Chapter 1
Blood. She was so sick of blood.
Madison McAlister still had the blood on her. She looked down. There was blood all over her. It covered her everywhere.
It wasn’t her blood. At least…not most of it.
It was his, Joey Costovia’s. Where he had…died on top of her. He had died on top of her. She’d felt him die. Felt the scorching heat of his blood as it had covered her. His last words—she’d never forget. She’d never forget.
And it was…Hope’s. Hope’s blood. It was Hope’s blood. And it was smeared on her arms now. From where she had dragged her friend through the night toward help.
Madison McAlister stood there in the middle of the hospital waiting room, just stood there. Hope—they’d just taken Hope back to the surgery. Hope was getting help. The help she needed. They were safe. They’d made it—she’d brought Hope here. Where she could get help.
Hope was alive. She was alive, and Madison had gotten her where she could get help.
There were people talking to her now. Asking her so many questions. About tonight, about what Wilson and Costovia and Kimball had said, what they had done.
Why they had taken her and Hope from the crime scene, intending to kill them both.
Madison did her best to try to answer all the questions. But she didn’t know why this happened. Didn’t they understand that? It just happened. Those bastards had just done it to hurt them—because they could. Because they were angry and evil, and they didn’t care who they hurt.
Someone touched her arm. She turned. Ashlie…Ashlie was there. Ashlie was the assistant forensic lead on shift tonight. She’d been over at Finley Creek University processing an OD victim, though.
Why was she here? Then…Madison put it together. It would be an all-hands on deck thing, right? Since she and Hope had been abducted off scene. Since…Brett Naylor had been shot. Costovia had shot Brett in the back. What if he was dead already? Brett didn’t deserve that at all. He didn’t.
“I need…your clothes, Mads. We need to process you.”
Of course they did. Evidence. She knew…evidence was what mattered now. She knew that—she handled evidence five days a week. It was her job, it was why she was out there for those bastards to hurt in the first place.
Madison bit back the panic. Somehow.
“I—I need something clean to put on. I need to shower…I just need…” Madison was going to vomit. There was so much blood. Just like at the choir shooting, before. “I—”
Someone said her name. A familiar voice.
She looked up. Into eyes the exact same color as her own. “Mom—Mom—I—”
Her mother grabbed her arm and pulled her—toward a trash can. Madison lost every bit of what was in her stomach there. She just wanted this to be okay, somehow.
Now that they were at the hospital it was starting to sink in. What had happened. Her friends were hurt. They might die. Hope and Haldyn were both back there with surgeons now. Surgeons trying to keep them alive. To fix what had happened tonight.
Wilson and his friends…what they had tried to do to her and Hope tonight, it was evil.
Pure evil.
Madison was going to lose it again. She just was. She couldn’t do this. She practically collapsed on the floor of a hospital waiting room, a metal trash bin in front of her. Her mom was there. Right there next to her. It was going to be okay.
Hope and Haldyn would be okay. They had to be. Then…then this would get better. Somehow.
But…if they were going to stop the others out there, to keep them all safe, she had to get it together.
Somehow. She couldn’t keep freaking like this.
She couldn’t. She just stayed where she was and pulled in a deep breath.
And then another and another. She had to pull herself together.
There were people who were going to be looking for her.
She was the only one who could tell them what really happened out there tonight.
“I need…Mom, I need some clean clothes and a place to change. A shower. I need…I need to get the blood off.”
Madison was going to have to pull herself together.
People would be looking at her for what to do next. She was Haldyn’s assistant. It didn’t matter that she was also a victim tonight. She had to pull herself together.
Her mother was a nurse here at this very hospital. So was Hope’s mother. Where Madison had dragged Hope, after they’d been dropped off blocks from here. All she’d wanted was to get Hope to the same hospital where their mothers worked.
And she had. Hope was getting the help she needed.
Madison had done what she needed to do, now it was time for the next steps.
First…the blood. She needed to get the blood off, and this blood was evidence.
“I need clean clothes and a shower, Mom. But…Ashlie needs to process me first. Can…can you find me some clothes? I need…out of these clothes.”
Madison knew what had to be done. She worked in the forensics lab five, sometimes six, days a week. She knew what needed to be done after a violent crime like this. She knew the procedures. She just…couldn’t remember then now. Someone behind her said her name. She turned.
