Page 24 of Not Our Daughter

“What is it?” Lisa asked from the back.

“Nothing. Stay down.”

Cole had still not mentioned anything about what happened in the alley. He wanted to delay that conversation, as to not add any more fuel to the bonfire of fear they were already dealing with right now. But he knew he would have to explain everything to Lisa soon.

Traffic began to finally pick up speed as they cleared midtown and began heading east on 40 toward the Berthoud Pass. Cole pushed down on the gas pedal, got the van rolling, and began breathing easier. Thankfully, the van was running great. It had passed inspection at an auto shop three months ago. He just hoped there were no high-speed chases in their future. He wasn’t sure the vehicle would even accelerate past seventy miles per hour. He checked his watch. It should take them about thirty minutes to get up and down the pass. There was nothing but highways on the other side of the mountain. They should be home free.

He finally heard Jade speak again and tell her mom she was hungry. Lisa grabbed the small cooler, opened it, and began rummaging through various granola bars, chips, cookies, and other assorted snack items.

“You want anything?” Lisa asked Cole.

“Shot of bourbon,” he said, flashing a small smile at her in the rearview mirror.

Again, he was trying whatever he could to lighten the intensity of the moment.

She gave him the slightest of grins back. “No bourbon. But I do have wine. And I may just pop it open and drink straight from the bottle.”

“Save some for me.”

Cole’s smile suddenly disappeared. He cursed under his breath.

“What, Dad?” Jade asked.

He slowed the van behind a row of other vehicles, who were all coming to a sudden stop. He tried to peer around them up ahead. He cursed again—there was a police vehicle parked horizontally across the road, and it looked like the gate to the pass was closed behind it. A police officer stood in the road, using a hand to instruct everyone to turn around, one at a time, while he also shined a flashlight into the front of each car.

“We’re in trouble,” Cole said. “They closed the pass.”

Seventeen

Sixty-seven minutes. That’s how long Burns and his FBI team had been on the ground in Winter Park, and yet they still had little to show for it. And it certainly wasn’t from a lack of local support. The police presence had grown exponentially with help from several other regional departments, so there were twice as many officers out patrolling the streets. All exits from the area had been manned by police for the past fifteen minutes. Everyone with a badge was now on the lookout for a green Subaru Outback registered to Cole and Lisa Shipley. But there had been no reported sightings. Their whereabouts remained unknown. And Burns was beyond frustrated. He kept asking himself the same questions: Where the hell could they have gone? Had they stayed prepared all these years to make a quick exit? Was that how they’d disappeared so quickly and easily? Were they already out of the valley? Had he made a massive mistake delaying a potential arrest until he arrived?

Burns and Davis had just finished interviewing all the neighbors on the Shipleys’ street, asking who had seen or knew what, but they all seemed mostly clueless, and shocked.Cole and Lisa? No way. They knew them so well. This couldn’t be right. They’d been neighbors for eight years. There had been nothing odd or mysterious about the family. They were always kind, helpful, and fun to be around.And so on and so forth. But Burns’s final interview had produced a kernel of hope. One of theteenage boys on the street mentioned Jade Shipley had a boyfriend named Tyler Healey, who lived over in Tabernash. The neighbor boy was good friends with Tyler—they mountain biked together all the time. He said Jade and Tyler had been texting a lot lately and had started hanging out. Burns was leery of the claim, since he’d found no evidence of such a relationship in Jade’s bedroom. But maybe she’d been hiding it from her father. Izzy hid damn near everything about boys from him.

Burns and Davis drove over to Tabernash in one of the black Tahoes and pulled up to a log cabin–style house that had probably been built thirty years earlier. A Toyota Highlander was parked out front next to a Nissan Rogue. They both got out and approached the front door. It was after eleven, so most of the lights were off inside, but Burns had no time to be respectful of people’s sleep right now. Every second mattered. He knocked on the front door and waited. Davis was busy working his cell phone, searching social media for Tyler Healey.

“The kid has two accounts I can find so far,” Davis mentioned. “And there are several recent photos of him with Jade Shipley. They are clearly more than friends. Lots of hand-holding and hugging.”

“We’ve still found no social media belonging to Jade?”

Davis shook his head. “Nothing. Just like with her parents.”

“Not a surprise.”

There was no immediate answer at the door, so Burns banged even louder. This time a light popped on down the hallway. A moment later the door opened, showing a fortysomething man with curly brown hair wearing sweatpants and a white T-shirt. He looked half-asleep and kept blinking, like he was trying to get his eyes to work correctly.

“Are you Robert Healey?” Burns asked.

“Yes. What’s, uh ... what’s going on?”

Burns and Davis flashed their FBI credentials in near unison, like they’d been doing regularly for the past hour.

“I’m Special Agent Burns with the FBI. This is Agent Davis. Sorry to wake you. But we need to speak with your son, Mr. Healey. It’s urgent.”

The mention of the FBI seemed to jolt Healey awake. “Wait ... what? Is my son in some kind of trouble?”

“No, sir. We just have some questions for him regarding his relationship with a girl named Jade Shipley.”

“Jade? Has something happened to her?”

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