Page 5 of Final Inning

“Of course I am. Why on earth wouldn’t I be?”

Because Miranda Talley was always bubbling over with happiness when he first saw her each weekday before a new case. It was only when they’d get into the specifics of the case that she would turn serious and professional and damned good at what she did. He was used to the bubbling—not the snarling.

“Hell if I know. Far be it for me to be concerned.”

It was a test. He actually was concerned. But she wouldn’t expect that from him. And he wanted to see how she’d react. To catch the woman off guard. “Talk to me.”

“Just…” She was silent for a long moment—he was almost convinced she’d just blow him off. “Bentley was really struggling this morning. Going back to school after a break is tough for him. And I am not going to be there in the morning, either. He still…we’re still working on adjusting to this job. It seems like all I can do is keep asking him to adjust, ever since I found him. And he’s just a little boy. It…hurts sometimes, Knight. It hurts.”

“I know. But he will understand one day.” Maybe. The kid was seven and his biological father had killed multiple members of the kid’s family. Bentley’s only sense of stability—a grandmother—had also died. Then he had been shoved into a high-risk group home, thanks to the fucked up foster care system in this country. Hidden and forgotten, like so many other kids in this country.

Miranda had found him there. And basically just…took him and kept him. While hunting for a mass murderer and serial killer. No one really knew what had happened to Bentley in that group home intended for boys twice his age, or why—or how—he had ended up there in the first place.

Knight had his own experiences with group homes—he wouldn’t ever tell her about what had happened to him there. He would not put those nightmares into her head. Knight just wouldn’t. And he’d been in his teens at the time. It infuriated him on Bentley’s behalf every time he thought about it.

There were still a lot of questions surrounding the little boy Miranda loved so much. Knight was digging into those questions himself when time permitted. She and Bentley deserved to know the truth.

Miranda was a damned good mother. Of that, Knight was one hundred percent certain. Fierce and protective of her kid, too.

“Will he?”

“I can wait. We can get Ian on this one when they get back. You can stay home with him this time.” They were already the two most office bound in the Cold Case Unit. By design. They were the heads of the department, after all. Very rarely were both of them out on the same case. Whether she’d realized it or not, Knight and the rest of the unit tried to arrange things where she and Jac Jones were the ones who handled the most local cases. Or stayed office-side.

She and Jac were the only ones with children. Maybe it was wrong of him to do that, but…she and Jac had children. The rest of them didn’t.

They didn’t just have children—they had children who had been traumatized.

And that mattered.

At least to him, it did. This job—it could destroy families. He wasn’t going to sit back and watch that happen in his own damned unit. Not if he could help it. “I can handle this one, if you want to sit it out. Go over Archivals again.”

Once or twice a month, one of them would go over what cases they still had on the books, or go over any special requests that had been submitted. The director of PAVAD would sometimes put in special requests when certain cases crossed his desk. Someone in the unit would go over it again, then funnel to either Knight or Miranda.

One of them would study the case, determine if it was a case they had the resources to assist with, or what would be needed, and then they would assign a pair of Cold Case agents to cover the case. They would then have fifteen days on location to assist however possible. After that fifteen days, the Cold Case unit would continue to work the case, but it would be done from the home office.

There were far too many cold cases still waiting, and far too few agents to work them. That was something he and Director Dennis—and Miranda—had discussed many times. If he and Miranda could make the unit effective, that was something Dennis had promised to rectify as soon as he could. Before Dennis retired.

Knight wasn’t holding out hope. Knight didn’t ever hope for anything. That was a good way to get kicked in the damned teeth, after all.

He had learned that before.

“I’m good. Me and Bentley, we’re just going to figure this out as we go along.” She pulled in a deep breath. “Tell me what we have. And who is working it now?”

Well, she wasn’t going to like it, but… “You and I get another one. Special request from the director’s former partner’s younger brother’s daughter’s best friend. Or something like that.”

“One big happy family. Gotcha.” She picked up the file. “Let’s get started.”

Chapter 2

It took her a few minutes on the plane to get herself centered. To switch from Mom Miranda to Agent Miranda. She pulled in a deep breath and looked at the man she was stuck with again. They’d just finished up a case together. Hadn’t she met her quota of “Knight-exposure” for the year already?

She studied him. He still hadn’t had time to get the hair trimmed. She bet that irritated him, Mr. Rigid and Proper. Then again, the longer hair hid the scars across his brow. Reduced questions. The longer hair suited him—it was a mahogany brown, and waved slightly, just making a woman’s fingers twitch to touch, and the eyes…behind the ever-present aviator glasses—were stone gray. Cold and terrifying occasionally, though. Knight could look right through someone at times. It gave her the shivers, really. “Condense it down.”

She was going in blind here. And they were taking a commercial flight. Not much privacy to discuss things there. She had no clue what they were dealing with at the moment.

“Three months ago, a young woman named Harper Wycoff was found bludgeoned at a ball field in Buckbert, Helery County, Oklahoma. Helery County is approximately fifty miles north of Wichita Falls, Texas. There are multiple theories and no definitive answers. The director contacted me this morning to get us on it. Former Oklahoma lieutenant governor called the director personally. You and I—we’re the only ones available again.”

Yay. Just her luck. “So what have the locals ruled out?”