“The floor supervisor called off, so I’m covering. I figured considering the TSP—well, someone you allknowjust felt more right up here today.” Cherise looked at him for a moment, with thatmomlook she was so good at. She wasn’t quite old enough to be his mother, but she was a damned good stepmother. Most of all, she was a good wife to his father. That was what mattered most—Dom’s father deserved a woman like the one in front of Dom now. “You still look exhausted.”
She’d told him that this morning, too. He didn’t think she knew he’d sat up in her living room almost all night, holding Madison in his arms. Just thinking…imagining. Listening to that womanbreathing.
“I’ll grab some sleep in a few hours.” He’d been back at the precinct, going overeverythingthey had on the OPJ case all the way back to the very beginning. And he’d started digging, cross-referencing Heather Coleson and drug cases going back even further. Trey Grundenman, the asshole who had created Opal Joy in the first place, had made it clear Heather had gotten close to the entire organization before. Multiple times. So many times she’d been identified as a specificproblemto be dealt with.
He didn’t think the problem-Heather was finished beingdealt withyet, at all. He feared this was just the beginning. And those bastards weren’t getting to her again.
Dom was going to find out where her path crossed these assholes in the course of her job. Then…he was going to take over where she had left off. He was hoping Heather would give him a good place to start—as soon as she was awake and could talk.
Somehow, he suspected that beautiful monster held the key toeverythinggoing down at the TSP.
He just didn’t know ifsheknew that. Or if she’d share all her secrets.
“So what can I help with? I saw your name on a list of TSP we can update. Powell is sleeping—she’s in with Detective Erickson. He had a good night, and should be waking soon. Stable condition. Upgraded two hours ago.”
Dom felt the relief at that. Gunnar had a beautiful woman who adored him that he worshiped in return, a baby on the way. “And Dan?”
She hesitated. “It was a little rougher for him, Dom. He had a lot of injuries from whatever happened to him out there after he was shot, that Gunnar didn’t. He’s still under. He probably will be until tomorrow.”
Dom bit back a curse. He’d wanted to talk to the other man. See his friend for himself. “Anyone in with him?”
Daniel just had his father and a stepmother now. They were not close. Dom couldn’t see Daniel Senior sitting worriedly by his son’s bedside, that was for sure. Unless there was a camera nearby, anyway.
“I believe the Colesons are taking turns sitting with him—and Powell and Gunnar. Gunnar is in the same room—he gave permission for Heather’s family to stay in there. The Colesons are making sure they have anything they need. Cashlyn is inthere now. She has a shift downstairs starting in three hours. So what are you after here?”
“I need to talk to whichever of those three stooges are awake. I have some questions about last night.” Everything was pretty well recorded, by the Colesons. At least…they had all the audio. That, and security feed where that little monster Hope Coleson and her teenage niece had somehow virtually walked themselves right intothe Barratt family’s security system to monitor what was happening inside.
Rumor had it Hope and her niece had done so in less than nine minutes. Terrifying, what those two had accomplished.
“That’s going to be Lieutenant Coleson. She’s in room 408. She woke about an hour ago, I believe.” She sent him thatlookagain. “Don’t tire her out. She’s still recovering from last week’s injuries.”
When she and Powell Barratt had walked right into those bastards and barely escaped alive. A pregnant woman who stood five foot tall, weighed one hundred pounds, and had nothing to do with the damned TSP at all, except through the man who loved her. And Heather Coleson—a single mother of two who had been harassed, terrified, stalked and raped by a damned cop. She’d been terrorized for four years. Only to barely escape last week with her life—and to take a bullet last night and near bleed to death. When she’d been on suspension, in the first place. Suspension—itshouldhave been paid medical leave.
Dom didn’t truly understand why it hadn’t been. Only Daniel knew the answer to that. And he was currently unavailable.
The assholes out of TSP headquarters in Wichita Falls were going to make a big deal about that. Unless Finley Creek did something about the suspension first. Or the governor.
Which was a real possibility—and a cluster fuck. That was as problematic—Governor Marcus Deane was married to Heather’sniece, after all. Deane would be accused of favoring his wife’s family. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
All they could do was keep going until they got to the end ofthis,whatever it was.
Dom had read the headlines online a few hours ago.
Focus was on Heather yet again. Imagine that.
Heather Coleson and her demon women family—they drew attention. Every time they moved. Dom had yet to fully figure out why. Yes, they were beautiful. And yes, there were a lot of them—around a dozen. But the way the media acted, this family was as famous as the Kennedys or the Barratts.
Instead of a lower middle-class family of women living together in a mansion they’d inherited years ago that they could barely afford. Heather’s family struggled to pay their way in one of the richest neighborhoods in the state. Maybe that was it?
Cinderellas living amongst theprinces?
The Colesons had come from millions through Heather’s father, lost those millions in mysterious ways, and were trying to claw their way back to the top? Or were imposters amongst the elites? There had even been rumors, he’d heard from Gunnar, that the beautiful Colesons were in Hughes Heights trying to catchwealthyhusbands or something. Powell had heard that specifically. From what Dom understood, Powell had rather exploded at the person responsible for that one.
The media fascination with Heather’s family just didn’t make a damned lot of sense.
It would. Eventually.
Dom was going to see to it.
