Page 77

CHAPTER 75

RYAN, OF ALL people, comes to her defense.

“She saved your asses back there at that fire,” he says to Carlos. “We shouldn’t leave her out.” He turns to Ava. “I was wrong to exclude you before, and he’s wrong now.”

Carlos says that his recommendation for her to stay behind is not meant to be a slight about her abilities in the field.

“It’s not that at all,” he says to her. “You need to stay behind to interview Isabella Luna.”

He explains that no matter what happens at Garrison Zebo’s place, those of us who go will be preoccupied afterward for the rest of the day, probably the rest of the week. There will be reports to file, statements to give, interviews to handle—and all of that is only if it goes well and we arrest Garrison Zebo and save Marta and any other women who might be there.

If anything goes wrong—if it turns out Carpenter was lying and that Garrison Zebo isn’t Mr. Z, or if Zebo gets away, or we don’t find the girls—then our asses will be in serious trouble for rushing into this thing without warrants and approval from our supervisors. We could come out of this with the blackest of black marks on our records.

Whether we end the day law enforcement heroes or pariahs, we’ll be indisposed for a good twenty-four or forty-eight hours. Maybe longer.

“Fiona Martinez might not have that long,” Carlos says, referring to the latest eagle feather victim.

Isabella Luna was found ten days after her disappearance. If the same thing has happened to Fiona as happened to Isabella four years ago, there might still be time to save her.

“Last night at the casino, Isabella agreed to talk to you,” Carlos says. “If she’ll open up to you in a way she wouldn’t when Rory and I were there, we need to know what she knows.”

At this point, Ryan gets a phone call and steps away for a moment.

Carlos goes on to explain what he’s been wanting to talk to us about but hasn’t had the chance—that he spent his evenings on his Houston trip scouring the phone records and social media accounts of the four missing eagle feather victims. In three of the four cases, he found people reaching out to them on social media right before they disappeared.

“The names were different,” Carlos says, “but in all the instances, a person contacted them, acting like an old friend, or at least an acquaintance, and said, ‘Do you remember me?’ And in all three cases, the person said they’d met at a powwow.”

He explains that he figured out that the accounts were bogus, used as a way to find out where the women were living.

“So what does all this mean?” Ava asks.

Carlos says that he thinks the women were all targeted at powwows. The abductor saw them, maybe met them in some capacity, and then tracked them down later through social media.

“But why not abduct them when he first met them?” I ask.

“Powwows are crowded places,” Carlos says. “It would be hard to just take someone. Plus,” he adds, “we know whoever it is waits for the solstice. We don’t know why, but we’ve got four feathers left behind after four solstices. That’s no coincidence.”

“It’s not,” Ryan agrees, coming back into the conversation while putting his phone away. “The crime lab just called. Last night, I told them to move your eagle feathers to the top of the queue. High priority.”

We all stare at him, stunned.

“I just got word,” he says, “all four feathers were a genetic match. They came from the same bird.”

I feel a cold chill.

Ryan says, “If there was any doubt of the link between the cases—and I guess I was the only one with any doubts—it’s gone.”

None of us can believe the about-face Ryan has demonstrated.

“Look,” he says, “I owe you all an apology. I didn’t take your theories on the feathers that seriously. But when I saw the message from Marta Rivera that you were all heading into a trap, I thought you might all be killed. I realized we’re all on the same side, and after you survived the morning—no thanks to me—I feel like I’ve been given a second chance to work with you all, not against you.”

He turns his attention to Ava, who he’s had the longest-running feud with.

“Carlos is right,” he tells her. “You go talk to Isabella. Try to get her to remember something—anything—about the day she went missing. We,” he adds, gesturing to Carlos and me, “are going to do everything we can to save Marta Rivera. You go save Fiona Martinez.”

Ava stares at him, her expression unreadable. Ryan extends his hand.

“Okay,” Ava says finally, and, in a sight that I wouldn’t have imagined possible a week ago, she shakes with Ryan Logan.