Page 78 of Montana Heat

“Overcrowding,” Jude quipped unhappily.

“Alan was an asshole, risking a longer stay, but then he did a one-eighty and became a model prisoner,” Daniel continued.

It was interesting that Kenzie’s stalker problems had started about six months ago, not long after Alan started behaving himself. But Alan couldn’t have been the stalker from prison, right?

Something wasn’t adding up here.

But one thing I knew for sure: I didn’t trust the fact that the man had changed his tune. Alan hadn’t gone from wanting to kill Kenzie to model prisoner for no reason.

He’d had a plan.

“Find out anything else about him?” Lucas asked.

“Not many visitors at first.” Daniel crossed his arms over his chest. “Then about eight months ago, a Jada Moyer started visiting him. She met Alan when she was visiting her brother, who is also in jail there. But then she stopped logging in to visit her brother to visit Alan instead.”

“Sounds like a romance,” Liam said. “And could be the reason he cleaned up his act.”

Daniel nodded. “The prison official seems to think the same.”

I finally gave up on pacing and slumped into a spare chair, frustrated beyond measure. I didn’t give a flying fuck aboutthis little love affair. I failed to see how this applied to Kenzie’s situation.

If anything, Alan finding a new woman to have in his life reduced the likelihood that he’d want to screw around with anything to do with Kenzie. Alan moving on should be a good thing.

My friends talked on, debating how to interpret this news about Alan’s release. They were all able to do something to help find Kenzie. They all had their purposes. All I could do was sit there and nurse this killer of a headache.

Beneath the throbbing pain, though, something nagged me. The more I tuned out the others and tried to pick at the errant thought that wouldn’t let go of me, the louder it became.

Jada.

It wasn’t too common of a name, and I’d seen it somewhere. I pulled the spare laptop over and scrolled through the hotel employee list again. I might not be able to match a picture of a man to someone in here, but if I could find this woman…

There. I slapped my hands to the desk, pulling myself up straighter.

“What? What is it?” Jude asked.

I pointed at the image that was on my screen. “Jada is a unique name. I remember seeing it when Kenzie was looking through photos of people who work at the hotel. There’s a Jada Banks.”

“Jude,” Daniel said. “Look up what you can find on Jada Banks.”

Within a few seconds, he was rattling off info. “Moyer was her maiden name. She’s divorced, but she never went back to it. Yep, brother’s name is Moyer too.” His fingers clicked rapidly on the keyboard. “And yep, Jensen was right. She’s a PR associate at the hotel we’ve been looking into.”

We all looked around at one another, one by one.

“Holy shit,” I muttered. “Kenzie’s stalker is awoman.”

And I had no doubt in my mind she was working with Alan. She clearly had a connection to him, visiting as regularly as she did. While he’d been locked up on the inside, she was out and about, free to do whatever she could to attack Kenzie.

“Call Charlie and update him about this,” Daniel told Jude, who was already on the phone making that call.

Jada Moyer might be a woman, but that didn’t mean she was any less deadly to Kenzie.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Kenzie

For the second occasion in too short of a time frame, I woke in the back seat of a car. When I’d been hit with the stun gun, all I could do was ride out the jolt of pain. It left me numb and unable to fight back when the tall man approached and jabbed another needle into my arm. I vaguely recalled the woman giving Baldie the order to shut me up. Shut me up. Ha. I hadn’t even opened my mouth long enough to ask what the hell was going on before I was zapped.

I didn’t delay opening my eyes this time. Why bother, when I’d already seen the two thugs and the woman who’d approached? I was in a different car now. It was roomier and had that new-car smell. Only the woman was in the car, driving. The two goons were absent, and I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad news.

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