Page 23 of Final Inning

Like hold the woman and promise to make the world better or some shit like that. She drove him crazy. That was the only explanation. Deputy Lindhour had been called out by the sheriff to help with something near the opposite corner of their little county earlier that morning. She hadn’t made it back before they’d left.

Knight hadn’t missed the slightly fearful look that had gone through the woman’s big hazel eyes at the sheriff’s call. But she had grabbed her gear and told them to text her if they needed anything.

Something wasn’t right here in Helery County.

He just couldn’t put his finger on it. But Sheriff Johnson seemed to be at the center of it—at least for Deputy Lindhour.

The waitress left, after sending a flirtatious look at him that he did not respond to. Then Knight turned toward his companion. “Spill. What’s going on with you?”

“Just didn’t sleep well last night.” And then she clammed up for a good five minutes. Not exactly how a conversation with Dr. Miranda Talley usually went. But Knight had spent many, many hours figuring this woman out. Long enough to know he would never fully figure her out completely.

One of the things that intrigued him about her most.

No one pushed his buttons like this woman. No denying that. Knight just waited her out.

He strongly suspected she was going to go right back to what they’d been talking about before he’d almost ordered her to the rental. The only way he’d gotten her out there was with the promise of food. He knew her well, after all. “You are almost brooding. Think I am rubbing off on you?”

“Something like that. I literally just didn’t sleep well. Worried about Bentley, but we are going to just keep working through. It’s just a part of it. Trauma…will always impact him. I know that. It doesn’t make it easier, though.”

“Nothing does. And there is secondary trauma to those around them. It’s very real. And what that kid went through—no kid deserves that. The foster system is not designed for the kids, no matter what people try to say. But he has you, and he has the Joneses. Don’t ever discount that. He’s fortunate to have people who love him enough to help him through. Not every kid in foster care has that. I certainly didn’t. Tag didn’t. Not until we were too old for it to really make a damned difference.”

She knew his history. Everyone in the unit knew everyone else’s personal traumas. They just never spoke about them. “That doesn’t make it easier right now. Max said he had nightmares again last night. He was crying for me—and I wasn’t there.”

“I’m sorry.” And he was. Neither that kid nor the woman in front of him deserved this kind of pain. “We can trade you out for Ward. Everyone needs some latitude for mental health—either ours, or our family’s. Don’t be too stubborn to take it.”

Big green eyes capable of stealing a man’s soul stared into his for a long, long moment. Then there was a small smile. Not the snarky smirk she usually gave him this time. But one that told him he’d probably said the right thing. At least this time. “You know, sometimes I don’t think you are as much of a troll as I thought.”

Knight would have said more, but her phone rang. Dani’s ringtone. Dani usually did call Miranda rather than him whenever it was something they were waiting on. He thought he still intimidated Dani at times. She pretended to be all big and bad, but at heart Danielle Connor was still very much afraid of the darkness in the world. It hurt sometimes to think about what that woman had gone through when she had been younger. She was one of the bravest, most phenomenal women he knew—and he was working on not frightening her too much.

When Miranda disconnected—and a moment after the waitress had placed their food in front of them—she turned toward him. Fully professional once again.

“Well?”

“Dani’s sending over everything she found so far on Kevin Adams. And…she’s set us up a time to talk to the man’s son. Two hours. Get this—he was the last one to talk to both his father and Harper Wycoff. Yet good old Sheriff Johnson hasn’t spoken to him even once, from what Dani could find. Not even a basic interview beyond the original death notification for Kevin. I’ll text Hagan and see what she knows about him, too.”

Hagan—first name basis with her new little buddy already. That was typical Miranda.

“Odd. The sheriff’s name just keeps coming up.”

“And not in a good way at all.”

“Have Dani dig deeper into all the people who would have ever touched Harper’s case—and Kevin Adams’. Let’s find out what’s going on here.”

“Aye, aye, Captain. Your every wish is my command.”

Only in a perfect world. Only in a perfect world.

The woman did not know what she did to him when she said things like that.

Chapter 15

It had been an incredibly long morning, and Hagan just wanted to eat her lunch from the deli—she’d eaten there for the fourth day in a row this week, pitiful—find the FBI agents, and work on what they were actually there for. Not this…waste of time that Sheriff Johnson had insisted on. He was wasting their time. Hagan was sure of it.

He had done it on purpose, to make things difficult for her—and the agents. He was so childishly manipulative. All the time.

She knew it had all been designed just to yank her around for the FBI being there in the first place. She would pay for going over his head, for embarrassing him, and he was going to make sure of it.

Just her luck—Johnson beat her to the grocery store. She’d been hoping to slip in, grab her lunch, and get out. She was starting to believe in Ruth’s curses. This place…nothing good ever came of it. Ever.