Three
Agent Burns sat in a battered leather recliner—recently purchased at a garage sale—in front of a cheap, forty-two-inch flat-screen TV in the living room of his otherwise empty condo. He was watching Raiders of the Lost Ark , even though he’d seen the movie a dozen times already. He had nothing else to do this afternoon but watch Harrison Ford outrun a massive boulder. Saturdays had really sucked since the divorce went final. He often found himself bored as hell, ready for the weekend to quickly pass so he could just get back to the office already. In his pre-divorce life, he usually spent weekends working in the garage on various projects—or outside, taking care of the yard. He loved the smell of fresh-cut grass. But he had neither a garage nor a yard in this condo building. To make matters worse, his ex-wife was letting their yard go to hell. She was probably doing it to spite him. He’d buy a house for himself again one day. But divorce was expensive, so that wasn’t in his current budget.
He stood up, walked over to a window in the living room, and peeked through the blinds. The sun was beginning its descent behind the ugly apartment building right next to his. Weekend nights usually stank even worse than the days. He was lonely. Perhaps he should hit up a bar somewhere. Although he wasn’t even sure where to go these days—he hadn’t done the bar thing in years. There was a pub right around the corner, but the thought of going there all by himself made him feel like a real loser. He considered calling Agent Davis, seeing if the guy wanted to hang out since he’d made the offer here and there. But Davis probably had hot dates every weekend night. Burns had a few buddies his age who were also divorced, but all they seemed to do was sit around drinking heavily and badmouthing their ex-wives. He’d rather do that by himself.
He grabbed his phone, typed out a quick text to his daughter.
Batting cages at Cameron Run tonight? Chocolate shakes after?
He knew it was a long shot. Especially after the disaster this morning at the zoo. But he’d overheard Izzy mumble to a friend on the phone earlier that she had no plans tonight. If she wanted to go with him, surely Nicole would allow it, even if it was off schedule. They used to go to Cameron Run a lot as a family. A place with a water park, minigolf, and batting cages. How long ago was that? Five years? Would Izzy also now consider this place lame? Did anyone ever outgrow hitting baseballs and drinking shakes?
He stared at his phone screen and perked up when he noticed the dots suddenly appear, showing his daughter was actually replying to his text. But then the dots disappeared just as quickly without any message showing up. He watched for a few more seconds, but nothing happened. Izzy had clearly gotten his message but had chosen to ignore him. He sighed, set his phone down, walked over to the fridge, and grabbed a bottle of Guinness. It was looking like beer and Chinese takeout again. Then his phone started ringing. He hurried back over, hopeful. He frowned when he saw Agent Davis’s name on the screen.
“What?” he answered with a grunt.
“Hey, boss. This is a bad time?”
“Yeah, kinda busy,” he lied. “But I got a moment.”
“Good. Check your email. I just sent you a digital package.”
“What’s in it?”
“Photographs from Colorado today. Cole Shipley. They just arrived from our guy in Denver. I’m having them run through facial recognition, but I thought I’d go ahead and send them over to you.”
“All right, give me a sec.”
Burns sat at his small wooden kitchen table, opened his laptop, and logged in to a secure server. The email from Davis sat at the top of his inbox. He accessed the attached file and watched as a dozen high-resolution photos populated on his screen. The first couple of images were of the same fortysomething guy who was listed as a teacher on the private school website, sans the eyeglasses. He stood alone by a lake or something. Burns searched his laptop and opened an old file that contained all the information on the Greg and Amy Olsen case. He hadn’t been inside this folder in years. He enlarged a photo of Greg and Amy together at a park somewhere that the FBI had seized from their home during the investigation. They were in their early thirties in the photo. Burns did a quick comparison between the two men. Maybe a slight resemblance but it felt inconclusive. While Greg Olsen had been a bit pudgy with short hair and clean shaven, Cole Shipley looked to be in excellent shape, with long hair and a full beard.
