Chapter 15
She was still having nightmares. Madison was afraid she always would. She still dreamed about the choir hall shooting. She still dreamed of Steve Wilson and Joey Costovia. She wanted to go just one night without remembering what those men had done to her.
Things were getting back to normal. If Madison could say anything around the TSP was normal now.
Heather had been released from the hospital and was home with her family.
Madison had called Hope to check on her older sister earlier that morning.
Hope had sounded rough. No surprise—Madison seriously doubted Hope had gotten much rest while Heather had been missing.
Rumor had it Heather had escaped the hospital against medical advice—but she had a sister and a niece who were both doctors.
And several nurses in the family. That helped a little.
Heather was home. Back with her little girls. Maybe…now…things could get better.
They had names for the people involved now, too. They were finally making progress, right?
It sure didn’t feel like they’d gotten ahead in any meaningful way.
“Hey, boss,” a female voice said behind her. “You doing good?”
“I have been far, far better.”
“I’m with you. Someone called my phone at three a.m. and just said ‘wrong number’. Did it again at four a.m. I never did get back to real sleep. I am exhausted.”
“Any idea who it was?” Miriam really did look exhausted. Poor kid—she was driving back and forth to Wichita Falls, too. Sometimes working double shifts.
“Said spam risk. I blocked them after the second time. I thought I did the first time, too. But guess not.”
Madison would have asked questions, but the indicator on the machine to her left beeped.
It was the results she’d been waiting on. “Hang on.”
Miriam just nodded, then set up at her own station. She was phenomenal with biological samples, and they had plenty to work through.
They were still processing what had been found in the warehouse fire that Heather and Powell’s abductors had started to hide their OPJ operation. Madison was working through what she could as quickly and thoroughly as possible—they needed to know who exactly had been in that warehouse.
Fire didn’t destroy everything the way many people believed it did.
“You have a hit here, too, Mads.” Miriam grabbed the sheet off the printer. “Here.”
Madison read it. Compared it again.
“I need to talk to Dom, or…someone in Major Crimes.”
“Find something good?”
“Maybe. I just run the evidence. And let them figure out what to do with it next.”
“Truth. You just want to go see the hot guys in Major Crimes. I have seen those guys. I’m still recovering.
” Miriam fanned herself for a moment. “Some of them—eye-watering. In a very good way. Can we say I want to be the future Missus Dominic Acardi, as soon as we can make it happen. Have any ideas about that? The way he growls—kind of sexy. Okay, a lot sexy. You have to admit it.”
Well, yes. She had noticed a time or thousand before.
“Don’t look too closely at them. Every friend I have that has…
except Charlotte and Hope…have gotten captured by the Major Crimes major pains.
It’s like an epidemic or something. I suspect Hope will be next, though.
” Miguel Rodriguez was making no secret of how he felt about Hope.
Madison thought it was beautiful to even think about.
“As soon as one of those beasts looks at you—it’s over.
You’re toast. They capture you forever.”
“I can think of worse things. I can think of worse things. Too bad I have decided to avoid romance until I am thirty…. Of course, that was before I saw the guys here.”
“Six years is a long time to go. Dry spells are no fun. Then again…where have all the good guys gone?” Well, she could think of a handful that were still out there.
But…Madison was holding off on romance until she was forty, so who was she to say?
“I am going to go find someone in Major Crimes to give this to them personally.”
That was the only way to make sure it got into the right hands.
“Make a list of which hot guys are upstairs today. I will take a stroll through the bullpen on my lunch break. Maybe. If I don’t take a nap instead,” Miriam said, yawning. “I swear…if anyone prank calls me again, I’m going to let Hope hack them or something. Just for the hell of it.”
Well, Hope probably could. There was that. “I heard she was already getting bored…”
“That is a terrifying concept, Mads. A terrifying concept.”
“No kidding.”
Dom turned from his desk and there she was. The bane of his existence. She was wearing her labcoat and her little wire-rimmed glasses that shot lust right through him every time. They made her eyes look big and soft and just…beautiful. “Madison.”
“Great. Of course it would be you in here. Gun is still out with Powell, right?”
Gunnar had taken some time off to be with Powell, make sure she rested. Apparently, that woman had a bit of a problem sitting still. Dom had heard from Gunnar himself about an hour ago. He’d called Miguel to get an update about Heather earlier.
Miguel was staying close to the Colesons for the time being. “What do you need?”
“This. I am just the delivery girl. I wanted to make sure that someone in Major Crimes directly involved with the case got the report first. Only way to do that is to walk it up here into Crazyville.”
Madison was paranoid about evidence and reports. They had discussed the how and why of that paranoia before. Hell, it wasn’t paranoia. It was based in fact. Evidence had gone missing, far too many times. “What did you find?”
“Warehouse fire. DNA of the man killed with a sharp object—"
Dom nodded. He knew who she meant. There had been two male bodies found in the warehouse fire.
Heather had killed one of them—with a box cutter she’d found while being dragged through that warehouse.
She’d knocked the other one unconscious with a pipe, before sliding out a broken window and escaping.
That man had succumbed to smoke inhalation from the fire started by his associates to hide the evidence of their drug trafficking activities.
They hadn’t identified all of them yet. But they would. Eventually.
And it would be through DNA as the most likely way. “What did you find?”
“I have a positive ID on one man. Spencer Miles. But it’s not that. Look.”
She shoved a printout beneath his nose. Dom looked at it. He didn’t recognize what it was—except that it was a DNA report. “Explain.”
“The DNA found on the pipe Heather used. The one that…matches this guy. It also matches the blood we found the night we were ambushed in Garrity. The night Zoey shot that man out there. The DNA we hadn’t identified.”
Dom knew exactly what she meant. “This guy who attacked Heather and Powell was one of the ones out there that night.”
“I think he was. But his DNA was also found in Zoey’s house the day she was taken by Eastman. So…why didn’t it make a match before now? It should have.”
Interesting.
Madison, Charlotte, Bailey Addy had been forensic techs called out along with a few others, including Charlie Field’s new wife, Rory.
Dom and a few other guys from Major Crimes—including Charlie and Murdoch Lake—had been out there, as well.
This was before Scott had abducted Shelby, and right before the choir hall shooting.
Zoey had struck one of the suspects, but the guy had gotten away.
DNA had been collected. Collected. But never identified. Until today.
“Give me everything you can as soon as possible.” Hell. Jarrod had been right.
Every damned thing in this county was somehow connected.
But who the hell was running all of it?