Chapter 82

82

Gunnar had been working for almost three days straight just to fall in bed at the Castle—and wrap himself around the woman who mattered most. Holding her the way he had imagined for so long. He never wanted to let her go.

He was back in the bullpen again. In front of a trio of whiteboards. He saw it all in red and purple ink. In Jarrod's distinctive scrawl. Connections were starting to fall in place. Gunnar was putting things together. Things that he had to admit made little sense to him at all.

He waited until he and Daniel were behind closed doors. It was time to figure this out. Figure out Timothy and Trey Grundenman. Make those bastards pay for the hurt they had caused.

"So…Jarrod's theory, at first, I thought he was pulling shit from thin air, damned conspiracy theorist that he is. I swear he probably believes in little gray men or something." Daniel studied the whiteboard behind his desk.

"Maybe they'll go to Roswell for their honeymoon. Or check out Area 51." Jarrod had already popped the question. Haldyn had said yes—as if there was ever any doubt. Gunnar had been one of the first ones to know. He was going to be doing best man duty in the near future. Powell was going to be the seriously sexy maid of honor. He had great plans for after the ceremony.

Those two weren't wasting any more time. Jarrod had made that clear.

Well, Gunnar understood that. He was done wasting time with the woman he loved too. Life was too short for that.

Daniel circled something else on the board.

Gunnar recognized everything as what Jarrod had been working on before Haldyn had been abducted the first time. They needed the cases Heather and Miguel had worked together—whenever Wilson would show up to target Heather again. Those might just be the missing key.

"I don't think he is seeing things that aren't there now. I think someone out there is running a damned ring around Wichita Falls and Finley Creek, and I think they have been for a long time." Daniel paused a moment. He looked rough. Tired. Angry. "And somehow…the Colesons are involved. Probably unwittingly, considering what has happened to them. But that family of beautiful beasts might just have the answers we've been looking for. Somewhere."

"But what kind of secrets are they keeping that would lead to this ? And do they even have a clue?" Gunnar couldn't imagine they did. They were exactly who they appeared to be. Kind, loving, and loyal—willing to do whatever it took for the ones that they cared about. He would stake his life on that.

"Or is Bonnie really just innocent collateral, who somehow just got stuck with all of the girls when life hit the fan?" Daniel asked.

"I don't think she'd consider it just being stuck, Dan," Gunnar told him, irked at the words for reasons he couldn't explain. The Colesons weren't stuck together at all. They were blessed to have each other. But Daniel didn't seem to get that. Family wasn't exactly Daniel's thing.

"That's not what I mean, and you know it. Is it possible Bonnie Coleson knows more about what was going on? Do you believe they just didn't talk to Zoey's mother for decades? Or do you think Davis Lucas is right? And the brother-in-law just went bad suddenly? Or do you think there is a possibility Heather's father was involved all along? Maybe his death wasn't an accident."

"What do you think it was? A damned hit?" Gunnar felt sick even thinking about it. Heather's family had that man on a pedestal. He hadn't missed that.

"Maybe Dr. Andrew Coleson was involved—and his pals turned on him. We've seen it before."

"Eastman, Claireson, Hennedys, Albright, Rush, Russell, Handley Barratt, Arnold, and the Scotts." Gunnar looked at the names written in Jarrod's distinctive scrawl. "They connect together. How?"

"Money, for one thing. Those names are all very high up the rich people of Finley Creek ladder. My gut says organized crime ring. But that can be anything going on that we don't know about yet." Daniel turned back to the board. He wrote another name on the list. Grundenman .

Then another: Coleson.

He drew a line to connect them.

"Wilson was a supervisor of some sort. Upper level. Kimball was clear that there was a hierarchy in place and had been for decades. Wilson and his pals weren't old enough to have started this." Kimball had made it clear that night in the FCGH parking lot. "We were lucky. Heather's niece pulling her phone and recording everything that was said that night is damned strong evidence that Jarrod was right."

Cashlyn, Samia, and Joy—along with Dr. Anthony Lake, Murdoch's twin brother—had been among a handful of hospital personnel stuck in the parking lot when Sol Kimball had made his confession. Cashlyn had recorded everything Sol Kimball had said on her cell phone.

