A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(76)

She’d had the same reaction to Sybil’s letter. The same feeling of helplessness. Of darkness. Of fear.

And the blood. There was blood everywhere. Hers? She couldn’t remember. But she did remember it on her hands. The sticky liquid drying in her nose and between her fingers.

The ATV slid to a halt in the snow just as her stomach did what it’d warned her it would. Coffee rushed up her throat, and she heaved it onto the snow as a booted foot came into her periphery.

But it wasn’t Quincy’s boot.


“Thanks, Lynelle,” Liam said, the screen too bright and the voices too loud.

Auri watched in horror as the story unfolded. As her story unfolded. “The town of Del Sol has spoken, and we have a new sheriff, but what do we really know about her?”

Her mom’s senior picture popped onto the screen. “Sunshine Vicram was born Sunshine Blaze Freyr to a military intelligence officer and a Vegas showgirl. She grew up in this sleepy town where the coffee is hot and the people are cool.”

“She loves Del Sol,” an interviewee said into the microphone. An interviewee named Quincy Cooper. He smiled into the camera. “She couldn’t wait to come back.”

“And we’re glad to hear it,” Liam said. “But what drove her away in the first place? We have uncovered a dark secret the Freyr family has spent a fortune to keep under wraps, and we feel the citizens of Del Sol have a right to know.”

“That’s right, Liam.” Lynelle walked onto the screen to join Liam in front of the monument. “You see, a little over fifteen years ago, the woman we know as Sunshine Vicram met and married a man who, according to public records, never existed.”

“That’s right, Lynelle. We followed up on a tip we received while trying to get to know our new sheriff better and discovered that her claims of marriage at seventeen, only to have her husband shipped out the next day and later killed in action in Afghanistan, are completely fabricated.”

Lynelle gasped. “Liam, how is that even possible?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out, but we visited the county clerk’s office. There is no record of a marriage between a Sunshine Freyr and a Samson Vicram. In fact, there’s no record of a Samson Vicram at all.” The camera zoomed in on his face. “Because Samson Vicram never existed.”

The teacher was on the phone, ordering the person on the other end to stop the broadcast, but Auri sat frozen, so stunned she couldn’t breathe. So shocked she couldn’t look away. She felt wetness streaming down her face and dripping off her chin, and yet she was too dumbstruck to move.

The camera cut to Lynelle. “In fact, the only record we did find with our sheriff’s name on it was a petition to change her surname from Freyr to Vicram mere weeks before this memorial went up in Town Square. It was created to honor the fallen soldiers from Del Sol. And at the top of the list?”

The camera zoomed in on the first name.

“Samson Elio Vicram.”

“But, Lynelle,” Liam said, gesturing toward the monument, “what about all the soldiers who did die in action? What does this callous disregard for their sacrifice say about the woman who is supposed to serve and protect this great town for the next four years?”

In the back of Auri’s mind, she registered appalled glances from her classmates, but for the most part, she just stared.

“Exactly.” The camera zoomed in on Lynelle. “These reporters want to know why our new sheriff deceived the entire town. We want to know what she’s hiding.”

“And we want to know if this deception has anything to do with Sheriff Vicram’s five-day disappearance that resulted in a hushed pregnancy.”

“Where is my remote?” the teacher asked, tearing through her desk to find it.

The shot of the sheriff’s station popped onto the screen again, and the camera panned back to Lynelle. “Del Sol is teeming with rumors. Some say the sheriff ran off with a drummer who dumped her at a gas station in Truth or Consequences.”

“Others say she was kidnapped and held for ransom by a depraved predator,” Liam said with way too much enthusiasm.

“Whatever the case may be, we will stop at nothing to uncover the truth about our new sheriff, but for now, we must stress that none of this is poor Auri’s fault. Whether her mother is a law enforcement officer or a con artist.”

“Whether her father was a war hero or a violent criminal, we all need to welcome Auri Vicram with open—”

The broadcast stopped, the TV went black, and the only sound Auri could hear was the rush of her own blood in her ears. A sea of faces stared back at her. Some sympathetic. Some mortified. Some triumphant, relishing the moment.

“Auri,” the teacher said, rushing toward her. “I’m so sorry. Those televisions are controlled by the AV department and the plug is in the ceiling and I couldn’t find my stupid remote. I couldn’t just turn it off.”

Auri pushed off her desk and stumbled toward the door, her vision blurring so much she couldn’t find the handle. Her fingers finally curved around it. She shoved open the door only to fall onto the tile floor in the hall.

A man was running toward her, Principal Jacobs, but her stomach heaved. She was going to be sick. She scrambled to her feet and fought the darkening of her vision to make it to the girls’ restroom.