Page 53 of The Deputy's Secret Double

“Apparently, word got around their organization that he had let evidence disappear that could destroy all of them. Then, after some digging, they found out that he’d not only let it go, but he’d let it go with a surprise survivor from the accident. Able Ortiz’s flesh-and-blood child. The only problem was, they thought it was the wrong one.”

“Your brother.”

“My brother, someone I didn’t even know existed until that moment.”

“That’s why Lawson is looking for him,” Price realized. “He thinks your brother has access to this all-destroying evidence?”

She nodded.

“Jonathan said he was holding off any moves the best he could but, after he died, he knew his son would use finding and officially dealing with the evidence and our family as a way to vie for the new leader of the group, instead of Jonathan’s right-hand man.”

“He’s going to use it as a power play.”

JJ nodded again.

“Jonathan told me he couldn’t outright stop his son because, at the end of the day, it was his son, but that he could give me a fighting chance to maybe save my brother.” JJ opened her arms wide and motioned around them. “I thought I was faster than Lawson but, apparently, he’s moving just as quick.”

She could have stopped there. Price wouldn’t know that she’d held back.

Yet, those bright eyes kept looking at her like she was as normal as she had been when he’d picked her up earlier that night.

And that meant something to her.

That meant a lot to her, actually.

So, JJ added one last thing to her life’s worth of chaos.

“What Jonathan Cole and his sondon’tknow is that Riker and I have our own secret about that night too.”

Price’s eyebrow rose again.

JJ bit the bullet.

“We never had Dad’s evidence to take them down. We bluffed.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sunlight came home two hours before Winnie did. Price had expected her, and unlocked the door minutes before she was coming through it.

She had never ever been a fan of spending the night at other people’s houses. She’d have fun, sure, but as soon as she could get someone to take her, she was back to the house looking hungover despite not having a drop to drink.

Her friend Abagail had an early riser for a mother, so Price had expected her.

If his mind wasn’t working through a case in the background, he would have smiled at the predictability.

He did smile at her, though, as she trudged into the kitchen and dropped her bag next to the breakfast bar. She settled on one of the stools and reached her hands out with a pout.

“If you make me an egg bowl right now, I promise I won’t complainas muchnext time we have to rake the ungodly amount of leaves in the backyard.”

Price snorted and stepped to the side of the stove.

He had just finished scrambling one of his famous egg bowls.

“Remember you said that.”

Winnie dropped her head in defeat but didn’t complain.

“I’ll have no regrets as long as I can eat something in the next minute,” she said. “I love Abagail, I really do, but her family doesn’t believe in snacks. The last time I ate was yesterday at like six. Not to be dramatic, but I think I could eat even Corrie’s cooking at this point.”