She'd turned that recording over to her brother-in-law—Murdoch—almost immediately after. Where it had been transcribed and entered into evidence as quickly as the forensics techs could make it happen. Almost everything that had happened before Daniel and the rest had gotten there that night. And Kimball had had a lot to say.

It was solid evidence against Steve Wilson, for a start—and the men involved in the choir hall shooting. They just had to keep tying everything together. To substantiate Kimball's words. "It gave us a direction to go in."

"I have photocopies of Kimball's shift logs. Man kept records of everything he did on the job for twenty-plus years, Gun. Hell, if he had focused on being good at what he did—he would have been a better cop than he ever was. He was…wasted. He's a damned tragedy. No denying that." Daniel's disgust was hard to miss.

Gunnar echoed it. What had happened to Sol Kimball was a tragedy. "It was of his own making. I'm just glad he grew a damned conscience at the end."

"He didn't have a conscience—unless it was a guilty one. Had Hope not looked so much like his daughter, Hope, Haldyn, and Madison would probably be dead right now. Probably Heather too."

Well, Gunnar agreed with that. He tried to put his anger with Daniel away. To use the man's skills to help end this once and for all. Something Heather and Miguel had said about the timing of events around little Emilia's birth had stood out to him. "I don't think Wilson's later attacks on Heather were based on a sexual obsession with Heather either. At least not fully—it might have just been an easily visible motivator. What if it was something deeper than that? A way to control her, more than anything. I think it was his method of keeping her out of the way. Protecting his interests by directly attacking her and chasing her off. She said every major case she was working right before Wilson would attack was drug-related. I really want to look at those cases as soon as I can."

"What if OPJ goes back a bit further than we realized? And Heather was just a few steps away from discovering it multiple times?"

"She said he left her alone for almost two years after he beat her when she was pregnant with her older girl. We can safely assume he didn't want parenthood and was avoiding that—maybe avoiding paying punitive support, that kind of thing. But within a few weeks of her having unknowing contact with Grundenman, and Wilson showed back up in her life to harass and hurt her again? And took his harassment one step further? I don't buy that was coincidence at all. He was controlling and torturing his enemy, using the weapon that was the most damaging to her specifically—and isolating her from her only avenues of help. He was sadistic. It was another volley in this war. As for Kimball and Wilson, now, I have no sympathy for either of them."

If this was war those bastards responsible for all of this wanted, well, it was war they were going to get. Gunnar was finished screwing around.

It was time to go on the offense. Daniel and Elliot's soft-footing wasn't getting them anywhere.

It was time to be proactive instead of reactive here.

"Neither do I. I'm not going to let what Kimball gave us go to waste. We have a hierarchy in place, established. Camels—drivers are called camels. Then, there were supervisors. Kimball called Wilson a distribution captain. That implies there is definitely an organized aspect to it. Kimball said Wilson was connected to the Scotts. I'm still looking for that connection. But where?" Gunnar asked. "We have everything on the Scotts. The connections just aren't showing up. I swear we've built a damned family tree—and I have nothing."

"Kimball said the TSP are foot soldiers. But…does that stretch statewide? If it does, that's not going to be good for the TSP."

No. That it wouldn't. "Mig told me we are on borrowed time. He's had pals calling him for two days straight—with warnings. People he and Heather both know. Heather is very well liked out there, probably more than she realizes, and people are pissed. The other posts are getting beyond angry at this—if only because of the image problem it creates. It paints the entire TSP as dirty. We don't need that. We have a hierarchy with ways to advance with these bastards. We have foot soldiers. The OPJ ring isn't just a handful of people. I never truly thought it was."

"So, why Heather and Powell?" Daniel asked.

"Powell said…they just unlocked the door and walked in. Those men were downstairs. In the basement hidden room. I think it was just an incredibly bad coincidence." And it could have cost Gunnar everything. He would never forget.

"Those damned hidden rooms," Daniel swore some more. "We're going to have to get warrants for every empty property in that development."

And that just wasn't going to happen. Gunnar wasn't stupid.

