Page 36 of Final Inning

“Can’t we just…leave him behind for the natives? He is seriously cranky today.” Like he was…every single time he had to deal with anyone related to Malachi Brockman. Someday, her rusty Knight in cranky armor was going to have to deal with what had happened.

Find some type of closure with the Brockman family. There were just too many of those Brockmans and Lorcans floating around PAVAD for him to avoid it forever.

But Miranda was not going to be the one to tell him that.

She was just not that brave.

Chapter 25

Wow. Hagan was…just going to stand there and stare like a total idiot. Those were some…beautiful men. They did not make them like that in Helery County. Dr. Talley walked between the two men—they were tall and beautiful and carried themselves with real confidence. They stood out. No denying they stood out.

They beat Damien and good old Sheriff Ted by a thousand miles. She took her meal from the clerk at the deli and thanked her. She ate at the deli at least three times a week. She liked to check on the older man who worked the meat counter when he worked. He had no real family and lived in the trailer park across from the ball field.

Everyone was watching the agents right now. Both men wore dark suits, and their shoulders were wide, they were lean, and toned, and fit, and it just…they did not make them like that in Helery County.

“Are you really that stupid?” an almost snide voice asked. Hagan turned. “You really made the sheriff mad.”

Hagan did her best not to roll her eyes to the other woman’s face. Valeria Braun was…difficult. She always had been. Hagan had known Valeria her entire life. There had never been a more unpleasant person born in Helery County than the platinum blonde staring at her right now.

Hagan just looked up at her—Valeria was almost six feet tall, and stocky with it. Something Hagan most definitely was not. Valeria liked to push smaller people around—especially women. Hagan was four years older—but they’d been in the school together. Buckbert had the one schoolhouse until two months ago. The county had closed Buckbert Community School without explanation one weekend in January, saying the funding just hadn’t been there. Kids were bussed to Helery Springs now. But Hagan had graduated there. So had Valeria.

Valeria was not someone easily forgotten.

She was big, she was strong, she was loud—and she was spoiled.

Never had Hagan met someone more incapable of taking responsibility for anything she had ever done. She used to bully the younger girls in school with them incredibly bad. Until three of them had—well…Hagan had seen what happened. Valeria had deserved it.

Valeria still hadn’t learned her lesson.

Even as an adult.

“I am doing my job, Val. Finding the answers for Harper’s family. Like we all want for them.”

“Whatever. It was just drugs, Hagan. You look really stupid saying otherwise. Uncle Ted told me the FBI is asking questions that he already knows the answer to. You just don’t want to accept it because perfect Harper was your friend.” She rang up Hagan’s lunch and drink and put it in the plastic bag. She almost tossed it at her. Valeria had always hated her—it was just a given.

“I am asking questions, because that is my job. Your good old Uncle Ted should try it some time.” Hagan just smiled at the other woman, as Dr. Talley walked over toward her—the absolutely beautiful men walking at her sides. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. The FBI agents are waiting. Have a nice day, Valeria.”

Hagan just walked away.

She had more important things to worry about now than Valeria and her second or third stepfather. Valeria’s mother had been married to Sheriff Johnson once upon a time about nine years ago. Or maybe that had been the one he’d just lived with for several years. He liked to brag about his accomplishments with women. To Hagan.

It seriously disgusted her and always had.

He’d harassed her foster mother for a while, too. Skeezeball through and through.

She shuddered even imagining it.

The sheriff was as sleazy as it was possible to be.

Chapter 26

Knight stepped outside the small police post, Ian on his heels, after they’d been back in the small building for hours. He needed to clear his head—from Miranda. They’d been almost pressed against each other for several hours. Lindhour’s station house was incredibly small. He thought his hotel room was actually bigger.

He took a few hours with Ian and tracked down Kevin’s closest friends outside of softball coaching. They confirmed no known problems, in his work or professional life. Miranda and Lindhour were tracking down members of Kevin’s daughter’s team, and anyone who may have interacted with them on that field.

Knight was nearly one hundred percent convinced Kevin had known his killer, but that the attack had not been planned. So finding someone who would have just been there at the field naturally was their best bet. No one had sought out Kevin that night, he was almost convinced of it. He wasn’t sure about Harper, though.

“It seems odd,” the man beside him said. “It is obvious to me that he knew his killer. And Harper did, as well. But both crime scenes show hesitation—and confidence. Like, the killer was nervous of what he was doing—and then he changed his mind. And was almost methodical about it. Clinical.”