“She was sorry?”
Winnie nodded.
“She told me to tell you she was sorry…” Winnie’s confusion started to turn to realization that she had missed something important. “I—I thought she meant she was sorry that she was going to take a nap.”
Price cussed low and checked the room for anything that might tell him that he was wrong. When he couldn’t find anything, he pulled out his phone and started to call JJ.
“Dad!”
Price hurried to the bathroom. Winnie pointed into the trash can as the call went to voicemail immediately.
He didn’t have to wonder why.
In the trash can was JJ’s phone.
Smashed to pieces.
That was the last nail in the coffin.
Price didn’t stay still after that.
He ran down the stairs, Winnie right behind him.
Once he got everyone’s attention in the dining room, he whirled around and looked his daughter right in the eye.
“I love you, but I have to go and help JJ right now,” he told her.
Fear etched itself into Winnie’s expression. Price hated it.
He knocked her forehead twice with a gentle rap.
“I wouldn’t leave you if I thought you were in danger. But, JJ is. And, like you said, she and I are a really good team. When I’m in trouble, she saves me. When she’s in trouble, I save her. Those are the rules. Okay?”
Before she could say anything, he turned to Liam’s wife, Blake. She stood between Deputy Gavin and Rose.
“I don’t think Lawson will come after us anymore, but just in case, can you please keep my daughter safe?”
Blake, mother to three and fierce protector to any and all of those in need, nodded on reflex.
“Update Liam in the car,” she ordered instead of questioning him. “We’re good here.”
He nodded, grateful.
He turned back to Winnie.
Price would never forget the first time he ever saw his daughter. She was impossibly small, and he was incredibly afraid. Now, she was almost an adult. Still, that fear always stayed.
In that moment, though, his daughter gave him something else. Something that he realized he needed from her before he could go.
She gave him permission to leave her.
“Go save the day, Dad.”
He didn’t need anything more. Price was in his truck and flying down the road in what felt like one fluid movement. He put the sheriff on speaker just as he was tearing out of the neighborhood.
“Lawson Cole doesn’t need to use Winnie anymore.”
The sheriff didn’t make him repeat it.
