Page 91 of Montana Memory

Then I turned to the second page. And everything inside me went cold.

“Shit,” I muttered.

Lachlan’s head snapped up. “What?”

I held up the printout. “This guy. Kelly. I’ve seen him before.”

“Where?”

“When Jada and I visited Dr. Beckett last week about a possible antidote for the memory drug. This guy was there, acting like some nosy neighbor, watched us pull in. He was pretending to be on his porch watching TV. I thought I was being paranoid, thinking someone had eyes on us.”

Lachlan stepped around the desk to get a better look at the page. “You sure?”

“Positive.” For once, I was thankful for my hypervigilant PTSD.

Lachlan let out a long breath and dragged a hand down his face. “They didn’t ask to bring her in. They didn’t push for more time with her. And the questions they asked were basically a waste of time. They weren’t in Garnet Bend to officially interview her at all, I’m thinking.”

“I went to see Jada’s brother in prison while I was in Colorado. He said there were cops who’d come to talk to him about Jada. Said it was weird. They had a picture of us. I’m guessing Kelly took it when we went to see Dr. Beckett.”

“If he wanted to ask Jada questions, he could’ve done it right then. Brought her in.”

We stared at each other as the pieces slid into place, one sharp edge at a time.

Lachlan shook his head. “They didn’t want her for official questions. They wanted her alone.”

“She didn’t run,” I said, the words scraping out of me like gravel. “She was taken.”

Lachlan didn’t argue. Didn’t offer one of those placating cop lines likelet’s not jump to conclusions.

Instead, he moved around his desk and picked up his radio. “We need to get eyes on every exit out of town. Check the cameras around town too. If they took her, they didn’t vanish into thin air.”

I’d been right; this wasn’t a case of selfish genes. Jada hadn’t just run off. But now that I knew it looked like she had been taken by men who intended her harm?

I wished to hell she’d just been selfish.

Chapter 29

Jada

My stomach rolled before I even opened my eyes.

I swallowed hard, blinked once, and then again, forcing my eyes open. A ceiling with wooden beams. Walls with faded pine paneling. A hardwood floor that needed to be swept. Light leaked in through curtains pulled over a large window.

I rolled to my side, and the world tilted hard. Nausea slammed into me, and I shut my eyes. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from gagging.

Think. Think.

But once it all came back to me, I wished it hadn’t.

Johnson. Kelly.

Their faces popped into my head—their suits, smug smiles, their questions at the station, barging into my cabin, how they’d looked at me, like I wasn’t even a person, just a means to an end.

“Oh God,” I whispered silently.

They’d taken me. Drugged me. Brought me here. My chest tightened as I remembered more—that note. What was Hunter going to think?

I squeezed my eyes tighter, breathing through my nose as another wave of nausea hit.

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