Midafternoon, a call from the sheriff’s department from the western coast of northern Florida gave us a lead on a Toyota Camry. A McDonald’s employee claimed she saw two women and a teen in the ladies’ restroom who fit the description of the BOLO. One of the women had mouthed help. The employee’s manager had shared with the morning shift about a manhunt underway in the state, and the employee realized she might have encountered them. Police reviewed camera footage and spotted Eli pumping gas and the three women leaving the McDonald’s, then taking off in the Toyota. We had a partial on the license plate, but why had Chandler walked away leaving Marissa to drive?

Within twenty minutes, we’d boarded a helicopter and followed the license plate number. All the things I wanted to tell Shelby swirled through my mind. More than swirled but slammed against every cell of my tormented body.

Shelby would seize opportunities to free Aria, sacrifice herself if necessary. She’d look to Jesus for strength and try to persuade Marissa to give herself up. From what I’d discovered about Marissa, she’d murder repeatedly until someone stopped her, and I doubted Shelby could manage the task.

“Be prepared we might not find them,” Mike said. “Or they aren’t alive.”

“I can’t think about that. We’ll find them in time.”

Mike flashed a worried glance my way. Losing my fiancée was tough, but I wouldn’t survive losing Shelby.

83

SHELBY

Marissa took a single dirt road that led to a small, weed-infested landing strip. Obviously it was seldom ever used.

“Feng picking you up?” I said.

“For a better tomorrow.” She pressed in a number, and I gathered he’d been late leaving Miami. “Okay, honey, see you in twenty minutes or less. I’ll be looking for your plane.”

Dear God, help me find the right way to stop this.

“I’m ready for the truth,” I said. “Why set me up to take the blame for Travis’s murder?”

“We have time for a five-minute chat.” Marissa didn’t need prodding to talk about herself. “Think about it. I always got what I wanted by giving you ideas to feed your wild ways and by playing the good girl. I had everything before you came along. I chose to get even. I set you up time and time again, and you fell for it . . . Remember our sister games? When Travis took over a charity for African orphans, I saw my chance to hack into the account and invest the money overseas.”

“What happened?”

She swore. “I didn’t expect to get pregnant. An abortion made sense, but I figured out how to use the situation to my advantage—more trips away to rest and take care of business. Eli often joined me. He helped me devise a plan to leave the baby with Travis and lose myself in Europe.”

“But why shoot Travis?”

“He found out I’d been embezzling his poor orphans’ money. His accusation threatened to ruin my future, and while I aimed a gun at him, my mind danced with how to cover it up with my grandest scheme ever—a glorious means to keep my good-girl facade.”