“The report says the first call was from the high school principal—Glen and his daughters didn’t show up at school. Was that when you caught the case?”

He nodded, rocked back and forth on the two back legs of the chair. “We went to the house on a welfare check late Monday morning, September 24. Determined that the Escalade, registered to Denise Albright, was gone. The cars registered to the husband and the daughter were both there. No one was home, house locked tight. No neighbors close by—the house is in the middle of a couple of acres. We talked to one neighbor that was listed as an emergency contact for the kids at school, a young couple with a baby, but they hadn’t seen the Albrights on Friday or over the weekend. Didn’t find it odd, because like I said, the houses are remote.”

Lucy was skimming the reports as Chavez spoke. Most of it she’d seen before, in the copy sent to the FBI. She didn’t see how they made a leap from seeing the Albrights were not home to checking the border and was about to ask, but Chavez continued.

“We went to Mrs. Albright’s employer next,” he said. “They were very concerned because she was supposed to be in a meeting Monday and hadn’t called in. So we put a BOLO out for the Escalade and the family—we initially thought they’d been in an accident, maybe went away for the weekend and got into trouble. Something like that. Talked to Mr. Albright’s sister in Dallas, she was worried because she’d tried to call on Sunday and he didn’t answer or return her call, which according to her was unlike him. She said she’d call around to friends and other family members. But it wasn’t until Wednesday—maybe Thursday—when Mrs. Albright’s employer came to us and accused her of stealing over three million dollars from a trust: money for a federal project.”

“And you then notified the FBI.”

“Not right away. First we searched their house—they hadn’t been seen in five or six days, we had cause. Saw evidence that they’d left in a hurry. Worked with the DA, he contacted the US Attorney, and I guess it was then that someone in the FBI got involved; I wasn’t really involved since Garrett was the lead detective. At that point, once we got the surveillance photos from Border Control, we figured they’d left the country with the money.” He shrugged. “Like I said, it wasn’t really our case anymore.”

“Where’s the report from Border Control?” Nate asked.

“In there.”