She took a rope and harness from Quincy and walked around to the edge of the guardrail. Trying to preserve the scene as much as possible, she stepped to where the guardrail met the mountain. There was just enough space to squeeze between them, but not much of a rim beyond that.
She leaned over and spotted Drew Essary. He sat on the incline in full hunting regalia, one foot braced against a branch, holding the unconscious girl’s hand.
From what Sun could see, the girl wore a bra, only. At least on her upper half. Lacy and bright pink. The bottom half of her body was covered in leaves and brush, and Sun wondered if the girl had done that in an effort to stay warm or if Drew had done it. Her hair, recently dyed purple, obscured most of her face, but the small portion Sun could see was swollen beyond recognition. Identifying her could be difficult.
Quincy and Levi both looked over her shoulder.
“Mr. Essary,” Sun called down.
He looked up, visibly relaxed, waved. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too. We’re coming down.”
He nodded, then shifted his weight for a better position as though beginning to cramp. It was still early enough in the high canyon to be chilly. Their breaths fogged the air as she built her anchor using a wood post of the guardrail. Once built, she strapped on her harness, knotted both ends of her rope and clipped it to the anchor, then started over the side.
Her newest deputy, Poetry Rojas, pulled up to the scene, the ambulance right behind him. Trusting her lieutenant to figure out how best to preserve the area, she began her descent. Quincy used the post next to hers, careful to disturb the dirt as little as possible, while Levi used the guardrail itself as an anchor. A fact she was not fond of. The edge his rope would travel on was dangerously sharp, but she understood his reasoning. If he’d used the next post, he’d be getting too close to their active crime scene.
It took less than sixty seconds to get down to Drew and their victim. Sun arrived with a few scrapes from random branches and a lock of blond hair tugged loose from her French braid, but no worse for the wear. She didn’t want to disturb the scene, but there was no help for it.
“I’m sure glad you’re here, Sheriff,” Drew said, keeping the girl’s small hand enveloped in his own. The older man wore khaki coveralls, his scruffy beard matching perfectly.
“Mr. Essary, why are you out here hunting alone?”
“Please. I been hunting this land since I could walk. And I was there the day you were born, Sunny Girl. Call me Drew.”
Sun smiled but kept her gaze on the girl. Keeping a tight grip on her rope with one hand, she took off the glove of the other to check the girl’s pulse. She was like ice, her pulse weak, and Sun knew she would never have survived another night in the canyon. “Thank you for doing this, Drew.”
“Couldn’t leave her here to die. I’m just glad I seen her.” He pointed to the canyon floor. “I was hunting over there by the pass when I saw her.”
Sun realized how fortunate their Jane Doe was. “How on earth did you see her from there?”
“Binoculars. Seen a foot first.” He pointed. “Purple sock. Went from there.”
The girl’s left foot was indeed visible through the leaves, the purple sock hanging halfway off her tiny foot, bright against the fallen brown leaves and brush that surrounded it. But the odds of him seeing even that were fairly astronomical.
Levi wedged himself beside Sun and took the blanket out of her backpack. After handing it to her, he rezipped the canvas bag and surveyed the area while Sun pretended not to be flustered by his nearness.
“Any thoughts on how to get her up?” Quincy asked as he rappelled to the girl’s other side and helped Sun cover her with the blanket.
“It would be easier to go down,” Levi said.
Sun looked over her shoulder and followed his line of sight. “I agree. There.” She gestured toward a small clearing, the frigid waters of the Gallinas River trickling beside it. “We can call in a helicopter.”
“This isn’t going to be easy either way,” Quince said, taking in the distance. They were halfway up the incline, about a hundred feet before hitting the floor.
“I’m game if you are,” Levi said, a challenge settling on his face. A gorgeous challenge. A provocative one.
Sun was so hyperaware of every aspect of Levi Ravinder—his nearness, the heat wafting off him, the darkness lying just beneath the glint of humor in his eyes—it was a wonder she could think straight at all.
Quincy shrugged, rising nonchalantly to the challenge, and began preparations by tying a second rope onto his first. She loved these two men so much. One like a brother. The other not even remotely brotherly like. Unless one were into that sort of thing.
“Sunshine,” Drew said, his graveness slingshotting her attention back to him.
She leaned in and asked softly, “What is it?”
He cleared his throat, glanced at her cohorts, then said softly, “I—I touched her.”
Normally in a situation like that, warning bells would have been ringing off every corner of her brain, but she’d known Drew a long time. Apparently since the day she was born.
“She was … exposed.” He shifted, unable to look Sun in the eye. “I—I moved her bra a bit. You know, to cover her.”
Sun nodded and put her free hand on his arm. “It’s okay. I’ll tell forensics when we get her to the hospital. You might have to give them a DNA sample to rule yours out.”
His gaze shot to hers. “Absolutely. Anything you need, Sunny.”
“Did you move these leaves on top of her?”
“No, ma’am. Those were like that when I got here. I wanted to take off my coveralls and put them on her, but I didn’t think I could get them off without tumbling down this damn mountain, probably breaking my neck in the process. And I wasn’t sure I should move her.”
Sun reached over and brushed a strand of the girl’s purple hair aside. The right half of her face was the most swollen, her eye a mere slit in a sea of blue-and-yellow puffiness, which meant her assailant was a lefty. Her lips didn’t fare much better. A vertical crack split the right corner of her lips. And her small nose sat crooked on what promised to have been a beautiful face. But with all the swelling and bruises, even with the girl’s light skin tone, Sun couldn’t be certain of her ethnicity.
She turned back to him. “You were right to leave her as you found her and call us. We don’t know the extent of her injuries. I’d bet my last nickel that you saved her life.”
He acknowledged her praise with a stoic nod, then returned his gaze to the girl. “Poor little thing. She’s just a kid.”
“I think your initial assessment of late teens or very early twenty-something was correct.”
“Who would do this?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll damned sure find out.” Sun squeezed his arm reassuringly, then reached for the mic on her shoulder. “Salazar, we need a neck brace, a stretcher, and a helicopter. We’re taking her down.”
“I agree, boss. That seems like the least dangerous route and the canyon walls are plenty wide for a chopper.”
“Roger that.” She heard Salazar call out for a stretcher as she studied her team. “This isn’t going to be easy.”