Page 25 of The Deputy's Secret Double

It had been nice.

Now, with her eyes closed, she smelled them again.

It’s Mom,JJ thought.She’s near me.

She was pressed against warmth. Moving with their breaths in and out, rumbling against her body as they spoke.

And strawberries.

There was no denying that’s what she smelled.

JJ almost smiled.

But then the pain started. It pounded against her skull and radiated down her back. Her elbow ached. Her throat hurt.

Was she back in that car?

She couldn’t have been. That had been years ago. It had been raining, it had been night and her godfather had been so loud. Yelling,screamingat her to get out. To leave her parents behind. To run and never look back.

Now the sounds were different.

There was a man, but he wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t trying to scare a little girl into safety.

He wasn’t trying to save his best friend’s daughter.

Instead, the warmth against JJ had a low rumble. One that was almost soothing.

If she hadn’t smelled the strawberries, she might have stayed wondering.

Still, there was enough of a hope that JJ opened her eyes slowly.

The car was supposed to be upside down, her hair and arms were supposed to be hanging down toward the ground, glass and blood across bent metal. The glow from the headlights bouncing off a tree was supposed to show her the outlines of her very still parents and the terrifying and growing cloud of smoke from the engine bay.

However, the world was right side up.

A seat belt wasn’t holding her, it was a man. He had her cradled against him like a father would a child, an arm beneath her legs and an arm fastening her upper body to his. He wasn’t eerily still like her parents, and he wasn’t yelling at her like her godfather. He was speaking softly to someone, somewhere around them.

It was daytime too. Warm even.

There was smoke but it was a good distance off, eating at a house, and not an ominous growing cloud a few feet away.

But.

Therewasthe smell of strawberries.

It just wasn’t Elle Ortiz’s shampoo.

The ache that ran wide and deep, unimaginable in size and depth, filled with a tidal wave of sorrow.

“It’s my hair,” she said aloud.

JJ’s head swam. The body she was attached to moved. Not enough to jostle her but enough to bring her attention to the face peering down at her.

Price Collins was all concern in his eyes.

He didn’t understand.

How could he?