"There are over three hundred estates in that place. And the lake, lake house, golf course, four parks, the clubhouse and two gyms, the swimming pools and sports complex. We'll never get warrants for all of them. Hell, I think half the judges in this county live in Hughes Heights. Because it's supposed to be safe. They won't play nice with us sullying their playground . " Gunnar tried to think about what he knew. Hughes Heights was supposedly the best, the safest, place to live in Finley Creek. Bullshit. "Powell owns nineteen or twenty houses there."

Daniel's father and fifth stepmother lived there, now too.

"They'd probably stick to vacant. How many are vacant?" Daniel asked.

"I think that is something we'd have to ask the president of the HOA. That's…Brianna Claireson. Who, through Banks, another tie to OPJ. Imagine that. Powell might know. She was the president until a few years ago." He was ready to get back to her."And she keeps a close eye on property listings there."

Before he could say anything else, Murdoch came almost jogging in. "Property searches finally came back. Grundenman's got another place under an LLC. Get this. It's in…"

They'd already searched Grundenman's condo two blocks from Claireson Pharm—and found nothing. Not even more than a handful of photos—of his wife. Who looked eerily like a cross between Heather and Summer. But now…Gunnar just knew. "Hughes Heights?"

"Been there for nineteen years. Since about six months after his wife died. Bought under his name, then sold to the LLC a few years later when he was in a spot of financial trouble. Something to do with his son. Created his own LLC, then bought it back under that three years later, after renting it for the duration it was owned by that original LLC. Place has eight bedrooms, and he just recently paid it off. Looks like he used life insurance money from his wife's policy as the down payment." Murdoch was practically foaming at the mouth. Technically, this Grundenman was his wife's uncle, after all. Murdoch wouldn't be allowed to do much hands-on. Gunnar understood the fury.

"I bet he was expecting his daughters to end up living with him back then. Until six years ago, he was massively in debt on the place. Then paid it off suddenly. With funds from a consulting job—with Claireson Pharm."

Gunnar suspected he knew exactly what that bastard had consulted on.

"He's in Hughes Heights. And he's the bastard who created the damned drug. I just know he is." Gunnar took the warrant. He typed the address into his phone. He swore. When he realized just how close Grundenman had been to Powell and to Heather, even to Jake and Shelby. "He's been six streets away from Heather and her family this entire time. Near Powell's parents. Four blocks behind Shelby and Jake. Just right there in between them all this whole time."

"And thanks to those videos Heather sent the entire development back at Christmas, he has probably known exactly where his daughters have been." Heather had sent Brianna Claireson and the HOA a snarky video in response to Brianna reporting them to the city police as a brothel. It had been funny. Gunnar had heard all about it. Even though he had never seen the videos.

But he was banking that Timothy Grundenman had.

"And there is Heather. Who took them away from him before. Then moved them into his very neighborhood years later. The neighborhood he probably picked out just for his daughters. The best neighborhood in Finley Creek. And they are there, living with Heather . When it is too late for him to know them. Probably every time he passed her house—and he would have had to, on a regular basis—he saw the woman who helped Bonnie steal his daughters," Gunnar's mind just kept clicking. He saw the same knowledge in Murdoch and Daniel's. "And helped Miguel take his baby fourteen months ago too. Then, she walks directly into his hornet's nest. And is just right there for the taking? Powell was collateral. I'm sure of it."

"But was Heather the target? Or was she actually targeted at all?" Murdoch asked. "Was it just really shitty timing on Auntie Heather's part?"

"It was Powell's property those bastards took them from. Heather's presence was entirely coincidental," Daniel said.

"Was it? Maybe none of it was coincidental. But Powell had just closed on that property the week she bought Scott's place—the same week Haldyn was abducted. And they'd wanted Powell, too. Those drugs had probably been there long before that. There were footprints in the dust in the basement." Gunnar looked at Daniel again. "Is it possible that Grundenman was behind the threats against Heather that morning?"

"I don't know. I have people still tracking them, but nothing has popped yet." Daniel grabbed his phone. "I'm getting cyber forensics to hurry up on those threats now. If we can connect him to those, as well…"

They were already after the bastard. It was just a matter of time until they connected the dots. And when they did, the rest of Jarrod's theoretical ring would come tumbling down.

