The CBS proceduralTrackeris built on an interesting premise in which series lead Colter Shaw (Justin Hartley) recovers missing individuals in exchange for reward money. Despite the seemingly unlikely career, he made a large amount of money in the first two seasons of the show.
Not every episode of the series relies on Colter to get a reward for his work. Some of the cases he takes on are favors for his friends, and some are even more personal in nature. The missing persons cases he takes on for his job, however, offer various amounts of reward money, ranging from $187 to $50,000.
So far,Colter has made over $500,00 inTracker, but these cases contributed the most to that total.
7$25,000 For The Recovery Of A Group Of Missing Campers
Season 2, Episode 6 “Trust Fall”
In “Trust Fall,” Colter is recruited to help track down a group of missing campers in the woods. Although this is one of his highest rewards offered in the series so far, it’s also one that requires a larger amount of work on his part.
For one thing, Colter is moving through tougher terrain than searching in a city. For another, he is looking for three missing people instead of one. For a third, he uncovers a murder plot stemming from someone else’s death.
Despite being one of Colter Shaw’s highest-paid cases, it ultimately is one of his least lucrativebecause of the work and the danger involved for him.
As a bonus, however, Colter does find a new ally in this episode. He and retired detective Keaton team up, and Keaton returns to help Colter on hiswhite whale case inTrackerseason 2. With Keaton’s help, Colter finally discovers what happened to Gina Pickett, and that makes this case have more than just monetary value.
6$30,000 For The Recovery Of Lana Russo
Season 1, Episode 9 “Aurora”
Colter does not take on thisTrackercase because of the reward money being offered, despite it being one of the highest offers from a civilian in the series. Instead,Colter takes on the effort to recover Lana Russo because he feels a kinship with her father.
Her father is convinced that Lana is alive after seeing a newspaper photo from a local fair. The trouble is, Lana has been missing for three years, which means most of the clues Colter would typically use to track someone are no longer viable.
The case certainly presents a challenge for Colter, leading him to an abandoned hospital, a local ghost story, and a pair of siblings seeking revenge. Despite the cold case nature of the mystery here, it’s one of Colter’s less twisty cases since it happens so early in the show.
He is also aided in his efforts by local law enforcement instead of hindered by them, making this one of the easier high-earning cases forTracker.
This episode sees Colter tracking a young woman who has been missing for three years, so it should be one of his hardest, but so early in the series, it’s less twisty than later cases.
5$35,000 For The Recovery Of Jackson Cheong
Season 1, Episode 2 “Missoula”
The second episode ofTrackerprovides one of Colter Shaw’s highest-paying jobs so far. He sets out to track down Jackson Cheong in exchange for a $35,000 reward from Jackson’s family, who are worried about him.
While Jackson maintains he is happy where he is at a spiritual retreat, Colter uncovers that those running the center are actually maintaining a cult-like atmosphere to keep their members in line. The leader also attempts to throw Colter off his game by unveiling research into the Shaw family.
This particular investigation also includesone of the bestTrackerscenesto explain who Colter is. Over the course of his investigation, he breaks into the office of the “spiritual center” in order to better understand how the cult works.
Colter is willing to cross into gray areas to save the people he is sent to recover, and in this case, that also means uncovering evidence of someone else’s murder. He definitely earned his $35,000 here.
4$50,000 For The Recovery Of Quinn Ridgely
Season 2, Episode 4 “Noble Rot”
Three of Colter’s highest-earning cases happened in season 2. In fact,Colter earned more than $300,00 inTrackerseason 2, and three of his biggest earners contributed to almost half of that money, including the recovery of Quinn Ridgely.
Colter ends up with this particular case because Reenie puts in a call to Velma about a missing woman at a corporate retreat.Colter would not have gotten the job if Reenie had not vouched for himwith the wife of the missing woman.
Having Reenie on site means that Colter has a leg up on some of his other investigations because Reenie is not someone who is going to hide information from him and will make sure those around them work with him.
Reenie typically gets a fee when she works on cases with Colter as his lawyer, but the exact fee she gets is never revealed.
Here, Reenie is helping in ways that are very different than her usual legal expertise. She even flirts with a guard and steals his keycard, demonstrating that she has skills outside her legal wheelhouse that could be interesting for the show to explore.
Most of the search involves looking into every nook and cranny at a winery and questioning those working at the retreat itself. The case is not one of Colter’s most difficult, but it is one of the most interesting as Colter has to follow clues that point toward corporate espionage, spousal difficulties, and the cover-up of multiple deaths on construction sites.
3$50,000 For The Recovery Of Matt Hale
Season 2, Episode 11 “Shades Of Grey”
In “Shades of Grey,” Colter takes on this case as both a favor and as a paying job. Reenie’s boyfriend Elliot reaches out on behalf of one of his clients. His client’s son is the one missing, and the woman fronts the $50,000 reward money for Colter to find her son.
Colter’s job here is hindered at every turn, however, because his client is not entirely truthful with him. It makes it more difficult for him to know exactly what he is getting into when there are huge gaps in the information he has about his missing person.
Colter finds that his missing person is right in the middle of a disagreement between different organized crime factions. That makes thisone of the most dangerous cases Colter becomes involved in. Typically, Colter is in danger himself, but in this case, one wrong move can set two rival criminal organizations against one another and only lead to more violence.
The case also ends with Colter having to shoot someone, making it a more volatile episode for Colter to get his reward.
2$50,000 For The Recovery Of Ben Kinderson
Season 2, Episode 10 “Nightingale”
When Colter heads to Wolf Creek on a job for Ben Kinderson’s grandmother, he gets a lot more than he bargained for.
Kinderson’s grandmother knows that her survivalist grandson would not kill someone without cause and would not kidnap a woman, so when he is suspected of killing two bikers and a police officer and kidnapping a singer, she puts up $50,000 to bring in her grandson. Colter agrees to the job after hearing Ben’s story.
Colter and Ben are well-suited to working together, so it’s actually great that Colter finds him fairly quickly. The job might just be locating him, but Colter ends up helping him protect Angie and uncover the evidence that he is innocent.
It’sone of the rare missing persons cases in which the audience gets to see Colter use the titular tracking skillsthe show is named for. He more than earns the money offered to him as he tracks Kinderson based on one good footprint, a few blood spots, and his own knowledge of laying traps in the woods.
From there, the clean-up is a bit more straightforward, but it’s clear that Colter is very good at his job.
1$50,000 For The Recovery Of Jesse Bowers
Season 1, Episode 1 “Klamath Falls”
Colter Shaw earns $50,000 here, just as he did in the previous three cases, but this particular one takes the number 1 spot instead. That’s because this case is unique.
The recovery of Jesse Bowers is the first missing persons search we see Colter take oninTracker. It’s the case he’s in the middle of when the pilot episode opens. Colter has actually already found Jesse when the story opens and is in the process of reassuring her and setting her leg.
We find out when Colter phones Velma and Teddi to tell them the case is done, that he finished the job much faster than usual. It’s easy to surmise that it only took a few hours, since Colter estimates a search and rescue team getting to him and Jesse in five hours, and opts to move her himself.
The recovery of Jesse Bowers is also notable becauseColter does not even wait to take on a new job. He goes right from getting some sleep after earning his reward to taking a new case from Velma the next morning - one that only takes him about a day and a half to complete and earns him another $20,000.
That meansColter earns $70,000 in just the few days that the very first episode of the series takes place, and is on his way to another job as the episode ends.
It’s interesting that some of Colter’s highest-paying cases actually include some of the simplest tracking jobs for him. It certainly makes us wonder if the reward money goes up inTrackerseason 3, what kind of cases we might see then.
