Chapter Two
Josiah Teller’s backyard became a lot more interesting as the morning turned into afternoon. He had told them until he was blue in the face that nothing in his house was missing or had been disturbed but that hole in the dirt and grass.
That was the thing that he swore had changed.
Price rubbed his jaw and stared down into the small, unassuming thing and felt more grumble in his chest than the storm in the distance could dare create.
Deputy Rose Little, who had only stopped giving him guff about being hit in said jaw before losing it completely half an hour before, stood at his side with such an uninterested expression it almost made Price laugh.
Almost.
His jaw wasn’t the only thing sore about what had happened earlier.
“I’m saying it’s unrelated,” Rose finally decided. “It makes no sense for someone to get that done up and tussle with the law and dig a hole. Plus, Josiah said there should be nothing buried here. He bought the house from Ken and Clarice Weathers. You remember them?”
Price nodded. He did.
Rose went on.
“Ken hated dogs and Clarice hated being outside. Together they wouldn’t have had a dog, and a dog is about the only thing I can think would be the reason anything is buried out here.
” Rose toed at the raised dirt nearest her.
“Josiah is always itching for some excitement. I think he made a mountain out of a molehill, and you just got unlucky enough to take the hits when something worth talking about happened.”
She patted Price on the shoulder and turned toward the house.
“I’m going to focus on finding that unlucky thing first,” she added. “Why don’t you use the time to go get some coffee. Looks like you need it. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
Price hadn’t said much since his initial call to the department, the sheriff and Josiah Teller, who had been called away by work and had hightailed it to the local electronics store while Price had been en route to the house Josiah had left behind.
Josiah had profusely apologized, thinking no one was coming anytime soon to discuss the hole.
That apologizing had only tripled when he realized Price had caught someone breaking and entering.
Now, Price felt all talked out.
Though, he guessed, that was mostly from the frustration.
Whoever had been in that house had outdone him.
He grumbled.
It wouldn’t happen again.
“Just go,” Rose said after that grumble cleared. She lowered her voice. “You best believe that news of your fight is already making the Seven Roads laps. I suggest you go take that cup of coffee sooner rather than later.”
This time, Price let his frustration melt into defeat.
He knew what Rose was saying without her actually saying it.
He needed to go talk to Winnie before the talk got to her.
Sometimes dealing with a masked intruder was less daunting than dealing with a teenage girl.
Downtown Seven Roads was never a busy place.
That stayed mostly true for the weekends.
There were the regular walkers who made their way in a pattern across the sidewalks and stores, chatting as they went, and then there were the people who worked at the storefronts who walked between the shops.
The Twenty-Two Coffee Shop, however, had become its own localized sensation over the last year or so.
Mainly because it was the only coffee shop in town, but also for the popularity of the twins who ran it.
Corrie Daniels, the more popular of the two, was behind the counter and all eyes were on him the second he cleared the door. She was smirking before a word even came out of her mouth.
“I was wondering when you would roll in here.” She placed the magazine she was reading down on the countertop and, with obvious attention, eyed his jaw.
“I wasn’t going to say anything if you looked too beat-up, but you seem good enough now to tease a little.
” She touched a spot on her jaw and then pointed to him.
“Let me know if you need some of my makeup to cover that soon-to-be pretty bruise you’ve got there. ”
Price had been friends with Corrie since elementary school, though the title of friends was used loosely.
The two of them had always just been there, around each other growing up in the same small town they had been born in.
Comrades in arms is what he once described their relationship.
Two people who had once dreamed of crossing the county line and never coming back.
Only to still be in town, annoying each other.
Price paused at the counter and didn’t reply directly to the comment. Instead, he nodded to the hallway that led back to the main office and break room.
“Is she back there?”
Corrie nodded, her smirk turning back into a look of slight boredom.
“Her break just started, but her phone was blowing up before she even stepped foot away from here. Whoever was around you or Josiah’s place sure was talking fast. She got the news before me.”
Price sighed.
“And what news was that exactly?” He wanted to hear the gossip version so he could have a defense ready to go.
“Oh, you know how it is with Josiah Teller,” she started.
