Sitting there in the truck, Jake tried to sort out his next move. If not Judd, then who was behind all this—and why? What truth could Piper possibly know? Jake had angered a lot of people in the community last year with the way the football season had unfolded. There were so many parents and fans who had voiced their severe displeasure with him. But he couldn’t imagine anyone other than Judd responding in a way that nearly put his whole family in the grave. It didn’t make any sense to him. Could it have been something else? Could Sarah have somehow been the catalyst behind all this? Or Caitlin? Or Piper? If Jake could find the right tow-truck company, maybe he could somehow track down the driver from tonight. But that would be a challenge. His sole focus earlier had been on catching up to the black truck, not paying enough attention to company brandings or other identifiable markings. He regretted that now. But he remembered one clear identifier for sure. The tow truck had a Geaux Tigers purple-and-gold LSU sticker on the back bumper. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was all he had at the moment.
Using his burner phone, Jake began searching the internet for local tow-truck companies to see if he could find a possible match. The first search result felt like a knee to the groin. There were more than one hundred different towing companies listed in and around Austin. He shook his head. One by one, Jake searched through websites looking for images that showed off their trucks. Many of the companies did not have websites, which made his hunt feel even more futile. After thirty minutes of connecting dots, Jake came up with a list of twenty-one different possibilities. Each of the towing companies on his list used some version of black tow trucks. They were all over the city. It might take him all night to track them all down. But it was the only way forward he could think to take right now, and he certainly wasn’t going to be sleeping anyway.
Pulling out of the parking lot, Jake set off to visit each location on the list. While many of the towing companies advertised being open twenty-four hours, Jake figured this was after-hours, by telephone only, as all he found with each successive stop were locked, dark buildings. But thankfully, there were tow trucks parked in and around most of these sites that allowed him to take some inventory. However, after more than three hours of driving around town, Jake still had not found a match for the LSU bumper sticker. He was starting to lose any hope of this working. But stop number seventeen changed the story: A & Z Wrecker and Recovery.
The building was basically a run-down mobile home sitting on about an acre of land in industrial East Austin surrounded by other business strips and complexes. The lights were off in the building, and no one was around. Jake stood at a chain-link security fence behind the building and from a distance stared at four different black tow trucks parked side by side. It sure as hell looked like one of them had a Geaux Tigers bumper sticker.
Reaching up, Jake began climbing the chain-link security fence, pulled his legs over, and then found himself back on the pavement on the other side. He hustled over to the short row of tow trucks. His heart rate jumped. It was indeed the same bumper stick he’d spotted earlier. The truck looked like the exact same model, too. He’d found the vehicle—he felt certain of it. Both doors were locked on the truck. Jake peered into the windows to see if he could spot anything inside that might tell him who the driver was tonight. He didn’t see anything lying around that might be useful. No company name tags or lanyards. No magazines with subscription labels. The cabin of the tow truck was very clean. He thought about breaking the window and searching the glove box but decided against it. Someone nearby might hear him and call the police.
Jake stood there a moment, wondering what to do next. How would he go about identifying the driver? The company website didn’t list anyone specifically. Looking at his phone, he decided to dial the phone number for the tow-truck company. Maybe he could talk his way into information. It was nearly two in the morning. Could he expect to get an answer at this hour? The phone rang four times and went to an automated company voice mail, asking callers to leave a message about their situation; someone would call back shortly. He left a quick message: “Yeah, my name is Jeff. I need a tow ASAP. Call me back, please.” He went on to leave his new phone number. He thought about saying someone was on-site breaking into their building, like he was an eyewitness or something, and telling them they should get down here right away. But again, Jake was concerned about potential police involvement.
Climbing back over the security fence, Jake returned to the front side of the building. He wondered if he should find some way to break in and have a look around. The door had a sticker on it claiming the building was guarded by an alarm system and a security company. Was that true? By the looks of things, he highly doubted it. But it wasn’t a risk he wanted to take right now. He called the phone number for the towing company a second time and left an even more urgent message, begging them to call back. He then paced in a circle in front of the building for about twenty minutes before he lost all hope of a return phone call tonight. Still, he wasn’t leaving this place until someone called him back or showed up in the morning. He had no other leads to pursue. The man who drove that tow truck held Jake’s whole life in his hands.