Read Online Dragonflies: Shadow of Drones by Andy Straka - Free Book Online Page B

that include having sex with him?”
    “What?” The girl sat up a little higher in her chair. “No! I mean, I like the guy and he’s sort of cute and all. But we’ve never hooked up. Is that what this is about?”
    Raina took a deep breath. “You can confirm you were with him at a party last weekend?”
    “Yes.”
    “I need to ask you something…How’d you get home from the party?”
    Hutchinson stared at them for a long moment. You could almost see her mind trying to process what happened that night and the consequences of the leading question.
    The girl’s demeanor turned serious. “I…I don’t remember, really. It was super late. I kind of had a bit too much to drink and I think I fell asleep. My roommate Karen was there, too, and when I woke up she was helping me out to another friend’s car.”
    “Did you feel ill?”
    “A little. But I never threw up or anything.”
    “Where did she find you?”
    “In the den at the fraternity. I guess I passed out on a couch. It’s pretty embarrassing, actually. But what’s any of this have to do with Derek Kurn?”
    Raina felt a deep-seated anger rising up from within her. She glanced over at Tye before turning her attention back to the coed. “Ms. Hutchinson…can I call you Stacie?”
    “Sure, yeah. Of course.”
    “Stacie, I’m afraid we have something potentially disturbing to show you….”
    Hutchinson’s eyes grew wide. “Okay…I guess.” She sat forward in her chair, biting her lip.
    Raina turned to Tye, who pulled out his smart phone. They’d already cued up the video and she took the phone from him. She stood, a little awkwardly on her prosthesis, walking the phone over to Hutchinson so the young woman could hold it and watch for herself as it began to play.
    Hutchinson palmed the phone, already beginning to look toward the screen. “What is this from?”
    “Just watch, please.”
    Hutchinson stared into the screen for several seconds. At first, she seemed to have trouble comprehending what she was seeing. But then her face turned white. “Oh, my God.” The hand holding the phone began to tremble as her other hand covered her mouth. “Oh…my God.”
    “Can you confirm it’s you in the video?”
    The younger woman nodded, tears filling her eyes and running down her pretty cheeks. She started to sob. Her hand was shaking so much Raina had to move in to sit beside her and take the phone from her, gently putting her fingers on the girl’s arm.
    “I’m so sorry.”
    “That bastard…he...”
    They sat like that for nearly a minute. Stacie Hutchinson’s quiet crying seemed to fill the room. No one spoke. Tye kept a respectful silence and distance. Raina was glad now that she’d come.
    As the girl cried, her sobs brought Raina back to one of the many scenes that continued to haunt her from the war. In this instance, she was in her Kiowa again, flying convoy recon with another chopper. Below where she hovered momentarily, the convoy was passing a stone wall, behind which a man and girl, who looked to be his daughter, were leading a donkey toward a field.
    The girl must have said or done something her father didn’t like. In a flash like a snake the man came out with a cane and began to brutally beat his daughter about the head and shoulders. She slumped to her knees, but the father continued the beating.
    The chopper was moving forward, so Raina couldn’t see what else happened, but she spoke to Skyles, who ordered her to circle back around over top of the stone wall, if nothing else to intimidate the beater into retreating. The father did just that, lowering his cane, turning away from the girl as she scrambled away, and raising his head upward to look at the chopper directly above.
    Raina would never forget the look on the man’s face. He smiled and waved his hand at them in greeting, business-as-usual, everything a-okay. She couldn’t help wondering if Stacie Hutchinson was feeling a little bit like that girl had felt.
    After the