Prodigal

Chapter 14

14

JJ looked at Trooper and said “Okay,” to release him. The dog loped over to stand just behind her, where he’d remain until she told him otherwise.

“Are you hurt, JJ?” Grant asked. His voice held concern, with an edge of angry frustration.

JJ also noticed that Grant didn’t seem all that surprised to see Adam. Damn. She should’ve said something to him last night before somebody else beat her to it. “I’m fine,” she said.

Adam tried to stand, only to pitch over sideways in slow motion. “I’m still not fine,” he said.

JJ was torn between helping him and kicking him, but either way she had to gather her boots first. She jammed them on her feet while Grant gazed down at Adam, shaking his head. The corner of Grant’s mouth crept up slightly in an expression that seemed a hybrid of a grimace and a grin. A grim. JJ felt one cross her face as well.

“Otto really did a number on you, didn’t he?” Grant said, as he and JJ each took an elbow.

Adam winced when one of their hands grazed his side. “Well, yeah,” he wheezed, “but he’ll be thinking of me when his hands are too sore to hold the TV remote tomorrow.”

Grant met JJ’s eyes over Adam’s fluffy, sleep-spiked hair.

“Anything new?” she asked.

Grant shook his head, and they pulled Adam the rest of the way to his feet. The three of them stood, with Adam the point of an uncertain triangle.

“You gonna fall down again if we let go?” Grant asked. He and JJ gently released Adam without stepping away.

“Maybe,” Adam admitted, and slowly swayed, like a toddler who’s just released his grip on his favorite stand-up chair.

Grant and JJ both put their hands back on Adam’s elbows, enough to keep him steady and break his fall, come that eventuality. Their progress across the property was slow. When they finally turned the corner of the house, JJ saw a Beecham County Sheriff’s Department SUV parked behind Otto’s truck and Dorothy’s car. Luther was waiting for Grant on the front step, leaning on his elbows on the metal railing, and made no move to help get Adam in the SUV. Fortunately, once Trooper settled next to the back bumper out of their way, it wasn’t as hard as JJ feared it would be. At least not for her. Adam, biting off a painful moan as he climbed into the back seat, might have begged to differ. Grant made sure Adam’s legs were fully inside before closing the door.

“JJ, I’d like you to wait with him,” Grant said. “If you don’t mind.”

She looked at Adam in the back of the vehicle and the metal grill that separated him from the front, at Luther walking purposefully to join them, and finally back at Grant. “Am I under arrest?”

“No,” Grant said.

Luther’s sudden proximity set JJ’s teeth on edge. “Is Adam under arrest?” she asked.

“No,” Grant said, while Luther simultaneously asserted, “Yes.”

She looked at them both. “Well, which is it?”

“Adam is not under arrest,” Grant said.

Luther gritted his teeth and stared down at the ground, hands on his hips. “Yet,” he muttered.

JJ got in Luther’s face. “What the hell is your problem?”

The deputy straightened and shouted back at her, “What the f**k is yours?”

Trooper left his post at the bumper and trotted to JJ’s heel. His growl was throat only, barely audible. Luther took a step back and his hand strayed toward his holster.

“Luther, if you harm a hair on my dog’s head, I will cut your—”

“Hey! Both of you calm down,” Grant interrupted. “Nobody’s gonna hurt anybody, including the dog. Or did you forget why we’re here?”

Grant left JJ and Luther standing awkwardly next to the SUV. JJ sighed and rubbed her eyes, exhausted already even though it was barely daylight. She walked around the back of the vehicle, Trooper at her heel.

“Trooper, go home,” she said, hand on the back passenger door.

Luther, turning the front corner of the SUV, jumped when the dog loped by on his way to the woods. The deputy didn’t reach for his weapon, but JJ still gave him her best stink eye.

“Goddammit!” Luther said. “I swear, I was just coming around to open the door for you. I wasn’t going to touch your damn dog.”

JJ stepped back and made a grand motion à la Vanna White for Luther to go ahead, but he shook his head at her, pissed.

“Fine,” she said, turning away.

She leaned against the car window, catching sight of her own reflection. It embarrassed JJ, her expression of almost teenage petulance. She looked past her own face at Adam inside, eyes closed and arms held close to his body, obviously in pain.

Because of Rachel. Because he wanted to help her.

JJ was so ashamed, words burst from her lips before she could stop them. “I can’t always protect my daughter, any more than they could protect Rachel. But Trooper will. That dog will kill for her, and he will fight for her with his last breath.”

It was the closest Luther would get to an apology. She climbed in the back of the SUV and wrapped her arms around herself, but it didn’t help. The shivering set in. Too much adrenaline, and too damn cold. JJ watched Luther join Grant on the front porch, even though looking through the metal partition made her feel like a criminal. The men were too far away to read subtleties in their expressions, but Luther looked as cold as she did, while Grant looked too tired to feel the temperature.

“I don’t know what the hell you thought you were doing back there, but you better have some kinda story ready,” JJ said. “Unless you want to be arrested.”

Adam didn’t reply.

JJ turned, ready to tear him a new one for being so reckless. But his eyes were closed, and he looked so vulnerable. She didn’t have the heart.