MONDAY
FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid signed the file on a multi-jurisdictional case she’d just finished and routed it to the US Attorney who would be handling the prosecution. Done. While Lucy loved being in the field, she relished completing an investigation and handing a solid case over to the courts. She certainly had no complaints about the mundane paperwork involved. After back-to-back complex and dangerous investigations, she was happy to be home before seven every night and had settled into a comfortable routine with her husband and stepson, Jesse. She’d even taken a three-day weekend to fly to Colorado with Sean to celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary. Their friend, and Lucy’s colleague, Nate Dunning had stayed with Jesse so Sean and Lucy could have some alone time.
Now, if only she could get her family to confirm who was coming over Thanksgiving, she’d be able to relax. Months ago, she’d asked if everyone would come to San Antonio for Thanksgiving to avoid traveling with Jesse. He’d been through so much this last year that she wanted a relaxing family meal at home. But no one wanted to commit. Carina and Nick she understood—her sister was pregnant and traveling with a toddler would be difficult and exhausting, but at least they said they would think about it. If Carina was feeling up to it, she wanted to come. But they would be deciding last minute. No one else had a good excuse.
She tried not to be down about it, but she missed her brothers and sisters. She sent one last email out to her clan and said she wanted answers by the weekend. Harsh, maybe, but necessary when Thanksgiving was only ten days away. Almost as soon as she hit send, her cell phone rang.
“Patrick!” she exclaimed. She hadn’t talked to her brother—the youngest of the clan until she came along ten years after him—in weeks and hadn’t seen him since she went through a hostage rescue training program in DC back in May.
“You sound good,” he said.
“I am. Sean and I were able to get away for our anniversary.”
“So I heard. Terrific. And Jesse’s doing well?”
“Adjusting better than I could have hoped.”
“Well, he’s Sean’s kid, I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“You got my email and you’re coming for Thanksgiving. You and Elle, of course.” She winced that she’d almost forgotten to mention Patrick’s longtime girlfriend. They’d been living together for nearly two years, but Lucy and Elle butted heads when they were in the same room. Maybe because they didn’t always agree on criminal justice issues, and maybe because Patrick was her brother and she didn’t think that Elle was quite good enough. Sean had pointed out more than once that Patrick hadn’t liked the idea of Sean—his business partner and friend—getting involved with his sister and yet Patrick had come around.
Lucy tried to explain that this was different, but she knew that it wasn’t. Patrick loved Elle, and Lucy had to find a way to like her. They’d both tried when Lucy was in DC in May, even going out for coffee a few times. It had been awkward, but she didn’t want anything to come between her and her brother.
“Actually…,” Patrick said.
And she knew.
“Elle’s in the middle of a big case,” he continued, “and we don’t know if she’ll be done before Thanksgiving. She can’t just walk out in the middle of it. There are three kids at stake. Their dad is nowhere to be found, their drug addict mother is in jail for possession with intent, and CPS split them up because the oldest has been in trouble. We’re going to try, Luce, I promise, but I can’t guarantee.”
“I understand,” she said, but she really didn’t. Yes, she understood why Elle couldn’t leave. The one thing she admired about Patrick’s girlfriend was that the lawyer fought for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. But couldn’t Patrick come out for one night? Would it kill them to be apart for a day?
“Luce, you don’t sound like you understand.”
“Let me know. I won’t force you to give me an answer, okay? I just want to see you. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, Sis. I promise, we’ll really try. How’s work? Sean told me about the flooding and the prison escape.”
“All good,” she said, though knew this was just small talk. Sean and Patrick worked together remotely on many projects, and Patrick talked to Sean more than he talked to her.
Lucy heard her name and looked up to see her boss, Rachel Vaughn, motioning for her to come to her office.
“I have to go, my boss just called me in for a meeting.”
“I mean what I said, Lucy. I will do everything possible to come out.”
“I know you will. Love you.” She hung up.
Maybe Rachel had a meaty case for her that would keep her mind off her family this week.
Rachel had called in Nate as well, and he closed the door behind them. Rachel said, “We have a break in the flood case.”
Lucy had been assisting the Bexar and Kerr County Sheriff’s Offices over the last two months in the case of four unidentified skeletons unearthed during the flash flooding over Labor Day weekend.
“IDs?” Lucy asked.
“Yes. It’s more complicated than we thought, which is why I want you to partner with Nate. We’re taking lead, the sheriff here is fine with it. I just got off the phone with his office, but Kerr might have some issues.”
Until now, Lucy’s role in the investigation had been more logistical, as the Bexar County crime lab was working closely with the FBI lab at Quantico. All they knew at this point was that the victims were four Caucasians, a male in his forties, a female in her forties, and two teenage females. The San Antonio ME brought in a forensic anthropologist from the university who said they’d been dead slightly over three years. All four had been shot twice in the back of the head and evidence indicated they’d been killed where they were found, but with the contamination of the burial site, they couldn’t confirm.
“And?” Lucy pressed. “A family, right?” That had been the logical assumption, but DNA testing couldn’t be done overnight.
