Page 18 of Final Inning

“Wow. A snap judgment from Dr. Allan Knight.” She leaned up like she was looking at the sky through the nearby window. “No. Sky isn’t falling. How strange.”

“Seriously?”

“Insistent her daughter was not into drugs. Emphatically. And was pretty clear that she thought the Helery County Sheriff’s Department had just picked the easiest answer and run with it. She doesn’t feel like anyone other than Deputy Lindhour even cared about what had happened to her daughter. I’m not so sure I disagree with her, honestly. I’m just waiting to talk to Jac and Dani to see what they have ferreted out. What did Harper’s father present as, again? Initial impression, fast.”

They’d discussed this before. But he knew what she was doing—by not overthinking it, maybe they’d spitball something that would give them something else to go on. Right now, while waiting for Dani, they really didn’t have much more than what Lindhour had given them earlier.

Except they’d confirmed Harper’s softball bat was missing from her car. That was it.

“That is a broken man. I’m not sure if he even realizes how much. He’s hurting. And I think if he didn’t have three other daughters and a wife he loves greatly that he wouldn’t have already found a way to follow her.” That was what had been sitting with him since he’d wakened that morning. He hadn’t been able to forget how Terry Wycoff had sounded when he’d spoken of his loss.

Knight was convinced the other man was blaming himself for not protecting his daughter somehow.

“Do you think he’s suicidal? Do we need to call services to help him?”

They had a dedicated unit now, for the past six months, out of St. Louis. The victims’ advocacy unit, started by Ed Dennis and his daughter personally. To help those who had been traumatized. They would coordinate grief counseling, and just help when they could. Knight had to admit it—Ed Dennis genuinely seemed to care about people who were hurting. About the victims they encountered and about the agents who worked for him. They weren’t disposable.

And that was exactly what Knight had felt he had been when he’d woken in the hospital and realized not a damned person from the St. Louis field office had bothered to check on him other than perfunctory visits from his supervisor. Disposable.

He had just been a number.

He had lived like that long enough as a kid, he had had no intention of living like that as an adult.

Knight and that man had had their share of personality conflicts back then, but other than asking Knight questions about what he knew about the man who had shot him, his own supervisor hadn’t given a damn about him at all.

But Ed Dennis had shown up. Multiple times. He’d been one of the very few agents in St. Louis to be concerned for Knight at all.

Even Knight’s good old pal Malachi had barely shown up in those weeks after. And Knight got it—he understood. Malachi had had a beautiful woman he’d loved who had nearly been killed, too. He had needed to take care of her. Malachi’s brother Mick had taken one to the chest. The woman Mick had eventually married had been abducted and nearly killed, too.

Knight had been last on the list. By the time Malachi had come around, Knight had already figured out where he stood. They’d just been casual friends to begin with. That had been what had almost gotten Knight killed.

Now, he and Malachi stuck to their own territories. That was the way it was, and the way it was going to be.

Knight was good with that.

One reason Knight had decided to stay in St. Louis and take the Cold Case appointment instead of taking the field office he’d been offered in California had been because of Ed Dennis.

The man had come across as genuine. Knight respected that.

One thing Knight respected—loyalty. And Ed Dennis was loyal to his people. No denying that. “We might. Just…to check on the man’s other daughters.”

“Her mother mentioned therapy for the younger two. I’m not sure of the daughter we haven’t met yet. They are of higher socioeconomic status than most of their neighbors. Both Wycoff parents are educated, and worked their ways up to white-collar employed—they would seek therapy, at least for their girls. But maybe not themselves—at least not him. They prize education for their daughters. Their other daughter is at FCU law school now. That isn’t a cheap school, though her mom said scholarships for both her and Harper.”

“I’ll put in a call for a recommendation.” Something else occurred to him. “Her father said she’d been running around with friends from before. Softball specific friends. From when she played at Buckbert.”

“Her mother said that most of her softball time now was spent in Wichita Falls.” The Wycoffs lived in Burkburnett, north of Wichita Falls. Harper’s life revolved around Wichita Falls.

Knight was starting to believe it was the truth—she’d merely been on her way to Oklahoma City to be with her boyfriend. She hadn’t told her boyfriend she was on the road that day. Why?

“So we have a discrepancy.” Several of them. Knight did not like discrepancies at all.

“But if she was seeing friends from Buckbert…I think it’s time we talked to those friends. Did he give you any names?” Miranda asked.

“One. I have Dani running him down now.”

“Who?”

“Julian Adams. Good old Coach Kevin’s only son.” Yet Lindhour said he’d alibied out for both his father’s murder—he’d been nineteen at the time—and for what had happened to Harper Wycoff. Knight had moved him down the list for the time-being—he’d been out of town yesterday, when they’d first learned of him. But now…time to get more information. If nothing else—Julian might be able to tell them what had really been going on in his father’s life at the time.