Oklahoma Sunshine

by Maggie Shayne

  “I’m coming out there.” He disconnected, picked up his jacket and keys on the way out the door, jumped into his truck and drove through the darkest night he'd ever seen. His heart broke a little more with every mile. What if this was it? What if he'd lost Sunny forever?

  He didn’t know that, though. He didn’t know Sunny was in the car when it burned. He didn't know anything, so he tried to hold it all in. And he did okay right up until he pulled over behind a half-dozen police and fire vehicles with strobing lights. He walked past them over cracked blacktop to the abandoned motel’s parking lot. There were spotlights set up around it, aimed at a charred black frame that used to be a car. It felt like his heart fell straight to his feet, and his chest got all tight.

  He ran closer, and when a cop he didn’t know started up to him, Jimmy Corona said, “Hold off, hold off, that’s Jason, that’s my brother-in-law. He’s okay.” And the cop let him pass.

  Jason stopped a couple of feet shy of the car. There was a woman closer, kneeling on the pavement in the spotlight’s beam, dabbing ashes with Q-tips and gathering busted bits of taillight with tweezers. A man snapped photos from every angle.

  Jason made himself look at the car, at the front seats, praying he wouldn't see two charred bodies there. But he didn’t. There weren’t even any seats left. Just ash and blackened springs. No seats, no dashboard, no steering wheel. Every bit of glass had shattered into fine shards and flown in a million directions. The back half of the car wasn’t even car shaped. It was mostly missing.

  “What happened?” he whispered.

  “Looks like the gas tank exploded,” the woman with the tweezers and bags said, without breaking her concentration.

  Jimmy came to stand beside him. “There’s no evidence anyone was in the car.”

  He looked his brother-in-law in the eyes. “Is there any evidence there wasn’t?”

  Jim’s gaze shifted a little. “You’ve just gotta hang onto hope and give us some time.”

  He closed his eyes, turned away from the wreckage, and saw a car door lying all the way across the parking lot. Jimmy put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Just walk with me, Jay. We’ve learned a few things tonight.”

  That paused the horror clip of Sunny burning alive that was playing through Jason's mind. He walked away with Jimmy across the parking lot, away from everyone else, beyond reach of the lights.

  “So, the guy who busted into your workshop is Landry Mason. He’s got a record as long as my arm. Multiple assaults, conspiracy, weapons charges, harassment. He’s a white supremacist known to run with a small, but violent hate group known as The Power.

  “Hate group.” Jason flashed on the swastika tattoo on Sunny’s head.

  “This group was unheard of until…you remember that car that drove into the protestors at Barrier Park, five, maybe six years ago?”

  “Seven. I was still in Texas when that happened. That was them?” Jimmy nodded. “One of the protesters was killed, wasn’t he?”

  “Yeah, and another was paralyzed. A dozen more hurt in less permanent ways. The question I have is, what is a hate group doing in Big Falls?”

  It was no coincidence, that was for sure. “Did you ask him that?”

  “He’s still unconscious. Lost a lot of blood. Could be brain damage.”

  Jason knew this was all tied to Sunny. The break-in, that tattoo, Eve’s sudden appearance and disappearance with Sunny in tow. It was all connected. He thought about telling Jimmy, then thought again. Maybe she wouldn’t want him to know the thug had been calling her Mary. He needed to find out what it meant, first.

  “What did a guy like that want with you?” Jimmy asked.

  He shrugged, looked back at the car. “When will we know if she was–if they were in the car?”

  “They'll rush the tests. This is no small deal. Eve DuVall was–"

  “Is. Eve DuVall is.”

  “Is a federal agent. FBI.”

  Jason’s brain went numb, he was that shocked. He couldn’t even form words and wasn’t sure what they would’ve been if he could.

  Jimmy went on. “I thought Sunny was acting odd and I was suspicious Eve might be threatening her or something, so I looked into her.”

  “FBI,” Jason said stupidly.

  “Sunny never mentioned her old friend who worked for the FBI before?”

  “Never. What’s the FBI doing in Big Falls?”

