Twenty-Eight
Lisa started to get concerned when ten minutes had passed and Jade had still not returned from the restaurant. What was she doing? Was she lying about trying to call Tyler? Could she have disobeyed again and borrowed a stranger’s phone inside the restaurant? Annoyed, Lisa opened her door, stepped out into the drizzle, and hurried through the parking lot over to the front doors of the restaurant. She entered, looked around, but didn’t spot her daughter anywhere. She walked through the main dining room and found the restrooms tucked away in the back corner. She stepped inside, but they looked unoccupied. She didn’t see or hear anyone.
“Jade?” she said.
No response. She took a quick glance beneath two closed stall doors and didn’t spot any shoes. She opened the first stall. Empty. Then the second. Also empty. What the hell? Where was Jade? Lisa left the restroom, crossed back through the dining room, and walked up to a young hostess near the front.
“Did you see a fourteen-year-old girl wearing a Taylor Swift sweatshirt come in here a few minutes ago?”
The hostess nodded. “Yes, she asked for the restroom. And then she stood over there in the bar for a few minutes watching the TVs. She just ran out of here a minute ago like something was wrong. She looked really freaked out.”
Lisa turned, stared over toward the bar area. Her eyes went straight to the middle TV, because she immediately spotted an older photo of her and Cole currently being shown on the screen. It was a picture from when they were back in Austin. Lisa felt her heart racing. Oh no! Had Jade just seen this? Was that why she had freaked out? She hurried over to the bar and moved as close as she could to the TV. A female reporter was holding a microphone, and it looked like she was standing on the sidewalk in front of a familiar Winter Park restaurant: Deno’s Mountain Bistro. They dined there at least once a month. Lisa closely followed the closed captioning at the bottom of the screen.
Around nine thirty last night, here in Winter Park, police say a wanted fugitive named Cole Shipley shot and killed a police officer in this alley directly behind me. We’re told Cole Shipley and his wife, Lisa, have been on the FBI’s most wanted list after disappearing from Austin, Texas, more than thirteen years ago. Known then as Greg and Amy Olsen, they were suspected of murdering a twenty-one-year-old woman named Candace McGee and then kidnapping her baby. The woman had also been pregnant at the time. The case has been cold for years. But not anymore ... Police and the FBI are still searching ...
Lisa stared wide-eyed as more and more photos began popping up on the screen. Both from the present and the past. Jade was in several of them. Lisa thought about what the reporter had said about Cole shooting and killing a police officer. The FBI thought her husband had pulled the trigger? It ripped the breath out of her. He was innocent. Just like he’d been innocent back in Austin. How could this be happening again? Her mind returned to Jade. Had she just seen all this?
Lisa suddenly felt fully exposed. She was standing in the middle of a restaurant with dozens of people around, and her face matched the one being shown on the TV screen. Had anyone noticed her? She looked over to her left. A male bartender was staring right at her. His eyes bounced over to the TV, then back to her, and narrowed. Lisa swallowed, feeling even more panic shoot through her. She quickly turned around, kept a steady pace as to not look even more suspicious, and left the restaurant. Had the bartender put it together? Would he call the police? This was so bad. They needed to get away from here ASAP.
She hustled over to the van, praying the whole way that Jade had climbed back inside while she was in the restaurant. She slid open the back door. No Jade. Lisa cursed, feeling her world spiraling out of control. Where was her daughter? She spun around in the parking lot, looking everywhere. Her eyes settled on the mall. If her daughter had run, she had to have gone into the mall. That was the only thing that made any sense.
Lisa shut the van door, sprinted in that same direction.
She needed to find Jade, then her husband.