Not Our Daughter

Thirty-Nine

Burns and Myers sat down in a small conference room with a young guy named Jose Martinez at El Paso PD headquarters. Martinez had just started working as a border patrol agent three months prior. Eighteen, baby faced, and maybe 140 pounds, he claimed to have information relevant to their investigation. After quick introductions they got right to it.

“So what do you know?” Burns asked him.

“Yes, sir. This morning, a man was trying to recruit as many border agents as possible to help him look for certain people who may be trying to cross over into Mexico today. He was offering a thousand dollars up front to any agent who agreed to help and passing it out in cash rolls, so word spread quickly. Then the guy promised twenty thousand dollars to the agent who detained these people for him. We didn’t believe him, at first, but then he showed us the cash in a black duffel bag. I didn’t take it, but several guys did. I don’t really blame them. We’re all so underpaid. The guy texted a photo of who he was looking for. Later, I discovered it was the same people you’ve been searching for on your case.”

“Cole and Lisa Shipley?” Burns asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Martinez pulled up the photo on his phone and showed it to them. He said a friend had texted it to him. It was a family shot that had been all over the news today.

Davis quickly brought up his own photo of the mystery cowboy. “This the guy?”

Martinez studied the image, nodded. “Yeah, that’s him.”

“He give you a name?” Burns asked.

“No, sir. Just a phone number. Said to call with info. I have the number.”

Burns turned to Davis. “Get that phone number over to Myers ASAP. Let’s start tracking him down.”

Davis hopped up and immediately jumped on his phone.

“Where did you meet him?” Burns asked Martinez.

“A cantina named Guerro’s near the border crossing.”

“Security cameras?”

“Not a chance. The place is a dump, sir. But great tacos.”

“You see what this guy was driving?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry.”

Burns thanked Martinez and asked him to stay in contact. This was a promising new lead. They desperately needed it. The afternoon had dragged on without any updates on their fugitives. While Burns doubted that they’d tried to cross into Mexico in their stolen vehicle—since the FBI had all three border crossings covered—he knew they could have already gone in a lot of directions by now. They might be all the way in California. Or Dallas. Or nearly to Las Vegas. Or they could still be hiding out around El Paso. The possibilities were endless. And that was maddening. Burns wondered if he’d officially lost them again. He remembered this same desperate feeling from many years ago. The thought of returning to his bosses empty-handed made him nauseous—especially after their investigation had hit national news again.

The day had not been entirely unproductive. Agent Myers had found three more security camera reels showing the mystery cowboy in Winter Park last night, including one of him walking out from behind a strip of buildings only three minutes after the police officer had chased Cole Shipley in the same direction. It was becoming more plausible by the moment that the guy could’ve been involved somehow with the shooting. But how and why?

Davis hung up the phone. “Myers says the phone is inactive.”

“Damn. He probably dumped it after the mall incident.”

“Most likely. Myers is going to keep trying.”

“The guy sure was tossing around a lot of money.”

“Twenty thousand dollars isn’t chump change. Whoever he is, he has significant resources. Or works for someone who does. The guy is clearly a major player in all of this.”

“The question I’m starting to ask myself is if he was a major player thirteen years ago, as Cole Shipley suggested, and I somehow botched it.”

“If he was, everyone botched it. Not just you.”

“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Burns’s phone buzzed. Agent Myers. He quickly answered it on speaker.

“Sir, we got a hit on that secure website belonging to Cole Shipley. Someone just accessed the video file.”

“You have a location?”

“Austin, Texas.”