He scrolled through the rest of the photos. Cole Shipley was sitting at an outdoor table with what looked like a teenage girl and a woman. Burns’s eyes locked in on the woman, and he immediately leaned forward. He enhanced the image, and then he cursed out loud. Amy Olsen. She looked slightly different from thirteen years ago. Brown hair instead of her previous blond. But there was no mistaking it was the same woman. The face was a dead giveaway. When you are as attractive as Amy Olsen, it’s nearly impossible to hide it, no matter what measures you take. This had to be her.
He jumped out of his chair, cursed again, even louder.
“What is it?” Davis asked.
Burns felt his adrenaline racing. “Where were these taken?”
“Grand Lake, Colorado. The woman has been identified as Lisa Shipley. She helps coach cheer part-time at a local gym. The girl is their daughter, Jade Shipley.”
“We got an age for the daughter?”
“Yes. Today is apparently her fourteenth birthday. They were celebrating.”
Burns did quick math in his head. Same age as Marcy, the baby they’d taken.
He’d found them. He’d finally found them.
“You think it’s them, boss?” Davis asked.
“I know it’s them.”
Now Davis cursed excitedly. “What do you want me to do? Have Denver grab them?”
“No! Get us on a plane ASAP. I need to be there. I don’t want anyone screwing this up. Tell our Denver guy to not let Cole Shipley out of his sight, even for a moment.”
“Will do. This is huge!”
“I know. I’ll meet you at the airport shortly.”
Burns hung up, sat there for a moment, stunned. He went back to the old digital file on Greg and Amy Olsen. It had been more than thirteen years since they’d murdered Candace McGee inside their home and then disappeared with her baby in the middle of the night. A child they’d fostered to adopt for eight months—until the judge had made the decision to return the baby to her mother. Family and friends had told Burns and his team in the aftermath how absolutely devastated both Greg and Amy had been on the afternoon of that fateful decision. Their motive was very clear. Although Greg Olsen had deleted all security camera footage, they didn’t need it. They’d found the murder weapon inside the house: a seven-inch petite chef’s knife that matched a set in the kitchen. It was covered in Candace McGee’s blood and had Greg’s fingerprints on it. A neighbor had discovered the body by looking through the glass front door midmorning the next day when she came over to check on them.
Burns had no idea how long the Olsens had been gone. An analysis of timelines gave them up to a twelve-hour head start. But he knew they had fled north, at least initially. The FBI found their Lexus SUV abandoned in a Target parking lot in Waco later that afternoon, where Burns discovered they’d also withdrawn ten thousand in cash from a bank. But that was the very last sign of them.
Their life on the run had undoubtedly been helped by Greg Olsen’s previous career. After graduating with honors from Arizona State, Greg had quickly worked his way up the corporate ladder, eventually heading up the security and fraud division of a large international banking system. His job was literally to protect the bank from stolen and fake identity hacks. Greg knew that world inside and out and had made contacts all over the globe. Burns eventually tracked down an individual who worked underground in Prague who admitted he’d helped Greg get new identities the day after they’d disappeared. The man claimed he knew nothing about the crime—he was on the other side of the world. They were just business acquaintances. He’d created fake identities for Greg Olsen on many occasions over the years to test against the bank’s security operations.
Burns had searched long and hard for the first three years after they’d disappeared. Twice, he thought they actually had them. Once in Casper, Wyoming. A year later in Boise, Idaho. But both raids had ended in failure. Burns had lost support from the top after the last disaster. Resources for his search eventually dried up. He was told if the Olsens somehow fell into his lap again, he could ratchet up the pursuit. Until then, he was to get busy solving other crimes. The whole thing had been a big F on his FBI report card.
Burns stared at the photographs from Grand Lake. Greg and Amy looked happy sitting there, eating ice cream, enjoying life as Cole and Lisa Shipley. He wondered how long they’d been living under the new names. He’d concluded years ago they’d likely left the country and probably settled somewhere in South America or Europe. But Colorado? This was a surprise. He studied the teenage girl. Jade Shipley had to be Marcy McGee. But there was obviously no way of telling by simply comparing photographs.
He checked his watch. Within five hours, he was going to have his first actual conversation with the fugitive couple. It was hard to believe. He hurried to his bedroom, threw together a quick overnight bag, and then bolted for the door.