Not Our Daughter

Twenty-Two

Burns and his crew rented hotel rooms at a place called the Viking Lodge near the center of Winter Park. When they’d arrived in town four hours earlier, he’d had no plans to stay. He had thought he’d be throwing his handcuffed fugitives into the back of the Tahoe and driving them to the Denver office for questioning and processing. But his plans had certainly changed. It was nearing three in the morning now, and most of his guys had already called it a night. He’d told them to get quick sleep, because he needed them ready to go again by sunrise. But Burns himself was still awake and sitting at a table in a small conference room they’d set up as their local war room. There was zero chance he was going to be able to sleep tonight. Davis sat across the table from him and was currently on the phone with the Granby Police Department. His right-hand man had rebuffed his orders to go get some rest. Burns appreciated it. He needed someone there to bounce his random thoughts off.

Another agent, Myers, was also in the war room with them. A wiry, late-twenties guy with thick black glasses, he sat at the end of the table, wearing headphones in front of a laptop. Myers was a tech genius whose role in this operation was monitoring various phones, emails, and social media they’d tagged as those of interest earlier in the evening. Burns almost hadn’t brought Myers with him, thinking it was unnecessary. He was certainly glad he had now that things had gone haywire. The conference table was littered with reports, coffee cups, and candy wrappers. It had already been a long night. Burns was reviewing a big stack of interview transcripts from concertgoers. He was looking for any nuggets that might help him put some pieces together. But his eyes were starting to get blurry.

Davis hung up, sighed, and said, “Gilley’s son is worthless, boss. They can’t keep him awake long enough to ask him any questions. It’s probably going to take until morning to get him to sober up enough to be somewhat sensible. I’m not counting on him being helpful.”

Burns sighed. They’d finally managed to track down Jethro Gilley’s son, who ran the day-to-day operations at the storage property where Cole Shipley was a renter. He’d been passed out in the back of a friend’s truck in the middle of a campground. As Gilley’s father had suspected, his son was way too drunk to be useful to them. Granby Police currently had him over at their station and were trying every remedy they could think of to quickly sober him up.

“What about other renters around Cole’s slip?” Burns asked.

They still had two agents out there knocking on doors and waking people.

“They’ve talked to two of them. One guy couldn’t remember a thing. Said he barely ever used his boat anymore. It’s just been sitting there, rusting out, for years. The other guy thought it might’ve been a gray minivan. Or white. He wasn’t too sure on make or model.”

“Great. Let’s pull over every soccer mom in a minivan starting tomorrow morning.”

“They’re still at it, boss. Someone must know something.”

Burns dropped a report on the table, rubbed his face in his hands. He couldn’t believe this was happening right now. They’d had the Shipleys dead to rights. This should have all been over by now. Instead of sitting in this room with Davis and Myers, he should’ve been sitting with Cole and Lisa. With a satisfied grin on his face. He should have been working with the FBI’s public relations and media team, getting ready to break the big news that two of the most wanted fugitives on their list had finally been arrested. He felt like he was having flashbacks to thirteen years ago, when Cole had inexplicably managed to stay a step ahead, even with the full force of the FBI in pursuit. Burns had known then that Cole was an incredibly smart guy. And he’d clearly remained prepared all these years. So what was their plan? Where were they going to go if all this blew up on them? With each passing hour, Burns grew more concerned they were already gone from the valley.

Myers suddenly started snapping his fingers wildly at the end of the table.

Burns perked up, looked over. Davis did the same.

Yanking his headphones off, Myers punched a volume button on his laptop.

“We got a hit!” he announced. “The daughter! She’s on the phone right now with that Healey kid.”

Burns had a judge on standby tonight to swiftly issue wiretap orders and warrants. It might have just paid off in a big way. He suddenly heard the voice of a teenage girl through the laptop’s speaker. He then recognized the voice of Tyler Healey, the boyfriend they’d spoken with earlier in the night. He bolted to his feet, moved closer to the laptop, hanging on every word.

“Where are you now?” Tyler asked.

“ Some random town called Alamosa, I think. We’re at a Loaf‘N Jug getting gas. This is my mom’s phone. I had to sneak off with it to call you. But I had to talk to you. ”

“ I’m so glad you did. I’ve been freaking out. ”

“ Me too. ”

“ So you really don’t know what’s going on? ”

“ No, my parents won’t tell me anything . It’s so weird. ”

“ Where are y’all going? ”

“ You’ll never believe this. We’re going to Mexico. They are planning to drive all the way to some beach town called Sayulita. I’ve never even heard of it. ”

Burns turned to Davis. “Get someone to that gas station ASAP!”

Davis already had his phone to his ear. “On it!”