Not Our Daughter

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 the teenage 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?”

“Let’s wait to talk about it with your son.”

“Yeah, okay, please come on in. Let me go get him. He’s upstairs.”

Healey led Burns and Davis into a small, outdated living room and turned on the lights. Then he went upstairs while they both stood there and waited. Seconds later, the man returned with an athletic-looking teenage boy with bushy hair wearing boxers and a Colorado Rockies T-shirt. The boy didn’t look like he’d been sleeping, which was no surprise. From Burns’s experience, teenagers stayed up nearly all night on the weekends. When Izzy was with him, he’d sometimes find her still on her phone after three in the morning when he got up to go to the bathroom. Then she’d want to sleep all day and act annoyed if he tried to wake her.

“Son, these are FBI agents,” Healey said. “They have some questions.”

“I’m Agent Burns, this is Agent Davis.”

Tyler’s eyes went wide. He nodded but said nothing. Burns wanted to put him at ease. He didn’t need the kid clamming up on him when they desperately needed information.

“You like the Rockies?” he asked the boy, pointing at his shirt.

Another quick nod.

“I don’t,” said Burns, smiling. “Not after your boys swept my Nationals last week. We couldn’t touch your pitching staff. Especially Carlson. He’s red-hot right now.”

The boy gave a slight grin. “Yeah, we’re four games up on the Dodgers.”

“Might just be your year.”

“I hope so. My dad said we’ll get tickets if they make the playoffs.”

The tactic seemed to work. The kid was loosening up.

“Cool. Can you sit down with us for a second?”

“Yeah, all right, I guess.”

They all found spots on uncomfortable furniture around the living room. The father offered them something to drink, which they both declined.

“How long have you known Jade?” Burns began.

Tyler swallowed. “Is she okay? Has something happened?”

Burns and Davis glanced at each other.

“Why’re you asking us that, Tyler?” Davis said.

“She hasn’t been responding to any of my texts tonight. And now two FBI agents are sitting five feet away from me asking questions about her. So, yeah, seems pretty obvious.”

“Be respectful, Tyler,” the father said.

“Sorry,” the boy quickly apologized.

Burns leaned forward. “We’re looking for Jade and her parents right now.”

Tyler’s eyes narrowed. “They’re not at home?”

“No. And we were hoping you might know where we can find them.”

Tyler studied them a moment. “Why’re you looking for them?”

Burns didn’t want to divulge the truth just yet. It might cloud the conversation. So he tried a different route. “For their own protection. Especially for Jade.”

This didn’t seem to satisfy him. “Protection from who? What’s going on?”

Davis spoke up. “We’re not at liberty to say, Tyler. It’s a highly classified matter. But we can tell you that Jade is in real danger. We have to find her. Which is why we’re here. When was the last time you heard from her?”

This seemed to compel the boy in a positive way. He looked at his phone and used a finger to scroll. “Nine twenty-eight tonight. She texted me to tell me how much she liked my birthday present and enjoyed hanging out with me today. It’s her birthday, you know?”

“Yes, we do,” Burns said. “Was there any communication after that?”

Tyler shook his head. “I keep texting her, but she isn’t responding.”

“Is that unusual?” Davis questioned.

“Yeah, for sure. We usually text each other until one of us falls asleep. It’s been that way for the last two weeks straight. But not tonight. I knew something was wrong.”

“Do you mind if we take a look at your texts from tonight?” Burns asked.

“You want my phone?” Tyler said, clutching his phone tightly, as if they were asking him to donate a vital organ. Izzy acted the same way with her phone. Like handing it over for even a few seconds might cut off her oxygen.

“Yes,” Burns said. “We’ll give it right back.”

