Not Our Daughter

Forty-Seven

Burns dropped his luggage on the bed inside his downtown hotel room. Davis and Myers had the rooms next door to him on the seventh floor of the Marriott. He planned to take a quick hot shower, get cleaned up, and then huddle again with his team to try to figure out their next move. He’d already been creating a list of individuals he wanted to speak with about their investigation. Many of them were the same people he talked to in the days and weeks immediately after Cole and Lisa’s initial disappearance. Family. Friends. Business associates. New information meant new conversations. Burns didn’t know why Cole and Lisa had come back to Austin. But he felt there was a decent chance they had intentions to see someone on his list. He needed to both find the Shipleys and figure out what had really happened on the night they’d vanished.

Burns was halfway through undressing when he got a bang on the door.

He hustled over, cracked it open. Agent Davis.

“What?” Burns said.

“I found our leak.”

Burns swung the door open. “Come in.”

The agent stepped into the room, peeked at his boss in his underwear and undershirt.

“Nice boxers,” he said. “No wonder you’re not dating again.”

“Zip it. What do you got?”

Davis held his digital tablet in his hands. “I carefully back-channeled everything. And I found someone tagging our case who really has no business doing it.”

“Who?”

“A guy named Ross Lester.”

Burns pitched his head. “I know Lester. He’s an old-timer who’s been with the Bureau forever. Why do you think he’s our leak?”

“Ran his phone, boss. Every time we’ve logged a new update, Lester has immediately placed a phone call to a lawyer named Carl Fisk.”

“Why does that name sound familiar?”

“Because he’s a big deal. He’s the attorney currently representing Peter Nelson at the Senate confirmation hearings back in DC. According to our records, the calls between Lester and Fisk picked up speed when we left DC for Denver yesterday.”

Burns cursed. “Brock Gunner. Peter Nelson. It’s all somehow connected.”

“That would appear to be the case, sir.”

Davis’s phone buzzed. He quickly pulled it out, answered it. His eyes widened.

“Where?” he said, and listened. “Text me the exact location.”

He hung up, looked at Burns. “Police just found the stolen Ford Explorer. Four blocks from here on Sixth Street. An officer reported a woman and a teenage girl fleeing the scene on foot only a few moments ago.”

“Let’s get over there!”