Sixteen
Cole drove hesitantly back toward Winter Park. The fastest way south through Colorado, New Mexico, and eventually on to El Paso, where he planned to cross the US and Mexico border, was Interstate 25. Which meant driving the Berthoud Pass out of the valley and crossing over toward Denver. Any other way out of the valley could take several more hours. The map app on his burner phone told him it was eleven hours to El Paso. And then another eighteen hours from there to their final destination: Sayulita, a village on Mexico’s Pacific coast backed by the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains. Population was around three thousand, plus a steady flow of tourists. Cole and Lisa had vacationed there when they were newlyweds. Sayulita had picturesque beaches, charming restaurants, and a relaxed atmosphere—unlike the hustle and bustle of the more prominent tourist resorts. They’d vowed to go back someday. He just never expected it to be under these conditions. But he felt the tiny beach town would be a great place to get lost for a while and start over.
He didn’t expect getting across the border to be an issue for them. He’d recently had a new set of fake passports created by a foreign contact, with whom he had remained connected under an alias. Cole had created and ditched so many aliases over the years he could hardly keep up with all of them. At this very moment, he had three different sets of fake identities in his bag. They could become the Jensens, the Fosters, or the Rutters. He would sort that out later with Lisa and Jade, who would undoubtedly be stunned.
First, they had to get out of the valley. He felt his heart begin to race as he reentered Winter Park’s city limits. There was a lot of traffic as he drove slowly up Main Street because of the crowded scene around Hideaway Park, and traffic came to a crawl as everyone slowed to get a look at things. There were police vehicles parked up and down the street with red and blue lights blinking and officers nearly everywhere. Most seemed to be interviewing various groups of people.
“What’s going on?” Lisa asked from the back of the van.
They’d been very quiet on the drive over from Granby.
“Driving through town.”
“Why so slow?”
“There’s still a mob of people and cars here.”
“Are you sure this is the best way out?” Lisa asked.
“No, but it’s definitely the fastest.”
“Just don’t let anyone recognize you.”
“Believe me, I’m trying my best.”
Both Lisa and Jade were still sitting on their beanbags in the back of the van and tucked out of view. Jade hadn’t said much since he’d broken the news that they were leaving the country and headed to Mexico. Her mouth had dropped open, and her eyes went wide—and her face had basically stayed frozen like that for the past fifteen minutes. He knew this was a lot for his daughter to process. He’d had years to think about this moment and emotionally prepare himself. She’d had only a few minutes.
Cole felt his throat tighten up as he passed the park. He could see a collection of guys wearing matching dark-blue FBI jackets—the same jacket he’d seen in the back seat of the Ford Taurus earlier. He slouched down slightly behind the wheel. Even though he knew he looked dramatically different than he had earlier, it was not easy to be driving within fifty feet of several FBI agents whose only mission right now was to find and arrest them. He wondered who was leading the operation. Thirteen years ago it had been a special agent named Mark Burns. Cole had closely followed the investigation online, reading every single article he could find to try to stay one step ahead. He’d also researched everything he could find out about Burns—just in case they were ever put into the same room together and he needed to be able to appeal to the agent’s own humanity. From what he remembered, Burns was married at that time and had a two-year-old daughter. She would now be one year older than Jade.
The FBI’s pursuit of them had stayed active for several years, and then everything had just died off one day. Cole could no longer find articles and reports online anywhere. He’d presumed their case had been moved to a less urgent category. That’s when he and Lisa had decided to relocate to Colorado and start over in the mountains. He’d thought about Agent Burns here and there over the years, and every once in a while would search him up. Last he’d checked, Burns was working out of the FBI’s Washington, DC, office.
Cole kept the van inching forward. Big crowds were huddled everywhere watching the actions of the FBI agents and the police. He wondered what these people knew, if anything. Had it become public yet that he and Lisa were fugitives? Did everyone in town now have his photo on their phones? Cole thought about the private school where he’d taught history for the past eight years. The staff were going to be shocked. But he mostly mourned for his students. He’d given so much to cultivate deep and lasting relationships with the kids at the school all these years. Those efforts would now be obliterated in a single moment when the news finally broke about Mr. Shipley. The kids would undoubtedly feel betrayed.
Cole sighed. That was too painful to think about right now.
He kept the van creeping down Main Street and slowly passed by the opening of the alley where he’d barely escaped gunfire earlier. He saw an ambulance and two police vehicles parked at the curb and groaned when he spotted two uniformed medics wheeling a cart out of the alley with what looked like a black body bag on it. He presumed the dead police officer was inside.
“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.”