  “At first, I thought she was probably on vacation, visiting an old friend just like she says she is. FBI agents are people. They take vacations and visit old friends."

  “But now?”

  “Now, I think a guy like Landry Mason and an FBI Agent showing up here at the same time is damn unlikely to be coincidental.”

  “I gotta find Sunny.”

  “She probably got scared, with Landry lunging in there waving a gun around like that."

  But Jason could tell that he thought there was more to it. He looked at the burnt car again, and then he thought about Sunny’s car, home in his driveway. Once Jimmy or the FBI figured out this all tied to her, they would probably impound it. He was surprised they hadn't already. He had to get to it first. Maybe some clue in the car would tell him where she might’ve gone. And why. And whether she’d been blown to bits on the way.

  He gave one last look at the debris scattered all over the parking lot, wondering if Sunny was out there among it.

  “Jason, there’s nothing out there. We’ve been over it.”

  “I gotta go,” Jason said. “I can’t be here.”

  “I understand. I’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter 11

  In the hours before sunrise, Jason was going through Sunny’s car in the dark. With the door open, the interior lights stayed on, and his porch light helped a little. He was in the back seat where he’d found her cat carrier. Not surprising, since she’d been looking for Griselda until everything went crazy. But there was also a small suitcase. He unzipped it, pawed through the clothes inside, feeling guilty and doing it anyway. There was a plastic grocery bag stuffed in there, with all her personal stuff inside; makeup, hair products, soaps and creams and all that.

  She’d planned to be away for more than one night, and she’d planned it before the maniac had attacked them. She hadn’t run off due to trauma from witnessing him cleave a guy through the chest. She'd been planning to run off either way.

  It was like the clouds parted in his brain. Suddenly the intensity of their lovemaking last night made sense. Goodbye-sex, that’s what it was.

  His heart sank. Could that mean she was planning to leave for good? She wouldn’t, though. She couldn’t. He moved to the front seat, and the first thing he saw was her purse on the floor, her cell phone in its front pocket in plain sight.

  “No way, would she leave those. Not if she had a choice."

  “Hey, there Jason. How are you, uh, holding up?”

  Jack Kellogg was standing outside of Sunny’s car looking at him, hands in his jeans pockets. Jason got out of the car, closed the door and looked at the guy. “Do you really care how I'm holding up, Jack?”

  “You’re family.”

  “I’m your son-in-law’s brother.”

  “So, nephew-in-law, then? Something like that? I’m s’posed to care, right?”

  “Yeah. You’re s’posed to.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve repeated the story until I’m hoarse, including to your daughter Kiley. Maybe you could get it from her and save me having to–”

  “I’m not here for the story. I already know the story.”

  Jason swept the grief and the fog of twenty hours without sleep from his mind. Jack was standing there in his driveway at four in the morning. “You seem to know a little more about all this than you ought to. You were contradicting me last night when I said I thought the attack was random, and that Sunny wasn’t in danger.”

  “That’s 'cause it wasn’t random, and she is in danger.
But she wasn’t in the car. That’s what I came to tell you.”

  “What car?”

  “Eve’s car. What’s left of it.”

  Jason let that digest for a second, then he took a step closer. “What do you know about this?”

  Jack held up both hands. “The only thing I know is that Eve and Sunny were not in the car when it burned. They’re safe. Or they were two hours ago.”

  Jason grabbed the front of his shirt. “How do you know?”

  “Eve called and told me so.”

  “Why the hell would she tell you anything?”

  Jack looked down, looked up again. “Let go of my shirt.”

  Jason was out of line and he knew it. He let go. He was not a violent man, until lately. He tried to calm down and reminded himself that Jack was Kiley’s father, little Diana’s grandpa. He slowed and deepened his breaths of the cool, dry air and listened to the cicadas chirping out in the scrub lot behind his place.

  Jack smoothed his shirt, gave it a tug, took a step back. “Eve and I are old friends. She said Sunny wouldn’t want you to worry when they found the car, and asked me to help out.”

