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 eviland justvilethan 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 tohurt 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 ofme.”
She would never forget the horror in her mother’s eyes as she looked at her.
They just keptwaiting.
2
Fury didn’t even beginto describe what Major Crimes Detective Dominic Acardi felt right now. This was utter bullshit.
Rage boiled just below the surface.
The primal rage that only someone could feel when those he loved, were closest to him, had been hurt. It took everything he had to battle it back and do his fucking job.
Dom still didn’t have a full picture of what had happened tonight. But answers he had been seeking for years could be just moments from his hands. He would never take that lightly. Tonight had been a direct attack on Major Crimes. To prove a point.
Well, Dom and the rest of Major Crimes had learned something tonight.
This wasn’t finished.
And Madison—she could have been killed tonight. Because of what answers might be waiting on him in there now. That was all the incentive Dom needed.
That was what lit the fury beneath him now.
That woman washis. And those sons-of-bitches had almost killed her tonight. Had attacked her. Because of her relationship with him.
No.
Fury didn’t even begin to describe how he was feeling right now.
Murderous rage was closer to the truth.
There were very few people he wouldkillfor in this world. That woman was at the damned top of the list. Only what thin veneer of civilization he still possessed kept him from ripping apart the first asshole he could find who had anything to do with this.
No onemessed with Madison. No one.
Had Kimball not shot that bastard Costovia, Madison would have been raped and killed. Sono,fury didn’t even begin to describe what was burning through Dom right now.
Detective Sol Kimball’s home sat on a street of middle-class, older bungalows, in the northwest corner of Finley Creek. It was shabby, the yard almost to his knees. Kimball hadn’t cut it in a long time, that was obvious. The house was red-brick and faded.
Sad.
It was sad. The man’s entire life had become that way. Now Kimball was in surgery at Finley Creek to remove the bullets he’d taken tonight. Some of those rounds might have even come from Dom’s own weapon. He’d already turned over his main service weapon to forensics to follow procedure. He carried his backup now. In most instances of a shooting, he’d have to stay right where he was through all the protocols. But tonight—what had happened wasn’tfinishedyet. And they needed answers.
Someonefrom Major Crimes had to be sent here tonight. Dom had been top of the list.
Whether Kimball would be capable of ever standing trial for what he had done, or been a part of, or even be able to answer basic questions, was heavily in doubt.
Why? There was only one answer.
