“Oh yeah. It was a whole thing. Got the local neighborhood association up in arms.”
Ronnie went on for a bit about how the weather conditions and timeframe can impact the hounds’ scenting ability, while I did my best to regulate my breathing.
“So, they know where he went?” I asked, popping a fry in my mouth.
She shook her head, then upnodded her phone. “Keep swiping.”
I swiped through the pictures that’d been taken by the diver. The interior of the SUV, where Jesse’s boots and jacket lay in the rear foot well, his thick gold chain peeking out from the silt on the lake floor. The uncle’s car, exterior. Interior. The uncle’s body. The shoreline. The heavily wooded area between the lake and a wealthy housing development. I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest, waiting for her to get to the point.
“There,” she said, pointing to an opening in the tree line. “Dog lost the trail when he hit the asphalt. Days and days of rain washed away his scent.”
I flipped through several more photographs. “Wow. That neighborhood isn’t far from the cabin. Like, at all.”
“I know!” she said, stealing a fry. “You were getting drunk andponderingwhile Jesse Travis was making his big escape. If he’d had any idea you were so close, he’d have killed you.”
“He’d havetried,” I joked.
Ronnie laughed, then shook her head. “My friend with the Rangers is saying they had to push back the vehicle recovery until the fourth.”
“Damn.”
She held up her finger. “Which reminds me!My buddy sent me the video footage from the dam’s cameras. Wanna see?”
“Of course,” I said, forcing a smile.
I actually didn’t want to see Jesse plunging off the highway, but I didn’t have much of a choice.
It was just as violent as I’d imagined.
“Know what’s really weird?” she asked, clearly taken by this whole case.
“Huh?”
“Both Jesse’s father and his cousin are MIA.”
Shit.
“Really?”
“Yeah. San Antonio PD found Kyler’s Jeep parked at the airport. He bought a one-way ticket to Mexico City.”
That was actually kind of smart. Americans could travel from Mexico City to places that were otherwise inaccessible from our airports.
“So…Cuba?” I asked.
Cuba wasn’t exactly a non-extradition country, but they weren’t exactly offering up fugitives either. Even if the State Department managed to work out something with the Cuban government, I doubted Jesse had plans to stay there for very long.
That was just a guess though. I still couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t gone to DFW.
Or maybe he had, and this was just a distraction.
“That was my thought as well,” Ronnie answered, unaware of my internal conflict. “I wonder if that’s the rendezvous point for the Travis family reunion.”
“Wait, does that mean the department thinks Jesse planned for his uncle to go after his ride?”
Shit. The Rangers would not stop until they found whoever they thought was responsible for the death of their two officers. Dread pooled in my belly.
She shrugged. “Maybe? Though…” She re-ran the video. “That looks like his uncle was trying to kill him, doesn’t it?”
