The glass exploded around them as he dragged her through it. Her arm slashed against the frame. Her cleats caught nothing but air. She hit the ground hard, breath punched out of her lungs.
Viv rolled, twisted, tried to crawl. He grabbed her ankle and yanked her back.
She opened her mouth again to scream.
His hand clamped down, and the darkness rushed in. She whimpered once and then was out.
Chapter 32
The phone buzzed onHuckRivers’s belt as he crossed the hallway outside the evidence room. He checked the caller ID and answered before the second ring. “Hi, Tso,” he said.
“She’s gone,” Officer Tso said, his voice ragged. “Viv—she went into the locker room. I watched the door. I swear I watched it, Huck. I thought I was watching it. Five minutes. Maybe less.”
Huck stopped walking. His spine locked. “Slow down,” he said, though his body had already gone cold. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”
“She didn’t come out. I went in after her. The window was blown out. There’s blood—small trail outside the frame. Her bag’s still here. She didn’t leave.”
Huck didn’t speak for a beat. He just breathed. Then he was moving. “I’m calling it,” he said. “Full response. You stay put and lock that field down. Nobody in or out. Understand?”
Tso’s breath hitched. “Understood.”
Huck ended the call and hit the button on his shoulder mic. “Dispatch, this is Rivers. We’ve got a confirmed abduction. Victim is Viv Vuittron. Sixteen years old, white female, blond, five-seven, softball gear last seen. Pull up her DMV profile and get it moving to State, FBI, Highway Patrol. Set up perimeter and drone support now. I want eyes in the sky in five minutes.”
He scanned his ID and ran up the stairs, barreling through the opening toward the conference room. Handwritten notes, medical research records, and map printouts fanned out between coffee mugs and energy bar wrappers on the conference table. Laurel stood by a board, arms crossed, scanning names and timelines. Kate sat across the table, typing slowly on her laptop, brow furrowed.
Huck paused in the doorway, struggling for the right words.
Laurel looked up first. Her eyes narrowed at his expression.
Kate kept typing.
He stepped into the room, his voice low. “Kate.”
She looked up. “Yeah?”
He walked closer, not rushed, not loud. He crouched slightly to her eye level. “I need you to listen to me carefully. Viv’s missing.”
Kate blinked once.
He kept his voice steady. “She went into the locker room at softball practice. Tso was on watch. She didn’t come out. The window’s broken. There’s a little blood. We don’t know what happened yet, but we’re treating it as an abduction.”
Kate didn’t move for three full seconds. Then she stood up so fast her chair tipped back and clattered to the floor. “No,” she said. “No, she wouldn’t—she wouldn’t just disappear. Not from softball practice.”
Laurel moved to her side. “Kate. Stop. Breathe.”
“I have to go. I need to be there. Need to see—” Kate’s voice cracked and broke, her hands fluttering at her sides like they didn’t know what to do.
“You can’t help right now,” Laurel said softly. “But we will. Huck and I are going. We’ll find her.”
Kate looked between them, her face crumpling, then dropped into the nearest chair like her strings had been cut.
Laurel turned to Huck. “What do we have?”
“Tso called it in. She went in for the bathroom. Never came out. He checked the locker room. Window’s busted. Blood on the frame. Her bag is still there, and she left her phone in the dugout.”
“Surveillance?”
Huck kept his tone calm. “None from the field. I’ve got officers locking down the parking lot, and patrol’s canvassing the surrounding businesses.”
