Page 29 of Montana Justice

Piper

The afternoon feed buckets clanged against each other as I carried them through the barn, my movements automatic after weeks of the same routine.

My hands shook slightly, making the metal handles rattle.

Lachlan hadn’t come home last night or this morning.

His side of the bed had stayed cold and empty, the sheets still tucked neat from when I’d made it yesterday morning.

I’d lain awake until four, straining to hear his truck in the driveway, the familiar sound of his boots on the stairs.

Nothing. I knew he was out doing something for work, but I didn’t know what.

I’d been out of the loop since I’d given him that watch, the ultimate betrayal.

Ray could hear every word Lachlan said wherever he wore it.

And he hadn’t taken it off except to shower since I’d given it to him.

My stomach churned, acid rising in my throat. What had he said while wearing it? What plans had Ray heard? What ambush might Lachlan be walking into right now because of me?

Caleb had picked up on my anxiety, fussing through the night until I’d finally given up on sleep altogether. He was asleep now, and I set his carrier over in the corner Lark had set up for him.

The horses nickered as I passed their stalls, expecting breakfast. I forced myself to focus on measurements, on routine.

Two scoops for Maverick, one and a half for the ponies.

Don’t think about where Lachlan might be.

Don’t think about what operation he might be running.

Don’t think about whether Ray had used the information from that watch to?—

“Piper!” Lark’s voice cut through my spiral. She practically bounced toward me down the barn aisle, her face lit up with excitement. “You’re here! I have the most amazing surprise!”

I set down the buckets, trying to match her energy. My cheeks ached from forcing a smile. “What’s going on?”

“Duchess! She went into labor last night.” She grabbed my arm, already pulling me toward the far end of the barn. “Everything went perfectly. She started labor around midnight, and by three this morning…”

My stomach clenched. “Is she okay? No complications?”

“Better than okay. Wait until you see.” Lark’s grip on my arm tightened with excitement as we reached Duchess’s stall. Her joy was infectious—or would have been if I could feel anything beyond the nauseating dread that had taken up permanent residence in my chest. “Are you ready for this?”

She slid open the stall door, and I stepped inside. Duchess stood in the corner. She turned to look at us, protective but calm, and that’s when I saw them.

Them .

Two foals. Not one. Two .

My knees locked. The stall suddenly felt too small, the walls pressing in. Two tiny bodies, still wobbly on their too-long legs. One bay like the mother, one black with a white star on its forehead. Side by side. Together. Safe.

The air in my lungs turned solid.

“Twins!” Lark whispered beside me, her voice reverent. “Can you believe it? The odds are something like one in ten thousand. And for both to survive, to be healthy… It’s almost unheard of.”

The hospital room had been too bright, fluorescent lights harsh against my exhausted eyes. Thirty-six hours of labor, but they were here. Both of them. Caleb had come first, screaming his arrival. Then Sadie, smaller but just as fierce, her cries joining her brother’s.

“Beautiful twins,” the nurse had said, placing them both on my chest. “You did so good, mama.”

The weight of them, one on each side of my chest. Caleb’s face scrunched and red, Sadie’s surprisingly peaceful. I’d sobbed then, hormones and exhaustion and pure joy overwhelming me. Two babies. Mine. Both of them mine.

I gripped the stall door, wood rough under my palms. Splinters bit into my skin, but I held tighter, needing the pain to anchor me. The foals were nursing now, both of them finding their way to their mother’s milk. Side by side. Together. The way nature intended.

“Piper?” Lark’s voice sounded distant, muffled like she was speaking through water. “Are you okay?”

Two months. I’d had two months of paradise. Two babies in the secondhand crib I’d bought, sleeping wrapped around each other like they had in the womb. Caleb’s dark hair already showing, Sadie still bald as an egg but perfect. So perfect.

I’d learned their different cries. Caleb’s demanding wail when he was hungry. Sadie’s softer whimper when she needed changing. The way they settled when I held them both, one in each arm, walking the cramped trailer at three a.m. and singing lullabies I barely remembered from my own childhood.

