Page 43 of Not Our Daughter

Brock sat with several border patrol agents at a hole-in-the-wall cantina near the Bridges of America border crossing in El Paso, buying everyone beer and appetizers, while also handing out copious amounts of cash—all part of his effort to recruit help at all three border crossings from El Paso into Mexico. He knew he needed an army out there if he had any chance of intercepting his targets before they got across. The cash rolls seemed to be working. Brock was promising a huge bonus to whoever discovered and held his targets until he got there. The young guys were burning up their phones recruiting help from all their work friends, acting like they’d all just won the lottery. Everyone could be bought. Even government officials. Especially on the border.

Brock quickly stepped out of the cantina when he got a text.

Police found the van!

He responded:Where?

Shopping mall called Cielo Vista. Get over there. Someone spotted the wife and daughter at a Red Lobster. No arrests yet.

On my way.

Brock slipped back inside to tell the border patrol guys to continue to recruit, tossed more cash on the table, then hurried over to a white GMC Yukon he’d rented at the airport. The engine rumbled loudly and he tore out of the parking lot. He was working the steering wheel and his phone at the same time, trying to pull up the exact location. The restaurant was only eight minutes away from him. He floored it. With each swift turn, the SUV’s tires slid on the wet asphalt. He got to the shopping mall and circled through the various parking lots until he found the section with the Red Lobster. He stopped a good distance away, stared through the windshield as the wipers shifted back and forth to clear the raindrops. The police were everywhere. There was no way in hell he was going to be able to get close enough to handle any of this with a handgun.

Parking the Yukon, he reached into the back seat, grabbed his rifle bag, and pulled out his backcountry hunting rifle. He was probably going to have to do this from a distance. He just hoped he had enough time to get away after completing the assignment with so many cops around. He started devising his strategy. All he had to do was somehow get to the border. He’d just bought himself as much help as he needed to quickly get through and avoid being pursued. He would then camp in Juárez for a few days until everything died down again. It was a risky plan. But it was all he had. He couldn’t blow this again.

After rolling down his passenger window, he positioned the rifle through the opening and put his eye to the scope. Now he had an up-close view of all the faces surrounding the restaurant and the van. He quickly searched the different clusters of people. So far, there was no sign of Cole and Lisa Shipley or their daughter. The police officers’ body language told him no one had been arrested yet. But he could see a whole gang of officers searching the premises with their guns drawn. He knew the FBI was also on-site. They had all converged in one location, and something told Brock all hell was about to break loose.

He was ready for it. He thrived in chaos.

Pulling his eye away from the gun, Brock grabbed a small white cloth from his rifle bag to clean the moisture from his scope. The rain was really coming down now. While he did that, something caught his attention over to his right in the parking lot. He squinted. Someone was hiding behind a parked car and watching what was going on over at the police scene. Brock put his eye back to the scope and aimed his gun in that direction. He cursed. Cole Shipley. Before Brock could put his finger on the trigger, the guy was already on the move. He was darting in and out of vehicles, staying low, making his way back toward a mall entrance. Brock tried to line him up, but it was difficult. The guy kept weaving and bobbing. Brock knew he had only one chance to pull the trigger. He had no sound suppressor on his rifle. The shot would be loud and alert the cops. With one shot, they might not know where it came from. But multiple shots would put a direct target on him.

Brock steadied himself. Cole was now up on the sidewalk, ten feet away from the doors. It was now or never. Brock pulled the trigger. The bullet missed his target and shattered a glass door only inches behind Cole. He cursed. Setting the rifle down, he grabbed his handgun from the dashboard, jumped out, and raced toward the mall.

