Chapter 19 Phone Calls
NINETEEN
Phone Calls
Hutch
Early Saturday morning, Hutch scuttled back on his belly until he was hidden behind the hind ridge of Stony Bluff.
He turned to his ass to look at the screen on the back of his camera.
He clicked through the photos he took and muttered, “Damn.”
He’d been out there only three times this week because he could only go on days when it was gray and there was no sun to reflect off his camera lens.
Though he couldn’t say any of those assholes would notice him.
As far as he could tell, they thought they had it made.
He wasn’t sure he’d seen any of them look anywhere but at someone they were talking to, a woman walking by, or where they were aiming the spit from their chew.
Not a crew who looked over their shoulders.
Could be, they had nothing to hide.
Could be, they’d been getting away with their shit for so long, they’d gotten lazy.
But between the distance and the fact the women moved quickly, rarely stopped and never lifted their heads, getting a shot that was in focus and offered enough of the face to possibly identify was a challenge.
He’d established there were at least nine women on that compound (and seven kids, ranging from babies to toddlers), though he knew there were maybe more, he just hadn’t caught them.
As he was clicking through the shots, some of the earlier ones he took that morning came up and that got him off his ass and moving back to his truck.
When he’d left Mabel’s bed that morning (with her only opening one eye to look at her alarm clock, muttering, “Dude, you’re a machine,” then falling right back to sleep), he went direct to his dogs for breakfast, then immediately set out.
So when he got home, he headed to his laptop.
He downloaded the pictures and sent them encrypted to Harry and Rus with the email saying, Got interesting intel to share, may be nothing, so not urgent.
He then texted them both the password to open the encrypted file.
After that, he headed out to the dogs, aggravated, because he was facing a week of four hours a day of client training (including Tonks), on top of feeding, pen cleaning and finding time to get back to his schedule of regular exercise, a board meeting at Stony Bluff, and a two-hour road trip (one way) next Saturday to pick up his next litter.
He also had to find time to be sure the romper room was set up, winterize his house, pick up his own load of firewood and talk Mabel into spending the night away from Moxie because he wanted to fuck her in his bed so when she wasn’t in it, he could smell her on his sheets.
He also had to face Artemis, Major and Blitz’s final departure on Friday, not to mention them each being gone for one full afternoon and one entire evening, his plan to assist the dogs and their new owners in getting to know each other and starting to bond, so the separation from Hutch wasn’t so hard on the animals.
Therefore, he had a busy week, and he’d wanted to start it knowing that he got Harry and Rus the photos they needed to get to work seeing if they could find if the women at The Lion and The Lamb had ever been reported missing.
And he hadn’t accomplished that mission.
But he was normally an in bed no later than ten, out of it no later than five type of guy. And spending his nights banging Mabel was messing with his sleep routine.
And his energy.
It was cute how she teased him, but he wasn’t a machine. He was a thirty-seven-year-old man, and he was beginning to drag.
They needed a chill Sunday.
Lots of sex, but early to fucking bed.
He was drilling Artemis on her stealth crawl when his phone vibrated in his back pocket.
He pulled it out and saw it was Harry.
“Yo, Harry,” he answered.
“Hey, Hutch,” Harry replied.
Hutch was about to mention the email and say what he saw that morning could wait for when it wasn’t a weekend, when Harry spoke.
“Lillian is pregnant.”
He felt a huge grin spread over his face, and he wasn’t so used to the many Mabel had given him the past week not to note in the back of his mind that, since his dad died, he hadn’t done it very often, and now he was doing it all the time.
But now, it was for Harry, who had been through hell, losing his first wife in a horseback riding accident, then he faced a tenure of being a good cop but working for one who was filth.
Not to mention Lillian, who’d been put through it by Karl Abernathy.
They deserved this good news. He didn’t know any who deserved it more.
“Jesus, brother. That’s fantastic,” he said. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks, man.”
“How far along is she?”
“Fifteen weeks.”
Hutch did the mental math then said, “So Baby Moran was a guest at Mom and Dad’s wedding.”
Harry chuckled. “Lillian didn’t know it yet, but…yeah.”
“Glad for you, Harry. Both of you.”
“Thanks, Hutch.”
“And ignore that text I sent earlier until Monday. It’s about work.”
“Lill gets the job, Hutch. And I’m curious.”
Mark of a good investigator.
“Right, so I got there early, in time to watch them load up for the farmer’s market.”
