Page 86 of Montana Mystery

Daniel nodded. Jenna Franklin was the best in the business. Jude came back with his laptop and Jenna on speaker. “Okay, I’ve got the shelter’s records. They should really up their security.”

Jude chuckled. “I don’t think that animal shelters are particularly worried about data breaches, Jenna.”

“Everyone should be concerned about data breaches so that the bad guys don’t do exactly what we’re doing in reverse.” That was a point that we couldn’t argue with. “So we’re looking for anyone who doesn’t belong?”

“That’ll be helpful in case we don’t find who we’re looking for,” Jude said. “But specifically a dog named Velcro.” He glanced at me. “That’s the name we gave the shelter?”

“Yeah.”

“Found that,” Jenna said. “Yeah, the adopter’s info doesn’t check out.”

I shook my head. It wasn’t the shelter’s fault. They did what they could to make sure people were who they said they were, but if people went out of their way to get fake everything? Not much they could do.

“Here’s a picture.”

On the screen, a photo popped up. A mug shot. He looked familiar. I cursed. “It’s the fucking bookie.”

The guy who’d taken my bet and written down my phone number for Max in the first place.

“At least we know we have the right guy,” Daniel muttered.

“This doesn’t help us,” I said. “Knowing they fraudulently adopted a dog doesn’t get us any closer to finding Kate.”

“No,” Jenna said over the phone. “But this might. Pulled the animal control incident report you were talking about. The address on it matches some other reports over the last few months. Property is to the north. Isolated enough to match this MO.”

I swallowed. “It’s a long shot.”

“It is,” Jude acknowledged.

Everyone started moving at once. It was a long shot, but it was the only shot we had. So we were going to take it.

Chapter 27

Kate

I didn’t know where I was.

My head throbbed where Max had hit me, and I was groggy enough to wonder if I’d been drugged. If I had, there was no way to know how long I’d been unconscious. I could be anywhere. There was a chance that I wasn’t even in Montana anymore.

Oh God.

Terror ripped through my gut, and I tried to push it down. But it didn’t work. I was just a vessel for fear right now, all of it spilling over like chills over my limbs.

For a moment I had déjà vu. Back to that moment in the park where I’d given Max the money, like I’d been in some kind of James Bond movie.

This part of the movie was far less fun.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus through the throbbing in my head.

Noah...

He would have gotten out of his session with Rayne and thought everything was fine with my voicemail. How long until he figured out I was gone? The sooner he knew, the sooner he would try to find me. My chest ached, imagining him finding out.

And Brandon—

I cut that thought off at the knees before the grief crushed me. When he’d deployed, I’d been prepared for the fact that I might lose him. And when he came back, I’d adjusted to the fact that I’d lost him in a different way. I didn’t think I’d lose him like this.

Choking back emotion, I shoved it behind an iron wall. I needed to hold on and stay alive. Because Noah was coming. I knew him well enough now to know he would try. He would do everything in his power to get to me.

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