“And Gunnar? Daniel?” Madison asked, as people walked by the waiting room door. People in TSP polos, uniforms. In groups of three and four and more. Acting allofficial.And like they cared, like it was an attack against the entire TSP to have three wounded now.
It was all a show.
Of course—when a cop went down, there was a media circus. She’d seen it before. And tonight, there were three cops injured, including one related to the governor himself. The odds they’d all be okay…she refused to let the fear take hold.
They were people she cared about in surgery right now.
Someone sat down next to her. Madison looked over. Into Haldyn’s blue eyes. Madison wrapped her fingers around Powell’s free hand. Powell cradled the baby in her uninjured arm. Haldyn’s wrapped over Madison’s free hand. They were connected, then. Zoey and Shelby were there now—they’d just come in together. Crowding close. Surrounding Powell.
Protecting. They protected each other, her and her best friends. They always would.
The man Powell loved was in critical condition. Of course they were going to stick close. Madison would too, even though she was also coordinating what she could with the forensics teams now. Officially, it would be Tom and Pete and Ashlie who were assigned this case, as they were next on the roll. But Madison was going to supervise very, very closely.
They weren’t screwing around with this one. They just weren’t.
They all took care of each other now. Since the night Madison, Shelby, Zoey, and Charlotte had almost been killed. By members of the TSP. The TSP was supposed toprotectpeople. Madison didn’t think the TSP had been doing that for a very long time.
“Gunnar is in surgery now,” Zoey said, quietly, as Powell shifted the sleeping baby in her arms to Hope’s niece Cara. That precious baby girl. Madison wished she could hold her, too. If just for a little while. That baby girl—her mother was back there in surgery now. How was this fair? Madison had been around long enough to knowfairdidn’t really exist. But how she wished it did…then, maybe, then, the world would make sense. “Rafe came out and updated us a few minutes ago. Gunnar had lost a lot of blood out there. And the second bullet caused some cavernization that did significant damage. But he’s doing okay, Mads. We’re still waiting on word for Daniel.”
Cavernization—so many people believed a bullet traveled a straight line from entrance to exit. But that wasn’t always the case. Sometimes, the force of the hit, the energy itself, would cause a larger injury inside. It could be deadly. “And the men who did it?”
“We have three,” Miguel said. He stood near Hope now. He’d changed clothes, out of his blood-soaked ones from before. Now he just sort of hovered over Hope and her sisters. “Three or four escaped. Including Timothy Grundenman.”
Timothy Grundenman.
She recognized the name. The man had been there in the warehouse. Where Powell and Heather had been held hostage before.
He was the husband of Heather and Hope’s late sister Angela. The father of three of Heather’s nieces. She looked at those women now—they had hurt and confusion on their faces, too. The nightmares…they just kept getting closer and closer. Until it felt like…suffocation.
Like no matter what you did, you drowned in the end.
Finally, the surgeon, Dr. Macomber, came out. “For Gunnar Erickson?”
“That’s me,” Powell hopped up. “How is he? Is he going to be okay?”
“First, he’s going to be just fine.”
Madison listened as he explained the damage. It would take him a few months to get back up to full strength, but Gunnar was going to be okay.
Now they waited on word about Heather and Daniel.
The minutes just kept ticking by.
20
Dom checkedon her the moment he made it back to the hospital after a trip to the crime scene. He’d not gotten much there—he’d get more from witness statements on this one, and he’d trust the sources a hell of a lot more now. Madison was in the waiting room, with the rest of her friends and her mother surrounding her, and Heather’s family. Hours had passed.
He took one look at her and knew—that woman was holding herself together through sheer will and stubbornness. That was how his favorite little shrew operated. She’d fall apart later, when she was alone. Where the rest of the world couldn’t see.
Dom looked at the man next to him. There was no one on the planet he trusted more than he did this man. “You’ll need to double the number of guards on this floor. But only those you can trust.”
“You expecting trouble?” his father asked. Dom’s dad had been the head of security at FCGH for several years. And he took it seriously. Very seriously. His dad wasn’t going to let something happen on his turf. “We need to bring Holden-Deane in on this conversation?”
“Probably wouldn’t hurt for you to fill him in.” He didn’t consider Dr. Holden-Deane a security threat. Not one bit. Heather was the man’s aunt, after all. “The men involved made it clear—Heather Coleson knows more about their operation than they want getting out there.”
“Taking her out would be one way to keep her quiet.” His dad was shrewd enough to see the problems. That was all Dom needed to know. His dad would do what had to be done to tighten up the security on this floor—even without the TSP knowing. His dad had special friends from his military days he could call in to fill securitygapsat the hospital at times. Dom knew they had been used by Holden-Deaneunofficiallyfor certain patients before.
“Exactly. And she can’t fight back.”