Thirty-Two

Jade maneuvered through the shopping mall until she found an Apple Store on the lower level. She told an eager store employee she was just looking around and then quickly settled herself on a stool over by one of the display laptops. After opening a web browser, she went to Google and typed in the names Greg and Amy Olsen. Her fingers were shaking so much it was hard to even hit the right letters on the keyboard. She scooted in close to the laptop to block anyone from peeking into her business. She held her breath as she watched the screen load with results. She again gasped out loud, drawing the attention of several other shoppers around her, but quickly played it off with a forced smile. Her eyes were locked on the screen. Every search hit was a news article about what had happened thirteen years earlier. All saying basically the same thing she’d just seen and heard on TV. Her parents had murdered a pregnant young woman and stolen her baby. She clicked through on one article and read more of the details. It said Greg and Amy Olsen had fostered to adopt nine-month-old Marcy McGee. There was a photo of her young parents holding the near toddler. Jade zoomed in as close as possible. She put her hand to her mouth. It was definitely her. She’d seen baby photos of herself in one of her mom’s photo albums. She couldn’t believe it.

She was Marcy McGee. Not Jade Shipley.

She kept reading. The Olsens had expected to be granted full custody of Marcy, but according to family accounts, they were devastated when the judge had switched course last minute and given the child back to her biological mother. The court had made arrangements for the Olsens to turn the child over to Candace McGee the next morning. However, police believed the Olsens somehow lured the young mother to their home that night and killed her with a kitchen knife. Police found the weapon at the scene of the crime. The Olsens then fled from the home with the child and were never seen again. She continued to search articles, reading the same thing over and over again, finding out that the FBI had immediately gotten involved and had been searching for them ever since.

Her eyes grew wet, and her hands were trembling. Her whole life was a lie? If they hadn’t been caught, were they ever going to tell her the truth? Or would she have lived her entire life never knowing she’d been born a different person? How could her parents be so cruel? Did she even call them her “parents” anymore?

Tears now dripped on her cheeks. She couldn’t stop them.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice directly behind her.

“None of it is true, Jade.”

She spun around, saw her mom standing there. Jade didn’t know what to say or do. For the first time in her life, she didn’t want to reach for her mother when gripped with fear. It was an awful feeling. She just sat there, frozen.

Her mom stepped close to her, continued in a whisper: “I mean, it’s true that we’re not your biological parents. But we didn’t kill your mother. We would’ve never done something like that. Something else happened that night, and it forced us to run away with you.”

“What ... happened?” Jade asked, her voice cracking. She felt a surge of anxiety hit her chest that made it nearly impossible to speak. This was her mom, but it wasn’t her mom. That was impossible for her brain to handle right now. She desperately wanted to hear something that made sense. That made all this go away.

“Can we talk somewhere in private?”

Jade nodded. Her mom quickly led her out of the store and over to a Starbucks directly across the mall corridor. She asked her to have a seat at a small table away from everyone else. Jade’s whole body continued to tremble. She felt so cold, and so alone. It was a feeling she’d never experienced in her whole life. Her parents had always been there. She’d always felt safe with them. But that had just been completely shattered.

Her mom spoke quietly. “I’ve thought about this moment for a long time. I’ve wanted to tell you the truth for years. I just never thought it would be under these circumstances.”

“What is the truth?” she managed to ask.

Her mom swallowed. “You were our everything from the moment we began fostering you as a baby. We fell in love with you immediately. Your biological mother was in bad shape. Drugs, crime, jail, and other stuff. So we moved to adopt you. We thought you were going to be with us forever, and then the judge shockingly made a different decision. Yes, we were crushed. Beyond words. But we were never dangerous. Your mother came to our home in the middle of the night. She was bloody, panicked, and hard to understand. She begged us to take you and leave the house. She said you were in danger, and that someone was coming for you. And then she died right there in our entryway. We found out later she’d been stabbed. We were terrified. But to be safe, we left the house with you while trying to figure out what to do. We don’t know exactly what happened next, but by the following morning, the police had made us the primary suspects in your mother’s murder.”

Jade’s head spun. Was this really the truth? Could she trust what her mother was telling her? She’d never anticipated such a wild story. “If that’s true, why didn’t you just tell the police what really happened?”

“We wanted to but were afraid of what would happen to you. We knew child protective services would take you away from us. The chances of us ever being your real parents would likely vanish. We were terrified whoever did that to your mother would come back for you. And we wouldn’t be there to protect you. The thought of putting youin potential danger was too much for us to bear. So we made the devastating decision to run.”

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