The Girl and the Unlucky 13 (Emma Griffin™ FBI Mystery)

by A J Rivers

  I know I need to meet Dean and the others at the campground. There’s evidence to review, and I need to do another search of the area where I found Elsie. But the lure of the computer is too strong for me to leave just yet. I have Misty’s permission now, but it might not stay.

  Misty takes me upstairs and down the hallway to a closed door. A small white plaque hangs on a white ribbon from a nail in the center of the door, her name painted in red script across it. Misty touches it with hesitant fingertips.

  “Her favorite color,” she says with a hint of a bittersweet laugh. “I always thought it was too bold. It’s hard to find decorations and things for a little girl in red.”

  She opens the door and I step backward five years. This is certainly the room of a thirteen-year-old. The details in it show that strange place thirteen can be, straddling childhood and teendom. This is when so many girls want to be seen as grown up, but also aren’t ready to let go of their teddy bears and ballerina jewelry boxes. Some never will. They’ll carry those things with them throughout their lives, unafraid of what anyone thinks of them.

  Others will have them forced from their hands.

  “Are there passwords you can give me?” I ask as I sit down at a desk against the wall and open up the old laptop. “For her email, social media, those kinds of things?”

  “What are you looking for?” she asks, opening the top drawer of the desk and pulling out a small pad of paper.

  “Anything I can find,” I explain. “Sometimes there are little things that are easy to miss but that tell a big part of the story. Friends you might not have known. Events she was looking forward to. Interests she might not have shared with you. You remember being that age, don’t you?”

  “I do,” Misty nods. “It was different then. The internet wasn’t like this. There wasn’t so much influence.”

  Misty can’t be much older than I am, but I know where she’s coming from. It’s a different world than it was when we were younger. I’m reminded of it all the time. In some ways that are fantastic, like being able to call and see Dean and Xavier, or my father, even when we can’t be together. And in other ways that are horrific and sobering.

  Like Lakyn’s life cut so brutally short.

  Like Mary Preston, killed in a horrific attack.

  Like a teenager disappearing without a trace.

  Twenty

  Misty shows me the list of all of Ashley’s passwords and then leaves the room. As I’m signing in to the computer, my phone rings.

  “Hey, babe,” Sam says when I answer. “How did it go today?”

  “It went as well as I could have expected it to. Misty did great. She got emotional, but she kept it together,” I tell him.

  “What about her friends?” Sam asks.

  “I was watching them for as much of it as I could. They were doing all the right things. Crying, looking worried. I had asked Xavier to keep an eye on them, so I’m going to talk to him when I get to the campground and see if he has any impressions of them,” I say.

  “You aren’t with him?” I ask.

  “No,” I say. ”I’m at the Stevensons’house. They gave me permission to look through Ashley’s computer to see if I can find anything.”

  “What about Ava?”

  “She’s with Dean and Xavier,” I say.

  “Isn’t she supposed to be shadowing you?” Sam asks.

  “She’s supposed to be watching how I work,” I say. “And this is how I work. This issue with Ashley is sensitive enough as it is. I can’t just bring in another person to sit around and observe. Right now, she’s at the campground, watching the evidence brought in and processed. Dean is working on the investigation and Xavier is… I’m not sure what Xavier’s doing. But I’m never sure what he’s doing, so that isn’t really a change. I’m going to look through this and see if anything stands out to me. Then I’ll meet them there. I just really hope the televised plea does something.”

  “I know,” Sam says.

  “I just wish I didn’t know that the ‘something’ I think I might find is going to lead us to information about what happened to Ashley, not to Ashley herself. You know as well as I do that the chances of her being alive are next to nothing,” I say.

  “Remember Iris. Plenty of people said the same thing about her and Julia. You were the one who fought for them,” he says.

  “I know,” I say. “But it’s not the same thing. Just as it wasn’t the same thing when I was first looking into the deaths at the campground. Iris didn’t just disappear. I wish I could believe that Ashley is fine out there somewhere, and maybe she is, but the realistic part of me says if she was envisioning a fairy tale, it didn’t have a happy ending for her.”

  “Do you know when you’re going to be back?” he asks.

  “I’m still aiming for two more days. The investigation into the campground is going well. There's a lot of evidence for me to go over there,” I say.

  “Okay. I miss you,” he says.

  “I miss you, too. I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

  I hang up and get back to the computer. A quick glimpse at her email inbox tells me there’s more to sift through than I have the time to do right now. I take a picture of her passwords with my phone so I can access the information later. Then I sign into her social media to scroll through posts from around the time she went missing.

  I’m surprised to find an abundance of images with no captions and no explanation. Most people her age like to take social media as an opportunity to show off or speak their minds. Ashley might have been doing that as well, only she chose to do it silently.

