Page 101 of Montana Memory

“Same vial Beckett gave us. The antidote.” I glanced between him and Lachlan, who had just come in from the back. “It’s empty, which means they’ve already injected her.”

Lachlan looked grim. “What does that mean for her?”

I stood slowly. “It could mean a lot of things. The drug wasn’t stable, and the antidote is even more unstable. She might be unconscious. She might’ve slipped into a coma. She could’ve lost motor function or memory or…everything. Or maybe she got all her memories back.”

Lucas scrubbed his hand down his face. “We’ll hope for the best.”

“Even if she did get her memory back,” I said, “she’s still with two armed men who think she’s hiding half a million dollars that Ard may have never given her. They’re not going to keep her alive long.”

Lachlan let out a breath, already reaching for his phone. “I’ll get the local PD out here to treat this as a crime scene. Full sweep.”

I nodded, but we all knew that while this might help us put away Johnson and Kelly, a forensics team wasn’t going to help us find Jada in time.

The drive back toward Denver was silent. Not quiet—silent. The kind that presses against your chest and doesn’t let up. None of us had anything to say, not after what we’d just seen in that cabin.

I sat stiff in the passenger seat, staring through the windshield like I could will the answer to appear on the horizon. I ran through everything in my head again, every second we’d lost chasing dead ends, every wrong turn, every minute she’d been alone with those bastards.

And now, we had no idea where she was. We were headed back toward Denver, but there was no guarantee that was even in the right direction.

Lucas kept his eyes on the road. Lachlan sat behind me, probably cycling through the same mental list of possibilities, none of them good.

Then my burner buzzed again.

I snatched it off the dash, saw Jace’s name, and answered on speaker. “Tell me you found something. Please.”

“Are you back in the city yet?” he asked, and his voice wasn’t calm anymore. It had that tight edge that told me whatever he’d found, it mattered.

“Almost,” I said. “Why?”

“Hunter, someone just accessed the safe house you used with Jada a few weeks ago. Using your code.”

The words hit like a jolt to the chest. I straightened, adrenaline firing through my veins. “When?”

“About thirty seconds ago. It pinged the internal system as soon as the keypad was triggered. No cops. No breach alarm. Just a clean entry attempt. It didn’t pass.”

“Override every lock,” I said without hesitation. “Give full access.”

“You think it’s her?” Lucas asked, speeding up.

“It has to be,” I said. “She would’ve remembered the keypad. She knows there are weapons there.”

“She’s buying time,” Lachlan muttered. “Smart.”

Jace’s voice came back over the line. “All locks are disengaged. She’s in.”

“Don’t call the cops,” I said firmly. “If sirens show up, they’ll panic and kill her on the spot.”

“Roger that,” Jace replied. “But you’d better get therenow. If this situation is going down the way we think it is, she’s running out of time.”

“We’re close,” I said, already bracing against the dashboard as Lucas took a sharp turn onto the frontage road. “Stay on standby in case we need remote access.”

“Already on it,” Jace replied, then hung up.

The tires screeched as Lucas pushed the SUV harder, the city lights growing closer. I glanced down at my weapon, made sure the mag was seated right, the safety off.

If Jada was in that house, I was getting her out.

One way or another.

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