Chapter 46
Madison hadn’t been able to sleep. Something…good old Gordy had said had been playing over and over in her mind. If they were looking for something—it would be in Sol Kimball’s journals. He had been pretty emphatic about that.
She had copies of Sol Kimball’s journals.
On her server she controlled. It had been scanned into the general TSP server by A.J.
Callum the night the journals had been collected.
They had been collected by…Dominic Acardi and Lila Dodson.
They were authentic. And then, Madison had copied them over to her own server—the one the governor had requested she set up personally—the very next day.
No one had had a chance to alter them in any way.
Madison probably had copies of everything to do with what she privately thought of as the “Jarrod Theory of Everything” case on that server. She more than anyone, had access to everything.
She knew exactly what that meant. And apparently, since she didn’t sleep through the night anymore, she had all the time in the world to go over it.
Because going over evidence reports really helped prevent nightmares and everything.
She had everything spread out in front of her, over her dining room table, plus the take-out she’d ordered delivered.
She had her spare bedroom-slash-home office, but the dining room had more wall space to tape notes to.
All of her work since the night Hope and Haldyn had been shot was right there.
She’d just been adding to it as the days passed. Tonight…she’d just keep working.
Trying to forget today. Somehow.
It had been one of the hardest days of her career.
Madison had spent more than four hours testifying about lab results.
About what they had shown had happened to a four-year-old girl who had deserved better than what she had gotten from life.
Isotopes Madison had discovered on the girl’s clothing had led to the arrest of six members of the girl’s immediate family for her death.
Those six, and the five who hadn’t been involved, had made half a dozen disruptions in the course of the afternoon.
Interrupting Madison’s testimony every time.
Screaming at her for just stating the results in an open courtroom.
One man around her own age had rushed her in the witness box. The guards had dragged him out.
It was all about them, not about what had happened to that little girl. Not one of them seemed to be grieving at all. Madison was almost certain the other five monsters in that family had had something to do with her death—she just hadn’t been able to forensically prove it.
She would keep looking though. Statute of limitations never ran out on murder, after all.
Today…had been rough.
Something about what Dom had said was stirring around in her head, too.
Some…connection, she just hadn’t found yet.
Madison handled the science of investigations, not the actual people aspect.
She wasn’t good at this part. But…sometimes, someone had to put the science together to tell the full story.
And…she had her own server now. A separate one she had told no one about.
She wasn’t going to ever trust anyone in the TSP with the evidence. There would always be backups of what she was doing. Just in case.
Now…she was going over everything she’d gotten from Hope’s laptop. Maybe she shouldn’t have done it, but when Hope had been in the hospital, she’d…accessed…the other woman’s system. She didn’t regret it, either. Hope had given her the password, just…to use if Hope didn’t survive.
What Hope had found…it was sticking in the back of Madison’s head for some reason.
But what Hope had found…Madison was missing something. What Hope had found added sixteen more names to Madison’s particular list. Over the span of five years. Including a handful of names of people she knew personally.
Officer Kelsie Royce, who had been killed by a goon associated with Councilman Dennis Lee Arnold several years ago had been on that list. Royce had been a recent transplant to Finley Creek. Madison had liked her a great deal. Kelsie had only worked in Finley Creek for a handful of weeks.
Another man listed in Hope’s files had been at the TSP when Madison had first hired on. He and his wife and teenage son had been killed in a house fire six months later. But that case had been closed; she was sure of it. Bad wiring. She was sure she’d heard it was the wiring back then.
Now, she wasn’t so sure at all. He was listed as one of the names Hope had found. Names with questions.
She was going to have to do some deep digging. And eventually, talk to their Cold Case division—aka Jarrod and Heather. Jarrod was back at work now, after taking time off to be with Haldyn.
Heather…well, no one knew what was going to happen with Heather. Not yet.
No one had said if Heather had awakened enough to be fully interviewed yet. All Madison had heard was that antibiotics were showing promising results, though Heather would probably be pretty weak for a long time to come. But whether she’d actually wakened—no one was saying yet.
