Price understood her phone now.
She wanted him to call the department.
Something bad must have happened. Something more than the blood on her.
Not only had he never heard her sound so cold, Price hadn’t seen JJ look so scared.
He nodded.
Then he called the sheriff directly.
Liam answered quickly.
Price didn’t waste either of their time.
“I need two cars and an ambulance over at the Becker Farm. But, Sheriff, I need you to stay at the department. I’m sending my daughter your way.”
Price shared another long look with JJ.
He didn’t know what was going on but, in that moment, he trusted no one more than the woman who had been leading a double life.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The world had a funny way of still turning, no matter what JJ was feeling.
She could be confused, happy, healthy, bleeding, disgusted, enraged, missing her mama, craving ice cream, thinking about that one smell of disinfectant that only ever seemed to exist in the hospital hallway…
She could be in a plane, on a couch, wearing a fancy dress or hanging upside down in car drenched in rain with a sea of glass beneath her hair…
And it just didn’t seem to matter to the world at large.
It kept turning. It kept going.
It kept leaving JJ in its dust to figure it all out so she could catch up before the next swing got her.
She was standing behind a two-way glass, staring into an interrogation room and looking at a man handcuffed to the table. His world had him angry, frustrated, defiant. All three were written on his face and spelled out clear in how he fought everyone tooth and nail since he’d been arrested.
“He wouldn’t give us a name and we can’t find him in any database.” Sheriff Weaver’s badge was shining on his belt. He seemed to be handling his world in stride. Ever since the call with Price, he hadn’t taken a step he didn’t want to take. Not even when it had come to Price explaining that they couldn’t give answers to everything just yet.
Thatjust yetwasn’t going to extend that much further, though, if JJ had to guess.
Especially since she was about to show the man in charge that she wasn’t just some bystander.
Instead of being helpless at the window, JJ sighed.
“I think we need to talk now, if you don’t mind.”
A few minutes later and JJ’s world brought her to a small room with a big table. The sheriff sat in a chair at its side, Price stood near its head and JJ felt lost in between. Her arm hurt, her leg was already bruising, and everything she had worked for felt like it had already crumbled.
The best she could do now was hope to be standing again when the next swing around came for her.
JJ started by tapping her cell phone on the top of the table.
“I can find out who that man is, most likely, but I need to ask for something first.” She started in the last place she meant to. Bartering with the head of the law when she was in no position to do so.
Sheriff Weaver, to his credit, didn’t immediately shut her down.
“I would really appreciate if we could not connect me with any of what’s happened,” she continued. “Any mention of my name in reports or posts or interviews. I’m not saying make it where Price was alone during everything, but just don’t put JJ Shaw in any kind of writing. Ideally, call in the people who saw me today and ask them to keep my name out of their mouths too.”
