Page 68 of The Texas Murders

Ryan shakes himself from his thoughts. An agent standing next to him making a report asks, “Did you hear me?”

“Sorry,” Ryan says. “Please start over.”

“I just wanted to tell you about the car. We were able to track down a previous owner. He sold it on Craigslist about a month ago.”

Ryan nods. It had been the same with the previous vehicles they’d recovered. The plates were stolen. But not the cars.

“I’m not sure it makes much difference,” Ryan says, “but at least we know.”

The agent nods and starts to back away, but then one of the techs shouts for Ryan to come over to the van.

Ryan walks to the back of the van, where the doors are hanging open.

“You’ll want to see this, sir.”

The techs have applied fingerprint powder to the inside of the doors and now dozens of prints are easily visible. Whoever left them—Marta Rivera, they assume—arranged her fingerprints into words.

On the door to Ryan’s left, a message reads:

TAKING ME

TO MR Z

But that isn’t all. On the inside of the other door, she’s written the message:

RANGER

TRAP

Ryan stares at the words.

“Should we call Yates?” the agent next to him says. “Or Castillo?”

Ryan grabs his phone from his pocket and scrolls through the contacts. He holds the phone to his ear, looking nervously at the other agent. Carlos’s number goes straight to voicemail. He tries Rory’s.

“Come on, Rory,” he mutters. “Pick up the damn phone.”

CHAPTER 58

AS WE COME out of the casino, we spot a woman walking ahead of us through the parking lot, wearing a white blouse and a puffy black skirt over dark hose—the work uniform of a casino employee, I assume. The woman has a slight limp and it dawns on me who she is. Apparently Ava is one step ahead of me.

“Isabella?” Ava says loud enough for the woman to hear.

Isabella Luna, the woman we believe might have been the first eagle feather victim, turns around and greets us with a puzzled expression. I’d forgotten she worked at the restaurant inside the casino.

Recognition fills her face after a brief moment of confusion.

“Hi, Ava,” she says, stopping so we can approach. “What are y’all doing here?”

“Working on a case.”

“The missing girls who disappeared on the solstice, like me?”

“No,” Ava says. “Another one.”

“I guess y’all are busy, aren’t you?”

“Busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest,” Carlos says, and this makes Isabella smile.

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