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.So forget splittingup, if that s what you re thinking. Chance nodded. If you follow the riparian area along the seasonalriverbed, it leads in the general direction of the Hutchinsonplace.Trip T and the old shack are on a more southeasterlytrail.The Trip T cattle graze on part of the Hutchinson land,but that s not unusual around these parts.However, it isanother connection between the two names. Over here& He pointed again. This shack is a piece ofshit, no roof on one side, no power, and on the preliminaryfly over yesterday there wasn t any indication of recentactivity, other than the cattle and game trails.Doesn t meanmuch, but, the set up makes me think we start here, withHutchinson.Then if we have to, we, double back about tenmiles, hit the shack, then move on to the Trip T.Seriously,though, Chance.If we don t find something in the first twolocations, we aren t going to learn shit from old man T. Chance ran his fingers through his hair, wincing at thesharp pull of the tangles.He needed to focus& Bryan s life Hey, Chance stay with me here.This has to be thesame nut job from the BLM case& so I am calling this rightnow.We have until sunrise, then for everyone s sake,including Bryan s, we ll have to turn this information over.We both know we should do it now& Chance knew.Goddamn he d have the ass of anyonewho interfered in his case this way.There was no biggermistake a victim could make than to believe he could handlethings himself& and yet, with Bry s life on the line79 Apparently taking his silence for agreement, Tycontinued. Did this guy leave anything to say how he wasgoing to contact you? No but I think he would assume that Bryan wouldknow how to reach me, right? Why the gay slur? I mean shit.Scratch that I evenstarted that sentence.It doesn t matter what he saw, you reentitled to do what you want.I was more thinking about thelogistics of where he d been. Chance nodded, happy to keep the focus on theinvestigation. I m not a tracker, and this guy is good, sohe s not easy to follow.He was most likely located on thatridge when Bryan and I sat outside and had our lunch.Fuck.So yeah, he might have seen some hugging, but that wasabout it. I also found a trace of him down near the riverbedwhere Bryan must have been gathering wood for the firetonight.Here in the campsite there are a couple of places Ispotted a boot mark.I preserved the scene as much aspossible without calling in a forensics team.Ty, I m here totell you, there isn t any fucking smoking gun that will leadus to the bastard. Ty looked at him a long time. Is there a need to preserveevidence? Will there be a trial? Chance knew what Ty was asking.When they found thebastard who took Bryan would he live long enough tomake it to trial, or was it going to end here and now? Hewished he knew the answer to that question.Everything inhim screamed for vengeance, raged to punish the one whodared to take what was his.What was his.The words seemed80 to reverberate through his head before settling in the vicinityof his heart. Let s go.Hutchinson s place first, he said.It was easierthan thinking about what he might do when they found thebastard. All right.I ll lead.We ll approach from the north to takeadvantage of the tree cover and prevailing winds.It willslow us down, but we ll have a better chance at approachingundetected.We ll do the last mile on foot. Let s go, Chance concurred.****Tim stood with a hip propped against the counter, oneboot crossed at the ankle over the other.He was just about asrelaxed as he could be, because they were going to get out ofthis mess by placing the blame squarely where itbelonged& on Willie Hutchinson s head.Fucking idiot.Whoin his right mind pushes hostages down the stairs before youvideotape them? Even if one hadn t died, it was just fuckingstupid.There would be plenty who would die in the waragainst federal aggression, but it wasn t going to be him orthe general over a stupid incident like this.It was importantto remember they weren t thugs or criminals.They werefreedom fighters and they would treat their prisonershumanely, despite the lies the government wouldundoubtedly tell.Hutchinson fucked everything up, andnow all the plans would have to be canceled
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