Page 27 of The Texas Murders

“Spill it,” I say. “Don’t leave us waiting.”

“She’s still alive!”

My eyes go wide.

Carlos explains that the woman—whose name is Isabella Luna—was discovered on a highway eighty or so miles east of El Paso. She’d been gone for ten days and was badly malnourished and seriously injured.

Cuts.

Broken bones.

Even a rattlesnake bite.

“The police and FBI questioned her about what happened,” Carlos says, “but she had no recollection. Finally, it looks like they gave up trying to get her to remember. They just let it go. Closed the case.”

Ava says that she knows who Isabella Luna is.

“She’s a good person,” Ava says. “She works in the restaurant at the casino. She’s got a smile for everyone who comes in. I knew she disappeared for a while, but it never occurred to me it might be related. I didn’t realize it happened on the solstice.”

“The police report says she has no memory of anything between performing at the powwow and being found on the highway,” Carlos says.

Immediately, I’m thinking about how Isabella Luna might hold the key to breaking this case open. However, I can see the sympathetic look in Ava’s eyes, and I’m reminded that we’re talking about a person who has clearly been through a lot.

“I hate to make her relive her trauma,” Ava says, “but if it can save other lives, we’ve got to find out what she remembers.”

CHAPTER 21

WHEN I KNOCK on Ryan Logan’s office door—the one in the FBI headquarters in El Paso, not his office on wheels—he doesn’t seem pleased that we’ve brought Ava Cruz with us.

“I don’t mean to be an asshole,” he says, “but if you want to talk to me about official task force business, we’ll need to speak in private. Only members of the team.”

Yesterday morning, he didn’t have a problem filling Carlos and me in on all the details about Llewellyn Carpenter and the planned raid. That was before we signed on the dotted line and joined his so-called team. I wonder why he won’t extend the same courtesy to Ava Cruz. Maybe it’s because yesterday he had the opportunity to show off to a couple of visiting Texas Rangers. Today, he doesn’t want to hear that someone outside the task force has something to contribute that his team might have overlooked.

I open my mouth to say I want Ava to stay—she’s a partof our investigation—but she heads toward the door, saying, “It’s okay.” She lowers herself onto a seat just outside the doorway, looking like a child waiting in the hallway while Mommy and Daddy talk to the teacher.

Carlos and I sit across from Ryan’s desk. I take a deep breath. Ryan’s attitude has started the meeting off on a bad note, and I can already feel my anger simmering to the surface. I hate when politics and egos get in the way of solving crimes.

“What can I do you for?” Ryan asks, throwing his legs up on the desk.

The office has no decorations, no pictures on the wall. Nothing but a spotless desk and the late afternoon sun pouring in through the window. The office is clearly just a temporary home for him—a place with four walls and a telephone—while he happens to be here in El Paso. In another month, he might set up shop in Phoenix or Albuquerque or San Antonio.

Carlos and I take turns speaking, starting with our discovery of the eagle feather at Fiona Martinez’s apartment and concluding with the revelation that Isabella Luna might be able to provide some insight about these eagle feather cases.

Ryan looks skeptical.

“Unless the DNA tests on the feathers come back belonging to the same bird, I’m not sure we can jump to these conclusions. Why don’t you just hold your horses on this until we get those tests back?”

“We need to move on this fast,” I say. “Isabella Luna was gone for ten days. Our latest victim, Fiona Martinez, might still be alive. The clock is ticking.”

“Besides,” Carlos says, “it doesn’t necessarily mean anything if the feathers came from different birds. No one is saying this guy’s got a pet eagle in his garage that he plucks the feathers from.”

Ryan smirks.

I plow forward, telling him what we need.

“We want to send teams to the different states,” I explain, “so we can conduct fresh interviews and rebuild those investigations from the ground up.”

“What for?”

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