Page 59 of Hutch (Minnesota Raptors #2)

Hutch

The neighborhood is nondescript aside from looking like every generic suburb in the city. The well-tended homes are a decent size, each with a front yard, some of them littered with toys. It looks and feels like a safe neighborhood. Which is probably why it was chosen. No one would look here first.

And sitting right in the driveway, trunk up against the garage door is the same black SUV from the video. My body starts to hum with rage, but I curb it, remembering what Baas said. I will not be responsible for getting her killed.

“This rental is in Martin Cobb’s name, another football player from Texas. I have to wonder if he knew what Ayers was coming here to do.” Baas checks his phone and then makes a call. “We’re here. Are you ready to move in?”

He’s silent for so long even Barry gets a little antsy. “Baas?”

Baas sighs heavily and hangs up the phone. “Whoever is with Ayers came out to the SUV about five minutes ago and got a large tarp along with several bottles of bleach.”

“No,” I whisper. She’s not dead. They’re not cleaning up the mess.

“Barry, keep him here even if you have to bodily restrain him.”

He didn’t say she wasn’t dead.

“She can’t be dead. She can’t be,” I whisper brokenly, and Collin hauls me into a bear hug.

“She’s not dead. I won’t believe that.” Collin sounds so sure.

I feel the wetness of my tears as they travel down my face. A tarp. You wrap a body in a tarp.

I watch through wet eyes as men in black come out of the shadows and approach the house, guns in hands. The garage door is up and they breach through there. It doesn’t look like they locked the door to the inside of the house and the men enter that door.

It’s eerily silent. I listen for gunshots, but hear nothing outside the normal sounds of the night. A dog barks in the distance. The sound of a car door opening and closing echoes through the still night. Why is it so quiet?

It’s minutes. Five at most when Barry’s cell rings.

“We can go in, but it’s not good, Hutch. You need to prepare yourself for what we’re going to find down there.”

I barely hear him before I’m tearing out of the backseat and running like my life depends on it inside the house. One of the men point to a door in the kitchen leading down to the basement and I go that way. I hear the shouting before I even reach the top of the stairs.

Ayers.

I’d recognize his voice anywhere. I see him as soon as my feet hit the concrete floor.

He and another guy I don’t recognize have been restrained with zip ties to both their hands and feet.

He’s screaming obscenities at the men holding weapons on them.

And then he sees me. His rage intensifies. His already crazed eyes go icy.

“You the hockey player?”

I nod.

He smiles. “I win.”

He wins? I look around and when I see her, my knees hit the floor. She’s a bloody mess with her limbs twisted at odd angles. Her face has been so badly beaten she’s not recognizable. No.

I crawl over to her and put my ear against her mouth and nose. She’s not breathing. I look for a pulse but can’t find one.

Collin shouts something unintelligible when he kneels down beside me. Everything around me goes gray and fuzzy and the only thing I see is her. My sweet, scrapy girl. She’s not breathing.

“She’s not breathing.” My voice comes out broken, barely above a whisper. “She’s not breathing, C.”

“Then we’ll breathe for her until the ambulance gets here.” Dylan goes down on his knees on the other side of her. “Do either of you know CPR?”

Collin nods.

“I’ll do chest compressions. Hutch you breathe for her. Can you do that?” Dylan asks.

“What?” I shake my head, trying to understand what he’s asking.

“Don’t you fucking pass out on me,” Dylan barks as I sway. “I need you to fucking breathe for your girl. She won’t live if we can’t keep her breathing and her heart beating.”

I nod slowly. I can do that. I can breathe for her.

With shaking hands, I tilt her head back, making sure her airway is clear and push two breaths into her. Her chest rises and falls with each one. Then Dylan is pushing down on her chest, counting out loud. Then I breathe for her again.

We repeat this, Collin and Dylan switching between reps so they don’t get tired. The whole time, I’m whispering to her that I’m here and to not give up, to breathe for me.

In the background Ayers is laughing hysterically.

“Get him the fuck out of here,” Barry tells someone. “We need to work and he’s not helping.”

“Dead, dead, dead,” asswipe chirps. “She’s mine. I told her that the last time and if she’d just been a good girl and kept her mouth shut, she’d be fine. Now she’s made me do this so she’d keep her fucking mouth shut.”

“Get him the fuck out of here,” Barry roars.

He’s hauled out of the basement, but I pay no attention to him. All my focus is on Daisy and making sure she keeps breathing. I’ll sit here all night and breathe for her. I can deal with asswipe later.

“Please, sweetheart, please just breathe for me. Please.”

