She was terrified it would be someone she loved.
Dom was staring at her. In that particular way he had that had always driven her crazy. He was…seriously beyond hot.
He was tall and strong and muscled. Very well-muscled. Her major pain was just as well put together as the rest of his little caveman posse and everything.
He was just so…so…Dominic Acardi.He had always driven her insane.
From the moment they had met when she was first on the job. She’d been twenty-two then. Things hadn’t exactly gotten better since. “So…why are you here?”
Madison resisted the urge to pull the shorts she was wearing down an inch. To grab a blanket from the couch and wrap up in it. Because he waslookingat her again. And that made her tingly in all the places she wasn’t going to talk about. She was not going to get distracted by Dom now. It just wasn’t going to happen.
“We need to talk.”
Imagine that. Grumbly caveman shows up at her door—to talk. Well, to grumble. But…Dom wouldn’t just be here for no reason. If it had something to do with her family—he would have already said so. So…that just left…TSP business. Not like he’d be there to just spend time withher.
Madison scared him too much for that.
“My regular hours are ten to six, Sunday through Thursday. Please send an email or leave me a voice mail.” Keeping this man out of her turf was one of her life’s ambitions. That whole avoid-the-tinglies she had going on now and everything. “I’m off the clock. Not on call tonight, either, for once.”
And she’d been so busy running the lab, she hadn’t been able to work on the case she really wanted to.
“Don’t be cute. You know it’ll turn me on.”
He said things like that when they were alone—just to get her all fired up. Because he was a jerk like that. “So why have you invaded?”
“Favor. For Rodriguez. And…something we heard today.”
Okay, that had her straightening and feeling a littlelessinvaded. It was work-related.
Of course it was—Dom was nothing if not a workaholic. The only thing the man really did was work, work, work, spendsometime with his father and Max and Madison’s own mother, then work, work, work until he dropped.
Most of Major Crimes had been that way lately. As had the lab.
She resisted the urge to feel concerned for the man. That wasn’t her job. She wasn’t going to let herself worry about him. It just wasn’t going to happen.
Madison was guilty of working too much herself. Since…what had happened with Wilson, especially.
The world was a darker place now in Finley Creek. And they were all just thrown out in the dark of the night. With no…hope. She was really trying to not keep feeling that way. But every day…it got darker here. It just did. She fought looking toward the window.
It just feltevilout there tonight.
“The Ahumada case.”
Which…brought things around: Miguel Rodriguez.
Hope had had a vague connection to the teenage victim in that case, and it had been eating at her. That was what Hope had been working on before she had been shot that night.
With Miguel. The man who hadarrestedHope during his initial investigation that day.
Everyone was gossiping like crazy about Miguel…
And Hope’s sister,Heather.
Not exactly fair—Heather couldn’t currently refute any rumors right now. She was still in ICU last Madison had heard, but she thought someone had said Heather had wakened again. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a missing necklace. Hope said it should be in evidence. And it isn’t. Sixteen-year-old kid, ruled as gang-related homicide. Thought it was an OD until he was on the table. Stabbed. Unique knick in the knife. I had Daryn do some digging. She found the original autopsy reports. They donotmatch what I got from MacGregor. And he’s claiming ignorance about why.”
“Sure. In Finley Creek. The only gangs around here I’m sure of are the ones who wear the business suits and sit on the city council.” Fact. She’d processed the attempted murder scene herself at the deputy mayor’s house a while back.
