“I wouldn’t, except for the fact that Luther Beise was one of Clive’s old cronies, and there was more going on with that bastard than anyone ever expected. I’ll be paying for the sins of that man for a long, long time to come. Least I can do is make certain what he did isn’t still hurting people.”
Joel just grunted. What Clint was saying was the truth—the entire town of Masterson had practically turned against Clint after what Clive had done to Perci and the rest of her family.
It wasn’t right. Clint hadn’t done a damned thing to anyone that Joel knew about.
Joel should probably make that known when he could. Show the town he had no hard feelings personally against the younger man.
Clint just had the bad luck to be related to Clive.
“We’ll do what we can. And if it comes time to call in the feds, I’ll make room for them without a problem. I don’t care who finds the killer—I just want the killer found.”
Joel wouldn’t hold Clive’s actions against another man. Joel considered himself a better man than that. He would just keep reminding himself of that when the need arose.
Clint was called away, leaving Joel to think about what the man had said.
If this was related to Clive Gunderson, Joel wanted the outside eyes on things, too. He and Clint—they were too close to this, and with the history between their families, the objectivity would cover all their asses.
The last thing they needed was a killer to get off because of the history between the Gundersons and the Mastersons.
He looked up when his two dayshift deputies pulled in, Zach Lowell and his younger cousin, Sage—Joel’s newest hire and the lone female deputy for the county. He hoped they were ready.
Solving a fourteen-year-old murder case was the last thing they needed to deal with now.
What had happened there on Luther Beise’s ranch?
3
Nine Weeks Later
Murder didn’t belong in small towns. Especially this one.
Dr. Miranda Talley studied the idyllic little town and wondered what had changed since she had last been there.
It was dinner time in Masterson. There were probably tables laden with Crock-Pots and Pyrex in just about every house on the small, tree-lined streets.
Except one.
It was at that one that she looked now.
That 1920’s inn was the biggest building on Main Street, with thirty-eight bedrooms, a huge lobby, and a welcome desk that featured in Miranda’s first memory. It had been built on the original site where the first inn in Masterson had been built one hundred and thirty years ago. Those had been her people, too.
Home.
The Talley Inn had been her home since she’d been eleven years old.
Her family didn’t have a clue she was coming. She’d grabbed the first plane she could when she’d been called in by her supervisor and had met the other FBI agent assigned to this case when she’d stepped onto the small jet.
Miranda smiled, despite the seriousness of the situation.
Home.
“You have something to smile about now?” a harsh male voice asked from beside her. Miranda’s slight smile faded. She turned toward the man who was her unofficial partner on this new case. He’d been a silent lump on the plane—she thought he’d slept a little.
Well. He was going to be a problem. She had no doubt about that.
Allan Knight was glaring at her—from a long way up. Miranda wasn’t used to that. At nearly five eleven, she was used to meeting men eye to eye. Knight had a good seven inches on her.
Tall, hot, and glowering. That was Agent Allan Knight.
“Just a good memory or two. My grandmother’s inn is right there. My sisters and cousins live there with her in the private wing.”
“I didn’t realize Masterson was your hometown.” If anything, the scowl on his handsome face darkened even more.
“It is. My father was military. We moved around a bit. My sisters and I moved to Masterson permanently when I was eleven. My grandmother and aunt were already here. My family was one of the founding families of Masterson. An ancestress was a Masterson before she married a Talley. Her husband and her brother founded the county. They came here from Virginia before Wyoming was a state.”
He just grunted. Miranda looked away. Ok, he wasn’t a big talker, then. Nor apparently a history buff.
She didn’t know a thing about this guy. Other than the fact that like her, he was FBI.
She wasn’t exactly certain why he was even with her. He wasn’t with the same division she was—he was out of the St. Louis field office. She was out of PAVAD—the Prevention & Analysis of Violent Acts division—which was located across the street from the field office.
Their paths shouldn’t have crossed in Masterson, Wyoming.
Not without something more going on behind the scenes that Miranda wasn’t privy to. Yet.
She’d find out eventually.
She’d only worked with him once before. That had been before he had been targeted by a serial killer and nearly killed, and she’d only been on the periphery of that case. They hadn’t exchanged more than a handful of words back then.
Rumor had it that if he hadn’t been so tall, the bullet would have struck him straight on and he would have been killed instantly.
There were a lot of rumors about Agent Allan Knight going around in St. Louis now.
She’d been called into her boss’s office that afternoon and told that there had been a request from the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation and the Masterson County Sheriff’s offices for PAVAD help.
Hers, specifically. Adamantly.
PAVAD’s unofficial policy was to send agents to regions of the country they may already be familiar with, for expediency’s sake.
Miranda had been asked for by name, even though she worked for the Child Exploitation Prevention Division.
It had been a favor that brought her home, mostly. A favor asked for by the first man she had ever truly loved with something more than girlish infatuation. When she’d been all of nineteen and he’d been twenty-six. She’d loved Clint so much back then. That love had shifted in the ten years since.
“That’s why you’re here? PAVAD sent you home?”
“Yes. Basically. And the requesting patrolman is…a friend.”
Now Clint was widowed, with an infant daughter he was raising on his own. A daughter named Violet Miranda.
Miranda wanted to check on him, make sure Clint was going to be all right. She wanted to hold her little goddaughter again, too.
She just wanted to see him again, make sure he was doing ok.
“I see.”
“I don’t think you do. Clint Gunderson is my former…boyfriend. He is the DCI investigator on this case. He asked for my help, and I’m going to give it to him.”
He grunted at her again. Miranda looked up at him. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and lean. Fit. Healthy. He was a gorgeous man, marred only by the jagged scar next to his left eye. And even that gave his face character.
It was the dull, constant anger in his gaze that had her on edge.
Allan Knight was beyond angry. It didn’t take her degree in abnormal psych for her to see that. That made him a wild card in the world of the FBI. Wild cards could be dangerous.