“Shut up, Pauline. You really want to stop talking now.”
Max shot her a pointed look, then jerked his head.
Miranda got the hint. She took a walk. A short one, of course. She kept Pauline, Max, and Knight in sight at all times, until the long, lanky sheriff waved her back over.
Matt Karr had that rugged cowboy thing going for him all the way. They really did grow them well in Wyoming.
Max agreed to ride along with Sheriff Karr to preserve any evidence gained from Pauline that she might confess to in the vehicle on the drive. Pauline kept talking. Well, ranting. Miranda was glad it wasn’t her stuck escorting Pauline back to Masterson.
Miranda climbed back into the borrowed truck and waited for Knight to take the driver’s seat. He had control issues. He didn’t like others driving him. That wasn’t hard for her to see.
She waited until they were back on the road to look at him. “First impressions of our…verbal…friend?”
“That shop was the little shop of horrors.”
Miranda laughed. That had been the last thing she’d expected him to say. “Wasn’t it? I’ve been in worse, but not in recent memory.”
“She has a serious case of resentment against your family. That always true?”
Miranda closed her eyes as memories assailed her. “She was never welcoming, never friendly. That was one reason we spent most of our time at the inn.”
“I have to say I would too, now that I’ve seen most of the town.”
“I think that’s the most positive thing I’ve heard you say since we landed.”
He just grunted.
“You know what, Agent Knight—”
“It’s actually Dr. Knight. I got my PhD in sociology probably before you were even out of high school, Dr. Talley.”
“Why don’t you go by doctor?” Miranda had been curious about people from as far back as she could remember. People, both individually and in groups, had always fascinated her.
A man who’d suffered such an obvious traumatic brain injury as Dr. Allan Knight had was a puzzle she would love to figure out one day.
She’d been one of the agents who’d first helped canvas his neighborhood after he’d been shot. Miranda had seen his apartment, with his blood still on the wall of his entryway, had been arriving on scene as the paramedics were loading him into the ambulance. He’d barely survived. No one had thought he would. The sight of him like that was something she’d never forget.
At the time, everyone had thought Knight had been the one who had been targeting her team leader, Malachi Brockman. Thought he’d been a serial killer who’d had an almost historic body count.
It had only been a day or so before they’d learned differently.
That no doubt had to have hurt him, too. The ready jump by his friends and colleagues to believe he’d been guilty before anyone had known the truth would have stung like the ultimate betrayal it was.
He and Malachi Brockman had been good friends up to that point, she’d heard. Now, she didn’t think they were at all.
“Just don’t want to. I’m more agent than sociologist. I’d like to keep it that way. The degree was just a steppingstone to where I am now.”
Well. He’d turned into a real chatterbox, apparently. Maybe Pauline had rubbed off. “As PAVAD would be?”
He grunted. There. The Knight she knew had returned.
“When will the cold-case division happen?”
“In a few months, I believe. If I take the appointment.”
“Why wouldn’t you?” She was prying, and she knew it. But they had forty-five-minute drive ahead of them back to the Della precinct. She didn’t want to talk about Pauline Beise the entire way. She’d rather talk to the man next to her and figure out just who he was. On the drive down, they’d had Max to talk to.
Now it was just them. He couldn’t escape.
He shot her a pointed look. “Nosy much?”
“Hey, it kind of goes with the job description. Talk to me, Knight. Let me figure out who you are.” She shifted to where she could study the long, tall, muscled form of the man as he drove.
Well, maybe they grew them well wherever Knight had actually hatched from, too.
“What for?”
“Personal edification. That’s all.”
“You’re wasting your time. There’s nothing interesting about me.”
“Now you’re just being modest.”
Talley sent a guileless grin right at him. Knight just grunted. If he didn’t answer, the woman would just keep pushing. He had no doubt about that. Stubborn-as-a-mule was probably her middle name. “Is it any of your business?”
“Maybe. I have to say I’ve always enjoyed working cold cases. They can be challenging in ways fresh cases aren’t.”
“You like to be challenged, don’t you?” No doubt. She might have the down-home, farm-girl thing going on, but he had no doubt the woman was highly intelligent and quick. And persistent.
“Sometimes.” Her fingers drummed against the passenger door. “So do you.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been studying you. Observing, so to speak.”
“And what have you learned about me so far?”
“Well…You have a hard time not taking control, for one thing.”
He snorted.
“You do. Look at you right now.”
“Hard to do. I’m driving, remember?”
“Exactly. You just proved my point completely.”
Talley apparently enjoyed talking in circles, too. Or maybe that was just a thing she did to get under his skin. “How so? I’m afraid I don’t know what’s going on inside that brain of yours underneath all that wild hair.”
Her hand went to her hair immediately. She touched the braid. “My hair isn’t wild. At least, not today.”
He’d seen Talley unbraiding it in the entrance to the private hall last night, as she’d stood talking to her cousin, Daisy, or Dusty, or something. She’d been running her fingers through it absently.
He’d wanted to do it for her.
The hair had almost reached her waist when it
