And…she had her own server now. A separate one she had toldno oneabout.
She wasn’t going to ever trust anyone in the TSP with the evidence. There would always be backups of what she was doing. Just in case.
Now…she was going over everything she’d gotten from Hope’s laptop. Maybe she shouldn’t have done it, but when Hope had been in the hospital, she’d…accessed…the other woman’s system. She didn’t regret it, either. Hopehadgiven her the password, just…to use if Hope didn’t survive.
What Hope had found…it was sticking in the back of Madison’s head for some reason.
But what Hope had found…Madison wasmissing something.What Hope had found added sixteenmore names to Madison’s particular list. Over the span of five years. Including a handful of names of people she knew personally.
Officer Kelsie Royce, who had been killed by a goon associated with Councilman Dennis Lee Arnold several years ago had been on that list. Royce had been a recent transplant to Finley Creek. Madison had liked her a great deal. Kelsie had only worked in Finley Creek for a handful of weeks.
Another man listed in Hope’s files had been at the TSP when Madison had first hired on. He and his wife and teenage son had been killed in a house fire six months later. But that case had been closed; she was sure of it. Bad wiring. She was sure she’d heard it was the wiring back then.
Now, she wasn’t so sure at all. He was listed as one of the names Hope had found. Names with questions.
She was going to have to do some deep digging. And eventually, talk to their Cold Case division—aka Jarrod andHeather. Jarrod was back at work now, after taking time off to be with Haldyn.
Heather…well, no one knew what was going to happen with Heather. Not yet.
No one had said if Heather had awakened enough to be fully interviewed yet. All Madison had heard was that antibiotics were showing promising results, though Heather would probably be pretty weak for a long time to come. But whether she’d actually wakened—no one was saying yet.
No one had found Timothy Grundenman’s daughter, either. That little girl with Hope’s face was still out there somewhere. Waiting for someone to help her. Madison just knew it.
People were looking for her. Missing Persons had taken lead on finding her, in connection with Major Crimes. It just wasn’t happening quickly.
The men who had hurt so many people, so many cops,if it was all connected, they wouldn’t care about one little bitty girl with no one but Timothy Grundenman to protect her. Not with everything else Major Crimes was juggling. They were looking for her, but they could only do so much. If they found Timothy, they would find his daughter.
Heather’s nieces had shown up at the precinct today, while Madison was in talking to Jake after court had ended about results that were inconclusive on another case—Summer, Samia, Eden, Cashlyn, Cara and Crispin. Madison had been in there when Dom and Jarrod and Jake were…confronted.
The Colesons wantedanswers.
Madison had heard Cashlyn threaten to get out there and hunt for that innocent child herself if Dom didn’t get his beautiful, sexy ass in gear. And she’d take all of her coven sisters—and all of their little friends—with her to do it. She’d threatened Dom with, as she’d said, “oodles of Coleson Chaos” if he didn’t get busy. She’d informed Dom and Jake they just didnot know what Cashlyn or her sisters weretrulycapable of when they were angry. And they were getting very, very angry that their baby sister was still missing.
Murdoch had been listening and had choked so hard Lila had had to pound on his back and threaten the Heimlich or something. Murdoch had informed Cashlyn hedidin fact know what women like Cashlyn and her sisters were capable of. Considering he lived with three of Cashlyn’s sisters now, and everything.
Madison thought Cashlyn meant it. Dom had acted a bit…freaked…to be confronted byallof them that way. They had even hadBrianna Claireson,Grundenman’s eldest daughter, with them. That was enough to scare anyone.
That little girl was innocent of her father’s sins, Cashlyn had said. Completely innocent.
It was always the innocent who paid the biggest price in rich men’s wars. Rich men’s crimes.
Loose end. That’s what they all were. Madison was well aware of that now.
It was why she had a security system that wasn’t even on the market installed. She owned her townhouse. No one was going to get in to spray for insects or inspect or anything like that without her planning it herself. Houghton and Melody Barratt had made sure she was as safe as she could be in her home. Houghton owned the entire complex. She’d purchased her unit from him directly.
This was as safe as she was going to get short of a bomb going off. She’d already lived that experience. She had been in the cafeteria that morning when the lab had disintegrated. She would never forget.
She was starting to think what had happened back then was connectednow,too. That maybe…they hadn’t gotten everyone who was out there.
The men who had bombed the TSP forensics lab—they weren’t acting alone back then. She was one hundred percent convinced that—and everything that had happened since—was a part of something much larger. Much more…evil. She just didn’t know how to figure outwho.
But she wasn’t going to give up trying.
Hope’s notes…that’s where the real answers hid. Madison just knew it.
She had her whiteboard in the dining room again. She was making notes when someone pounded on her door. Her phone buzzed with a text.
She grabbed the phone quickly, as she headed to the door. If someone…evil…was at her door tonight, she wanted to be able to call for help as quickly as possible. Madison would never take her own safety for granted again.
