Page 20 of Proof

I was dimly aware of JJ identifying himself, which meant the cops had arrived. I didn’t move as strange hands began patting me down. I could hear the jingle of handcuffs.

“Bruce, it’s me,” JJ called.

“JJ?” a strange voice responded. “What the fuck?” the guy added, his voice sounding downright cheerful considering the scene he’d arrived upon. “How you been, kiddo?”

The interaction was so unusual that it snapped my attention back to the present.

A paunchy older officer with a scraggly beard was striding toward JJ. JJ had already lowered his arms so when the officer reached him, there was a brief handshake and then a quick embrace where the older officer patted him on the back.

“Been better,” JJ said. “Case went sideways,” he added as he glanced over his shoulder toward the body of the man I’d shot. As a formality, the paramedics were checking his vitals.

“Oh yeah, you’re working for your brother’s company, right? Heard you were babysitting that cute little thing with the big tits; the one from that show my girls can’t get enough of,” Bruce said with a hearty laugh.

“Jenna Masters,” JJ supplied. “She lives up the hill. She’s pretty shaken up. Not sure who the guy is, but he took a shotat me and my partner. I chased him on foot down here and cornered him,” he said easily.

“This your partner?” Bruce asked. His voice faltered when he finally got a look at my face. “Wait, aren’t you?—?”

“He is and no, he’s not my partner,” JJ said.

I could feel the noose closing around my neck. One of the officers was already in the process of reaching for my arm so he could lower it to cuff my wrist. It was all I could do not to deck the guy so he wouldn’t be able to put those metal rings on my wrists.

“He’s my backup, though,” JJ added. “My brother felt sorry for him and hired him to shadow us so we’d have backup if we needed it. We needed it,” he explained. “My partner’s up at the house with the client. Like I said, she’s pretty freaked out about all this.”

“Understandable,” Bruce murmured as his cold eyes raked over me.

Yeah, I was fucked. I would have plenty of time to think about why JJ had made up the story about me being his backup. I doubted Sully had told his brother I’d been following him at Sully’s request. I hadn’t seen Sully since I’d walked out on him a week earlier. I also hadn’t told him that I was, in fact, still shadowing JJ. Sully had mentioned that he had people watching JJ twenty-four seven, but who knew if he was still doing that. As it stood, JJ’s older brother might already know I was still keeping my eyes on his kid brother.

Despite the white-hot fear racing through me, I allowed the young police officer tasked with cuffing me to bend one arm behind my back. When the first cuff snapped around my wrist, I felt my knees start to buckle, but I managed to keep myself upright.

“You’re telling me your brother is letting the guy who shot you—” Bruce began.

“Not my idea,” JJ said angrily, his cold eyes raking over me like I was nothing but shit beneath his shoe. “Sully’s always had a soft spot for him, and you know what Sully’s like.”

“Yeah,” Bruce said with an unamused chuckle. “Yeah,” he repeated. I could see the hunger for vengeance in the man’s eyes. “So he’s the one who shot the—” Bruce began, keeping his eyes on me even as he motioned in the direction of the man I’d killed.

“No,” JJ interjected. “Like I said, he’s just backup. I shot the suspect when a civ walked into the middle of the scene.”

I nearly choked on my own saliva at JJ’s words.

Bruce kept his eyes on me. The officer behind me had lowered my other arm to cuff it but seemed to be holding off after hearing JJ’s admission.

“Bruce,” JJ said firmly. He waited until Bruce’s eyes shifted back to him. “No one wants to see this asshole behind bars again more than me, but facts are facts. He was the witness, not the shooter.” JJ motioned toward an officer holding our weapons. “I shot him with the Glock. Ballistics will prove it.”

I still had no idea what JJ was doing, but the mere mention of ballistics would be another nail in my coffin. The Glock was registered to me, so once the bullet I’d put through the suspect’s head was compared to the bullets from my gun, it would be over.

“Sir,” one of the officers called. “This is the kid who saw the whole thing.”

The teenager who’d been crouched behind the garbage can when I’d shot the man was standing nervously next to a female police officer.

“You saw which one of these men shot that one?” Bruce asked as he pointed toward the lifeless body behind us.

“Um, yeah, it was that guy,” the kid stammered as he pointed at JJ. “He saved my life,” the teenager added. “He,”—the kid pointed at me—“was the one who told me to call 911.”

It took me a second to realize the kid truly believed what he’d said. He must have covered his head when JJ had told him to get down, so all he would have heard was the shooting itself. The boy was assuming the fatal shot had come from JJ.

“Okay,” Bruce said. “Take his statement and get him back to his folks,” he instructed the officer standing next to the teenager. Then he was motioning to the officer behind me.

My mind was still trying to process what kind of game JJ and Bruce were playing with me when I felt the cuff on my left wrist click and then it was gone.

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