Page 16 of Not Our Daughter

“It’s nothing,” he insisted.

“Dad, what happened to your arm? It’s really bleeding.”

“I fell. That’s all. I’ll be okay.”

Lisa pitched her head, clearly not believing a word of it. But he subtly shook her off, like a pitcher with a catcher—as if to say,Not now, later. She didn’t push him.

“Everyone in the car. Right now. We have to go.”

Lisa quickly got into the front passenger seat; Jade climbed into the back. Cole turned around, took one last look down at the town. There seemed to be blue and red blinking lights nearly everywhere. Police vehicles, ambulances, fire engines. Around the park and on the street where they lived. It was a surreal scene. They’d left their home with basically nothing. Every physical part of the life they’d built for themselves over the past ten years was still inside. Photos, office files, financial statements, mementos, Jade’s cheer trophies and ribbons—everything. It would probably all be destroyed as the FBI searched every square inch of the place. But the Feds would find nothing connecting them to where they were going next. He always stayed prepared for that. It was all part of the plan.

He sighed. The plan. He’d hated having to have a plan all these years.

But he needed the plan more than ever now.

He took another deep breath and let it out slowly, recognizing the finality of the moment.

Cole and Lisa Shipley, and their daughter, Jade, were officially dead.

They no longer existed. It was time to become someone new.

Thirteen

As their black Tahoe finally pulled onto the Shipleys’ street, Agent Burns stared at a row of red and blue blinking lights parked along the curb outside their fugitives’ home. Two uniformed police officers stood guard at the front door, while a couple of other officers milled about on the sidewalk. There were no signs of any arrests. No suspects locked in the back of police vehicles or handcuffed out on the front lawn. No urgency at all. On the contrary, the officers all looked quite dispirited, like they’d just been sucker punched or something. What the hell was going on?

The drive through the mountain pass a moment ago had been hell on Burns’s cell phone signal. He’d lost a full ten minutes—which felt like an absolute eternity right now. Haskins, their man on the ground, wasn’t answering his phone, and neither were any of their local police contacts. Because of that, Burns hadn’t received any updates about the situation here in Winter Park, and he was losing his mind. Especially after driving through town a few seconds ago and taking in a chaotic scene with a flood of police activity. He had a bad feeling it was all connected to their pursuit of Cole and Lisa Shipley.

The Tahoe’s driver parked in the driveway, and the second Tahoe pulled in beside it. Everyone quickly got out. Burns and Davis huddled on the front sidewalk.

“This doesn’t look promising at all,” Davis said, hands on hips.

“No, it sure as hell doesn’t.”

At that moment a thirtysomething guy with close-cropped brown hair, wearing the same dark-blue FBI jacket as Burns and the others, stepped out of the house and hustled down the sidewalk toward them.

“Agent Haskins,” he said, introducing himself upon arrival.

They all quickly shook hands.

“Why haven’t you been answering your damn phone?” Burns asked, irritated.

“Sorry, sir. I lost it in pursuit a few minutes ago.”

“Pursuit where?”

He nodded to his right. “The concert midtown. All hell has broken loose over there.”

“We noticed,” Davis said. “Give us the quick rundown.”

“I followed Cole Shipley from this house. He drove directly into town and got out on foot at the park. Then he took off into the concert crowd. I pursued but couldn’t keep track of him. There were way too many people around.” Haskins blew out forcefully, shook his head. “But then maybe I got lucky. Not so much for the cop.”

“What about a cop?” Burns asked, brow bunched.

“You guys haven’t heard?”

“We just got here, Haskins!” Davis blurted. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Haskins ran a hand through his hair, exhaled again. “Shipley shot and killed a police officer a few minutes ago. Apparently, after you put the word out here, a local officer spotted him at the concert and managed to apprehend him in an alley two blocks away. I didn’t see any of it. But somehow Shipley shot him dead before fleeing again.”

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