Page 77 of Montana Heat

“He was arrested a while back during the dogfightingring roundup, but charges were dropped. Nothing could be pinned on him directly,” Liam added.

The dogfighting ring. I’d heard about that. I doubted any of them would ever completely forget that nightmare. I hadn’t been around Resting Warrior at that time, but I’d heard about it later at family dinners when they reminisced. Something like that didn’t ever really go away.

But considering that was how Noah and Kate and Daniel and Emma had all found each other, both good and bad memories were involved.

Jude scrubbed a hand down his face. “But Mark’s got no ties to Alan Ard. Still, I’m going to call Charlie and have him head to Mark’s last known address, see if we can turn up anything. It’s about an hour from here.”

“I’ll head out there too,” Harlan volunteered. “Poke around, see if there’s anything to be found.”

I looked at Harlan then around at the other guys, not sure if I should insist on going or not.

Lucas walked over and squeezed my shoulder. “I think you’re needed here more than there. Harlan will let us know immediately if he finds anything. The chances of Mark Cruz going back to his place are slim.”

I nodded, but I didn’t like it.

“I’ll keep you posted, I promise,” Harlan said then took off at a jog out the door.

A few minutes later, Daniel walked in from the other room, phone to his ear. The grim expression on his face warned me that he wasn’t here bearing good news. He hung up, shaking his head.

“What?” I asked.

“That was the prison. I wanted to set up an early-morning visit with Alan and talk with him before he was released. See what we could observe from him if he was asked face-to-face about Kenzie.”

“Prison said no?” Lucas rolled his eyes. “Did you tell them Kenzie has been kidnapped?”

Daniel shook his head again. “Worse. Alan Ard was let out yesterday.”

I tensed, fisting my hands, wanting to lash out. “What?”

“What the fuck?” Lucas said at the same time.

“Why in the hell would they release him early?” I asked.

“Evidently, the parole board had a last-minute schedule change. They ended up shifting as many cases and hearings as possible. Alan was moved up,” Daniel explained.

Our frustration was shared, and we all had to adjust our plans now. We’d planned to have someone follow Alan when he got out next week. Even though the parole officer would be in contact with him after his release, we were going to make sure someone tailed him for a while. If he was the stalker, he’d make a mistake.

Lucas looked over at me. “Could Alan have been the one who caught you with the baseball bat?”

Jude pulled up an image and spun his laptop around so I could see it. Bastard was handsome in a slicked-back-hair way.

“How tall is he?”

Jude turned the computer back to himself. “Says 5’10”.”

I shook my head. “Then no. I’m 6’1”, and this guy had a couple of inches on me. And he was sort of skinny. Alan is more muscular.”

And the fucker had used those muscles to hurt Kenzie. I wanted to put him in the ground.

“Okay,” Lucas said. “So, the second guy was probably hired along with Mark Cruz too. Honestly, I doubt either of them is the stalker, just hired thugs.”

“Unfortunately, the news about Alan gets worse,” Daniel said. “The prison official I spoke to said that he personally didn’t agree with Alan being released. He’s been in for thirteen months, and for the first six, he was a troublemaking pain in the ass.Fights, even talking about how he was going to kill the people who put him in jail.”

“Fuck.” I kicked the leg of a chair as I paced back again. I did not want to hear that. Alan had to have been talking about Kenzie. She was the only person who’d pressed charges against him and got him arrested.

He wanted her dead.

“But then in the past seven months, his behavior improved remarkably, enough that they shortened his sentence.”

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