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“Don’t anybody move!” Sol fired one round, toward the damned van where he’d parked it. He didn’t want to actually hurt anybody. Hallie screamed. Sol pointed the gun back at her. She was still on the ground, too close to that damned Wilson.
She was pressing against the wounds on that bastard’s chest. Trying to keep that pig shit alive. Because she was good, that way.
The sight of that bastard’s blood all over Gordon’s little girl just pissed Sol off even more. He grabbed little Hallie and pulled her back to her feet. Pulled her closer. Held her close, feeling the way she just shook and shook against him. “You aren’t sullying your hands with the likes of him, honey. He’s not worth your time, Hallie girl. Not for a moment. You deserve better than to ever have to touch scum like that. Your boyfriend and his pals from Major Crimes will be here shortly, I’m sure. As soon as MacNamara’s niece calls that uncle of hers. I saw her run back inside; her husband was right on her tail. Probably calling MacNamara on his cell right now. This will be all over once McKellen and Foster get here. I promise.”
That’s what he’d do. He’d just stay right there, until Foster got there to take care of Hallie himself.
He looked at the older couple who were watching them now.
Madison’s mother. Hell, she looked just like her sweet little daughter. This was not going how he had planned.
“Don’t move, Acardi. Just don’t move.” But maybe it was right. Madison’s mother. Lake’s brother. Heather’s sisters. People who deserved answers. Or could give the answers to the ones who deserved them most. Another thought occurred to him. “Take off your holster. I know you are armed. I’m not stupid.”
Acardi did what he was told, looking a damned lot like his son. His son was a good man. A good cop. Had a sense of honor. Sol respected that boy. In a fight, Dom Acardi was one a man wanted at his back.
“What’s going on here, Detective Kimball, isn’t it?” Acardi moved, right in front of his wife. Protecting her, the way a man, a husband, should.
“I had to fix some things I’d done. I couldn’t let them hurt the girls any longer, Acardi. I just couldn’t let them be hurt any longer for money, for drugs. That fucking OPJ took my little girl two months ago. Eighteen years old—three days shy of her nineteenth actually. I put her in the ground on her birthday. How’s that for sick irony? Her name was Maribeth Hope Kimball. She loved to skateboard. Lived for it. From about the time she was ten or so. She had a poster of little Hope Coleson in her bedroom. Autographed. That poster still hangs there. And HHC stickers are everywhere in her room. All I have left of that kid is in that room.”
He looked back at Heather’s twin. She was just watching him now. “You make sure someone finds that poster, you hear me? Madison or Heather or Lake’s wife, even. Over what was once my Maribeth’s bed. It’s only right. I didn’t put it together at first, until I saw little Hope at that barbecue at the Barratts, in her skater clothes. She looked just like my kid in those damned overalls and that hat. That damned slouchy hat, with HHC on it. Maribeth wanted one just like it because Horrible Hope always wore one.”
He remembered that hat. Searching online for a hat just like that.
“My niece Summer knits them by hand. Hope still has a great deal of fans. She still skates competitively occasionally. They buy them from her website. She donates most of the profit to youth shelters.”
“I got my girl one of those hats for Christmas when she was fifteen or so. Little Hope was Maribeth’s hero, honey. Maribeth idolized her. Fixed her hair the same, wore the same style of clothes. Everything. She really looked up to little Hope. I wasn’t going to let those damned pushers of that drug hurt Hope, too. Just as a damned statement. They were going after the techs tonight to kill them, to send a message back to Major Crimes. That was it. To thumb their damned noses at the TSP. Hope and Madison. They were going to really hurt those girls first. But I stopped them.”
He looked at Acardi and Lake right there. They…they were there for a reason. Someone had put them there so they could hear what he had to say. So…he could make a difference. Protect the good for once.
Hell, maybe it was even his Maribeth pulling strings from above or something. To help her old man clear his soul of those sins of his. He’d almost believe anything tonight.
He pulled little Hallie closer, hearing her whimper when he touched her too hard. Bruised and hurting now—poor kid. She’d been through enough hell, too. Well, it was almost over. “They were going to kill those two girls out there tonight, just to jab at McKellen and Major Crimes like that. Like they were at war or something. Even called it that. War. I wasn’t going to let that happen to those girls. I wasn’t.”
He couldn’t help himself. He pressed a kiss to Hallie’s temple. She’d been such a sweet little girl. She deserved to have a life, a family, of her own someday. Maybe with that boyfriend of hers. If Foster got his act together. He was a good man, Foster. He’d treat her right. They should get married, have three or four beautiful kids of their own. “I just couldn’t let them die to be a statement or something. I just wasn’t going to let those bastards keep hurting people. Especially those girls out there tonight. They were so damned defenseless.”
“Who are the pushers of that drug? What do you know about what they did before?” Lake asked. Smart one, that one. No surprise. His brother was a damned fine cop, too. Even if he was a total pain in the ass.
“I didn’t shoot those girls that night. You make sure that’s known, Lake. You tell them that. Your brother’s wife and her friends. I didn’t know they were going to do that. I didn’t know they were going to shoot those girls until they came running out with MacNamara’s woman and told me to drive.”
“But you were involved,” Acardi said. Sol heard the anger. He understood. A father was supposed to protect his daughter. “Weren’t you?”
“I just drove the damned van. They were supposed to scare them, that was all. Send a message to Fields. That was it. I didn’t know they were going to try to kill them like that. And that whole ransoming MacNamara’s woman like that? I had no clue until they were dragging her out. And I couldn’t exactly stop it. They knew about my little girl, you see. I had to play ball, or I knew they’d hurt her to get at me.”
“Why did they do it?” Lake again. He was blocking those two little dolls, now. Pretty, pretty girls. So sweet and delicate looking. The four nurses that had been closest to the door were gone now. Sol had seen them running back in a side entrance to the hospital. Hospital shouldn’t have unlocked the doors. Not in a lockdown/gunman situation, but what were they supposed to do—leave those girls outside and helpless, unprotected? Hell, no. He wouldn’t have either.
Now it was just Hope’s family. Madison’s. And Lake’s brother. He wasn’t lost to the irony of that now. The little blonde was watching him closely. From those dark, dark eyes of hers.
“Hell, they all do have Heather’s eyes, don’t they?” Sol pulled little Hallie closer. His hand tangled in the silk of her hair. “Hope, too. Your brother’s wife, too. I had to shoot Wilson. I had to.”
“Why?” Acardi again. The man was one cagey son of a bitch. But he’d listen—and he’d remember—to tell that boy of his exactly what Sol needed Major Crimes to know.
“He had his hands around little Hope’s throat tonight, Acardi. Saying he was going to actually kill her this time. He was ripping her clothes off her. He was taunting her, telling her that Heather wasn’t there with a gun to the back of his head to stop him tonight. Not this time. He said Heather couldn’t stop him this time.” Sol fought the urge to kick Wilson right there at his feet.
“He hurt my sister before.”
He could see the realization in her face at what had happened.
“He hurt both of them, before, honey. And he is a big bastard, I couldn’t take him down in a hand-to-hand. I wouldn’t be able to protect the girls if I lost. He said he was going to finish what he started with little Hope months ago. The bullet struck little Hope, too. Wilson, Costovia, Bell, Callahan. They shot those girls—your girl. Charlie’s. That Zoey Daviess. Moving that fucking drug around like it was breath mints, not caring who got hurt by it. Until it was my girl who took it and died. Mine. Heather—why did she choose this bastard? She could have any man she ever wanted. Why him?”