“Okay.”
“And by ‘them loading up,’ I mean the men stood around shooting the breeze while the women loaded up. Assholes didn’t even back the trucks closer to the houses so the women didn’t have to lug their shit all the way to the truck port.”
Harry was the same type of man Hutch was, so the irritation in his tone was strong when he said, “Not surprised.”
“Thing is, if you look at those pictures, I caught some interesting snaps.” He didn’t make him ask for it.
“Lars Enstrom’s wife, or woman, or whatever they have, is either neck deep in Stockholm syndrome, she’s very at one with the mission or she’s in on whatever they’re up to.
For supposedly devout folks, the way they buried their tongues in each other’s mouths, and he groped her ass over her ugly dress, was more than a little odd. ”
“No shit?”
“None at all. And that isn’t it. The one you say is called Heath Burress. Their resident attorney?”
Another thing taking his time?
Harry and Rus were keeping him abreast of what they were learning.
“Yeah,” Harry said.
“They were rolling out to go to the market, some woman comes rushing out of a house, flags down the truck Burress is driving. He stops, rolls down the window, they have a chat, she’s all smiles. And then she gets up on the footwell to lean in to lay one on him before she let him go.”
“Are you saying you think we’re on the wrong track and the women are actually into this shit?” Harry asked.
“No, because none of the other women behave like that. They don’t even lift their heads enough for me to get a full-face shot of them. Got plenty of full-face shots of Enstrom and Burress’s women, though.”
“Have you seen them before?”
“Nope.”
“Any other differences? In clothes? Hair?”
Harry was good.
“Same dresses, but Enstrom’s wife had her hair up in one of those messy knots women wear. The kind that looks good, not like they’re about to climb into a covered wagon. Burress’s woman, though, had her hair down.”
“So they either have some kind of elevated standing, or they’ve earned some kind of reward.”
“Or they’re in on whatever those guys have going on there. Just to say, when I see the women, they’re working, Harry. They got shit to do and places to be. Conceivably, in all the time I spent there watching, not seeing those two women—”
“Means they maybe have their feet up and they’re chilling,” Harry deduced.
“Maybe. But what isn’t a maybe is that those two women have a completely different affect than the other seven I’ve seen on that compound.”
“Right. We’ll get to work on seeing if we can identify them. You got more?”
“That’s it.”
“Each little bit is a piece of the puzzle,” Harry told him. “The picture will eventually get clearer. Thanks, Hutch.”
The length of time it was taking this puzzle to form, and knowing that kind of shit was his job, the man had to have the patience of a saint.
“No problem, Harry. Congratulations again, and my love to Lillian.”
“Thanks again, and I’ll tell her. Later.”
“Later.”
Some time after that, Hutch had set up his dummy and was doing “leave it” and “guard” drills with Blitz when his phone rang again.
He pulled it out, looked at the screen and released a long breath.
Because his dad would be disappointed in him if he ignored it was the only reason he took the call.
“Hey, Aunt Elaine.”
“Ranger, how are you?”
He clenched his teeth.
Only two people his entire life called him that stupid-ass name.
His mother and his Aunt Elaine.
Strike that.
His mother was now dead.
So it was only his Aunt Elaine.
“Things are good,” he replied. “You?”
“I’m preparing for the anniversary.”
He knew this was coming.
What he didn’t know was why the woman had to commemorate her sister’s death every damn year.
Hutch knew the widows of dead husbands who did that, and he understood it. Especially if the man left behind a family. That was love. That was respect. That was remembrance. And that was a way to keep him alive in their hearts.
His aunt insisting he fly home to New Hampshire so they could have some kind of special dinner to honor that woman, especially when she was well aware of what kind of woman his mother was, what she put Hutch through, what she put his dad through, was lunacy.
“Hope it brings you some peace,” he said.
“Ranger, Lisa was your mother.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Her death was a tragedy.”
“She died of cancer, Aunt Elaine. And it took her a long time to do it.”
He could tell his Aunt Elaine wasn’t a fan of how he worded that, but she let it go and stated, “In her fifties. That’s a tragedy.”
“Listen—” he began.
But she cut him off. “She loved you, Ranger. She adored you. And this is how you dishonor her?”
“I was at her bedside, holding her hand when she died,” he gritted, maybe because he was tired, maybe because he was just so fucking done with this shit. “And we both know she didn’t deserve that.”
He heard her horrified gasp. “How could you say such a thing about your own mother?”