Page 57 of Hutch (Minnesota Raptors #2)

Hutch

Mom made coffee and shoved a cup of it at me.

It’s a little sweeter than I like, but she’s trying to make sure I have enough sugar in me to help stave off shock.

That’s my best guess at least. Barry, Gloria, and Cherese have set up shop in Mom’s living room while Collin, Dylan, and myself are at the kitchen table.

I was pacing earlier, but Dylan forced me to sit and drink some coffee.

He said I was making him dizzy. I probably was. Hell, I feel dizzy myself right now.

All I can see is what my imagination is forcing on me. I keep thinking of those texts and voicemails. What he promised to do to her. Is she even still alive?

“Hutch?”

I look up to see Barry standing to the left of us.

“Yeah?”

“I just spoke with one of my people at the hospital. Lucy is out of surgery and in the ICU. She had serious internal bleeding from her spleen being ruptured. They had to take it out. Her liver is very bruised as well. She’s lucky it wasn’t lacerated. She could have bled out in minutes.”

“Did you find out about Will?”

“He’s got a nasty concussion and some lacerations on his face, but he’ll be fine.”

“I don’t trust that.”

“What do you mean?” Barry cocks his head, frowning. “The young man was severely injured.”

“Was he?” Dylan asks, clearly on my train of thought after hearing about his injuries.

“Compared to Lucy, his injuries are minor and he’s a football player.

Who’s to say he didn’t call asswipe and alert him as to when Daisy and Lucy got back from the game?

He would have had to be injured for it to look like he had no hand in it. ”

“Do you two really think that?” he asks.

I shrug. “I don’t trust anyone who’s a football player outside of Mitchell right now.”

“I’ll have Baas look into it.” He turns and goes back into the living room.

“Here, honey, you need to eat something.” Mom puts a plate with a sandwich down in front of me. “I know you don’t want to, but you need to.”

“Ah, Mama Kathleen, we’re not supposed to eat anything with meat in it.” Collin looks pained as he looks at his own sandwich.

“What?”

“Plant based diet,” he explains and pushes the sandwich toward Dylan. “Here, at least one of us should eat as much as we want to.”

“I…”

“It’s fine,” Barry calls. “Unusual circumstances. You boys eat what you want tonight. You need to keep your energy up.”

Mom beams at him.

Where the fuck is she?

“I don’t know,” Mom says softly, “but we’ll find her.”

“I said that out loud?”

She nods. “You’ve been saying it since you got here.”

I didn’t know.

“What if he kills her before we find her?” I whisper hoarsely. “I never even told her I love her. I was afraid it would send her running.”

“A woman knows when a man loves her,” Mom says gently and hugs me around the shoulders since I’m sitting. “We can tell by your actions and that’s why we’re willing to wait to hear you say it. We already know.”

“You think?”

“I know,” she affirms. “I am, after all, a woman.”

I hope to God Mom’s right and Daisy knows how much I love her. That it gives her strength while she waits for me to find her.

“Do you know someone named Brody James?” Gloria asks.

The name’s familiar, but I can’t place it. I know I know it, though.

“He’s a sophomore.” Dylan’s frowning, trying to remember. “Why?”

“He’s had several calls with Ayers over the last two weeks.”

“He was there the first night at the pizza party. He called her Deliverance.” I knew I knew him. “He’s a football player.”

“He might be our point of contact then.” Barry nods and pulls out his phone to make two calls, one to Baas and one to the police. Not sure why he’s even informing the cops after the way they acted. Daisy’s fucking missing and no one is looking for her.

“Okay, I have everything set and it’ll go live in three minutes.” Gloria checks her laptop again. “Barry, you good with all this?”

He nods and waves, speaking to who I think is the cops.

“What’s going live?” I ask.

Gloria brings her laptop over to show me the Raptors social media pages.

“We’re going to release a site wide missing person’s report with a plea to contact us or the police with any information on Daisy.

We have her photo plus the photos of the two of you that you sent me.

I also have Ayer’s photo as a person of interest in her disappearance.

I was careful with the wording as per Cherese so we don’t get sued in case it’s not him.

” She holds up her hand when I start to protest. “I believe its him, but we have to protect the team as well.”

I nod, understanding. Its more than the police are doing and I’m so very grateful.

