without your help.”

  Sun forgot how to breathe as she watched her mother through blurred vision, unable to believe she’d just been taken down a visible notch by the woman who birthed her in front of a room chock full of Del Sol patriots.

  Her father reached up and took her mother’s hand, coaxing her to sit down. She did, but she was not happy about it.

  In the awkward silence that followed, Quince stood and walked over to Sun. Taking hold of her shoulders, he turned her to face him, looked into her eyes, and whispered, “I have never been more in love with your mother than I am right now.”

  Sun almost smiled, which was his point entirely. “Get a grip, Sordid,” she said under her breath before addressing the room. She put her arm in his, holding him beside her as she spoke. “In response to your point about Wynn Ravinder, the test that implicated him as his brother Kubrick’s killer sixteen years ago was doctored.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” her father said. “He wants to take the fall, Dangerous. Let him take the fall. The person who really killed Brick did it to save your life. Let the test stand.”

  It took everything Sun had not to look at Levi, the real person who killed Kubrick. The real person who saved her life all those years ago, only to have her suffer from head trauma and forget the whole thing. Until recently, anyway.

  “And my sister?” he asked from the back of the room, but she still didn’t look at him.

  She had been thoroughly chastised by her mother and few things ripped her flesh open with more vigor. She stood in front of the room like a quivering mass of raw nerve endings, the slightest glance from her audience causing her pain.

  “How were you planning on protecting her once you thrust her into Clay’s crosshairs?”

  She refrained from telling him that it was actually Hailey who came to her. It wouldn’t have mattered to him either way. Even Quincy had been angry with her for putting Hailey in harm’s way.

  Instead of answering, she looked at him at last and said, “I need to know you won’t go after Clay. I’m building a case against him.”

  He scoffed. “Do you honestly think I didn’t know what my uncle was up to?”

  “You knew?” Of course he knew. Her face burned under his blistering scrutiny.

  “He’s wanted to take over Dark River for years.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, but it’s escalating. From my intel, he has an actual plan in place.”

  “Your intel being my sister.”

  Once again, she refrained from answering. Was that the source of his anger? “Your sister’s a big girl, Levi. She’s worried about you. I guess she shouldn’t have bothered, what with you being so informed and all.”

  He pushed off the table, his turn to be fighting mad.

  But Sun wasn’t finished. “Is that why you’re so angry with me? Or is it something else?” she asked, practically daring to bring up the elephant in the room. The challenge hung heavy in the air. If this group was so open, so trustworthy, then he wouldn’t mind if they knew the truth about Auri. About his new status where she was concerned. It’s not every day one finds out he’s a father, and Levi was not handling it well. Then again, they had more issues than The Wall Street Journal. “Maybe you regret saving me all those years ago.”

  He cast her a rueful smile before turning to leave.

  Sun grabbed her nearly empty water bottle and threw it across the room at him.

  He caught it with ease, the sound like a slap on the air, before placing it on the table he’d just vacated and walking out.

  “Isn’t that assault?” Myrtle asked meekly.

  It was indeed. Sun couldn’t fuck up her life more if someone paid her to do it.

  She followed him out. Not to confront him but to get away from the League of Extraordinary Gossips. Mostly her mother. They got what they wanted. Sun’s confirmation on several sensitive facts that could get people killed. They wanted details Sun could not legally share, but even if she were willing, she simply wasn’t wired that way. Telling her mother and father what she could share was one thing. She trusted them to the depths of her soul. But a room full of Del Sol gossipmongers? No matter what oaths they took, it was going to take some time before she could trust them with the goings-on of her office.

  She heard Levi’s truck roar to life on a side street and had no desire to look at him at the moment. Except she did, damn it, so she turned the opposite direction and went around to the front of the building.

  Quincy jogged up behind her. “Where you headed?”

  “Caffeine-Wah.”

  “Right. You want me to take your cruiser to the station?”

  “Sure.” It was only a couple of blocks, and she didn’t want to take up a spot the Angry Angler might need. Tourists were coming into town by the droves now that schools were letting out for the summer. She handed him the keys, then looked out over Main Street. “Am I wrong, Quince?” When he only shot her a questioning look, she elaborated. “I can’t tell a room full of people our business. Loose lips sink ships.”

  He scratched his chin in thought, then said, “The jury’s still out for me. I mean, how cool would it be to have a group like this that not only runs the town but actually has its best interest at heart? No corruption. No hidden agendas.”

  “There’s always corruption,” she reminded him. “In any seat of power. There are always hidden agendas.”

  “But they have safeguards in place to guard against those kinds of things.”

  “So they say.”

  “And, if you think about it, the Dangerous Daughters are the best-kept secret since the JFK assassination. Or, you know, the truth about who was behind it.”

  “You’re saying they can keep a secret.”

  “I’m saying they’ve done a damn good job of it for the last six decades.”

  “What is that?” Sun asked, pointing to a store going in across the street from her favorite watering hole, Caffeine-Wah.

  Quincy looked over his shoulder and turned toward the new store. “I don’t know, but any store called Wine and Shine deserves a second look.”

  They walked over to the small store wedged between two other businesses. She gestured toward a sign in the window. “The grand opening is in two weeks.”

  “They would’ve gotten a liquor license.” Quince cupped his hand to look through the dusty plate glass window. “You didn’t know about this?”

  “Not a thing.” The store promised to be all kinds of adorable. White cabinets and lots of glass. Very elegant, especially for Del Sol.

  A female voice wafted toward them. “We would only need a license if we didn’t already have one.”

  They turned to see Hailey Ravinder carrying a box. She smiled, her wispy blond hair and gauze tunic draped over her slight build giving her the look of a fairy princess from Middle-earth.

  Quincy hurried to her and took the box out of her arms. “Thanks,” she said, gazing up at the intrepid deputy like he hung the moon. Or at least claimed he did in one of those land-development schemes. The minute he started selling plots of land on the moon, Sun was locking him away for good.

  “Hailey,” Sun said, wrapping her arms around her enemy-turned-lover only without the sexy times. “What the heck? You’re opening a store?”

  She flashed them a blinding smile. “I am.” She took out her keys and opened the door, holding it open for them to come in. “At last. I’ve wanted to do this for years. I finally told Levi and he’s all for it.” She grinned at Sun. “You’re good for him.”

  Taken aback, Sun shook her head. “Oh, no, hon. That was not me.”