Page 51 of The Deputy's Secret Double
Instead, Price motioned to the couch.
No sooner was JJ sitting then he brought over a dining room chair. He sat it opposite her, a small coffee table between them, and then settled onto its seat.
Then those bright eyes of his were zeroed in on only her.
“It’s time you explain.”
JJ didn’t know what she expected.
Still, she found herself tamping down the urge to sigh.
Price had saved her life in the fire. At bare minimum he deserved her respect.
So, she started at the beginning without any more hesitation.
“My dad used to work for the FBI, dealing with white-collar crime cases in the South.Hisfather had been conned out of all their family savings when he was a kid and, because of it, they had a lot of rough years.” JJ adjusted in her seat. She hadn’t told this story to anyone and now, even though she was okay to tell Price, she felt wholly uncomfortable for it. “But that made my dad work all the harder to help others avoid the same fate. So, he didn’t just do his work. He made sure he was really good at it.”
JJ wanted to smile for her father reaching his life’s dream. She only stopped herself because of the nightmare that had followed.
“When I was really little, there was this anonymous group of men in suits that fit the kind of criminal my dad went after. They cropped up in Tennessee and really started becoming a problem. That wasn’t my dad’s jurisdiction, but he followed the case like a football fan might follow a team’s schedule until eventually he met a man named Riker Shaw, an agent working the case. They became fast friends and, eventually, Riker became my godfather.”
Price didn’t stop her here, like she thought he might.
Instead, he kept listening with obvious rapt attention.
JJ continued, not exactly wanting to say what happened next but knowing she needed to do it all the same.
“A few years later, a branch of that anonymous group had popped up around Georgia and, finally, in my dad’s jurisdiction. By that point, he and Riker had become almost experts on the group, so Dad was the point person here.”
JJ smiled a little. She pointed to the wall behind Price but envisioned the city they had just come from.
“We actually didn’t live too far from Seven Roads when I was a kid,” she said. “In fact, before everything, I had been here a few times with my mom. She had a few friends we would occasionally visit. It was when I was younger though. And it was before the accident.”
JJ let out a quick breath.
Price’s bright eyes kept on shining on her.
“My dad was apparently finally able to get enough information on the group that he wasn’t just about to shut down the branch, but cut down the entire tree,” she continued. “It was big news. News that he and Riker realized had reached the wrong people. So, one night, Dad loaded me and Mom up and had us racing to a safe house where Riker was going to meet us. We didn’t make it.”
The small moon-shaped scar on her palm felt hot. JJ knew it wasn’t. She knew the mark her fingernails had bit into her hand were old and worn.
Still, she had to fight the urge to rub at it. To try and smooth it away.
Because the ache in her definitely wasn’t going anywhere.
“A man chased us down and drove us off the road. It was raining so the accident, which might not have been so bad, was fatal.”
She could see Price; she could see her parents hanging motionless upside down in front her.
“I was the only one who woke up,” she said, keeping her voice as even as possible. “I had no idea what was going on but then there was Riker, yelling at me to get out.”
JJ couldn’t help but pause here.
She admitted something to him that she truly had never wanted to say aloud before.
“I’ll never forget the face he made after he checked on my parents and then looked back at me. I knew it then. They were gone. They were gone but it also wasn’t done. The bad guys were still coming.”
JJ took in a breath. She didn’t pause anymore.