Dylan pulls out his own phone. “Hey, I’ll call up the team and get Mitch to call and the girls to call all the boyfriends and we’ll share everything to our social media as well.

The Raptors have reach, but even they can’t compete with college sports teams and all the fans.

We’ll ask for it to be shared by everyone.

Her picture will be everywhere within minutes. ”

I’m overwhelmed by the support. I know every sports team on campus will share the posts.

“I’ve spoken with the mayor and he has agreed to lean on the police to make sure everything that can be done is being done.” Barry snaps his phone shut. “He will get results faster than we will by simply calling and asking them for an update. The mayor will keep me informed of their progress.”

“Mr. Krantz, there’s a sandwich here for you, Gloria, and Cherese.” Mom nods toward the small kitchen island where three plates of very large sandwiches are sitting.

“Why thank you, Mrs. Hutchinson.” He goes over and picks one up. “I haven’t eaten since lunch today when Gloria made me aware of the potential problematic situation with Ayers. I started researching and forgot to eat as I went down the rabbit hole.”

Barry’s phone rings as he’s chewing. “Hello?”

Mom grimaces as you can clearly see everything he’s eating when he talks. It doesn’t bother me.

“You’re sure? Okay, I’ll let them know.” He hangs up, swallows and turns to me. “Will has made no phone calls, texts, or emails to Ayers. Baas had his people pull his phone records and emails.”

“He got a warrant fast,” Collin muses.

Barry grins. “Baas moves quickly because he doesn’t use warrants.

He has very good hackers on his team. The police are forced into going slowly because of warrants and things like evidence, probable cause, reasonable suspicion, and the like.

I know you all feel like they aren’t doing anything, but they are moving as quickly as they can within the confines of the law. Baas is just faster. He’s better too.”

I don’t know about the police doing everything they can, but I let it go. As long as people are looking for my girl, I don’t care.

“One more thing.” Barry looks hesitant and we all sit up. “They found Daisy’s phone on the side of the road. The screen was cracked, consistent with it being thrown from a moving vehicle. Baas’ team informed the police and waited until someone came to collect it as evidence.”

She doesn’t have her phone. We can’t track her. Every little ounce of hope I had dies with that realization. She’s gone and I may never see her alive again.

“Don’t lose hope.” Barry comes over and lays his hand on my shoulder, squeezing.

“Baas’ team are exceptional. They’ll find her.

That phone is the best clue we have. There is someone right now going through the CCTV footage on that street.

She’ll find the vehicle the phone was thrown from and when she does, we’ll have new clues…

the vehicle, who it’s registered to, and we might get lucky enough to be able to track the vehicle itself. We’re much closer than we were.”

“How do you know so much about this stuff?” Collin asks.

Barry shrugs. “I read a lot.”

Collin starts to argue, but I shake my head. I don’t want Barry irritated. He’s helping me find my girl and that’s all that really matters.

It settles down for a bit after that and I pull out my phone to share all the different social media postings.

I even did a live Instagram post asking for anyone with information to post it and call the police.

I know I probably should have asked, but I need to feel like I’m doing something.

Anything is better than just sitting here waiting for someone to tell me they found her dead body.

I’m still floored by how the posts are blowing up. There have been millions of shares across platforms. Hopefully someone will see something. It’s what I’m holding onto right now, that and the possibility of identifying the car.

“Wasn’t there cameras in the parking garage?” I ask, my brain fixating on cameras. “Shouldn’t that have caught whoever did this?”

“The cameras on the first floor of the parking garage don’t seem to be working.

” Barry sounds as frustrated as I feel. “The hotel put in a request for the management company to repair them, but so far they have not been given a date as to the repairs will be made. Daisy has an excellent civil case against the management group should she decide to pursue it. All three of them do to be honest.”

Given Daisy’s financials, it might be something to look into for her. She’ll never want for anything as long as I have breath in my body, but knowing how independent she is, having her own money will make her feel like the independent woman she is.

If she makes it out of this alive. I keep hearing Ayer’s voice on repeat over and over telling her she’s not going to make it out alive this time. I have no doubt he’ll kill her.

There’s a knock at the door and Barry goes to answer it before Mom can.

A man I don’t recognize enters the room.

