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

“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 job.”

“I try.”

Her phone dinged with a text from Carver. She didn’t even bother. It was almost three in the morning.

“That kid of yours is something else,” Levi said.

“If that’s your way of saying she’s a trouble magnet, I agree.”

“No more so than her mother.” He said it with a lopsided grin that had nothing to do with the battered state of his face.

“True.”

Auri had been beside herself at urgent care. “Grandma and Grandpa are going to be so mad.”

“You don’t think they have a right to be?” she asked as the nurse wrapped her sprained ankle.

She buried her face in her hands. “I keep screwing up. I just wanted to check on Cruz and—”

“Auri,” Sun said, steeling herself. Her daughter needed to understand sneaking out would not be tolerated. Not in today’s world. Hopefully the whole finding-a-dead-body thing would act as an extra layer of deterrent.

Auri’s distress was killing Levi. He stood beside the divider curtain, arms crossed over his chest and working his jaw hard. A bigger sucker than even herself. Somehow that made her feel better.

“You purposely waited for them to go to bed before sneaking out. What does that imply?”

“Intent?” she asked from behind her cupped hands.

“Exactly. So what’s going on?”

A ragged sob filtered through her fingers. “Cruz didn’t pick up. I thought he might be in serious trouble with his dad. I wanted to explain to him that it was my fault. Since I was grounded for breaking and entering, I snuck out to go see him and apologize.” She broke down into a fit of sobs. Getting her friends into trouble seemed to be the best punishment of all.