The trailer front door exploding inward, the cheap material of it splintering. The chain snapping like thread. Ray’s face twisted with rage. “You think you can hide from me after everything I’ve done for you? You think you can just run off and leave?”

The mare shifted, protective of her babies. I stared at her for a long moment, Ray’s voice echoing in my memory as I tried to push it away, knowing what came next.

Twins. Duchess got to keep both of hers. The unfairness of it stung like broken glass in my throat.

“You’ve been gone for a year. You know I depend on you, you ungrateful bitch. And here you are with two little bastards. You think you’re better than me? You think your little bastard shits are better than me?”

Ray couldn’t even be happy to meet his own grandchildren. I’d known that. That was why I hadn’t gone back. Had never gone back. “How did you find me?”

“I have people who know people. Even trailer trash keeps records of tenants.”

“Please,” I’d begged, trying to shield the kids with my body. But Ray was stronger, always stronger. The first blow had knocked me into the wall. My head cracked against the cheap plaster, vision sparking white. The second hit my ribs, driving all air from my lungs.

“A cop’s babies,” he’d snarled, standing over me. “You let a fucking cop knock you up?”

I’d tried to crawl to the crib, ribs screaming, blood in my mouth from the punch to my face. Caleb and Sadie were crying, both of them, from the noise. Ray walked toward my babies, and I raised my arm in his direction.

“Don’t hurt them. Please, Ray. Dad.” I hadn’t called him that in years, but I would now if it meant he wouldn’t hurt my children. “Don’t hurt them. They’re your grandkids.”

“Oh, I’m not going to hurt them. You’re the one who needs to pay for your sins.”

I tried to protect myself from his fists, but I couldn’t. Blow after blow, until darkness took me.

“You don’t need to worry. The vet said they’re both perfectly healthy,” Lark continued, oblivious to my internal collapse.

She moved closer to the foals, her voice soft with wonder.

“Usually with twins, one doesn’t make it or they’re too small to thrive.

But these two… Look at them. They’re perfect. ”

My chest constricted, lungs refusing to expand properly. Each breath came shorter than the last, like breathing through a straw. A plastic straw that someone kept pinching tighter and tighter.

I’d woken to Caleb’s cries hours later. Just Caleb’s. The portable crib held only one baby, Sadie’s side empty. Like someone had carved out part of the crib, part of the world, part of me.

She was gone.

Ray sat in the chair by the window, smoking despite the baby in the room. Despite everything.

“Where is she?” My voice had been broken, barely recognizable. Blood had dried on my lips, copper pennies on my tongue. “Where’s Sadie?”

“Here’s how this is going to work,” he’d said, not even looking at me.

Ash fell from his cigarette onto the stained carpet.

“You’re going to go to that sheriff of yours.

You’re going to get close. You’re going to tell me everything—every operation, every plan, every thought in his pretty little head. ”

“Where’s my daughter!” I’d tried to sit up, but the room spun. Concussion, probably. Broken ribs, definitely. None of it mattered. “What did you do with her?”

“She’s safe. For now.” He’d finally looked at me then, and his smile had made my blood freeze.

The same smile from my childhood, the one that meant someone was about to bleed.

Usually me. “She stays safe as long as you do exactly what I tell you. Cross me, try to run, breathe a word of this to anyone—especially your cop—and you’ll never see your little girl again. ”

The barn spun around me, hay dust dancing in the morning light like snow. It had been more than two months since I’d held my daughter. Sixty-eight days. One thousand six hundred and thirty-two hours. I knew because I counted every one.

“They’re nursing so well already,” Lark said, kneeling beside the foals now. “Sometimes twins have trouble competing for milk, but Duchess seems to have plenty. Mother Nature is amazing, isn’t she? The way she provides for both babies, makes sure they both get what they need.”

Mother Nature. As if nature had anything to do with a mother having her baby ripped away. As if nature would ever be that cruel. My throat closed completely, like hands wrapping around my neck. Ray’s hands. Always Ray’s hands.

“Lachlan will never take me back.”

“You’ll find a way to make him take you back, or I’ll kill her.” Ray shook his head calmly as if he wasn’t talking about murdering his own flesh and blood. “Make it look like SIDS. Tragic story—young mother, overwhelmed. Asked us to help out.”

