Page 57 of Not Our Daughter

“I don’t know, Jade,” Cole said, his mind churning. “But what if Candace’s so-called plan was not putting together some kind of sexy website, like Hailey suspected? Peter Nelson would’ve been in the middle of his first campaign for the Texas Supreme Court when Candace was killed. What if her plan to finally get them out of poverty involved blackmail?”

Lisa’s eyes widened. “And he sent someone to kill her?”

“I know it sounds crazy. But history has proved that powerful families will often go to great lengths to protect their power.”

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 resultsfrom theLubbock 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.”

Forty-Four

The family’s private plane touched down in Austin. Brock quickly climbed down the stairs and hobbled over to a Dodge Ram truck, where one of his former ranch hands was waiting behind the wheel. Brock thought he might have broken a bone or something in his ankle in the fall from the warehouse back in El Paso. He had for sure separated his shoulder. Both hurt like hell right now. But he couldn’t do a damn thing about it until he finally ended this whole thing. He’d taken a handful of Advil on the plane and chased it down with a glass of bourbon, trying to carefully walk the line between numbing the pain while still functioning at a high level. But he was buzzing a little more than he wanted right now.

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