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Daniel listened to Grundenman’s broken apology to his daughter. Then the sound of the sirens came. He forced himself to stay awake. Grundenman took off. Disappearing like the rabid coyote he was underneath.

Summer was shaking now. He could see it, almost. He thought he heard a sob. He reached for her weakly. “Hey, he’s gone. We’re going to be okay. He’s gone now.”

It went against every instinct he had to let the bastard go, but it wasn’t like he could chase Grundenman down. Summer probably could, but he didn’t want that.

Her boney hand wrapped around his again. But she didn’t let go of the .38 she’d just pointed at her father. He hadn’t wanted to see Grundenman get away. But the last thing he wanted was for Summer to shoot her own father.

The helicopter was overhead, and the older man was just gone.

People were everywhere. Paramedics. Shouting. Running to them.

Daniel kept his fingers around Summer’s. He just didn’t want to be alone. He could hear a chopper in the distance. Sirens. People were coming.

They had him on a gurney. They were efficient.

“Commander, you are just as much trouble as the rest of Major Crimes,” the paramedic, a guy named Drew he’d met before, said, strapping Daniel down. “What in the hell happened here, tonight?”

“Cleaning up more of the past. Finding…answers.” Probably more than he should really say to the son of the man who’d blown up the lab three years earlier and nearly killed Brynna, but the words just came out. “Cleaning up the sins…of our fathers, I think. So damned fucking sick of this. When is it ever going to end?”

They wheeled him toward the ambulance. Daniel refused to let go of the woman he’d basically captured.

He looked at her. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to be alone. Is that so wrong?”

A soft hand brushed the hair on his forehead. He looked into eyes as captivating as Heather’s, right there in the blaring overhead lights of the ambulance. “No. It isn’t. Sometimes…being alone is the worst thing of all.”

Never had truer words been spoken.