A Good Day for Chardonnay (Sunshine Vicram #2) by Darynda Jones

Then again …

She leaned closer, breathed in the hint of subtle cologne he wore, and whispered, “I couldn’t be more serious if you paid me.”

Careful not to hurt him, not that he would feel it on his current adrenaline high, she slipped the cuffs over his battered hands, baseball cap and all, and tightened them just enough so they wouldn’t fall off.

“Don’t do this, Vicram.”

Her chest tightened around her heart. “You were defending a friend in battle and then got hit by a truck, Levi. Just get a couple of X-rays and then Quincy will release you.”

“Me?” Quince asked, surprised.

Levi let out a frustrated sigh. “They’ll be out of the state by then.”

“We don’t know that. Zee called it in. Every trooper in New Mexico is looking for that truck.” She took his arm and led him toward Quincy’s cruiser, a little surprised he didn’t resist. “You do this and I’ll go talk to Mr. Walden.” Mr. Walden, the owner of the Quick-Mart, would not appreciate her late-night invasion, but at that point, she really didn’t care.

“Walden saw something,” Levi said. “He’s just too much of a weasel to get involved.”

“I can handle Walden.” Levi wasn’t wrong. The man was a bit of a weasel.

He stopped and the look on his face told her more than any words could have. Whoever Keith Seabright was, he meant more to Levi than most of his family members did. Not that that was saying much.

“Let me come with you.” It wasn’t a request. “I’ve been deputized. It would be legit.”

How could she forget? “We can discuss it after the X-rays.” The hemorrhage in his eye was getting worse. The entire white was now blood red and the swelling around his orbital socket was darkening to a startling array of purples and burgundies and blacks.

He bit down in frustration. As though a last resort, he said, “One of them is already dead.”

“What?”

He pressed his mouth together, clearly reluctant to say anything. After a moment, he repeated, “One of the assailants is already dead. I wrested his knife away and severed his femoral artery. He will have bled out in minutes, so they’ll have to dump his body. They headed north on 25, so odds are they’ll pull off the highway and dump it, then get back on. That gives us time to find them.”

The fact that everything he said shocked her to the core had to show on her face. She stood speechless a solid minute as Rojas and Zee moved closer, flanking Quincy. They must have overheard.

“It’s what Seabright would have done had he not been drugged. They’d all be dead. Not just one. They’ll have to burn the truck, too, but that can wait until they get to Denver.”

Sun held up a hand to slow him down, then said, “First, are you sure you got his femoral?” When he only deadpanned her, she asked, “Okay, how do you know they went north? They could have gone either way once they got to the on-ramps.”

“They went north,” he insisted.

“How do you know?”

He bit down, his jaw flexing, before repeating himself. “They went north.”

Sun wanted to curse. Or arrest him for real for obstruction, which was well within her rights. He was the most stubborn … “We’re on the same side, Levi.”

He lowered his head and studied her from beneath a set of impossibly thick lashes. “These cuffs say otherwise.”

She didn’t argue.

“Uncuff me and let me go get them.”

Frustration ripped through her gut, but she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of that knowledge. “Call it in, Quince. Make sure the state troopers know one of them is seriously injured. We need to call all the hospitals within a hundred-mile radius.”

“They won’t go to a hospital. He was dead before they hit the interstate.”

She opened the back door of Quincy’s cruiser, but he stood his ground. “Uncuff me, Vicram.”

She looked past him, and asked Quincy, “You still have that dart gun?”

An evil grin spread across his face. He was about to answer when a tiny voice drifted toward them. “Levi?”

They all turned to see the very fruit of Sun’s loins planted smack-dab in the middle of their crime scene. The auburn-haired beauty stood panting with round eyes and wet cheeks.

“Auri,” Sun said, rushing to her. “What are you doing here?” She spotted the abandoned bike Auri had ridden over and cupped the girl’s face in her hands. “Sweetheart, what is it?”

Auri had yet to tear her gaze off Levi, her lashes spiked with wetness, her bottom lip trembling. “I heard on the scanner.”

Behind her Cyrus Freyr’s SUV skidded to a halt and both he and his wife Elaine, aka Sun’s parents, bolted out and hurried over, their journey coming to a sudden stop thanks to the crime scene tape. They waited on the other side of it.

“I’m sorry, Sun,” her dad said, out of breath. “We heard that a male had been stabbed multiple times, and then Ravinder’s name came up and she was out the door before we could stop her.” He looked at Levi with a grin. “It seems the rumors of your demise have been greatly exaggerated.” He gave him a once-over and corrected his statement. “Or at least mildly exaggerated.”

Levi offered him a cursory nod before returning his attention to Auri. “I’m okay, Red.”