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Haldyn met him in the hall, next to where the guard should have been posted. Some of his fear lessened. There she was. He’d been afraid of what he’d find. “What’s going on?”
Lila was there. She met him in the hall, just as two more bodies came in behind him. Dom and Daniel. She filled them all in quickly. “Guard is missing. So is the tech assigned to this shift. Signs of a scuffle outside of the firearms lock up. I wasn’t going in without backup, and I wanted Dr. Harris out of here, first.”
Jarrod thought that was a damned good idea. He wrapped his hand around her elbow and guided her to one side.
“I’m going to be here. A.J. is one of mine.” She had that stubborn look in those big blues again. “If…she’s hurt, I’m going to be here. No matter what.”
Daniel tried to say something. Haldyn shot him a quelling look.
They didn’t have time to argue.
Jarrod made an executive decision. He kept guiding her to one side—right behind Daniel’s much larger body. “You two, stay put. I’m going in with Dodson. Dom, bring up the rear.”
Daniel tried to protest again. Jarrod cut him off. But technically Daniel was the man in charge.
“You don’t have your weapon, man. Stay put. Keep the doc out of the way.” Daniel would kill with his bare hands to protect her—Jarrod wasn’t stupid. He wanted her far away from what was going down. Fast.
“Wait. You’ll need this.” Haldyn held out her key card to him. “The code is…1124. Powell’s birthday.”
His fingers covered hers. He could see the fear, the worry, in her eyes. But there wasn’t time to reassure her.
A.J. Callum, his buddy Sean Callum’s wife and his buddy Mike Evers’s baby sister, was missing. Every instinct Jarrod had told him she was in trouble.
Jarrod followed Lila, Dom on his heels.
22
Sol had followed the crowd. He’d seen the expression on little Madison McAlister’s pretty face. Something was happening. Someone in the building was in trouble. Most likely it was downstairs in the lab, that was where the girl spent ninety-five percent of her time, after all.
He looked at the girl. Her eyes were as wide as damned saucers, light brown and innocent behind her glasses. She always struck him as a bit of the naive, innocent type, that girl. Quiet, sweet, and a little nerdy. She was the kind of woman a man should protect from the darker kinds of things that were out there. “You stay here. Don’t leave Major Crimes until someone comes for you, honey. Stay up here out of the way.”
“We don’t know what happened to the guard,” she said, panic on her face.
Hell, she looked so young and scared right now. Sol wrapped his hand around her elbow and squeezed. To help her know she wasn’t alone.
“There is supposed to be a guard on the door to the vault, but he was gone. And we can’t find A.J.”
“I’ll get down there, kiddo. See if I can help.”
He headed downstairs. Sol had his weapon—he wasn’t stupid. He never went anywhere without it now—even in this damned building. The lab was one floor down and at the opposite end of the hallway, behind two shatterproof glass doors. Doors that were wide open now.
McKellen was there, in the entrance to the vault. He had little Hallie backed into a corner. For cover. Sol knew that with one look. His eyes met McKellen’s. “What in the hell’s going on? Doc Harris okay?”
There was no time for an answer.
Someone called from the back of the locker. “Scene’s clear, but we need paramedics!”
Jarrod Foster showed up in the door to the damned firearms room, a young woman held in his arms. McKellen pulled his phone and called for responders.
Hell. It was that pregnant tech. Callum’s wife. “What in the hell happened to her? Something with her baby?”
“She’s good. Just a bit in shock. But the guard’s down. He’s taken a hard hit to the head. I don’t know if he’ll…pull through.” Foster’s tone was grim. Sol’s stomach clenched. He knew what that meant.
“Let’s get A.J. upstairs.” McKellen still had his phone out. Texting the girl’s husband, no doubt.
Sol looked at her, seeing the signs of shock. There was blood on the girl’s shirt. Blood on a pregnant woman. Nothing sickened him more. He bit back the bile. Checked if the blood was…lower. “Hell. She should have been safe in the damned building. What in the f—” He cut off the curse. Little Hallie was looking at him right now. He coughed. “What’s going on around this place?”
“That’s a question I’d like to answer,” McKellen said. Gordon’s girl headed toward the gun vault, as Foster carried the little evidence tech toward the doors.