Tabby was there. She’d shown up from somewhere. When had Tabby shown up? Tabby wasn’t on the clock. Madison was sure of that—she’d made the schedule out herself. It was Tabby’s youngest’s seventh birthday. She’d taken the night off to be with her little girl.
“I came as soon as I heard about Hal and Hope,” Tabby said. As if she could read Madison’s mind. “I got here as soon as I could—the kids are in bed. I’m going to process you, Madison. I’ll get you processed now, then you can shower. It’ll be okay. We are going to process you now.”
Madison just nodded. She knew what was going to happen.
How it all worked. She just…followed protocol, doing what Tabby and Ashlie asked her to do.
Her mom stood there with her. Her mom was trauma response trained.
She was the one trained in forensic nursing.
For…sexual assaults. Her mom had gone through the specialized training after Nikkie Jean had implemented the policy that someone on each shift had to be trained in sexual assault protocols at FCGH.
No one…had argued…against that policy. Not after everything that had happened to all of them.
There was another nurse there, too. Alyssia.
Her name was Alyssia, she was trained in assault forensics, too.
Joey Costovia had tried to assault her. He had just died before he could rape her. Because Detective Kimball had killed him before he could.
Madison was safe here. She knew she was. Her mother worked here. Her mother’s husband was the head of security here. Vince was here, too. And no matter what, he’d keep her safe, too.
She was safe.
She was calming down. Doing what had to be done. People needed to know what happened out there tonight. They needed to know.
Joey Costovia had tried to assault her.
Madison let the people she worked with process her. So that every movement out there would be documented.
So that no one could say tonight didn’t happen the way it had later. So no one could lie.
So they could fix this somehow.
Madison let Ashlie and Tabby process her. She denied the rape kit—he hadn’t raped her tonight. But Detective Joey Costovia had fully intended to. Sol Kimball had just…stopped him…before he could.
By killing Detective Costovia right where he was. Right on top of Madison.
That man had died right on top of her. Madison had felt the life drain right out of him.
That just kept playing over and over in her head.
When they were finished, she finally got a shower. She really needed to get…the blood…
She changed into the scrubs her mom brought her.
Then let her mom clean the scrape above her eye and put a bandage on it.
She was calming down. She had to calm down.
Major Crimes needed to know what had happened out there in the night.
And from what she had heard, she was the only one who was going to be able to tell the story for a long time.
Kimball…he’d been shot, too. By Major Crimes.
Dom had been out there. It might have even been Dom who had shot him.
She was going to tell it right. To make sure they all knew the evil that had been out there in the night tonight.
For the innocent ones who had been hurt by that monster.
Steve Wilson was the epitome of evil. The world…needed to know.
Because there were more of him out there.
And she didn’t know who it would come for next. But it would.
Evil always found the innocent.
That was a lesson she would go to her grave believing now.
Now…now Madison had to pull herself together. So she could tell them all what happened. So they could make sure that bastard Steve Wilson paid for what he had done to people. For every single woman he had hurt. For Hope and Haldyn—and Heather.
What he had done to Heather alone was just…evil.
“People need to know. What he did. So they keep him away from Heather. From Heather’s babies. People need to know about Steve Wilson. They just need to know so they can stop him.”
Ashlie hesitated. “Mads…”
Madison just looked at her.
“Steve Wilson took one to the head tonight. He’s in a coma now. He is probably going to die. When…Haldyn was shot. I am waiting for the slug. They will have to remove it from his…head. It…it is still in there, I think someone said. I don’t think he’s going to be okay, no matter what.”
“Never have I ever encountered someone more evil and just vile than that man. What he was going to do…he was going to hurt Hope, to rape her. Because he was obsessed with Heather. He was going to rape her sister just to hurt Heather. Because he could. And then…then he was going to kill us both. And Costovia was going to hurt me. Because he hated Dom. He hated Dom, so he was going to hurt me to get back at Dom. He died on top of me. When Kimball shot him in the back for what Costovia was trying to do to me. If Kimball hadn’t… Costovia was trying to rape me.”
She would not sugar coat it, not call it what it was. It had been attempted rape. If Kimball hadn’t arrived when he had, Costovia—a man she’d worked with for years—would have succeeded.
Her mother gasped. Madison just looked at her. “He hated Dom so much. But…Sol Kimball was there. And he made him stop. Made him get off of me. He shot him. While Costovia was on top of me.”
She would never forget the horror in her mother’s eyes as she looked at her.
They just kept waiting.