“He ticked someone off because he was crying wolf about something again and you wanted to save Little Rose the trouble of going out there. But you got cocky and went out without your badge or gun and got your tush handed to you. Then the mass of muscle ran off before you could even stand straight.”
Price stared for a moment.
“That’s not what happened,” he deadpanned.
Corrie shrugged.
“That’s the cinematic version going around,” she said.
“Which means that it was probably Josiah’s neighbor—you know, Tacky Tara—who was the one who started it.
Remember her retelling of The Great Divorce of the Youngs when we were in high school?
She had the whole town thinking that Mr. Young was some kind of mob boss and Mrs. Young had gone through heaven and h-e-double-hockey-sticks to escape his grasp. ”
Corrie clutched at her chest, all dramatics. Then she rolled her eyes.
“When really Mrs. Young was caught with the literal mailman and all Mr. Young did was pop him once in the eye and then move.”
Price remembered the incident, just as he remembered the then-teenage girl Tara who had told anyone who would listen her side of someone else’s story.
“In this regard, and this regard only, do I appreciate your brand of nosy,” Price had to tell Corrie now. “You at least get the facts straight before you open your mouth.”
Corrie smiled sweetly.
“Thank you. I’m glad to be appreciated.” She motioned to the hallway. “Now, go set her straight before Tacky Tara’s story evolves enough to win an Emmy.”
Price nodded.
“Roger that.”
The break room was the smallest room in Twenty-Two Coffee Shop but, according to its youngest staff member, that’s what made it the coziest. Easy to clean, easy to see and easy to relax in. No matter how stressful the customers became.
Though, relaxed isn’t the word Price would use to describe what the teenager sitting on the edge of its sofa looked like when he knocked on its open door.
Winnie Collins looked every inch like her mama, but for every single one of those inches, she was Price in personality. Dark eyes narrowed in on him while her mouth thinned into an expression that wasn’t a frown, but it wasn’t a smile either. It was an in-between look of worry and annoyance.
She stood to her impressive height and closed the distance between them with her index finger outstretched. She didn’t poke the skin, but he felt her fingertip hover near his growing bruise.
“Is this the worst of the hits or just the only thing I can see right now?” she asked, instead of giving a greeting.
Price waved her off.
“This was a lucky hit,” he said. “I can’t even feel it.”
Winnie tipped her head to the side and narrowed those eyes again.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to be working today. Why were you at Josiah’s?”
Price had a rule. He had had it since he brought Winnie home from the hospital and he had kept it during the seventeen years since.
We don’t lie to Winnie.
“Your favorite Sheriff Trouble asked me to check out some weird hole dug in Josiah’s backyard. I ran into someone who had broken into his house instead. We fought a little, they ran a lot. Lost them out in the woods before Rose showed up.” Price smiled. “See? Not as bad as the rumor mill, huh?”
Winnie’s eyebrows knitted together. She wasn’t upset anymore, but she was confused.
“A hole?”
“That’s what I was focusing on too,” Price said. “Either way, it’s on Little Rose now. I’m only here for some kid, coffee and contemplation.”
Winnie didn’t look like she wanted to drop the current topic. She opened her mouth to say something, but footsteps made her pause. Price turned to an already-smiling Corrie. He knew what she was going to say before she could even say a word.
She wanted a favor from him.
A gut feeling that proved true with impressive speed.
“Hey, Price, you drove here in your truck, right? Do me a favor and help JJ out?”
Price raised an eyebrow at that.
“JJ?”
“The newest hire,” Winnie added from behind him. “Though she isn’t new anymore.”
Price knew there was a new woman who had been hired part-time, but he only came into the café when Winnie was working. That apparently hadn’t synced up with this JJ’s schedule yet.
“She’s supposed to come in to help me with something in the back, but just called and said she’s having car trouble,” Corrie said.
“She said she could figure something out, but she sounded stressed. Do you think you could swing by and see if you can help her out? Bless her heart, she’s a hard worker but I think sometimes she’s a little oblivious to things. ”
Price wanted to point out that the last favor he’d done that day hadn’t exactly gone his way, but Winnie thumped his elbow before he could say it.