  I don’t recognize the places she took pictures of, but they obviously hold significance. I take out my phone again and start snapping pictures of some of the images. It will be easier to share these with Dean this way rather than just showing him the feed. I’m so entrenched in digging through this girl’s life, the voice coming from the door makes me jump.

  “You think she’s dead.”

  I whip around toward the door and see a young woman standing there. She looks vaguely like an older version of Ashley, but slightly heavier and with short, straight hair rather than the long curls I’ve seen in pictures of the missing girl.

  “You must be Leona,” I say.

  She gives a single nod but doesn’t come any further into the room.

  “Do you think my sister is dead?” she asks again.

  I hope she didn’t hear my conversation with Sam. She’s clearly upset, and I want to handle this as diplomatically as I can without lying to her.

  “Right now, I don’t know what happened to your sister. But I’m going to do everything I can to find out,” I say.

  She nods again and peers around the room.

  “Do you ever come in here?” I ask.

  “No,” Leona says. “I don’t like looking at her things.”

  “That’s understandable,” I say. “But, you do still live at home?”

  Her eyes shoot to me, cutting into me as though I’d asked her something deeply offensive.

  “I have to,” she says. ”I haven’t been able to leave my mom. Not after everything she’s been through.”

  “But you’ll be going away to college,” I point out. “You were up near DC looking at a campus.”

  “That’s for Dad,” she says. “He wants me to go. I want to stay and be here for Mom.”

  “You’re an adult, Leona. You’re allowed to live your own life.”

  “Mom needs me,” she says. ”I won’t leave her the way Ashley did.”

  She walks out of the room, leaving me slightly stunned by the comment. There’s almost a bitterness in her voice. As if she blames Ashley for her own disappearance. Maybe she knows more than the other people in her sister’s life. Maybe there is some credence to the idea that she got swept up in something and chose to walk away.

  I take a few more pictures and take notes on my phone so I don’t forget the thoughts that pop into my head. Signing out of everything, I go b
ack downstairs to thank Misty.

  “Would it be alright with you if I accessed her email and social media from my own computer to look through it again later?” I ask.

  “Absolutely,” she says. “Anything you need.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be in touch soon,” I say.

  The drive to the park is only a few minutes. I can definitely see why this area appeals to teenagers. It’s a sprawling area with plenty of corners and shadowy areas where they can hide from a world telling them what to do.

  As soon as I get to the campground and get out of my car, I see I might have waited just a bit too long to make it back here.

  Pushing my sunglasses up onto the top of my head, I rush across the parking area to the nearest evidence table. Xavier is standing in front of it, his arms crossed tightly over his chest as he stares down Ava. Dean is beside them, seeming to try to talk both of them down.

  “What is going on over here?” I ask as I approach.

  Dean looks relieved to see me, but Xavier’s tense expression doesn’t change.

  “Ava is tampering with the evidence,” Xavier says.

  “Excuse me?” I ask.

  Ava lets out a sigh. “I’m not tampering with it. I just suggested a different organizational method. I thought it might make it easier to see everything.”

  I get closer to the table and look over the pieces of evidence, then look at her.

  “They’re organizing this evidence based on my instructions. I am the head of this investigation and they are under my command. This is how I like my evidence laid out, so it can be easily cataloged and sent to the lab,” I tell her.

  “I’m sorry,” Ava says, taking a step back. ”I just thought a streamlined approach would make things more efficient.”

  “Simply because you see something as streamlined doesn’t make it right,” I say. “You have just started in this career. I’ve been here for years. I know what I’m doing, and I have earned my place leading investigations. When you’ve gotten to the place I am, then you can determine how things are handled. Until then, please don’t interfere.”

  I turn on my heel and stomp down toward the lake. I need to make sure she hasn’t gotten her hands in anything else. The thing is, I see her ambition. I know she wasn’t trying to mess anything up or cause any problems. Behind her awkward exterior is determination. But she needs to keep that determination out of my way.

  For the rest of the day, she hovers in the periphery, but doesn’t try to get involved. I don’t interfere with that mindset.

  With some promising progress on this case giving me a boost at the end of the day, I head to my car, with Xavier and Dean behind me. Ava walks slowly to hers with a sheepish look. A she’s waiting for something.

  “Is that it for the day?” she asks.

  “Yes. Go on back to the hotel,” I say. “We’ll let you know what’s going on tomorrow in the morning.”

  “Oh. Okay,” she says. “Um… do you know of any good places for me to grab something for dinner?”

  She’s seen the same restaurants as we have the last two nights. I know it’s the conversational version of climbing through a back window to get inside. She’s already had the front door slammed in her face, so now she’s trying to get through another way.