No one had found Timothy Grundenman’s daughter, either. That little girl with Hope’s face was still out there somewhere. Waiting for someone to help her. Madison just knew it.
People were looking for her. Missing Persons had taken lead on finding her, in connection with Major Crimes. It just wasn’t happening quickly.
The men who had hurt so many people, so many cops, if it was all connected, they wouldn’t care about one little bitty girl with no one but Timothy Grundenman to protect her.
Not with everything else Major Crimes was juggling.
They were looking for her, but they could only do so much.
If they found Timothy, they would find his daughter.
Heather’s nieces had shown up at the precinct today, while Madison was in talking to Jake after court had ended about results that were inconclusive on another case—Summer, Samia, Eden, Cashlyn, Cara and Crispin. Madison had been in there when Dom and Jarrod and Jake were…confronted.
The Colesons wanted answers.
Madison had heard Cashlyn threaten to get out there and hunt for that innocent child herself if Dom didn’t get his beautiful, sexy ass in gear.
And she’d take all of her coven sisters—and all of their little friends—with her to do it.
She’d threatened Dom with, as she’d said, “oodles of Coleson Chaos” if he didn’t get busy.
She’d informed Dom and Jake they just did not know what Cashlyn or her sisters were truly capable of when they were angry.
And they were getting very, very angry that their baby sister was still missing.
Murdoch had been listening and had choked so hard Lila had had to pound on his back and threaten the Heimlich or something.
Murdoch had informed Cashlyn he did in fact know what women like Cashlyn and her sisters were capable of.
Considering he lived with three of Cashlyn’s sisters now, and everything.
Madison thought Cashlyn meant it. Dom had acted a bit…freaked…to be confronted by all of them that way. They had even had Brianna Claireson, Grundenman’s eldest daughter, with them. That was enough to scare anyone.
That little girl was innocent of her father’s sins, Cashlyn had said. Completely innocent.
It was always the innocent who paid the biggest price in rich men’s wars. Rich men’s crimes.
Loose end. That’s what they all were. Madison was well aware of that now.
It was why she had a security system that wasn’t even on the market installed.
She owned her townhouse. No one was going to get in to spray for insects or inspect or anything like that without her planning it herself.
Houghton and Melody Barratt had made sure she was as safe as she could be in her home.
Houghton owned the entire complex. She’d purchased her unit from him directly.
This was as safe as she was going to get short of a bomb going off. She’d already lived that experience. She had been in the cafeteria that morning when the lab had disintegrated. She would never forget.
She was starting to think what had happened back then was connected now, too. That maybe…they hadn’t gotten everyone who was out there.
The men who had bombed the TSP forensics lab—they weren’t acting alone back then. She was one hundred percent convinced that—and everything that had happened since—was a part of something much larger. Much more…evil. She just didn’t know how to figure out who.
But she wasn’t going to give up trying.
Hope’s notes…that’s where the real answers hid. Madison just knew it.
She had her whiteboard in the dining room again. She was making notes when someone pounded on her door. Her phone buzzed with a text.
She grabbed the phone quickly, as she headed to the door. If someone…evil…was at her door tonight, she wanted to be able to call for help as quickly as possible. Madison would never take her own safety for granted again.
ANSWER YOUR DOOR.
Well. Her grumpy major pain—she strongly suspected he was on the other side. Madison waited a moment—contemplating.
She almost texted a refusal back. But she suspected the man in question would just knock down her door if she did that. Madison had refused to give him a key when he had demanded one before. On principle.
And well, self-preservation. She knew herself well enough to know that.
If she let that caveman into her sanctuary, it would be just a matter of time before she did something seriously stupid. Something she would seriously regret. Like just drag him down the hall to her bedroom and do…things.
Which…she was going to behave herself here. He had made it clear that he wasn’t going to act on how he obviously felt about her. And neither was she. She was good with that.
Madison had had a few thoughts of just cuddling up against him until the storms ended. Had…dreamed…of doing that a few more times than normal lately.