A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(29)

“Shut up.”

Just as Sun sat at her desk, the same desk she had yet to organize, Anita walked in, her lids wide and her face pale. In her gloved hands was an envelope. A pink one.

“Anita?” Sun said, standing.

The look on her face convinced Quincy to rush to her, but he stopped when he looked at the envelope. “It’s addressed to you.”

“It’s from her,” Anita said, moving her fingers so Sun and Quincy could see the return address. “It’s from Sybil St. Aubin.”


The deputies in residence gathered around her desk as Sun carefully pried open the envelope with gloved hands and a letter opener. According to the postmark, it had been mailed the day before. The handwritten address, with its neat script and rounded letters, suggested it was indeed from a girl. A young girl.

She slid the opener under the flap, cut along the top, and lifted the parchment out.

Quincy slipped the envelope into an evidence bag and sealed it for processing.

Sun unfolded the letter and scanned it. Then she scanned it again before reading it aloud. But only after a quick, confused glance at Quince.

“It’s dated two days ago. Postmarked yesterday,” she said.

Quincy angled for a better view. “So, she wrote it Sunday but couldn’t mail it until Monday?”

“Possibly. It’s addressed to me in care of the station, and it just happens to arrive on my first day?”

“She met your daughter,” Zee said. “She probably knows who you are.”

“True, but it gets stranger,” Sun promised, and began reading. “Dear Sheriff Vicram, by the time you get this letter, I will be gone, but I’m not dead. Not yet.”

She spared a quick glance at Quincy. His face was tightly drawn in thought.

“You have three days to find me,” she continued. “If you don’t, it will be too late.”

“What the hell?” Quince said, his voice whisper soft.

Price straightened and stepped back as though not sure what to think. As though not wanting to be a party to such events. “Is this a joke?” he asked, just as confused as Sun.

“If it is,” Zee said, “it’s not a very funny one.”

“I agree.” Sun kept reading, trying to analyze the strokes of the writing at the same time. As the letter continued, the signs of stress increased. The writing became heavier, like the writer was pressing down harder and harder. And the points became sharper. “I know this is going to sound crazy. Not even my parents believe me, but when I was six years old, I had a premonition, for lack of a better word. It’s the only one I’ve ever had, but it was very vivid, and I knew the minute I had it, it was real.

“It began as a voice. I was standing in our backyard in Illinois, and a presence told me I would be abducted three days before my fifteenth birthday, held in a dark place, and then killed on the day I turned fifteen.”

“What does that mean?” Price asked. “What kind of presence?”

“That night,” Sun continued without answering him, “I dreamed about the abduction, and I’ve had the same dream several times a year since. In my dream, I am taken by a man I don’t know. I try to fight him, but I can’t. For some reason, my arms and legs feel like they’re made of sand. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make them work right.”

Sun paused to catch her breath as a wave of anxiety washed over her.

“We’ve all had dreams like this,” Anita said.

“More like nightmares.” Salazar, clearly buying into every word, shivered.

Fighting to keep her distress to herself, Sun continued, “My birthday is important to him. I don’t know why, but he wants me to die on the day I was born.

“When my parents told me we were moving to New Mexico, I was so happy. I hoped that by moving to Del Sol, the threat would go away. Instead, the dreams have been getting stronger.

“I started keeping a diary, hoping to get new clues, but I really only see the same thing over and over again. Snow and trees and rocks. I wake up once when he’s carrying me and that’s what I see, so I think he’s keeping me in the mountains.

“I wish I could see his face more clearly. I’m blindfolded most of the time, and I can’t focus when I’m not. All I can tell you is that he is thin but strong, and he has dark hair but light skin. And I think I scratched him, so if you find my body, be sure to check under my nails for DNA.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be crude, but you need to know this isn’t sexual. He never touches me. Not like that. But he calls me Syb. Like my dad. Like he has a right to call me by my nickname.

“I can hear water underneath me. He keeps me in a small room like a shed, and it’s cold, and I think I’m going to die from the cold, but I don’t. I don’t die until he strangles me on my birthday. I fight and kick and claw, but he always wins because nothing works right and everything moves in slow motion.”

Sun’s vision blurred while reading the next line.

“It takes me a long time to die.”

She stopped when she realized she was shaking visibly. Quincy knelt beside her, but she pulled away from him, fighting the sting at the backs of her eyes like a cage fighter in a championship match. Her demons were not something her deputies need ever see.

After clearing her throat, she read the last paragraph.