Page 97 of Montana Memory

This? This wasn’t the same. This was worse.

Because my PTSD demons only came after me. This was about Jada. About someone else hurting her. And that was completely fucking unacceptable.

I dragged a hand over my face, then pulled out the burner phone and scrolled to the only number saved. I needed Jace. Lucas and Lachlan would both do what they could with theirsources, but Jace could do things a lot faster—and a lot less legally, if he had to.

He picked up on the first ring.

“Tell me you’re calling to buy me dinner,” he said, voice scratchy like he was mid-coffee or mid-combat drill. With Jace, it could go either way. “Because I’m beginning to think we’re in a relationship.”

“I’m calling because Jada’s gone,” I said. I didn’t have it in me at all to joke.

His voice turned serious in a heartbeat. “Talk.”

I kept it simple. “Two dirty cops took her. A Ross Johnson and Melvin Kelly. Based in Colorado.”

“Crooked law enforcement? Fantastic,” he muttered. “What do you need?”

“Start with the basics. Then whatever you can dig up.”

There was a pause—short, sharp—while he typed. “Denver addresses for both are incoming. Johnson lives in a rental house off Quebec Street. Kelly’s in an apartment that makes roaches pack up and leave.”

“Good,” I said, starting the car. “I’ll hit Kelly’s place first. Keep digging.”

“Already on it.” He hung up without another word. That was how it worked between us. Mission first.

The drive didn’t take long, but my mind couldn’t stay quiet. My hands tightened on the wheel as Jace’s follow-up text came in.

Both mediocre cops. Nothing to write home about. Each has a couple reprimands. Financial messes—five divorces between them. Alimony and child support piling up.

Shit. They were desperate, dangerous. The worst kind of men to have a badge.

I pulled up outside Kelly’s apartment and killed the engine. The place was worse than described. Peeling paint. Windows with plastic taped over them. The kind of place that soaked into your skin and made you itch.

I walked right up to his unit and knocked on the door.

No answer.

I waited, breath steady. Listened, but still nothing.

I leaned closer to the grimy window and tried to peer through the slit in the blinds. Empty. Or dark. Either way, no signs of life inside. Just the soft buzz of the broken porch light and a beer can rolling somewhere in the breeze.

This was a dead end. No way they’d stash her here. Too risky. Too visible. Someone would’ve heard something, seen something. These walls were paper-thin.

I turned, jaw clenched, and made my way down the cracked steps. An elderly couple shuffled past me, hand in hand, like they’d been walking this same route for sixty years.

“Excuse me,” I said, slowing my steps. “Have either of you seen Detective Kelly in the last twenty-four hours?”

The man looked up, squinting. The woman leaned on his arm a little heavier.

“No, haven’t seen that jackass,” she said, voice raspy. “But if you do? You tell him to stop leaving his garbage in the hallway. Smells like death warmed over.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll let him know,” I said. Right after I beat the shit out of him.

The man gave me a long once-over, like he was deciding whether I was part of the problem or the solution. He didn’t say anything. Just nodded. They kept walking. I turned and rushed back to my rental.

Johnson’s place was on the other side of town. It was a single-story box of a house, paint faded, lawn dead, mailbox hanging by one screw. Still a shithole, but a more private one.A place no one would notice screams. Kelly and Johnson were much more likely to have brought Jada here.

I parked far down the block away and took the sidewalk on foot, cutting through the side yard of the neighbors to stay out of direct view. I kept low, my newly obtained Glock secured at my side, every sense on high alert. This place was too quiet. No signs of life, no porch furniture, no lights on. But that didn’t mean it was empty.

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