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They climbed out of the van, after turning the emergency flashers on. And started toward the patrol car. They’d check in with Detective Naylor. See what the situation was. They’d go from there. Madison would admit it. Detective Naylor being there helped.
She would never feel fully safe around the TSP again.
Maybe she should leave. Take a job at the private DNA lab that Houghton Barratt owned. He’d offered her a job before. She would think about it seriously. But right now, she couldn’t leave Haldyn in the lurch. Not with Charlotte out more than she was in lately. She knew Charlotte felt incredibly guilty as it was. But Madison and Bailey and Haldyn had teamed up—they weren’t telling Charlotte how tight things were getting at the lab right now. They just weren’t. Charlotte would come running back in a heartbeat if she thought she was leaving her friends floundering.
Giving up her dreams in the process.
Well, Madison wasn’t going to let that happen.
Hope stopped walking. Gasped. Pointed. “Mads.”
Madison followed her gaze. And saw. On the ground.
Brett. He was down. She didn’t stop to think, she just ran to him.
And dropped to her knees. Her fingers went to his neck. To see.
Thank God he was still alive. Still breathing. His beautiful green eyes opened. “Madison. Run…trap…Joey…trait?—”
Something slammed into her from the side. Sending Madison flailing. To the ground. “Hello, Madi. See you’ve come to party. I’ve been waiting to have fun with you for a long, long time.”
Madison screamed when his hands came at her. She clawed her way across the ground. She looked up.
Into Joey Costovia’s face. And that was when she remembered him looking at her that way once before. But he’d had a mask on that day. And a stolen gun in his hand. “It was you!”
“Better believe it, babe. I’ve been waiting to teach good old Dom a lesson forever. You’ve always been the perfect way.” He knocked her to the ground. Just as another man came out of the darkness. “I’m going to enjoy tonight so much.”
73
Haldyn was trying not to panic. Her face burned where Detective Bell had hit her. She knew. She knew Detective Kimball had run over Detective Bell. Had shot him.
Detective Bell was probably dead.
She bit back the nausea. Tried to force herself to sit up. Detective Kimball had locked the doors—with child locks on. She couldn’t get out of the SUV. She would have to think. She felt for her phone.
But it wasn’t in her pocket. She’d dropped it. It had been in her hand when Bell had struck her. She’d dropped it. She didn’t wear a smart watch. With the tiny print on those, she couldn’t see them. And she liked the watch Daniel had given her for her thirtieth birthday. He’d had it engraved with a few lines from her favorite poem. About hope. It was Emily Dickinson, and about hope.
She reached for the tracking bracelet. Jarrod could track her. If he knew she was in trouble. Jarrod could track her. She just had to push the distress pattern in.
Kimball followed her movement, focused on the bracelet. Like… “Take off that bracelet, Hallie girl. The one that billionaire gave you. I know what it does. I was a part of the Eastman case, too, remember? Know all about those bracelets and tags.”
He knew.
He had a gun. He had killed a man. And he had abducted her before. She hadn’t taken that bracelet off except once to charge it since Zoey had shown her how it worked that first day.
Haldyn pressed in the first of the distress pattern before he yanked it out of her hand.
“I am not going to hurt you.” But he rolled the window down and threw the bracelet out. “You drop your phone back there?”
“Yes. What…what are you going to do?” She wouldn’t ask about the other abduction. Or the choir hall. But she knew—he had been the man who had driven the van that day. “What is this about?”
“I think…it is about redemption. Cleaning some of the blood off my soul.”
He sounded so sad. So broken. Haldyn didn’t know if that terrified her more or not. “Whose blood, detective?”
He had always just been there. A reminder of her father mostly. They’d been partners for most of Haldyn’s childhood. One of her dad’s friends. Who had scared her so much. They’d been the ones with power, after all.
But now, he didn’t look so powerful.
