A Good Day for Chardonnay (Sunshine Vicram #2) - Darynda Jones Page 0,86
Sunrise in less than two minutes. Rojas followed with his emergency flashers on.
They skidded to a halt and Levi was out the door faster than Sun could get unbuckled.
“Don’t come down here!” Auri shouted.
Rojas brought out a flashlight and searched with the beam until it found her.
Levi started down the ravine.
“Don’t come down here!” Auri shouted, giving it another shot. “It’s a crime scene.”
The smell hit Sun about that time and served only to spur her panic into hyperdrive. She followed Levi down.
“Crime! Scene!”
Ignoring Auri, Levi replied as eloquently as ever, “Bite. Me.” He skidded to a halt on the incline, maneuvered around to her, then looked up at Rojas and clapped his hands once. Rojas tossed him the flashlight while he called for an ambulance.
“Levi,” Auri said, visibly shaking.
“What the hell, Red?”
Sun kicked up enough dirt to bury them both when she tried to stop on the incline beside Levi.
“What part of crime scene is no one but me understanding?”
“Auri, baby, what happened?”
“I fell,” she said. “And my bike came with me.”
Levi shined the light. “Can you stand?”
“My foot is caught in the chain. Nothing is broken though. I’m not experiencing any nausea or extreme pain. I’m also not experiencing any dizziness or other signs of a concussion. I’m just tangled up. And there is a shooting pain in my ankle every time I try to move.”
“Thank you for that assessment, Dr. Vicram,” Sun said.
Levi shined the light on her ankle. “Ouch,” he said. “We may have to cut this off you.”
“With what?” Auri asked, panicking.
“Unless …” He studied it a bit more. “Can I try to lift this end up, Red?”
She nodded and took Sun’s hand.
“If it hurts, tell me. I’ll stop.”
“Okay.”
Sun kneeled closer to her. “Should I even ask what you’re doing with a bike tangled around you in a ravine in the middle of the night?”
She pressed her lips together, then said meekly, “I had to apologize to Cruz.”
“You couldn’t text him?”
“He wasn’t answering. I got worried.”
“Auri,” Sun admonished, but the girl drew in a sharp breath.
“There,” Levi said, letting go of the bike. It slid the rest of the way down the ravine.
“You did it?” Auri asked, trying to sit up.
“Nah-uh.” He pressed her back to the ground. “You stay where you are, Ricky Road Racer.”
But she didn’t. She threw her arms around his neck, shaking even harder.
“Where’s that ambulance?” Sun shouted.
“On the way, boss,” Rojas said. He’d found another flashlight.
“But for real,” Auri said, talking into Levi’s neck. “Dead body. Like two feet away.”
“We’ll worry about that in a minute,” he said.
She let go. “I thought maybe whoever did it was still out here.”
“Oh, baby.” Sun pulled her into her arms.
“I have to take credit for this one,” Levi said after shining a light on the half-covered body.
Sun heard the sirens getting closer. She put her hands over Auri’s ears, fully aware she could still hear their conversation, but it offered Sun some consolation. “Is that your guy?”
He nodded. “That’s him.”
“You weren’t kidding. He didn’t even last two blocks.”
“I never thought they’d dump him in the middle of town.” He shined the light around the whole area. “He wasn’t even dead when they tossed him. Look at all the blood.”
“With friends like that.”
“You guys know I can still hear you, right?” Auri asked.
Sun hugged her tighter, then looked up at Levi.
“I’m going to lift you up,” he said to Auri. “If anything hurts, let me know.”
“What’s the plan?” Sun asked him.
He scanned the area. “I’m going to take her down and walk her to the railing. I can get her up from there.”
Sun nodded. “Rojas, get Quince here to cordon off the area and call Albuquerque. We need another forensics team to process the scene.”
“You got it, boss.”
Levi lifted the lovebug of Sun’s life into his arms. Auri wrapped herself around him as though he were a chocolate kiss and she was a piece of tinfoil.
Sun walked beside them, shining the light to help him maneuver the uneven ground.
“And wake up my parents!” she called over her shoulder.
Sun and Levi were watching the team from Albuquerque load the deceased man—naturally he had no ID on him—into the back of an ambulance to transport him to the OMI. They’d already been to urgent care with Auri, got her checked out, and sent her home, once again, with her grandparents. Maybe Sun was putting too much on them.
“Man,” she said to Levi, “when you set out to kill a guy, you really throw yourself into the