GRAHAM
As much as I love the business Dee and I have built, these meetings are killing me slowly. I am not designed to sit in meeting rooms with rich people just looking to protect their snobby kids. Of course, I will still do it because these dumb jobs the company brings in allows us to live the life we want, and sometimes I get to work jobs I really want to do.
This husband and wife are needing a couple of bodyguards for their sixteen-year-old daughter. She has been wanting to push boundaries and go out alone more, and they are concerned with her safety. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the need to watch out for your children, but she’s sixteen. They are willing to pay whatever we ask, so it’s good money coming in. I will set her phone up with an easy tracking program, and Dee will handle the rest.
I am on my computer looking at the schedule of guys who are assigned to jobs right now to see what pair can take this one when my phone pings. Demitri glares over at me, and I just pick my phone up off the table to see who it was. My phone is on “do not disturb,” but a handful of people can override that. Our girl is one, Callum, whose name is the one on my screen is the other.
Callum: Hey, aren’t the girls supposed to be at the house this afternoon?
Me: Ya, they should be back by now.
It’s three in the afternoon, and Nyx promised they were just going to be getting lunch and coming home. She did mention a walk down by the river quickly in a message after lunch, but that was over two hours ago.
Callum: They aren’t in the house.
Time stops the moment I read those five words.They aren’t in the house.What does he mean? They aren’t in the house? Did they go for a hike in the woods surrounding the house? Did she take Kyra up to the range?
In a panic, I start to pull up the security cameras around the house and property. She texted around one. So I start with the gate camera around two. That’s plenty of time for a little walk and to get home. She was bringing Kyra home for a girl’s night, so she didn’t need to drop her off. Dee looks at me and can see the panic all over my face.
“We will come up with a security plan for your daughter, and we can have another meeting in a few days. I have to get with my men and see who is available for the job.” He stands, indicating that the meeting is over. The wife tries to throw a fit about ending the meeting so abruptly, but he escorts them out of the meeting room.
Once they leave, I head into my office and pull everything up on my four monitors I have in here. A few moments later, there's a knock, and Dee comes in.
“What the fuck is going on, Hutch?” He runs his hand through his dark hair. He is already stressed, because I am. Iam a carefree, wild-child, who doesn’t get stressed. I just deal with whatever is going on in stride and with a smile on my face. Currently, that is not the Graham in front of him. My shoulders are pulled up to my ears, and my fingers are flying over my keyboard.
“Cal texted me.” Is all I can manage to get out.
“Okay? Why do you look like someone burned the house down or something?”
“He said the girls weren’t home yet.”
“They were heading for a walk a few hours ago, they should be home by now.” I can see the worry written all over his face. The lack of control drives him insane.
“I am pulling camera feeds now. I’m hoping they just are for a hike in the woods or at the range or something.”
Demitri plops down in the oversized chair across from my desk and tries to continue to take deep breaths, to keep himself calm until there is a true reason to panic. I push the camera feeds to the large-screen TV on the wall next to my desk. Most of the time it is used to watch games while I am working, but I know Dee is going to want to review these too.
We have reviewed the gate footage, and her car never shows up. I check all the feeds around the house, thinking maybe the camera glitched. Nope, nothing. I don’t bother pulling up the feeds to the gun range. There has been no sighting of my Little Witch, or the human sunshine that is her best friend.
I switch programs from the video feeds around the house to pull up the tracking software that is on her phone. After the stalker started appearing, she allowed Dee and I access to Find My on her phone. We are only supposed to use it in the case of an absolute emergency.
The program takes a few moments to load because I’ve never actually used it, so it needs to go through the regular process of actually getting it set up and linked to her phone. As soon asher little icon pops up on the screen, I see that she is still at the park Kyra and her were going to stop at for a walk. But it’s been multiple hours. First things first, let's try calling her phone.
Ring…Ring…Ring…
I can feel Dee’s tension rolling off him in waves with every unanswered ring of the phone. His knee bounces so quickly I swear he could vibrate through something like the Flash if he wanted to.
“Ok, so we know she is still at the park by the river walk. Do you want to head down there and see if we can find her? Knowing her and Kyra, they probably started talking in the car and didn’t realize how much time had passed.” I ask him, hoping to quell some of his anxiety.
Demitri is on a bullet train to being a complete and utter mess. His wounds from his sister’s death have been ripped completely open. The invisible blood leaking out of his body in the form of all his anxious ticks. He is going to pull his hair out of his scalp if he doesn’t leave his fingers out of it. His response is just to get up, give me a quick “Let’s go.” before he is out of my office and heading to grab his things.
He meets me in the front lobby so we can head to where I parked my truck this morning. Thank goodness I drove because I do not trust Dee in his current state to be able to focus on the road. Also, a blessing in disguise, we work out of an office building in district Detroit, so we are not far from the river. It only takes us about fifteen minutes to make it to the little park her phone says she is at.
Pulling into the lot, we lay eyes on her electric blue SUV sitting there empty. I haven’t even put the truck into park before Dee is opening the door and jumping out. As I climb out of the truck, I see him pull on the doors to no avail. They are still locked. I pull the tracking software up on my phone and follow its guidance to the location that her phone is at.
We follow the GPS, walking a short way down the sidewalk that follows the river. Almost to the exact place we had the run-in with, whatever her ex’s name was. I can’t see Kyra or Nyx walking along the river at all. Actually, there is no one around. I am looking around trying to see if there was somewhere she could have dipped off near the location, and I don’t spot anything.
I take a step to the side ,and I catch a glare of the sun shining off an object on the ground. I walk over to inspect the glare, and there are two phones on the ground. The screen of one was shattered. Looks like an attempt to smash it so it couldn’t be tracked. I hit the lock button on both phones, and a photo of Nyx and Kyra pop-up on one screen, and through the shattered remains of the other is the photo of the three of us Nyx took a few nights ago curled up on the couch.
