"Much!"
“Hell, I don’t care how they look, I’m just glad they’re taking little Petey Perv away!”
Applause came next. Interesting.
Knight hauled Graves up off the concrete.
“They like you that much, Pete?” Pierce asked. He had a brother that went by Peterson. Peterson never went by Pete. Peterson would make two of this guy, easily. Pierce was the runt of the Asher litter, after all.
Graves looked at him. Then at the dock full of women. "Shut up, you bitches!”
"Oh, honey, we ain't talking about you! You couldn't get me going with a jump start and a prayer!"
"Yeah, Pete, sit down! We're busy appreciating the view!"
"The only thing you ever got going was my gag reflex!"
Graves's face went red. "Fuck all of you!"
"You wish, sweetheart! Line's too long and you ain't in it!"
Okay, that was just going to keep escalating here, until people got out of hand. Or fired. But it told Pierce just exactly how Petey fit in around here.
Pierce looked at the man who had caught up with them now, huffing and puffing while he stood there. "We're going to need to borrow an office."
The foreman had appeared at the edge of the crowd. "Yeah. Sure. This way."
They marched Graves toward the loading dock stairs. Right through Petey’s crowd of admirers.
The office was small. A desk and a couple of chairs. The foreman closed the door behind them, shutting out the noise from the dock.
"What's this about?" Graves asked.
Knight started to say something then stopped when his phone buzzed. He read the text quickly. Then looked at Pierce. “Pete here is going for a little ride with us.”
Chapter 20
Miranda stood at the window, watching Knight’s newest “catch” while he got settled. The Jasper ISP post holding cell was on the other side of the glass, and Graves sat on the metal bench inside, folded forward with his elbows on his knees and his head down. Making himself less visible?
Peter Arthur Graves was a fifty-two-year-old three-times divorced man with one grown child that he had signed away rights to when that boy was eight. He’d worked a string of jobs, no more than two years at a time. He lived in a house in Poseyville that he was six months behind the mortgage on.
They’d built a very distinct, specific profile of the unsub. Their unsub was organized and tactical. He was capable of planning and waiting for just the right moment. He had controlled everything in that house for twelve hours minimum—while holding Terra somewhere else.
Graves was staring at the door like a trapped animal. There was visible sweat on his forehead. He’d done something, she’d bet her next paycheck on that. But was this man capable of doing what had happened to Derek and Aimee and their children? She just didn’t know yet. Miranda had learned a long time ago not to make assumptions. Not in this job.
Profiles were not assumptions, they were probabilities—there was a difference.
Someone walked up behind her, and she knew from the clean mint scent and the way the hair on her arms stood at attention just who it was.
Hot as he was, Pierce Asher did not elicit the same response from her as one Dr. Allan Knight.
“I’m not so sure he fits,” she said.
Knight didn't answer right away. He was almost crowded up against her—the window was small. And Knight took up a lot of space. His heat threatened to surround her. Damn it, this was ridiculous. She shouldn’t get bothered by him like this.
"Doesn't he?"
"Look at him. Tell me what you think.” She stared at Pete Graves for a long, silent moment. He was so nervous looking. Like he had never been in control of anything in his life. And the control part of their profile was a major point.
