“Please tell me she did not just insult us by accusing us of being friends with those two?” Larry looked over at Gene, irritated.
Pratt stepped between Diesel and the two men, laughing and putting her hands out as to separate the three. “Okay, one, hell no they aren’t friends with my parents. My parents hate the ground these two walks on with a passion.”
“They are a waste of space and their air would be way purer if they didn’t exist.”
Highlander coughed covering up his agreement with Gene’s statement. When Pratt looked over at her husband, he cocked an eyebrow in question at her stare.
“Larry and Gene treated me and Dom as if we were their kids. We all met when I was a kid. Larry and Gene were bodyguards for a former Senator and his now ex-wife. Their daughter went to the same school as I did, a couple of grades behind me. They were at the school one day when her mom was there, witnessed my mother going off on me after I got into trouble for punching a kid who was bullying me. They confronted her, and let’s just say the rest is history.”
Gene looked over at Larry and chuckled, “What she’s not telling you is that the kid she popped had also been bullying the little girl of the Senator. A few days later, I ran into Laura at a store with her mother and sister. Burned my craw when I saw the mother being a bitch to her while giving the sister whatever she wanted. All she wanted was a new pair of shoes since hers were getting bad, her mother, and I use that term lightly, was yelling at her. I bought the shoes she wanted, showed up at the school the next day and gave them to her. Larry and I went to the house and warned the mother if she said or did anything about those shoes, she’d be sorry.”
“We tried to recruit her brother at the FBI a few times, but he wouldn’t have a thing to do with it. He wasn’t going to do anything that kept him away from his sister more than he already was,” Larry chuckled, looking over at Ian and the others.
“Yeah, yeah, blame that shit on me still don’tcha?”
“What exactly are we dealing with here?” Alvarez asked, watching Pratt who gestured to Sgt. Brocard.
For the next hour, Alpha Squad, Highlander and his team brought the men of Trident Security, Larry, Gene, Carter and Alvarez up to speed on the entirety of the investigation and answering their questions as they went along.
Devon looked over at his brother Ian, then at the others in his team. “Why does the name Dakota Hamilton sound familiar?”
“Dakota is the daughter of Dale ‘Bear’ Hamilton, a SEAL who died ten years ago in Afghanistan. Was stationed out of Little Creek for several years before he went to San Diego to have his parents help with Dakota.”
Sounds of ‘son-of-a-bitch’ rang out around the room from the men of Trident Security.
“How did she get on these people’s radar? Granted it doesn’t take much these days.” Devon paced, his mind reeling from the news he just received.
“Dakota was the primary target. We found out from Tina, the other victim, Candy sold her to someone, or a company, named Ares. Tina was given to a ring who sold her on an encrypted website to a serial killer who specialized in cutting his victims every day for a week, for hours on end, before they die. Once he kills them, he dumps the torso’s out in the open somewhere while he sold the legs, arms, and the head on the black market to even creeper creeps.”
“Jesus fucking Christ” Ian and the others mumbled.
“If the website is encrypted, how did you get in?” Brody asked, sounding curious, confused and amused all at the same time.
“When we saw that Tina and Dakota’s electronics, such as their phones, tablets and laptops they used to chat with the suspects, were wiped clean of everything, we realized it sounded eerily familiar with another case of a missing girl whose body was later found in Sacramento. Found out through the twatsucking douchecanoe that killed her, that was how he found his three victims. When our computer expert tried to hack the site, the firewalls were beyond good. We ‘convinced’ the suspect to give us his website username and password.” Pratt avoided her husband and uncle’s gazes as she talked about the man they interrogated.
Larry looked at Pratt for a few moments, leaned forward placing his elbows onto the table. “Do I want to know how you ladies ‘convinced’ this man to give up that kind of information?”
Alpha Squad looked at each other in silent conversation until they all shrugged at the same time.
“Probably not, unless you and Uncle Gene want to take the blame for the training.” Pratt, tongue in cheek told the two men.
Larry and Gene looked at each other then shook their heads. “Red, we can’t take the blame for the rest of the team, only for you, so no, don’t tell us how you did it.” Larry shook his head as he leaned back in his seat, sighing heavy.
Marco cleared his throat. “Have you guys been able to find anything on this Ares that the other girl spoke about?”
“No, Tina Jones is also the daughter of a SEAL, named Eddie…”
“Fuck” Sounded around the room.
“She couldn’t give us much more other than Dakota was sold to someone named Ares. Tina even confirmed our suspicion about Candy selling her,” Cortez stood up and started pacing, thinking as she spoke.
“All the vics we’ve found, dead, alive and those still listed as missing, had three things in common…” Rameriez started counting the items off on her fingers.
York took up where Rameriez stopped, “All electronics were wiped completely clean after they’ve been reported missing, the same photo of a guy they thought they were really talking to…”
“The third?” Carter asked the women when they stopped to look at each other for a second.
Raso placed her hands behind her in a stretch before she took a deep breath. “When they were taken by this trafficking ring, the victims were later found dead in another city, but most often than not, in another state, within a week of their abduction. What’s even worse is their deaths were ghastly.”
