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“Why did she buy Scott’s place?”
Victor Scott’s place was where Shelby had almost died. The TSP had searched it after, but they hadn’t found much to help them going forward. Haldyn had always feared they had missed something there. Something vital.
“We’re going to tear it apart, looking for anything we missed before. And then…she’s going to have that construction firm her brother Mac is a silent partner in bulldoze it to the ground. Her cousin Kingsley runs it. He’s going to do the demolition free of charge, in exchange for getting to scavenge the building materials and furniture. Nothing of that bastard’s evil is going to remain when she’s finished.”
Okay. So Gunnar’s little rabbit was apparently crazy.
Victor Scott’s property was valued at a cool five million. Yes, Powell Barratt had that kind of money—she was phenomenally good at investments, Jarrod had heard before, especially real estate—but to drop five million just to destroy a property? “Is she insane? Just tell me that much?”
“No. She and Shelby are in it together. And so is Zoey’s brother Luc. We want it destroyed. None of us want a family to live there. It needs to be destroyed.”
There was emotion in her voice. He cupped her cheek in his hand. She had the softest skin. He wanted to just touch her everywhere.
“Shel and Zo and Mads and Char want it, too. We’ve all agreed on that.”
“But you think there are things hidden there. And you are going to, what, reprocess the place?” The enormity of that task hit him. It could take them days, weeks possibly, to tear that place apart again. And they’d been thorough before—he didn’t know what those crazy demon forensics women were expecting to find.
“That’s exactly what we are doing. Since we own it now, we don’t have to follow the constraints of a warrant this time. We’re also going to box up those monsters’ valuables and sell them. Or give them away. We’re donating the money to the crime victims’ fund and children’s charities in Finley Creek. We all came up with a plan, and voted on it. We’ve decided we are going to make something good come out of that place, somehow. And we are going to do it together. Powell was in charge of buying it—I’m going to be in charge of going through it with a fine-tooth comb.”
“What do you really think you’ll find there, babe?”
“There are still men out there who were associates of Victor Scott. Men who shot some of my best friends in the world. You boys in Major Crimes aren’t the only ones who haven’t given up on finding the shooters, you know. You can count on that.”
Jarrod just stared at her. “Did you think to inform anyone of this? Does Danny boy know what his little pal Hallie is up to?”
He seriously doubted that Daniel did know about this. Or that doofus would have been right there reading the good doc the riot act. Keeping her and her gal pals away from Scott’s place, no matter what. Locking Haldyn up in Barratt’s castle for life, if he had to, digging a moat, and filling it with crocodiles to keep her in—and the bad guys out.
Daniel did like to do things thoroughly, after all. Hell, Jarrod would help buy the crocodiles. Jarrod wanted his woman protected, by whatever means necessary. Even if that just meant protecting her from the hurts of life when he could.
“This was a private decision. Powell was buying it anyway. She’d already signed the papers. Shelby and Zo’s brother offered to help with the purchase price when they learned. Mads, Char and I pitched in some of our savings, too. We want it destroyed forever.”
Victor Scott’s place was the place of Jarrod’s nightmares. After the concert hall shooting where Madison, Charlotte, and Zoey were injured, Shelby had been dragged out of the concert hall and given to Victor Scott. Drugged and hurt, taken to that damned house. For cold hard cash.
Jake, along with Dom and Gunnar, had stormed the place and rescued Jake’s woman.
Jarrod had been at the shooting scene while that had been happening. Guarding over the forensics team there that night. Including the queen of evidence in front of him. He would never forget Haldyn’s face as she’d processed her closest friends’ blood that night.
He would never forget that night. None of them would.
Haldyn was supposed to have been there in that choir hall, intending to work the ticket stand. But a cold case had suddenly heated up, and Daniel had stopped off at her place and brought her in to the TSP with him. Powell had been supposed to be there, too, but she’d gotten a call from a client that day.
Just that coincidental. Random quirks of fate. It gave him chills even to think about what could have happened to these two beautiful, amazing, maddening women who had him and Gunnar all tied up in knots now.
“Shelby and Zo and Mads and Char—they want to be there when it’s torn down. We all do. Hope agreed to help today so she could be fresh eyes and another set of hands, while Charlotte is in Wyoming.”
“For closure?” Hell, he could understand that, at least. That shooting had changed them all. Had made the men of major crimes even more protective of their ladies of the lab. And more protective of each other. They were brothers. They had each other’s backs.
Had Lila and Heather’s now, too. Even if those wickedly wonderful women didn’t quite understand that yet. They’d figure it out eventually.
“Answers. So they can get on with their lives. Especially now.” She looked out the window. Jarrod studied her. She had that classically perfect profile. He could see her as a Greek statue of a goddess, with the upswept strawberry-blond hair, delicate features and perfect, pale creamy skin. Skin that made a man want to press his lips right there along her neck and just taste her. See if she tasted like soft cream.
Peaches and cream, that was what it was called.
Everything about that woman looked perfect for a man to touch. Perfect.
Haldyn didn’t say another word. He watched her check her watch about fifteen times. She was nervous. She just wasn’t letting him see. Or so she thought.
Anxious. The woman fidgeted more when she was anxious. How often had he seen how fidgety she was and been irritated at her for it?