He’s older, in his late thirties, early forties maybe, but still very fit.

His dark hair has some gray in it, but otherwise, Baas Rogers still looks the part of the goalie he used to play.

He nods to everyone and comes straight to the kitchen table and takes the remaining seat.

“Hutch, I hate that we’re meeting under these circumstances, but I hope we can talk when this is over.”

I nod as he pulls his laptop out of a bag and proceeds to boot it up. He opens several programs.

“Mara was able to hack into the surrounding ring cameras and traffic cams. We have the SUV and a clear picture of what happened in the garage from the business across the street. The police have been told to collect it. I did send someone to ask for the footage a while ago so we can legally hand it over.” He opens a tab and hits play on the video.

My heart stops. The three of them are clearly visible, if at a distance as an SUV pulls up to block their exit. It’s a miracle we can see in the garage but the angle the ring camera was set to has a clear line of sight opposite the SUV.

Ayers gets out and hits Daisy. She goes down. Will tries to stop him and is taken down. Several kicks to his head ensures he stays down. Lucy is also attacked and beaten. He drags Daisy into the back of the SUV and they drive off. It all happens in the span of a minute or two. It’s that quick.

“This image of the SUV gave Mara what she needed to look for and she was able to locate the vehicle on traffic cams. The phone is pitched out the window. She got the license plate number. It’s a Texas plate that belongs to a rental company, the rental registered to Duncan Montgomery, a relative of Brody James.

Ayers has many, many calls to both of them, with the amount ramping up over the last twenty-four hours. ”

“Do the police know this?” I ask.

“I told them it would be wise to check the phone records of the three of them, but since we obtained those records illegally, I can’t specifically say anything.”

I sigh heavily.

“The SUV information we could give police as we have the same type of access they do to certain databases and we found the vehicle through CCTV footage. I contacted the rental company’s owner at home.

Woke his ass up and explained the situation, asking if the vehicle can be tracked.

He has tracking on all his vehicles and gave me remote access.

I’ve activated it and we have a location.

My question now is do you want us to inform the police and let them go in or do you want my men to go in and retrieve Daisy? ”

“Baas’ team has a higher success rate than the police,” Barry says when I don’t answer right away.

“I don’t want asswipe killed.” Collin’s voice is low and deadly. “I want him to suffer, to stand trial and go to jail for what he’s done. He’s obsessed with his image and his career. I want him to watch it all burn down around him.”

“We can make that happen,” Baas agrees. “We can incapacitate and contain him until the police get there. We’ll inform them when we arrive on scene and that we’re going in.

They hate it when that happens, but I don’t give two shits.

My purpose is successful retrieval, not molly coddling a police force who moves to slow.

Might not be their fault, but people die when your hands are tied by red tape. ”

“Why didn’t you lead with you knew where she was?” I bite out, my anger focusing on the man across from me. I’ve been sitting here losing my mind and he’s known where she was this whole time? What the actual fuck?

“Because I needed you to have all the information so we could decide on option A or option B.” He’s unruffled by my anger. “We’ll go with option B and call the police once we’re in place and we’ll go in first. I’m assuming you want to be there?”

His phone rings and he answers it quickly. “The tip is verified?” he asks after a moment. Nodding he hangs up.

“Lane has verified a tip that came through on Instagram of a baseball player here on campus. He lives in a house a few doors down from the house we identified Ayers being in through tracking the SUV. He saw Ayers enter the house earlier. He was alone, but this was well before the hockey game began. I’ve asked Lane to pass it on to the police once we are in place. ”

“What are we waiting for?” I ask, standing. “Let’s go.”

Baas stares at me steadily. “We need a word first.”

“About what?”

“In order for us to go in and do our job, you need to stay out of the way. Once we’ve secured the situation, you can enter the premises, but not until. I need you to promise me you won’t interfere. One wrong move and it could spook Ayers into killing her.”

I swallow hard. “I won’t be the reason she dies.”

He nods. “Good, then let’s go. I have the address already plugged into my GPS.”

“Then let’s go.”

Mom looks worried, but I refuse to let that sway me as I follow Barry and Baas out the door, Dylan and Collin behind me.

I’m going to get my girl and if that fucker has hurt her, I can’t guarantee he’ll survive me.