A Bad Day for Sunshine (Sunshine Vicram #1)(77)

She felt nothing but the vise around her chest, cracking her ribs and squeezing the air out of her lungs.

She closed the bathroom door and wedged the doorstop underneath it to keep him—no, everyone—out. After falling twice, she managed to get to the last stall. She locked the door, dropped to her knees, and emptied her stomach into the toilet.

Her body expelled the coffee and breakfast cereal she’d had that morning, but she hardly took note. She was numb. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t process what had just happened.

As though she were a thousand miles away, she wiped her mouth with toilet paper, flushed the commode, then wedged her body between it and the wall. She felt more tears and pressed her palms over her eyes to stop the flow, like putting pressure on a wound.

Noises drifted toward her from the hall, and a deep sob echoed off the walls. Then another, and another and she finally realized they were hers.

Which was odd because she didn’t realize she was crying.

A sharp thud sounded at the bathroom door followed by three more until the door opened and crashed against the wall. She heard steps. Breathing. Then another loud bang as the stall door almost flew off its hinges.

But she was still applying pressure. She had to stop the onslaught before she flooded the bathroom.

She felt hands wrap around her legs. They slid her out of her haven. She considered fighting, but if she released the pressure, the floods would start again.

At that precise moment, back in the clearing, Sun felt hands on her shoulders. She thought about fighting them off, but that would take effort, and she worried she would vomit again.

Auri felt herself being lifted.

Sun felt herself being lifted.

When another sob racked her body, Auri heard a soft shushing sound.

When she tried to push out of her rescuer’s arms, Sun heard a warning growl.

“You’re okay,” Cruz whispered in her ear as he cradled Auri against his chest and carried her out of the bathroom.

“You’ll be okay,” Levi said as he lifted Sun into his arms and carried her to his ATV.

And the next few moments were a blur of backpacks and trees and kids’ faces and law enforcement officers and arms. His arms. Wrapped around her in the best way possible.


Sun sat in the back of the ambulance that had been waiting to transport the DB to Albuquerque, still reeling from her rather humiliating experience.

Levi had carried her to his ATV and sat her on it. After being awake for over forty-eight hours and conducting a search-and-rescue operation in freezing weather and blizzard conditions for much of that, he picked her up and carried her.

She’d wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in the crook of his neck, letting go of herself for just a minute. He smelled like campfire and snow and felt like warm steel all around her.

When he sat her down, she reeled herself back in and gulped huge rations of air to calm down.

“Slowly,” he said, kneeling beside her in the snow.

“I’ve been there,” she said, gasping. “I’ve been in that shed.”

“Lots of people have.”

“Not by the looks of it.”

“Yeah, well. I guess it’s been a while.”

She forced herself to calm down and took a moment to look at him. To appreciate the work of art he’d grown into. The amber in his eyes mesmerized her, and she could have stared at him all day, but she had cases to solve, and they were, as her father used to say, burning daylight.

She swallowed and delivered the bad news. “It’s your uncle, Levi. Your uncle Brick.”

His lashes narrowed. “How do you know we called him that?”

“I just heard it, I guess. I’m sorry, your uncle Kubrick.”

He let his gaze slide past her toward the incident site. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “He had a driver’s license in his pocket.”

He nodded, then looked down at the hand she’d unconsciously moved to his arm.

She pulled it back just as Quincy skidded to a halt beside them and jumped off the ATV. “What happened?” he asked, leaning down to her.

Sun shook her head. “Just get me out of here.”

Quincy helped her off the ATV and onto his as Levi stood back.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Levi.”

He shook his head. “Save it for someone worthier.”

Twenty minutes later, Sun was sitting in the back of an ambulance, being grilled by her bestie.

“What happened back there?” Quincy asked when the technician left her to her own devices. A dangerous place to just leave her willy-nilly.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head, trying to loosen the cobwebs.

“Well, can you try to figure it out, because damn. You passed out.”

“I didn’t pass out.”

“First you threw up, then you passed out.”

“I didn’t pass out. I don’t think. I don’t know. I kind of lost touch with reality there for a minute.”

“Okay. That’s a start. So why are we processing a scene that hasn’t had a visitor in a decade, by the looks of it?”

She moved the ice pack to the back of her head. “Damn door.”

“They can be such dicks. The scene?”

After taking a quick glance around, she leaned in and said, “That’s where I was held.”