thought about a young Miranda walking down a mountain highway at night in the middle of a rainstorm. If she’d been his daughter, he would have hunted down the punk who had hurt and frightened her and probably beaten that asshole to within an inch of his life.
Miranda was closest to the door, and, being a beautiful woman, she drew Lesley’s attention immediately.
“Lesley?” she started. “Lesley Beise? We’re with the FBI—”
The big burly jerk dove right at her with a bellow.
31
Lesley Beise jumped, his shoulder catching Miranda in the stomach. They went down in a tangle of limbs before Knight could react, sending plastic chairs everywhere.
Miranda yelled out.
Knight jumped in, ramming his own shoulder under Beise’s arm and shoving the man as far from Miranda as he could. Knight didn’t stop until he had Beise pinned against the lone cinderblock wall.
His hand went around Beise’s neck in a choke hold. It took everything he had to dial back the rage. To not hurl the man through one of the three glass walls surrounding them. To make him pay for this—and pay for the teenager Miranda had been. “Don’t move, you son-of-a-bitch. Don’t move.”
When he had the man secured, he risked a quick glance at Miranda. “You ok?”
She had made it to her knees. She just nodded, still gasping for breath. Her hand was on her ribs. Her face was red—she was struggling to pull in a breath. “Air knocked…”
“No kidding.” Knight hated how she looked right there. It took everything he had to battle back the fury and not slam Lesley Beise through the glass walls for daring to touch her. “You going to be ok?”
Knight was going to take her to the hospital for x rays as soon as he could. He yelled for help, hoping one of the sheriff’s deputies they’d followed to this mechanic’s shop off the beaten path would be close enough to lend them a hand. Beise struggled again. Knight leaned forward. “Don’t tempt me. Don’t tempt me to put your damned head through the wall. Concrete or not. Look at her. She’s half your size, you asshole. Is that what gets you off? Knocking smaller people around? What’s next, a kid or a puppy?”
Oh, he wanted the man to react. He wanted him to fight. Knight wanted every logical excuse possible to make this jackass pay for knocking Miranda down.
Miranda was up to her knees now. She still hadn’t said anything else. The door swung open, and the sheriff stormed in. A bunch of Lesley Beise’s coworkers gawked through the windows at them all. “What’s going on in here?”
“He knocked her down. Check on her, would you?” Knight wasn’t about to take his hands off Beise until the man was contained. “You have cuffs?”
“Never leave home without them.” The sheriff tossed him a pair of flex-cuffs. Knight cuffed Beise quickly, then shoved him into a chair. The sheriff could deal with Beise.
Miranda was still not on her feet. Knight wrapped his hands around her waist before he thought it through. He lifted her to her feet, then guided her back to sit on the table currently covered with old shop magazines and a plastic plant. “Breathe. Take a deep breath.”
“I’m…trying. It hurts.” She shot him a rueful look. There was just the tiniest bit of panic in her big green eyes. It had the anger boiling again. Knight shoved it back down. It wasn’t his place to worry about Miranda Talley. Not by a long shot. “He’s built like a brick wall.”
“No kidding.” He had fifty pounds on Knight, though Beise was a good three inches shorter, at least. More than a hundred-twenty pounds on her. “Grab your bag.”
He looked at the sheriff, who was reading Beise his rights. Knight’s hand fisted; he wanted to slug Beise. As hard as he possibly could. Pound him into that concrete wall. Instead, he forced himself to look at the woman next to him. There were tears in her eyes, but she hadn’t let them fall. No doubt from the burn of the pain.
He had to get out of there. Now. Before he did something he’d regret. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To the ER. Get you checked out.”
To his surprise, she didn’t argue. He would have expected her to argue, as obstinate as he suspected she could be. Knight grabbed her coat from where she’d sat it on the chair in the too-warm waiting room. He swung it around her quickly, and she gingerly slipped her arms in. He buttoned