Chapter One

      Everything in Montana was measured by time, not miles driven, not quality and not sacrifice. For example, the trip from Missoula to Butte took just under two hours. And her boyfriend? Nearly three months. At sixteen, the relationship had been too short to be called serious, yet long enough to leave her with a child. Then, in less than ten seconds, the relationship was over and she had been left with a beautiful daughter and fading dreams.

      That was thirteen years ago. Thirteen terrifying, humbling and gratifying years. Nights spent soothing her daughter when she had ear infections, and days spent struggling to get where she was—a sheriff’s officer with a steady job and a stable income. She was the only one strong enough to support her mother and her daughter. They needed her.

      Dreams were for those who could afford them—and that would never be Blake West.

      Her antiquated patrol unit’s radio crackled to life as the 9-1-1 dispatcher’s voice filled the car. “Blake, your mom called. Said there’s some kind of issue up at your place.”

      She picked up the handset. “Dispatch, feel free to remind my mother that nine-one-one is to be used for emergencies only.”

      “You tell your mother that,” the woman said with a laugh.

      Blake shook her head, as she thought about telling her throwback-to-another-era Irish mother that she wasn’t to do something. Blake had a better chance of convincing the Pope to give up being Catholic.

      “Really, though,” the dispatcher continued, “she said your cell wasn’t working. She sounded really upset.”

      Blake picked up her cell phone. Just like half of Silver Bow County, there was no service today where yesterday there had been—just another perk of living in a state where technology was an unreliable amenity.

      “Is Megan okay?”

      “She didn’t say. Just said she needed you to come home.”

      Blake stepped on the gas as she turned the car down the set of roads that led to their house. “If she calls back, tell her I’m on my way.”

      She flicked on her lights and sped down the pothole-ravaged road that led to the house on the outskirts of the mining-centered city of Butte. At one time the historical city had been beautiful with its brick buildings and Old West charm. There had been an uptick in the mine’s activities around the city in the 1990s, but now it was a decaying mass of run-down miner’s row houses and the home of a pit full of water so toxic that it even killed the birds that dared to land on its surface.

      Most of those left in town were small-time miners, those who hoped the large mine operations would open again someday, or those who had retired from the Pit. It was the city of the strong, a city of survivors—just like Blake and her mother.

      Gemma West could handle anything. If she was as upset as the dispatcher said, something had to be majorly wrong.

      Had something happened to Megan? She was old enough to know the rules, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t done something to put herself in danger.

      Blake took a series of long breaths as she forced herself to remain calm.

      Megan was probably fine.

      She pulled to a stop in front of their beige ranch-style home, which rested behind a mature, though chemically stunted, pine. Near its base was a scar from her father’s car the day he’d left so many years ago. She’d always hated and loved that tree. It was a visible reminder of days and lives spent scratching and tearing away in the mines that were the fulcrum of the corrupt city and how that city and its vices had destroyed her family. No matter how many years went by, the tree would never grow, never change. Too much damage had been done.

      “Mom! Megan?” she yelled, hoping they would step out the front door to meet her.

      It was dead quiet. She made her way up the steps and opened the aluminum screen door with a rattle.

      “Mom, you home? Megan?” she called, her voice nearing frantic tones only a dog could hear.

      The smell of home cooking, the kind done by generations who didn’t care about waistlines or cholesterol, wafted from the kitchen.

      “Mom?” she asked, moving toward the scent of fried chicken.

      Something was terribly wrong. Her mother could hear a car coming from ten miles down the road, and she was notorious for meeting Blake at the front door, judgment in hand.

      She moved to call for her daughter but stopped as the sound of the back door’s rusty hinges screeched.

      She wasn’t alone.

      Out of instinct, she reached down and put her hand on her Glock, unclicking the snap that held it safely in its holster. After slipping the gun out, she raised it, ready to meet whatever or whomever she would find in the kitchen.

      The old wooden floor creaked as she tried to sneak down the hall. Pressing her back against the wall, she readied herself.

      Had someone broken in? Was someone trying to take her daughter?

      Her daughter.

      She lowered her gun. Maybe it was just Megan. The girl loved to surprise her—to jump out from behind walls and make her scream. If it was, she couldn’t let her law enforcement training come into play. She couldn’t risk hurting someone she loved.

      “Megan, is that you?” she asked, trying to sound playful instead of terrified. “Pumpkin, you need to answer me.” She lowered her gun and hid it behind her hip as she eased around the corner and into the kitchen.

      On the counter under the window, a fresh plate of fried chicken sat cooling, its oil oozing into the paper towel underneath. A can of beans was next to the plate, the can opener still resting on its lip, as if her mother had been opening it but had suddenly been called away.

      A movement outside caught her eye as something scuttled across the backyard and disappeared behind the shed.

      The hair on her arms rose. What is going on?

      She took a step toward the back door.

      Megan’s scream pierced the air. The sound resonated from the darkened shed.

      Blake ran outside. Gun raised. Ready. If someone was hurting her daughter, they would die.

      Through the thin particleboard door of the shed, she heard muffled voices.