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“You’d better believe it. As soon as you are out of here, you aren’t getting away from me again.”
Haldyn reached for him. Jarrod wrapped his fingers around hers.
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
Jarrod leaned forward. Kissed her one more time. “Get some rest. I’m not going anywhere.”
EPILOGUE
Jarrod lifted his little rabbit into his arms and carried her up the ramp into the belly of the castle. He could have used a wheelchair, but he wanted to carry her. Be all hero-y for her. Mostly because she’d teased him and challenged him in the car about that very thing. With that snotty little look she was the queen of.
She’d been in the hospital for three days. Most of that time, she’d just slept. He’d stayed in that room almost the entire time, just leaving long enough to go back to the castle and shower. He was on leave, whether Major Crimes liked it or not.
His first priority was her.
Daniel’s first priority was finding the fifth man. The final man who had been involved in the choir hall shooting. Sol Kimball had said that it had all been to send a message. That the people in Wichita Falls wanted to hurt the people in Major Crimes however they could.
Well, they’d done that now. It was as good as a declaration.
Major Crimes wasn’t taking the threat lying down.
They were digging through what Kimball had had in his house. Dom had found it himself. They didn’t have all the answers. They probably wouldn’t for a long time.
Jarrod knew the truth—until they broke the case, identified everyone involved—no one was truly safe. They were coming up with a plan to keep their families as safe as they possibly could. Jarrod didn’t fully know what was going to happen.
Major Crimes wasn’t going to stop now. No matter what.
He had Haldyn back where she was going to stay the next six weeks until she was given the all-clear to go back to work. The lab was just going to have to find a way to function without her.
Charlotte had come almost running back the day after the shooting. She and Madison and Bailey were going to run the lab until Haldyn returned. Rory had agreed to come back on a part-time basis, until Hope was back on the job, too.
Their little Hope-gremlin, she had gotten lucky. She hadn’t bled to death out there—a fact attributed to Handy Handley Barratt who had come in surprisingly handy again. And the doctors had found the malfunctioning whatever-it-was in her heart. Apparently, an incomplete something left over from heart surgery when she’d been in kindergarten. Jarrod wasn’t exactly up on the technical details. He just knew she was going to get better. The doctors had fixed it before it became a major issue.
Their little gremlin was going to be okay.
It was Heather who concerned him the most. The morning after the shooting, Heather and Daniel had argued about what would happen next with her. Heather had ended up on two weeks paid suspension or family leave or whatever they were officially calling it for what she had apparently said to Daniel.
Which had completely pissed off the rest of Major Crimes—at Daniel. Including pissing off one giant of a man named Miguel Rodriguez, who had been heard actually shouting in Daniel’s office. But Daniel was standing firm.
Heather was out—for two weeks. He’d conceded on the paid part of things after pressure from the rest of them. No one wanted Heather punished right now.
Jarrod didn’t understand what Daniel was thinking. That woman had been through enough hell. All Daniel would say was that she needed some time off to think. To rest. He was making her take it. Whether she liked it or not.
Jarrod hoped the break helped her. Heather had been through hell—and she didn’t need to be at the TSP with all the damned rumors and speculation floating around now. She would end up tainted by Wilson’s actions. He wasn’t stupid. Rumors out of Wichita Falls were already coming out about Heather. Things Jarrod knew to be blatantly untrue.
It was something someone at Wichita Falls was doing deliberately.
There would be a lot of digging into the TSP posts now. In both Finley Creek and Wichita Falls. Probably everywhere. Jarrod didn’t know what was going to happen—with the TSP.
With his queen, though, they were going to decide what happened together.
They were both clear on that.
Jarrod wasn’t ever letting her go.
He carried her inside to the large family room where everyone always seemed to gather in the castle. Her little buddy Powell was right there. The lady demons were waiting, of course.
Jarrod knew how this would work. He stood there, let them swarm him like they had Gunnar that first time. And he waited, staying absolutely still so they didn’t sting him, until they finished. He lowered her to the couch and covered her with the blanket. “Stay here and be good, little rabbit.”
