Chapter One
Perry Price Collins already wasn’t having the best of days, way before he took the punch to the jaw.
First, as in as soon as he rolled off the couch, his cell phone was buzzing with the sheriff’s caller ID.
“I can’t promise this in writing, and it definitely won’t hold up in court, but I’ll pay you everything in my bank account if you could do me a favor.
” Instead of Liam Weaver, current sheriff of Seven Roads, his wife, Blake, was on the other end of the line, laughing into her own words.
But Price could hear she surely wanted the favor.
He rubbed his eyes, grimaced at the slight hangover already beating at his skull and nodded to his empty room.
“You know, I was just out with your husband a few hours ago. Can’t this favor take pity on me and wait until later?”
Blake laughed. Or, really, more like cackled.
Since marrying the sheriff, she had become more comfortable with teasing him.
And especially when he looped in a poor, unsuspecting Price for a “quick drink.” That quick drink was now muddy boots in the living room, a bar tab that he couldn’t exactly remember and a hangover that he couldn’t ignore if he wanted to.
“If you want sympathy, let me remind you who came and picked you two fools up last night. And who fought with some guy for a solid five minutes because he was sure as sure that his keys were back at the bar when they were in fact in his hand.”
Price squinted, like it would help him back into his memory.
After a moment, he remembered vaguely that the person she was referring to was in fact him.
He sighed, all dramatics.
“Fine, you got me there,” he said. “Ask your favor.”
Price had known Blake since the two were kids and, between them, they pretty much knew the whole of Seven Roads, Georgia.
From Becker Farm to the old popular smoking spot for seniors behind the steel mill, they had both done time in the small town and knew it in and out.
Even Blake leaving for a decade or so and then marrying a transplant hadn’t thrown off her ability to adapt once again to the town’s people and ways.
That went double for her managing the contract work she had been doing for several law enforcement agencies around the state while keeping an eye on the local sheriff’s department.
She had been a one-woman army before coming back.
Now, she had her own troops and was unstoppable when she wanted to be.
However, unlike Blake’s life trajectory taking her away from Seven Roads before ultimately coming back to town, Price hadn’t left McCoy County for more than a week in total since he’d been born at its hospital.
Nineteen years after that, his daughter had been born in the same hospital. Since then, all thoughts of crossing the county line had come to a halt.
There was some rustling on the other end of the line. Blake must have been moving around. She didn’t try to lower her words though.
“Can you go look in Josiah Teller’s backyard?”
Price pulled the phone away from his ear and eyed it for a second. He put it back against his ear.
“Say again?”
Blake didn’t undercut her request with any more sighs. Now she meant business. He straightened on reflex as her tone shifted completely away from friend to a former sheriff on a mission. Favor or not, the change was no joke.
“Josiah said something dug a hole in his backyard but he’s sure it was a human who did it, not an animal,” she said.
“He called the nonemergency line at the department but, given the case I dealt with back in Alabama with burying things, I have all cases involving any kind of potential burial flagged for me and Liam. He has a press issue to deal with and I have the kids out with me now or else I’d go out there myself. ”
Blake had built one heck of a résumé before returning to Seven Roads, not to speak to what she’d done since she had been back. Price had followed her career like he had been reading a comic book. He knew about the case that had left an impression with her when it came to burials too.
So he didn’t voice his concern that it was Josiah Teller who was the one who had called it in.
“You want me to go make sure it isn’t anything fishy,” he summarized instead.
“Yeah,” Blake replied. “I’d send someone else out there who’s on duty, but everyone is tied up. Plus, I trust your judgment.”
Price knew he was a likable guy. He was confident enough in himself to claim a good personality. But to have Blake trust in him meant a lot more than simply being liked. His chest swelled with pride at it.
He nodded to the phone.
“I’ll head that way in ten. I’ll call if it’s anything worth mentioning.”
Blake said thank-you and didn’t keep him on the line past that.
Price went straight to the shower, grabbed some pain meds for his headache when he got out and was at Josiah’s front door ten minutes after that. There were pros to living in a town as small as Seven Roads. The commute time was almost always snapping-your-fingers quick.
Price knocked on the front door of the two-story, pulling on a professional smile despite nothing on him being professional at the moment.
He was dressed in his jeans, tennis shoes and the worn baseball pin-striped button-up he’d had since he was twenty.
He had a hat on to cover his still-wet hair but contemplated taking it off.
Just because he was off duty didn’t mean he should be too slouched since he was doing a favor for the sheriff.
When no one answered after a minute or so, Price’s impatience won over his concern. Instead of leaving, he went around to the backyard. The privacy fence was high, but the side yard gate was open.
“Josiah?”
All the houses in the two-road neighborhood were situated on decent-sized lots. Josiah’s was no exception. His yard stretched long and wide. There were no trees, but a hammock was set up between two in-ground posts near the patio.
There was no Josiah.
There was a hole.
Price walked over to the disturbed dirt and looked inside of it.
“That’s a hole for sure,” he commented aloud.
Price tilted his head to the side.
At first, he had pictured something large enough that a person could be put in, simply for the fact that he’d seen one too many horror movies.
Then, he had pictured something half that size.
Maybe a hole a dog would dig to hide a bone or a toy.
He had only imagined one other potential size and it had been a misshapen thing made by a rooting armadillo or roaming raccoon. Maybe an overzealous squirrel.
But what he was looking at didn’t match up with any option he had pictured.
Instead, it just looked like something a small child had done while playing. It was a small hole that a shoebox could fit into and that he guessed was made with a gardening tool instead of someone’s bare hands.
Price looked around the yard again.
There were no other holes or disturbed spots around.