It wasn't just theoretical. Jarrod had been right all along.

This crime ring had been under their noses this entire time. Now, they just had to figure out how to bring it down. And who the masterminds were.

Was it Timothy Grundenman? That seemed too easy of an explanation.

"Where is Powell today?"

It had been six days since he had carried her into Houghton's castle after taking her home from the hospital. She had rested for three days, then insisted on getting on with her life. With their life. He had slept in her bed every night since then. Holding her close. He was going to sleep in her bed every night forever.

"I took her to B-3 this morning. She is under orders to stay inside the building at all times." Her father, mother, two eldest brothers—all should be there the entire time. Plus, two guards now. "I'm checking on her every hour."

He'd wanted her to stay at Houghton's, but she'd told him she couldn't stay hidden from the world, guarded forever. She had a business—multiple businesses—to run. And she took great pride in her business success. He wouldn't want to ever stand in front of that. But he wanted her safe. He'd been on edge ever since. "There are two guards watching her now, and I am on my way over there in a little bit to take her to her parents' for dinner. She insisted on getting back to her normal routine no matter what."

"We need to get the gang together and meet somewhere secure," Daniel said, a burning look in his eyes. They all knew they were getting closer. Gunnar could just feel it building. "Get her back to Houghton's. We'll meet there. And damn it, I want Heather there. Whether she likes it or not. That woman may know far more than she realizes. Or she does know and just isn't sharing because she still thinks she's fighting this war all by herself. She's joining our party, even if I have to go get her and drive her myself."

"You'll cause a riot at Number Nine Jude Way if you try."

Her family had closed ranks around Heather the morning after the DNA results had linked Timothy Grundenman to what had happened. Powell had explained it to him that night—she completely understood why. The Colesons had already been negatively linked to Gregory Eastman and Steve Wilson forever. Publicly. The last thing that family wanted was to let the world into their private pain again.

Or make it worse, thanks to Grundenman's connection.

And it would. That kind of notoriety—they didn't deserve it at all. But Gunnar didn't know how to stop it.

Gunnar was going to do his best to keep Heather's family as protected as he possibly could, as long as he possibly could.

Period.

"Go through Mig. Bring him in on it." Miguel was out there in the bullpen, snarling at everyone who even looked in his direction. Anyone at the post even said Heather or Hope's name, and Miguel went rabid.

Everyone knew Miguel Rodriguez's temper was on a hair trigger. They were shaking in their boots. People were watching their words very, very carefully around the head of Homicide right now.

There were bets going around that Miguel was going to rip Daniel's arms off and shove them up his ass soon too. Gunnar suspected Jarrod was behind starting those. Jarrod or Murdoch. He wouldn't put it past either of them. They were staunchly on Side Heather in this weird war between Heather and Daniel. Everyone knew that.

Gunnar felt trapped square in the middle.

"I'll track him down. You get your woman and get her back to Houghton's." Daniel looked at him for a long moment. "Everything going okay with you two? How is she…holding up?"

"She's one of the strongest women I know. She's focused on the baby now, and on convincing Heather's niece Cara to sign on as her personal assistant so she doesn't have to work sixty-hour weeks going forward. I think she's plotting to throw Cara at Alex constantly until those two get together. But she has nightmares. She probably always will."

And Gunnar couldn't do anything to fix that. But hold her, each and every time. He always would. Holding that woman was exactly where he was supposed to be.

"I'm sorry. For my part in what happened. I can't tell you how much I regret not assigning a dozen guards to Heather that very day. I could have found them somewhere if I had looked hard enough."

"Hell, Dan, I know that. In here," Gunnar pointed to his head. "But in my heart—that was my woman out there. And I can't lose her. I just can't."

"You are a lucky bastard to get her. She's one of the most special women on the planet. I have known that since she was just a kid trailing around after her brothers, trying to keep up with them no matter what. Take care of her."

"I fully intend to." He was going to get her, get her back to her cousin's, deal with what Daniel wanted to discuss tonight, and then when he finally found his way to her bed after, he was going to tell her exactly how much he loved her.

How much of his world she was. That woman, their baby, they were Gunnar's everything. And always would be.