  “You wanna help out, you can tell all this to the police. Along with who the hell burned the car, and why, and where Eve and Sunny are, and why some white nationalist moron would want to shoot her.” He pulled out his phone to call Jimmy back.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “A, I can’t do any of that because I don’t know shit and B–”

  “They can track the phone she called from."

  “And B,” Jack continued. “It was a burner phone. She tossed it as soon as we hung up. However, I do have a suggestion.”

  “Jack, I swear to God, if you don’t tell me everything you know–”

  “I could, and that would take time, and when I finished, you’d decide to go after them. I figure it’s more efficient if we skip the me-telling-you part, and go straight to the us-going-after-them part.”

  He rolled his eyes and started to turn away, but Jack grabbed his arm. When he turned, the older man looked him right in the eyes. His were pale blue, and crystal clear, and they appeared sincere. “One thing I know for sure is that they’re in trouble, Jason. So how about you quit wasting time and go throw a few things in a bag so we can try to catch up to ‘em?”

  “How do we know where to look for them?”

  “I know exactly where to look for them,” he said. “Eve is good, but I’m better.”

  "Why?" Jason said. "Why do you want to help me?"

  "I don't. I want to help Eve. And I figure if I help Sunny out, maybe I make something up to Kiley." He looked a little embarrassed, but covered it fast.

  That, that expression just then, was genuine. That was how Jason read it, anyway. Maybe he was just desperate, but he chose to believe Jack. "I’ll get my stuff. Wait here. I won’t be five minutes.”

  “Your hospitality is overwhelming.”

  “Don’t touch anything,” Jason said, and then he went inside.

  He did just what Jack said, throwing some essentials and a change of clothes into a bag. While he was doing it, he flipped through his wallet, found the card Angie had given him, and tapped the number into his phone. It only rang once, and it surprised him that she picked up so fast at this hour. Insomnia, maybe.

  “Everett Investigations, this is Riley. How can I help you?”

  “This is Jason McIntyre,” he said. “I’m–”

  “Jason. Angie said you might be calling. She told me everything she knows, which isn’t much. Need me to start looking for Sunny?”

  “I need you to start looking into Sunny.”

  "Holy... All right. Okay. First, you need to tell me everything you know,” she said. “Even the stuff you didn’t tell the cops. Angie and Kiley are sure you’re keeping things back.”

  “They’re wrong.”

  “I work for you. None of it will go any further.”

  “Not even to your sister-in-law?”

  “Ex-sister-in-law. And yes, I’m a professional.”

  He made a snap decision to trust her–to an extent. “I only have a few minutes. I’ll have to talk fast. The guy who came in here wasn’t after me, he was after Sunny, only he called her Mary.”

  “Mary?”

  “His name is Landry Mason and he’s with a white nationalist group called The Power.”

  “Got it. I’ll run a background check on him. What else?”

  “A woman named Eve DuVall showed up in town out of nowhere the day all this started, claiming to be Sunny’s old friend. Turns out she’s FBI.”

  “FBI?”

  “And right after the attack, she and Eve took off. She left her car. Her purse. She left her freaking phone, Riley.”

  “Okay. Okay.”

  He took a calming breath, tried to get a grip on himself. His heart was racing again. “Jack Kellogg knows something about this. Says Eve called to tell him they weren’t in her burned-out car, which was just found–”

  “I know about the car.”

  “He wants to come with me to look for them. Says he’s knows where they’re heading.”

  “So just to be clear, this is Kendra and Kiley’s father Jack Kellogg?”

  “The same. You’ve met him?”

  “Never had the pleasure. Know of him, though.”

  “Through your work?” Had Jack been keeping his nose clean?

  “I keep my finger on the pulse of Big Falls.”

  “Our little town hasn’t let go of you yet, has she, Riley?” It wasn’t really a question.

  “I don’t think she ever will. Did Jack say how he knows where they’re going?”

  “Not yet. He’s being cagey. Makes me nervous.”