“Since he’s in such a giving mood today, he’ll definitely go by and help,” she answered for him. “Won’t you, Dad?”
Price was still nursing a slight hangover and, despite what he said, his jaw was hurting a little. He also needed to mow the lawn, fix the slow drip in the upstairs bathroom and take a look at the rental property he’d begrudgingly inherited before any more rain came in.
But one thing he had been struggling with since he’d held that little baby in his arms for the first time was another unwritten rule he had become trapped by.
We don’t say no to Winnie.
He let out a breath that was mild annoyance and fixed Corrie with an even stare.
“Fine,” he said. “But make sure she knows I’m coming. I don’t want a Josiah Teller round two surprise today.”
Corrie was already pulling out her phone.
“I don’t think you have to worry about JJ,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that girl is as innocent as they come.”
* * *
JJ shot out of the house like the devil was nipping at her heels. She popped the hood of her little Honda and paused as she looked down into the engine bay.
“What can I mess with that will make you not work but not be suspicious?” she asked it out loud. “But also not cost me an arm and a leg to fix?”
She had never been that great at cars. In fact, as far as vehicles went, she only really had a passion for the old motorbike currently hidden in her garage beneath an old sheet and a layer of dust. But there were a few lessons that her godfather had forced her to learn.
JJ mentally scrolled through the reasons she could remember of why a car normally wouldn’t start.
“It can’t be the battery,” she said to herself. “I can’t make the alternator or the ignition switch go bad so quickly. I don’t know enough about spark plugs to do anything.” Her eyes came to a spark plug wire. “Wouldn’t that seem suspicious if I unplugged that? I could break a fuse…”
JJ wanted to yell in frustration. She shouldn’t have used car trouble as an excuse to not go into the café today. Who would have guessed Corrie would arrange for Winnie’s dad to come to the rescue.
“This is ridiculous,” she said, exasperated. “No one is as worried about the world as I am. Let’s just play it simple.”
JJ made the quickest work she could of disconnecting a spark plug wire.
Winnie had bragged a few times about her father being capable.
He would probably see the problem sooner rather than later then fix it and be on his way.
Who was he to be suspicious at all? It wasn’t like most people would see JJ and assume she had sabotaged her own car to cover up a lie.
She nodded at her work, shut the hood and hurried back inside.
The pace wasn’t a fun one.
She only slowed when she was standing in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom.
Her hair was nice and loose, no longer tight against her head in a braid.
Her makeup had been reapplied and she had changed her baggy clothes for a nice, flowy sundress.
Her feet were still bare but there was a pair of sandals by the front door that was a far cry from the boots she had been sneaking around in hours beforehand.
As for the bruising, she had gotten lucky.
The man who had fought her had only gotten one good hit in.
One had been enough though.
JJ tenderly touched the spot on her side that she knew for a fact was already bruised.
The light contact made her wince.
That was why she had opted for an excuse to not go into work. It wasn’t a normal shift after all. She didn’t think she needed much more than a vague car-related issue.
That had been her mistake. JJ had forgotten that she was back in a small town. For better or worse, residents tended to get into everyone’s business.
JJ heard a car door shut outside. She gave herself another once-over in the mirror and pulled on a bright, cheery smile.
She would accept Winnie’s dad’s help, make small talk about the teen and then send him on his way. No muss, no fuss.
Perfect plan.
A knock sounded on the front door.
JJ hid her pain once again and hurried to answer it.
She must have been faster than the man thought she would be. When she opened the door, his head was still turned toward the car in the driveway.
It was the only reason JJ was able to hide the absolute shock that must have gone across her face.
It was clearly the man from Josiah’s, even still wearing his baseball shirt.
Had her identity been discovered? Was he there to finish their fight?
But no. His body language was lax, and his attention was clearly on her car.
So, he was Winnie’s dad?
But wasn’t Winnie’s dad a sheriff’s deputy?
A cold feeling of unease settled in JJ’s gut.
Since coming to Seven Roads, she had been careful not to make any mistakes.
Today, she had not only been caught, she’d been caught by the law.
And now that law was standing in front of her, looking just as good as he had before their fight.
Today really wasn’t JJ’s day after all.