Page 24 of The Deputy's Secret Double

Price whirled around, arms up in defense, and blocked the baseball bat as best he could. Pain slammed into his forearm. Price couldn’t help but yell from it.

The pain and yelling cost him another reaction.

Not JJ.

Without a sound, JJ was back in the fray.

And boy did she make it flashy.

In one fluid movement she seemed to climb the hooded man like a dang tree. Then she slung herself around until she was on his back, arm around his throat. The man didn’t like that one bit.

He dropped the bat. Price grabbed it, ready to use it to end their distraction from escaping the smoke and, no doubt, growing fire.

Like the entire scene that had played out since spotting JJ on her run, Price was once again utterly surprised.

With smoke above their heads, a man unconscious near them on the floor and a siren starting up in the distance, Price watched as the hooded man propelled himself backward with noticeable force.

That alone wouldn’t have been that interesting of a turn of events.

Yet, he wasn’t alone.

Price lunged toward them just as JJ’s body connected against the wall next to the bedroom window.

The sound of the impact was loud enough to hear over the chaos around them.

But JJ didn’t make a sound.

Instead, she went limp.

Her body slid like a rag doll off the hooded man as he threw himself clear of Price’s lunge forward.

“JJ!”

The only thing Price managed to do was catch her head before it could hit the ground.

It wasn’t until he had her securely against him that he realized one problem had just jumped the other.

The fight with the hooded man had ended. He ran out of the bedroom door without a look back.

The fire, however, was just getting started.

* * *

Strawberry shampoo.

At first, it was a joke. It smelled so much like an actual strawberry that it was more distracting than refreshing. There they would be, sitting around the dining-room table eating or lounging on the couch watching TV, and the smell of strawberries would mingle in between them. Even in public, the smell was noticeable.

“Who’s eating fruit at a football game?” the man sitting behind them at the stadium had asked once.

It was a poignant scent.

Then, one day, it became a part of their family’s fabric.

Elle Ortiz was the smell of strawberries, and her husband and daughter began to love strawberries all the more for it.

So that night years ago, JJ didn’t need to open her eyes to know her mother was near her. She smelled the strawberries before she smelled the smoke and blood. Before she opened her eyes and screamed. Before she realized her entire life had stopped and she’d never see her parents again.

Strawberries.