“I’ll see you tonight, Price.”
And with that, she walked away without looking back. If Price wanted more, he didn’t get it.
* * *
Winnie took morepictures of Price than he had taken of her before the last school dance.
“You’re in a suit,” she’d said after batting away his complaints. “If I don’t document this, then how will future generations know that you had clothes other than your uniform and jeans?”
She’d posed him in front of the fireplace, the bookcase his father had built by hand, on the front-porch stairs, and—his favorite—looking all dramatic getting into his truck. When he rolled the window down after the photo shoot had ended, she prescolded him for not taking a picture with JJ at the actual event.
“I know you aren’t going to do it, but you need to,” she had said, finger pointing with purpose. “She already sent me a picture of her hair—which she absolutely nailed—but I want to see the full thing. You two being fancy and awkward at a social event neither one of you wanted to go to.”
Price would have normally laughed—said something snarky about being awkward—but he’d spent most of the day at work tired and growing even more so.
The department was frustrated. Price especially.
The sketch artist had come in that morning and done a workup on the man in the hood at Jamie Bell’s.
No one had recognized him and, as of that afternoon, nothing had popped in any of their law enforcement databases for him.
Detective Williams had said he had a potential lead, but hadn’t been back to the department all day.
Then there was the part of Price that had branched off during his idle time and done a little digging himself.
Both Jamie and Josiah had in fact been adopted. Though, at different ages and in different circumstances. Before, during and after the legal paperwork had been done, they had seemingly led completely separate lives other than the occasional support group meeting.
That, and their attacks, would have been enough to draw his attention.
But then Price had seen another similarity that he couldn’t ignore.
Josiah Teller and Jamie Bell were the same age.
“That was one reason our parents really wanted us to see each other,” Josiah had said on the phone earlier. Price had called to check up on him but also to mention his conversation with Jamie the day before. “They thought we could relate more to each other since we were in the same grade too. Everyone else in the group was younger or older by a few years.”
After that, Price couldn’t help but pivot to JJ.
Her social media presence was barely there and, of the accounts, there were no family ones attached. Price started to put her name into a more involved search but stopped himself again.
Just because JJ was hiding something didn’t mean it was his business.
It didn’t mean it was bad.
Price held onto that thought with new resolve. He held it fast as he parked at the curb outside of her house and then went to the front door to knock. He held it true as he waited for her to open the door.
Then he didn’t have to work hard at all to keep his thoughts from wandering.
Price didn’t know much about hair tutorials or fashion, but he believed in that moment that JJ Shaw had indeed nailed it.
The dress code for the event was cocktail; JJ Shaw was devastating.
She wore a black dress that cut above the knees, dipped down the chest and matched up nice with a pair of ankle boots. There was a small leather jacket hung over one of her bare arms, and the purse she wore across her body had a gold chain the same color as the hoops in her ears.
As far as hair went, his daughter had pulled through. Half of it was pinned back in a braid, the rest curled and falling across her shoulders like some kind of movie star readying for a premiere.
JJ caught his reaction easy enough.
She smiled uncertainly.
