Page 29 of Montana Freedom

I slipped my hands into my pockets and stared at them both. “Then if you have neither an arrest nor a search warrant, I’ll have to ask you to leave. Though Resting Warrior is a therapeutic facility, we are privately run, and none of our staff are mandatory reporters. I can’t give you any information on whether someone is a guest here.”

“Hold on, Mr. Clark.” The second agent held out a hand. “I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. We’re not here to arrest Ms. Derine, harm her, or anything else. All we want to do is talk to her. She may have information about the location of a known fugitive, and it could help our case. That’s all.”

I looked at both of them, trying to get a good read. Agent Phillips was harsh, but I also didn’t immediately get the feeling he was trying to force the issue in a way that was illegal or inappropriate. It felt more like he was eager to track down this lead for a break in the case. Which, I assumed, had something to do with the Riders.

Agent Jones made me feel easier. If they only wanted to talk to her, I could ask. She might say no, but if she said yes, I knew there would be someone on her side.

“We have an Emma staying here. I can’t confirm her surname is Derine. I will ask if she’d like to speak to you, but whatever her answer is, it will be final. Please, wait inside. Help yourself to coffee or tea, and I’ll be with you shortly.”

I glanced at Lucas, and he nodded. They weren’t to be left alone. None of us at Resting Warrior had problems with the branches of law enforcement, but by nature, they took whatever they could. We were used to it. But this was our place, and we would protect it.

“Stay here,” I said to Liam. “Outside. Go in if Lucas needs you, but keep an eye on things.”

He nodded once, leaning almost too casually against the railing. “Got it.”

I walked away on purpose.

The special agents could wait.

I sighed, knowing Emma probably wasn’t going to like this. Probably? Who was I kidding? She barely wanted to talk to Charlie, and in the grand scheme of things, Charlie was a little fish compared to the FBI. I needed to find out how they knew, because Charlie had promised to keep it quiet, and if the FBI had some kind of surveillance on us, I wanted to know.

“Emma?” I knocked on the door. “I know it’s earlier than usual, but something’s come up.”

No answer. It was possible she was still sleeping, but that didn’t feel right. The silence behind the door was the kind of silence that accompanied absence…or true unconsciousness.

Panic welled up in my chest. She seemed to be doing fine now that her infection was under control. But what if she wasn’t? Her eyes and the sounds of her yelling for me while the cage slammed shut filled my mind, and it wasn’t just panic anymore. It was raw need. I had to make sure she was all right. Sheneededto be all right.

“Emma?” I knocked again. “If you’re in there and you’re fine, I need to hear from you. Otherwise, I’m coming in to make sure you’re okay.”

I made myself wait sixty full seconds before I pulled out my keys and unlocked the cabin. Every moment was agony. “Emma?”

She wasn’t in the bedroom. The door was open, the bed empty. The bathroom door was open too, with no sign of her. Relief took the place of panic in my chest, but another kind of worry gnawed at me now. She hadn’t told me she was leaving this time. Granted, whatever time it was she’d decided to go, I would have been sleeping. But was it different this time?

Usually she left in the afternoon. Was this her leaving permanently?

The stolen car I’d found her with was still outside, so my gut instinct told me no. If she were planning to run away, I didn’t think she would take the ranch truck. Her remorse over having to steal from the grocery store was genuine. I didn’t think she wanted to do it again—especially with another vehicle.

If she wasn’t back by this afternoon, then there would be real cause for worry.

Entering the lodge, I glanced at the rack of keys. The ones to her preferred truck were gone. I found a measure of comfort in that.

“Unfortunately, Emma is not on our property right now. If you’d like to speak to her, you’ll have to come back later.”

Agent Phillips stood, eyes wary. “Where did she go?”

“I’m not going to tell you that.”

“You will—”

“Agent Phillips,” I cut him off. “If the Emma you’re looking for is the same Emma who has sought shelter here, she is a woman who has experienced trauma and needs a safe space for it. I’m not going to give you her location so you and your partner can go terrify her. The people who stay at Resting Warrior aren’t prisoners. They are free to come and go as they choose. So, unless you give me a good reason why (a) you believe she has anything to do with what you’re looking into, and (b) why you thought she was here in the first place, you can give me your phone number and I’ll call you if she’s willing to talk to you.”

I knew why they wanted to talk to her, but as with anything this sensitive, I wasn’t going to tip our hand first. If these men were knee-deep into investigating the Riders, I wasn’t opposed to helping them. The threat of the gang had been hanging over our heads without any movement for months.

But I also wasn’t simply going to hand Emma over to them like an offering for slaughter. Simon and the Riders clearly wanted her dead. Speaking to the FBI wasn’t going to make them want her dead any less.

Agent Phillips pulled out his phone and turned away from me in disgust. Agent Jones stood up from the table with an apologetic look on his face. “Ms. Derine’s name came up in connection with a case. We’ve had an alert for anything with a tie to a gang called the Riders. There was a new internal report from the local police that mentioned an Emma. So close in proximity to some trouble a few months ago made us curious. That’s why we’re here.”

I looked over at Lucas. If they wanted to talk to Emma, they would probably also want to speak to Noah and Kate. I knew Charlie had reported everything that happened in November to the FBI, but we hadn’t heard anything about it.

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