The paramedics arrive and two of Baas’ men drag me away from her so they can work. I fight tooth and nail to get back to her. I need to make sure she’s breathing.

“Breathe, baby, please breathe.”

She’s loaded onto a stretcher, with the paramedics still performing CPR and they take her upstairs.

I want to get in the ambulance with her, but they won’t let me.

They need to work and they’re afraid I’ll interfere.

Barry has a conversation with one of them and in the end, they allow me in the back of the ambulance.

I sit to the side, out of the way, and hold her hand.

“I’m here, Daisy, I’m here. I’ve got you. All you have to do is breathe.”

The ride to the hospital seems to take forever. The ambulance doors open and there is a team of medical staff waiting. She’s rushed out of the ambulance and into ER where I’m stopped and told I can’t go any further.

“She needs me. She needs to know I’m here.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t come back here. We have to concentrate on the patient and we can’t do that if you’re there and we have to be worried you’ll interfere.”

“I…”

“Please, Mr. Hutchinson, let us do our jobs.”

She knows my name?

Hockey. Of course she knows my name.

I nod woodenly and let her lead me to a private waiting room across from the ER.

Then it’s quiet.

No more shouting.

No more watching her chest rise and fall as air is pumped into her lungs.

It’s not long before Collin, Dylan, and Barry arrive. They followed the ambulance but must not have been allowed to come through the ambulance bay entrance.

“I called Mama Kathleen. She’s on her way.”

I nod as Collin sits beside me.

“They wouldn’t let me go back with her.”

“I know. I argued too. Even Barry couldn’t get back there.”

“Christa and Jenny are coming. Maybe some of the other girls as well. I’m not sure.” Dylan sits on my other side. “Did they get her heartbeat back in the ambulance?”

I shake my head as a whole new fear enters my thoughts. What if they do get a heartbeat back but there’s brain damage due to a lack of oxygen or blood flow? I don’t know how long she laid there before we started CPR.

“Don’t borrow trouble,” Dylan says.

“Huh?”

“You said you were worried about brain damage…I said not to borrow trouble.”

“I said that out loud?”

“Yeah.” He squeezes my shoulder. “We’re going to stay strong. She’s going to be fine.”

He doesn’t mean it, but I understand why he’s saying it. Dylan and Daisy have become good friends. He doesn’t want to believe she’ll die any more than I do.

Please, baby, just breathe. If you breathe it’ll be fine.

I keep repeating that over and over as the minutes tick by and more and more people fill up the room. Jenny and Christa come over and talk to me, but I don’t hear anything they say. Mom sits next to me at one point, but again, I hear nothing.

Please, breathe. Please.

“Her brother!” The words slip out unbidden, more of a shout than anything.

Barry looks up from his phone. “Her brother?”

“Robert Canton. He’s in the Air Force and stationed overseas. He needs to know, but I don’t know how to contact him. Even she doesn’t know where he’s stationed.”

My voice is shaking as badly as my body is.

How can I get in touch with him? He needs to know his sister is here and why.

“I’ll get in touch with the right people and get him here as soon as we can,” Barry assures me.

I nod, thankful all over again for Barry.

“Drink this.” A cup of hot coffee is shoved into my hands.

I look up to tell them to fuck off, that I don’t want anything, when I notice it’s Shaw Chandler. What’s he doing here?

“Barry called. The entire team’s here, but they’re in the main waiting room. I called my wife. She’s a nurse here and promised to get us some information. Tell them you’re her fiancé or they won’t tell you shit. That’s straight from Cora.”

“I am going to marry her eventually.”

“I know.” He pushes the cup toward my face. “Drink that shit. It’ll help stave off the shock.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Drink it anyway.”

A blonde woman in scrubs comes in and heads straight over to us.

“News?” Shaw’s tone gentles as he speaks to his wife. I recognize her from social media.

“They got her heart beating and she’s been rushed to surgery. I told the ER I’d come update you. The surgeon will be out to speak with her family once she’s out of surgery.” Cora stresses the word family.

“I’m her fiancé.”

She nods. “Does she have any other family we need to call?”

“Her brother’s overseas in the Air Force.”

“Barry’s got it covered,” Shaw tells her. “Thanks for going to check on her for us.”

She nods. “Her injuries are severe and they’re not sure she’ll make it through surgery, but they’re doing everything they can.”

I nod, grateful for any information at this point.

“She’s breathing?”

Cora nods. “She’s breathing. She’ll probably be put on a ventilator to help her breathe after surgery. She has a collapsed lung. One of her broken ribs punctured the lung.”