“Okay, I’m slightly intrigued,” Price said aloud.
He hooked one thumb through his belt loop to rest his hand and used the other to pull out his phone.
He took a picture with it and was about to call the sheriff’s department to look for Josiah’s number when movement flicked out of the corner of his eye.
A few yards away was the back door with a bank of windows on either side. Those windows were covered by curtains and blinds from the inside. The back door, however, seemed to be open.
“Josiah?” Price called out, walking towards it.
He knew Josiah the same way he knew most of Seven Roads.
Everyone in town had a story attached to them that the rest of the residents knew.
Josiah was a young guy, smart too, but absolutely strange.
He quieted when he should talk and when he should be quiet, he gave a sermon.
That had become most apparent when he had gone on a tangent about the difference between air vents and air ducts during Mr. McCall Senior’s memorial service.
While everyone else was doing the small nods and smaller talk, Josiah had been talking commercial use versus residential grade air-conditioning terms. Not the worst thing a person could do, but it had definitely been a story that had stuck.
Maybe that was why Price didn’t think too much about the back door being ajar. Or Josiah not answering his call right away. Price was thinking of the man who had taught him about ductwork and not someone who might have been trouble lurking in his house.
It was an oversight on his part.
One that Price realized quickly.
He pushed the door open. It led up through the middle of the house and alongside the stairs.
“Hey Josiah, it’s Price Collins. I was told to come out and—”
The movement that had caught his eye flashed again. This time, it was in the form of someone stepping into the hallway, opposite him.
Price knew he was standing on someone else’s property. He knew he hadn’t been given permission to come inside, just as he was acutely aware that he had no uniform on, no badge to flash and no service weapons or equipment to defend himself.
What he didn’t know was what a person dressed all in black, with a ski mask to boot, was doing in Josiah Teller’s house.
But he did know he was about to found out.
* * *
There are a lot of situations where a woman might want to meet an attractive man.
Out for a night on the town where you and your girls are feeling pretty and flirty?
Yes. Walking through the grocery store on a perfect hair day?
Absolutely. Just really wanting to get lost in a daydream while you’re sitting at a coffee shop, staring idly through the plate-glass windows?
Definitely a situation where running randomly into a good-looking man might be a nice occasion.
However, being caught breaking and entering into a house, dressed like a robber, isn’t exactly ideal.
JJ mentally swept her own outfit as she looked the man opposite her up and down.
Her hair was braided tight and tucked tighter beneath her mask; the man’s hair was curling out from under the edge of a baseball cap.
Her black sweater and joggers were baggy enough to hide her curves; the black undershirt clung in an appealing way against an upper body that she assumed was as fit as his arms. Her stance was perfect for being lithe and fleeing the situation, body tilted slightly toward the living room she was closest to; his stance was like his body—he had walled off the exit behind him and seemed ready to close in on her.
JJ knew he couldn’t see her dark eyes, slightly panicked; she could see the way his bright gaze wasn’t moving an inch from her.
The man was handsome. The man was trouble.
JJ moved fast. One second, she was in the hallway, the next she was in the living room and hightailing it to the front door. Adrenaline filled her veins. Panic filled her feet. Her mind went to opening the door; her feet went the other way.
Pain exploded against her hip as JJ hit the hardwood, mere steps away from the entryway. The man wasn’t far behind.
No one has perfect balance. You hit the ground, you use the ground to hit whoever you’re going up against.
JJ’s godfather’s words were old but the directive in them was urgent.
Instead of scrambling to her feet and trying to recover, she paused.
If her pursuer realized she had stalled, it didn’t stop him.
He was barking something out as he closed the space between them and reaching for her with clear intention of trapping her in that good-looking gaze.
Too bad JJ wasn’t going to let that happen.
The second he was close enough she grabbed his wrist.
Then she pulled him.
The man made a startled noise. It was the only thing he could control. JJ escaped being pinned by his falling body by barely a breath of space. His side connected with the ground and JJ used a childhood filled with gymnastic training to spring to her feet.
It was a spot reversal that clearly gobsmacked the man.
JJ was able to double back and run until she was near the back door before he was on her again.
This time, it wasn’t her bad luck that allowed an opening.
It was the man’s apparent passion for baseball.
He slid like he was going to home in front of a crowded stadium.
And he wasn’t concerned about taking the ump with him.
They both hit the ground again. This time, JJ went down without a hope of saving herself.
Her adrenaline masked the initial pain, but she knew it hurt.
The man’s weight didn’t help matters. She felt his elbow in her back, his knee against her ankle.
The rest of him distributed between the two spots.
All of it was an issue.
One that JJ wasn’t going to put up with.
She didn’t hear her godfather’s words of wisdom or any of her trainers barking instructions in her ear. She didn’t think of any manual or video she had studied. She simply moved.
With everything JJ had, she became a whirlwind of movement.
She threw her head back until it connected with him.
Then the rest of her body followed. Her elbow became a hook; her foot became a pendulum.
She wasn’t sure what worked but knew she had done something when the weight against her disappeared.
When she heard the cussing, she knew it was now or never.
JJ used the narrow hallway to her advantage. The wall to her left became a springboard to help her pinball herself up and out of the house. Not even the wayward punch the man threw against her side slowed her down.
The second her feet touched the back porch, she was running with everything she had. The man, however, didn’t know JJ. He didn’t know that, while her fighting skills were good, her ability to escape was better. His yells filled the backyard as he followed her.
But as soon as she cleared the back fence, she knew he didn’t stand a chance.
Poor man. It must have taken him a bit longer to realize that too.
JJ could still hear him yelling as she made her way into the woods.