“You wouldn’t.” But even as I said it, I knew he would. He would do it to control me.

“Try me,” he’d said. “Do what you’re told, use your boy there to get back in Sheriff Calloway’s life, and feed me details so I can run my drug and weapons network right under his nose. You’ll make sure I never get caught, and everyone will be fine. Your mother will take care of the brat.”

I let out a sob. My mother could barely take care of herself, much less a newborn.

Ray stood and walked to the door. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Please, Ray.” I didn’t know why I was begging for mercy when he didn’t have any.

He reached over and yanked my head back by my hair. “Fight me, and I’ll mail you pieces of her, Piper. Starting with those tiny little fingers.”

I’d vomited all over the floor.

The foals made soft sounds, content and safe. Together. My vision started to tunnel, darkness creeping in from the edges. The taste of copper filled my mouth—had I bitten my tongue again? Or was that just the phantom taste of that night, forever burned into my memory?

“Piper?” Lark’s hand touched my shoulder. Her fingers felt like brands through my shirt. “Hey, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

I tried to answer, tried to form words, but my chest had locked up. No air in. No air out. Just the image of those two perfect foals, side by side, the way my babies should have been. The way they’d been before it all went to hell.

Every video call, every proof of life photo that deleted itself after thirty seconds. Technology I didn’t understand, apps Ray had someone install on burner phones.

Sadie getting bigger, changing, growing without me. Her first smile—I’d missed it.

Missed the first time she rolled over. First time she held her head up on her own. Slept through the night.

All the things Caleb had done, I’d wondered if Sadie had done too.

“She’ll be sitting up,” Ray had told me last week, casual as discussing the weather. “Determined little thing. Must get that from you. Though hopefully not your stupid streak.”

I’d missed it all. Would miss all the other milestones too.

Black spots danced at the edges of my vision. My knees buckled, hands slipping from the stall door. The splinters tore free, taking skin with them. I heard Lark calling my name, heard the horses shifting nervously, but it all seemed very far away.

Underwater. I was drowning in barn air, drowning in the scent of hay and horses and milk that should have been feeding two human babies instead of two foals.

“Please,” I’d begged Ray just last week. “Just let me see her. Just once. I’ll do anything.”

“You’re already doing everything,” he’d said. “Don’t get greedy, Piper. Greedy mothers lose everything.”

But I’d already lost everything. Lost Sadie. Lost myself. Now I was losing Lachlan too, one betrayal at a time. That watch on his wrist, counting down our destruction with every tick.

The barn floor rushed up to meet me. Hay scattered under my hands as I tried to catch myself, but my arms had no strength. Pine shavings pressed into my palms, sharp and real. The smell of horses and grain and morning filled my nostrils as everything inside me went haywire.

“Piper! Oh God, someone help!” Lark’s voice, high and frightened. Her hands on my shoulders, trying to ease my fall. “Stay with me. Just breathe. Just?—”

But I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the image burned into my brain. Two foals. Two babies. One mother who got to keep them both.

The unfairness of it broke something inside me that I’d been holding together with desperation and stubborn hope. I felt it snap, actually felt it, like a physical thing breaking in my chest. A rib, maybe, or maybe just my heart finally giving up.

Voices now. More than just Lark. Someone talking about calling 911. Someone else saying my name. But they were far away, so far away, and I was falling into darkness that tasted like copper and felt like losing everything.

“Sadie.” Her name escaped on what might have been my last breath. The first time I’d said it aloud since I’d been in Garnet Bend. It burned coming out, like acid on my tongue. “Please… Sadie.”

Gray mist flooded over me. In the mist, I couldn’t see what I’d lost. Couldn’t count the days since I’d held my daughter. Couldn’t feel the watch on Lachlan’s wrist counting down to the moment he’d learn exactly what kind of monster had been sharing his bed.

In the mist, maybe I could pretend that somewhere, somehow, there was still a way to save them all. That Lachlan would forgive me. That Ray would let Sadie go. That I could have both my babies in my arms again.

Then the mist turned to darkness, merciful and complete.

And there was nothing.