Tyler looked over at his dad for either rescue or reassurance, who told him to do it. So the kid hesitantly handed the phone over to Burns. Both he and Davis did a quick review. As the boy had mentioned, Jade had texted Tyler around nine thirty to thank him for the present. Then there were a half dozen follow-up texts from Tyler over the past hour and a half asking what she was doing and why she wasn’t responding. The timing made sense considering the police had arrived at the Shipleys’ house only ten minutes after her last text—finding them gone. The tone of her text to Tyler made Burns believe Jade did not know she was about to flee with her family. He did a quick scroll up and scanned other messages between them from the past couple of days. There were literally hundreds. Mostly emojis and abbreviated slang he would never understand. There was nothing that seemed relevant to the current situation. Just awkward teenage love banter. He’d read the same exact thing on Izzy’s phone while she was sleeping at his condo. Of course, his daughter didn’t know he had access. She’d probably never talk to him again if she did. But he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to know (and investigate) what boys she liked. So far, none of them had a juvenile record, at least.

He set the phone on the coffee table. “Was Jade acting unusual today?”

Tyler shook his head. “No, sir. She was really happy.”

“Was there any mention of her family going somewhere tonight?”

“Like where?”

“Out of town.”

“No, Jade would’ve told me. We’re supposed to hang out tomorrow.”

Davis said, “Has she ever mentioned anything to you about her parents having a second place somewhere? Like a condo? Or a cabin? A rental property? Anything like that?”

Tyler frowned. “No, sir. Her dad is only a schoolteacher. And her mom barely even works part-time. I don’t think they have much money. Jade actually told me they hadn’t gone on a real vacation in years because money was so tight. That’s also why she hasn’t been able to get the surgery she needs. It’s way too expensive.”

“What kind of surgery?” Burns asked.

“Spinal fusion surgery. She has severe scoliosis. This past year, she started dealing with a lot of pain and even had to stop cheering. But her dad told her today they were finally going to be able to do the surgery. She was so happy about it.”

Burns thought about the offshore account Cole had accessed this morning. It now made sense why he’d risked transferring the money out after letting it sit dormant for all these years. He was doing it for his daughter. That sat heavy with him for a second. He would’ve done the same thing for Izzy. But it would cost Cole his freedom.

“How well do you know her parents?” Burns asked.

The boy shrugged. “Her mom is pretty cool. We’ve spoken a couple of times. I haven’t met her dad yet. Jade keeps saying he’d freak out if he even knew we were hanging out.”

Burns grinned. “Girls’ dads can be like that sometimes.” He leaned forward, changed directions. “Jade ever tell you anything about her parents’ past?”

“What do you mean?” Tyler said.

“Like when they were younger. Or places they’ve lived before.”

“Not really. They used to live in Denver. That’s where Jade was born. I think her mom grew up somewhere in Arizona. Jade has pictures of her mom back when she was a high school cheerleader.”

Burns nodded. The first part was of course a lie—Jade had obviously not been born in Denver. But the second part, about Lisa Shipley once being a high school cheerleader in Arizona, was true. He’d been wondering all evening if Jade knew anything at all about their family’s real origin story. Had they kept everything about their past a secret from her?

“Is texting the way you two communicate?” he asked the boy.

“Yes, sir. I mean, we also talk on the phone sometimes. But we mainly text.”

Burns knew he could confiscate the boy’s phone as evidence, if he wanted. But he had other plans and needed to keep it in Tyler’s possession. Out of questions, he stood, thanked Tyler and his dad for their time, and then pulled two business cards from his wallet and handed them out. “If you hear from her, will you please call me and let me know? We want to keep her safe, Tyler. But we can only do that if we find her and her parents.”

The boy nodded and seemed relieved the conversation was over.

A moment later, Burns and Davis were back inside the Tahoe and debriefing.

“You think he knows more than he’s saying?” Davis asked.

“Doubtful. The kid was too scared to lie to us.”

“Yeah,” Davis agreed. “So what do you want to do?”

“I think there will be more communication at some point, if up to Jade. Young love does not easily fade, Agent Davis. I’ve eavesdropped plenty of times on Izzy when she’s talking to one of her boyfriends. When she’s in that place of teenage euphoria, she can’t go more than a couple of hours without texting or calling him.”

“You think Tyler will contact us when she does?”

“Not a chance. Let’s monitor his phone.”

“I’ll make it happen ASAP.”