Page 70 of Montana Justice

“The signal’s blocked now by the Faraday cage.” Travis pointed to the metal container. “But you can see the transmission attempts. It’s sophisticated—burst transmissions at irregular intervals to avoid detection. Professional-grade.”

My mind raced backward, memory crystallizing with sickening clarity. Piper on the porch at Resting Warrior, tears on her face as she handed me the box.I wanted to thank you. For everything.

“When did you get the watch?” Beckett asked quietly.

“Friday night.” My voice sounded distant to my own ears. “At the family dinner.”

“Four days ago,” Coop calculated. “Right before we finalized the warehouse raid.”

The pieces clicked into place with brutal precision. Every meeting I’d attended. Every phone call I’d taken. Every plan I’d discussed while wearing that watch.

“Who gave it to you?” Hunter asked, though his expression suggested he already knew.

“Piper.” The name tasted like dust.

Silence descended on the room, broken only by the hum of Travis’s equipment. I stared at the metal container holding the watch—holding the evidence of a betrayal I should have seen coming.

“There’s more,” Travis said, his fingers never stopping on the keyboard. “I’ve been digging since I isolated the signal. The watch? It’s not some consumer-grade device. This is specialized equipment, the kind career criminals use.”

“Career criminals like Ray Matthews,” I said, the final piece sliding into place.

Travis pulled up a file on the main screen. Ray Matthews’s booking photos through the years, arrest records, known associates. “He’s evolved since leaving Garnet Bend nine years ago. Graduated from small-town cons to the big leagues. Gunrunning, drug trafficking. He’s connected to operations across three states.”

More memories flooded back. Finding Piper in my office that night, supposedly looking for Caleb’s pacifier. The way she’d been on her hands and knees by my desk—where I kept sensitive files. How I’d given her my computer password without a second thought because she’d needed a recipe.

“Jesus Christ.” I pushed back from the table, needing space, needing air. “Piper has been playing me from the beginning.”

“The Highway 37 checkpoint,” Beckett said slowly. “You mentioned it at home?”

I nodded, remembering dinner conversations, casual mentions of work while she cooked. While she listened. While she reported back to her father.

“The Murphy farm raid. The warehouse last night. She knew about all of them.” Each word felt like glass in my throat.

“It explains the surgical precision,” Hunter said. “They knew exactly when we’d move, exactly what we were looking for. Professional intelligence gathering.”

Travis pulled up more data. “I’m tracking her communications now. I also found another signal and pinged it for location. It’s coming from your house, and matches up with calls made to numbers connected to Ray Matthews’s operation. It’s all here.”

I stared at the evidence scrolling across the screens. Phone records. Timeline correlations between information I’d shared and blown operations. Digital proof of what my heart was still trying to deny.

She’d used me. Used our son. Used my pathetic need to protect her, to believe she could be more than her father’s daughter.

My phone buzzed with a message from Lark.

911 - Need you at Pawsitive NOW. It’s Piper.

I stood, chair scraping against the floor. “I have to go.”

“Lachlan—” Beckett started.

“Piper’s at Pawsitive. Lark says I need to get there now.” Which was good because I would’ve been heading there anyway. I was already moving toward the door. “Continue working this. Find out how deep it goes. I want to know every contact Piper has made, every piece of information she’s passed along.”

“And then?” Hunter’s question stopped me at the doorway.

“Then we use it. Turn their own intel against them. But first—” I looked back at the metal container holding the watch. The symbol of my blind trust. My stupidity. “First, I deal with Piper.”

Because if she was at Pawsitive, I’d face her knowing the truth. Look into those lying eyes and see her for what she really was—not a victim needing protection, but a predator who’d used my compassion against me.

The woman I’d held in the dark, who’d cried in my arms, who’d made me believe she was building a life with me—she was just another Matthews. Another con artist who’d found the perfect mark.

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