Forty-Three
The chartered FBI plane was beginning its descent into Austin and would touch down shortly. Burns had tried to sleep a little, but he kept replaying today’s events in his head. Why had Cole Shipley risked his life to save him? A man guilty of murder doesn’t usually do that. Burns knew that once a criminal opened that violent door, they were much more prone to continue operating within that violence. But Cole had detoured from that path by preventing a new death—even in his most desperate moment. Why? Could what the man was claiming happened in Austin all those years ago actually be true?
Burns was staring out the small window into the darkness of night when Myers suddenly scooted over to him with his laptop.
“Sir, El Paso PD discovered a vehicle in the mall parking lot that had a window rolled down and a hunting rifle sitting in the front passenger seat. They think it’s the weapon that was used when the glass door at the entrance of the mall exploded.”
“They run the plates?”
“Yes, sir. It’s a rental car from Avis. Rented that morning at the airport by a man named Brock Gunner. I just ran a simple Google search on the name.”
He turned his laptop screen toward Burns, who squinted. It was a color photo attached to a news article about local rodeo results from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal . The article was dated around eight years ago. A stocky guy probably in his early thirties, wearing a cowboy hat, boots, and dirty jeans, stood among a group of other cowboys and held up a huge Western belt buckle—an award for his bull riding. It was clear as day it was the same man who’d tried to kill Burns back in the Sears warehouse, if not for the intervention of his fugitive. The same man from the video taken thirteen years ago at Cole Shipley’s house.
“I’ll be damned,” Burns said. “We got him.”
Burns turned and looked across the aisle, where Davis was sleeping and snoring with his mouth wide open. Burns grabbed an empty water bottle and tossed it in his direction. It hit Davis in the head and startled him awake. He jolted upright, looking confused, trying to figure out what had just happened.
“Get over here,” Burns said. “We found our mystery cowboy.”
Davis stretched his neck. “Didn’t even realize I’d fallen asleep.”
“You’ve been snoring like a freight train the whole flight.”
“Sorry about that.” Davis slipped out of his chair and leaned in behind Burns to have a good view of things. “Brock Gunner. That’s definitely him.”
“What do we know about him?” Burns asked Myers.
“Not much yet. I just started digging. His driver’s license is registered in Lubbock. Looks like he works at a huge ranch called Longshore. It’s owned by the Nelson family.”
This caught Burns’s attention. “The Nelson family as in Peter Nelson?”
“Yes, sir.”
Davis spoke up. “We’re talking about the Supreme Court candidate?”
“Correct,” Myers said. “The same family.”
They all sat there in silence for a moment.
“Could be completely unrelated,” Burns finally said.
“Right,” Davis agreed. “But then why is some cowboy from Lubbock chasing our fugitives across the country?”
Myers added, “And what was he doing in Austin at the Shipleys’ house the night they disappeared?”
Burns studied Brock Gunner’s face on the laptop.
“That’s what we need to figure out. And fast.”