Rachel nodded. “The Albrights. They disappeared just over three years ago, last seen on Friday, September 21. Denise Albright was an accountant suspected of embezzling three million dollars from a construction company, which had just landed a federal contract for a major public works project. Because federal funds were missing, the AUSA opened an investigation, but it was put on hold when they believed she fled to avoid being questioned. While the theft wasn’t discovered until after she disappeared, the owner of the company had scheduled an independent audit the day she was last seen. It isn’t a stretch to believe that she thought she would be caught.”
“No one knew she’d been killed?”
“Her vehicle was tagged crossing the border in Brownsville the night they disappeared. She and her husband both withdrew the maximum they could from their ATMs that afternoon, used his credit card to fill up with gas in Brownsville and buy supplies at a camping-goods store.”
“So this wasn’t planned—they were running on the fly,” Nate said.
Rachel nodded. “So it appears.”
“Were they suspicious of her?” Lucy asked. “Is that why the owner wanted the audit?”
“I don’t know. His contact information is in the file, so you can reach out.”
Rachel shifted through papers and handed Lucy a business card. “AUSA Shelley Adair handled the case from the beginning, hopefully she has more info about the particulars of the crime. All I know from our database is that it was on hold pending locating Denise Albright. However, we have another issue to deal with—the Albrights also had a son, and his remains weren’t found with his family.”
“How old?” Nate asked.
“He was nine at the time his family disappeared. He would be twelve if he’s still alive, but it’s likely that he was buried elsewhere.”
“Could his remains have been washed away in the flood?” Nate asked.
Lucy shook her head. “Not based on the photos I’ve seen. The four bodies recovered were in the same grave, and even if his smaller skeleton was removed, some of the bones would have remained.”
Rachel said, “Ash Dominguez at the crime lab said basically the same thing. He received the same email I did Friday afternoon from the lab at Quantico and we discussed it then. He called in cadaver dogs to search the area because the most likely reason is that the boy was buried somewhere nearby. Or maybe the family left the kid in Mexico for some reason when they returned.”
“They came back with their teenage daughters and not their young son?” Lucy said. “That seems unlikely.”
“We don’t know what they were thinking. But someone murdered this family within weeks of their initial disappearance.” Rachel handed Lucy a thin file. “That’s the report from the lab, I’ll also forward you the email so you have the technicians’ contact information if you have questions. They can’t give us TOD down to the day, but they narrowed the window and put TOD mid-September to end of October, three years ago. The Albrights were seen crossing the border on Friday, September 21. That’s the last sighting of their vehicle. They haven’t attempted to access their bank accounts since that Friday, which have been monitored as part of the investigation into the embezzlement. If you need help with the white collar crime angle, you can tap Laura Williams, who’s been assisting the AUSA, but this week she’s wrapped up in a major trial. Keep her in the loop, but she might not respond immediately.”
Rachel looked from Nate to Lucy, her expression stern.
“Find out who killed this family and if Denise Albright was responsible for the missing money. If she’s guilty, she had a partner—someone who is capable of killing children. But mostly, find out what happened to Ricky Albright and if there is any chance that he’s still alive.”
As they drove the hour to Kerrville, Lucy read the updated file on the case, then filled Nate in on what she knew.
“You know about the bones,” she said.
“Yeah. Four people shot execution-style and buried in a mass grave near the Kendall–Kerr County border in the middle of nowhere.”
Ballistics was incomplete because there was evidence of eight points of entry, but only six bullets had been recovered. Those bullets came from two different .45 pistols. The teenagers had been restrained—two sets of zip ties had been found still around their wrists—and the father had additional injuries to his skull, indicating blunt force trauma prior to the execution. Probabilities leaned to having been cold-cocked with the butt of a gun.
“Ash went above and beyond, but the FBI still has some of the best tools. Though they gave a two-month range, there’s a probability graph that shows the most likely time they were killed was between September 17 and September 27. Probabilities decrease the further away from those dates. That’s primarily from the soil samples that were collected in the area—samples that weren’t contaminated by the flood—coupled with the state of the bones and an etymology report. But it’s very difficult to pinpoint an exact date. We have nothing from Kerr County yet, only what Rachel said—they were last seen on September 21.”
“They didn’t leave the country,” Nate said.
“There’s evidence that they did.”
“I want to see it—the car driving across the border doesn’t mean they’re the people who drove it. Border Control doesn’t generally regulate who is going to Mexico.”
It was a good point, but there should be a photo of the driver as the vehicle passed, and Lucy didn’t think that the investigating detective would have made the assumption without hard evidence. “The investigators must have that information—tapes or photos from Border Control. They would have contacted the FBI attaché in Mexico with a BOLO.”
“Doesn’t the report say?”
“None of that information is in here.”
“It doesn’t sound like we have much of anything.”
“An ID is a good start,” she said, “but we need the original investigators’ reports. Who they talked to, how the money was embezzled and if any has been recovered, what evidence they have that it was Albright—over and above her leaving the country—who else she might have been close to. Her family was killed. Not to justify her murder, there is no justification, but if she had a partner and double-crossed him or her, then yes, I could see how she might be targeted. But her family? Her children? That’s … beyond cruel.”