  “You’re smart to be nervous. From what I hear, that guy put the artist in con-artist. Keeping him close is probably the best way to keep an eye on him, though. Just be careful, and stay in touch.”

  “I will. Gotta go.” He pocketed the phone, grabbed his bag and headed outside. “We'll take my truck," he said, opening the driver's door. "Hop in and tell me which way.”

  “Southwest,” Jack said. He climbed into the passenger seat. “Eve has a little place in New Mexico that nobody knows about.”

  “Then how do you know about it?”

  He smiled, dimples forming, blue eyes sparkling, but he didn’t answer.

  Sunny rolled over in the strange bed, absently stroking Griz with her toes. The cat was stretched out and snoring softly. Who ever heard of a cat who snored? At least she was sleeping. Sunny was wide awake with no sign of sleep in sight. It was six a.m. They’d got to bed by three, but she hadn’t closed her eyes once.

  The motel's address was printed on the complimentary notepad beside the telephone. They were only a couple of hours from Big Falls, even though they’d driven all day. Eve had been taking them in circles, looping back and forth, heading in different directions, all just to confuse anyone who might be following them. So, they hadn’t gone far. They were cutting across a corner of Texas, heading toward New Mexico.

  Everything in her was screaming that this was wrong. Big Falls was her home. It couldn’t be right for her to run away.

  She looked around the room as if for an answer. Eve lay curled on her side in the other bed, sound asleep as far as Sunny could tell. Sure, she could sleep. It wasn’t her life being turned upside down.

  Creeping quietly out of bed in pajamas—white cotton with pale blue piping—she didn’t even wake Griz. And she was careful not to wake Eve, either.

  She tiptoed to the dresser to slip the room key into the PJ top’s pocket, answering the age-old question, why put pockets in pajamas, then moved silently to the door. Normally, on nights when she couldn’t sleep or any time she was stressed out, she baked. She’d baked her way through her hate-filled childhood. She’d baked madly during her awakening at college. She’d baked her way through love and loss, through betraying her own father, and through running for her life from his wrath.

  She twisted the do
orknob in slow motion, watching Eve the whole time, then ducked through the smallest opening possible and closed the door as slowly as she’d opened it. Then she walked out across the parking lot.

  Baking was comfort to her. It was control. It was creating something wonderful from parts that weren’t much on their own. Who would eat a spoonful of flour? But when you added sparkling sugar and rich, real butter and a couple of eggs, you had the beginnings of anything. Anything at all, depending on proportions and what else you put in. Cookies and cakes and tarts and tortes and breads and muffins and….

  She couldn’t bake tonight. There were no parts she could put together. Her life was out of her control. Braxton was the one mixing ingredients in her life now. Hatred. Violence. Vengeance. He was poisoning the batter.

  She’d never wanted to taste those flavors again. But instead of escaping them, she’d brought them straight to Big Falls, the closest thing to paradise this side of heaven. She’d brought them straight to Jason, the finest man she’d ever known.

  She’d put him in danger. And there wasn’t a thing that would stop her from warning him now. Eve said she’d taken care of that, but Sunny had to be certain. She couldn’t bear the thought of him in her brother's sights. Nor could she let him believe for a second that she'd burned to death in Eve's car.

  She walked across the parking lot to the motel’s office. Its light was on, an orange neon VA ANN Y sign. Both Cs were blown out and the V was flickering. It buzzed intermittently. The air felt good. Cool, with a hint of moisture. Winter in the southwest wasn’t cold. It just a break from the heat.

  She went through the door into the motel office and a bell jangled. No one was behind the chest-high desk. It was wood, painted white, with a terra-cotta tiled surface. There were cactus-shaped wall hangings and a parade of chili peppers danced across the top of the clay-red walls.

  A sign said, OFFICE CLOSED—RING BELL FOR SERVICE.

  The space in front of the counter was jam-packed with things for the convenience of the guests. A coffee maker stood on a table beside a bag of ground roast, powdered creamer, all manner of sweeteners in colorful packets. There was a toaster oven and a case full of cellophane-wrapped baked goods. She shuddered.