“We were already doing our own version of Rapid Response by then, as well. Unofficially. ARTS did a lot of things unofficially,” Heather added. “The funding cut was out of nowhere. And we had less than three days to…funnel…our open cases to other units. We were never given a full explanation aboutwhyit was cut. Then we were transferred out immediately.”
“I will find out,” Daniel said. It wasn’t a myth. And that meant there was someone stillhidingthings from Major Crimes. “Does Marshall know?”
“I don’t…know,” Miguel said. “It has never come up.”
“We were only carrying maybe four cases at a time, anyway,” Heather said. “They required more attention than most. I tended to run…command. Strategy. Or if a woman was needed to make contact with people we encountered, then I was the face. I was the only woman in the unit. Miguel and Curtis were most often pounding the pavement. My brother-in-law, he would work auxiliary. But Nick’s strengths were more psychological analysis and he would take the evidence and somehow form a narrative. He was really good at it, too.”
“I didn’t know this. Does Joy?” Hope asked.
Heather just nodded. “You were so young…Bonnie knew, and Norm and Marcia. Joy. That’s it. We just weren’t supposed to talk about ARTS, Hope. And by the time you were old enough, it was over. And we had been sworn to secrecy about its very existence. It became…myth.”
“Great. You are Mythical as well as Scary and Horrible and Beautiful and Super, Auntie Heather,” Murdoch said.
“I take it you found something?” Daniel asked. “That’s relevant to now?”
“I…there was a case. A young woman was found dead, behind a gas station on the north side of Wichita Falls. We…operated out of Austin, but we were sent statewide, as needed. Mig, Nick and I…were sent. We were using Bonnie’s place as our home base, since it was so close. Her throat was slit and it was…a hard case for Nick and me. The woman looked very much like my niece Summer. She was eighteen, Summer was seventeen. And she just…stuck with me. She was wearing a hairband when she was found. Summer had the same hair band. The same hair. It stayed with me.”
She was getting winded. She looked at Miguel. He picked up for her. “I hadn’t met Summer at the time, but I knew the case was bothering Heather and Nick, so I volunteered to work point. I don’t know where Hope was at the time?”
“Joy and Mom had taken Hope and the rest of the younger kids to a skateboarding competition in Norman, at the university. It was Hope’s first regional win. They made a family event of it.” She looked back at Daniel. “So we worked…the case. Until…I found a few leads, and Mig and Nick were heading in that direction.”
“Just like that, as soon as we started asking questions—obstacles were thrown into the path. And the case went cold. We worked it for a few years, worked ARTS for a few more. But ARTS was plagued by…problems, after that.”
“Problems centered around me. I was the one to find the list. I was the one to start asking the first questions. And I…” She looked at Daniel, a flat expression in her beautiful eyes that told him he wasn’t going to like what she said next. “I was the one who first putDan McKellenon the list. Once we started looking at him and his…friends…our entire unit was destroyed.”
“My father. He…killed this girl?” Daniel despised his father. More than words could say. His father was dirty—he was damned near convinced of it—but an actual murderer? No. He couldn’t see his father actually killing anyone. “You think he did?”
“I don’t…know. I never was able to confirm it was…him.” There was something she wasn’t telling him. Daniel knew it with one look.
“Tell me. I won’t…break.”
“We…our leads…it was asonof someone connected to your father. Or hisfriends. And…we always wondered—“ Heather said. She stopped to take in a deep breath. He hadn’t forgotten what she had gone through. “We always wondered?—“
“If it was me. I get it. You thought it was…me.”
“I did. Mig didn’t. Nick was undecided. That was just the way it was.”
And she had worked for him for six weeks—thinking he could have been a killer.
Hell, did he honestly blame her?
85
Dom had listenedto Heather’s words, seen her evidence—andhewould have thought it was Daniel, too. Everything lined up just too perfectly not to be their Daniel. He knew it wasn’t, but at first glance, he’d have been convinced, too. If he hadn’t met the man himself, hell yes he’d have been sure the guy they’d been after was Daniel McKellen, too.
He understood why Heather was so leery of Daniel from the very beginning, even without what Wilson had done to her.
It just made sense.
Now he had copies of what she had found on the conference table. Copies of what Heather’s sister and the love of his life had collected in their little forays into the past. And everything Jarrod and Gunnar and the rest of Major Crimes had found.
Things were lining up.
They had seven names—six men, one woman. He was trying to narrow that list down right now. They’d only get one shot to get it right without sounding the alarm. If they were wrong—it would set everything back again. At this point, Daniel McKellen’s father had been…removed from the list. Both Miguel and Heather agreed that as their investigation had gone on,it had veered away from Daniel’s father enough. But…Hughes Heights was the devil’s den—as Heather had put it. He couldn’t think of a better description.
He looked at the man next to him. “We have enough—to start asking some serious questions. They are not getting out of this.”
“You want to get the warrants now? Marshall has the DA on the line to make it happen. DA is happy to oblige the good old governor’s cousin,” Miguel asked. “I am looking forward to this.”