Nate didn’t say anything for a minute, then asked, “Do you think the kid is alive?”
She was surprised at the question. “I think,” she said slowly, “that he wasn’t killed with his family. Either he wasn’t there at the time, or there was another reason to bury his body in a different place. Evidence, perhaps.”
“Who the fuck executes kids,” Nate muttered.
Nate was right, they had very little information. The original investigation began out of the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office when the Albrights were considered missing persons. Once the embezzlement came to light, Laura Williams, from the San Antonio FBI office, joined the investigation, but the information was thin: No one had seen or heard from anyone in the family after they crossed the border.
The FBI had warrants to monitor the Albrights’ bank and passports, but considering they’d left the country, there wasn’t much they could do unless someone spotted them.
Truly, with their caseload Lucy wasn’t surprised nothing more had been done. People could disappear for years, especially in another country or if they had good fake identities. Harder to do with children, but certainly not impossible. But now this was a murder investigation. The FBI investigated homicides only under limited circumstances; this multi-jurisdictional case with a federal embezzlement charge could go either way, but Lucy was glad that Rachel took it.
She wanted this case, too. Not only to find out what happened to this poor family, but because the complexity of this investigation would keep her mind off her family and Thanksgiving.
Lucy didn’t see how Ricky Albright could be alive. Where would a nine-year-old go without someone informing the authorities? Could he have been living on the street? Maybe for a short time, but for three years? There had been a missing persons report filed on the Albrights, and the US consulates and the FBI attachés in Mexico would have their identities for the BOLO. If Ricky had been picked up anywhere, he would have popped—his photo and description had been part of the original report.
Lucy didn’t care what Denise Albright had done: She vowed to get justice for the family.
She checked her messages while Nate drove. Ash Dominguez was at the gravesite with two cadaver dogs and their handlers from the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office. They were expanding the search at the gravesite, then heading to the Albright house.
He ended his message with:
I want to find that boy and give him a decent burial.
She’d talked to Ash on and off over the last two months as he worked the forensics end of the investigation and knew that he’d taken the case to heart. She would almost say he was obsessed, but in a good way. Having a crime scene investigator as smart and involved as Ash working so hard could make the difference in solving this cold case.
After filling Nate in on Ash’s plans with the dogs, she said, “There’s so much we don’t know. I don’t have a list of people they interviewed or who was even the last person to see them alive. The two detectives—Carl Chavez and Garrett Douglas—talked to a few people after Glen Albright didn’t show up to work. Didn’t treat it as a missing persons case until Denise Albright’s employer reported the embezzlement nearly a week later.” She flipped through the thin report. “After the embezzlement came to light—and the family hadn’t been found—they got a warrant and searched the house. Luggage appeared to be missing and a full garbage bag of shredded paper was found in the garage. No reservations in their names on planes, trains, et cetera. Family, friends, said they didn’t know the family was leaving town.”
“Suggesting they left in a hurry.” Nate paused. “If they left at all.”
It was clear Nate thought they’d been killed the day they went missing—and the “proof” that they left the country was wrong. If he was right, then their murder was premeditated and the killer intentionally sent the police down the wrong trail.
Lucy planned to re-interview everyone Chavez and Douglas spoke with—the principal where Glen worked, the Young family that Ricky had gone home with that Friday after school, the owner of the construction company that accused Denise Albright of embezzlement. She’d like to have Laura navigate them through the financial complexities, but Lucy didn’t know when she’d be free.
Lucy kept coming back to why Ricky Albright wasn’t buried with his family. Maybe he wasn’t at home when the killers arrived. Did they kill the family, then go back for Ricky? Yet there was no evidence that the family had been killed at their house. No blood, no sign of violence. Only that they had left in a hurry.
Had they been grabbed there? Or as they were leaving town? Maybe they’d planned to disappear for some reason … because Denise stole all that money?… and the killers followed them.
If they followed them to Mexico, they would have killed them in Mexico, where their bodies would likely never be found or identified.
Lucy frowned. She was already thinking like Nate, that the family had been killed before they went to Mexico, when so far the evidence pointed that they’d left the country and returned within a week.
What were you thinking, Denise? Were you scared? Maybe you left without thinking, then came back to turn yourself in … and then what? You had a partner? Someone who didn’t want to come clean? Killed you and your entire family?
That actually made sense. Guilt was a powerful emotion. And being on the run was hard, especially with a family.
Yet … that didn’t explain what happened to Ricky.
Maybe Glen and Denise left Ricky behind. Or maybe the killer had a hard time shooting a child … and if that’s the case, where was he? Could a nine-year-old be convinced not to turn in the person who killed his parents?
Knowing what they knew, Lucy believed that poor Ricky Albright was most likely dead. She hoped Ash would find his body so his remaining family could have peace.
And Lucy vowed to find the person who killed them, because they deserved justice … no matter what crimes Denise Albright committed.