  “There’s a directory in your room. There’s also room service available at the hotel. And I’m sure you could look it up on your phone,” I say.

  I get in the car and notice it takes a little while before Dean joins me. Xavier climbs into the backseat and we sit in silence. After several seconds, Xavier’s arm appears in my peripheral vision. One finger sticks out and pokes the radio button, turning it on.

  My car radio is attached to a music streaming service on my phone, so pressing that button only fills the cabin with staticky white noise. That doesn’t seem to bother Xavier, but it acts as the soundtrack to the tension between Dean and me.

  “What?” I finally snap, cutting a glance over to him.

  “Don’t you think that was a little harsh?”

  Xavier’s finger appears again and turns off the radio.

  “What am I supposed to think was a little harsh?” I ask.

  “The way you just talked to Ava. She was obviously trying to find out if we were going to dinner or hanging out,” he says.

  “Please, Dean. Don’t start with me about that. Her puppy eyes might have gotten to you, but I’m not so easily swayed,” I say.

  “This isn’t about her puppy eyes,” he says. “It’s about how hard you’re being on her. For no good reason.”

  “No good reason?” I ask incredulously. “Did you not see what she was doing?”

  “She made a suggestion for how evidence could be arranged. That’s it,” he says. “It’s not ideal…”

  “It’s not her place,” I cut him off. “This isn’t her investigation, Dean. She doesn’t get to make the decisions or determinations about anything. Especially when I’m not around to know she’s doing it.”

  “I think maybe you’re forgetting how hard it is to just get started in the Bureau,” he counters.

  “No, I’m not. I’m not forgetting any of it. I remember every single second of how hard it was when I first started. And I didn’t get someone to hold my hand and walk me through everything. I got thrown right to the lions. It made me stronger for it. She got this far, Dean. She went through the Academy and she got through her training. Now she needs to see what it’s really like to be an agent. And part of that is learning her place. That she isn’t always going to be in charge or be the one people are listening to. That’s how investigations get compromised,” I say.

  “I know that,” he says. I can tell he has something else on his tongue, but he bites it back.

  I nod. “Now, I have a lot to go over with you about Ashley Stevenson’s case. Are you up for it tonight?”

  He sighs and leans his head back against the seat cushion. “Let’s do it.”

  Twenty-One

  “I mean, honestly, a lot of this is exactly what I would have expected. It’s just full of young teenage angsty stuff. Some poetry. Pictures of her friends. Complaints about schoolwork and teachers. There isn’t really anything that jumped out at me specifically,” I say.

  We’re sitting in the hotel room around boxes of pizza. I’ve changed into my pajamas and washed off my makeup for the night, but I know there is still plenty of work ahead of me. Dean is going over the pictures I took on my phone, and I have my laptop open with her email inbox pulled up.

  “There isn’t anything that makes you think she’s talking about this older guy?” Dean asks.

  “Not specifically. I mean, there are a couple of references to love stories and finding the perfect guy. But I think that probably shows up on most thirteen-year-old girls’ computers. It’s not direct enough for us to connect it to anybody. What’s really getting to me is these pictures,” I say.

  I gesture to my phone and then sweep across the screen to look through the locations again.

  “There are no captions,” Dean observes. “We don’t have any idea where these places are.”

  “Exactly,” I nod. “But they must have meant something or she would have taken pictures of them. Remember the group of teenagers thatwho disappeared from the campground right after it shut down? The mother knew where her son was. She was able to send investigators there because he took a picture of Cabin Thirteen. But she said he was a photographer. That’s what he did. He chronicled his entire life by taking pictures of everything he did and everywhere he went.”

  “And it doesn’t look as though Ashley did that,” Dean says.

  “No,” I shake my head. “Not with that level of consistency. There are definitely things she took multiple pictures of, which tells me they were really meaningful to her. Each one was more than just another place she saw or another thing she did. It wasn’t just a random moment on any given day. She took a picture of each of these places because it’s significant. She was recording an important piec
e of her life.”

  “So, we need to find out where they are,” Dean says. “Maybe if we can identify all of that, we can piece together what they mean.”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  “Great,” he says. “I’ll take these and look around the area tomorrow while you’re at the campground.”

  “Perfect. From the looks of how everything is going there, I think everything is looking good and they can handle it without me after tomorrow. We can spend a little more time and energy on Ashley before we have to go back.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Dean says. “If things are working out with that case before you go back, I might stay here with Xavier. We’ll just rent a car and I’ll keep digging until you can get back.”

  With that settled, I climb in bed for the night. I don’t immediately fall asleep. I can’t stop thinking about what Dean said about Ava. I’m not here to coddle her, but I also don’t want to come across as being unreasonably hard on her.

  It’s good to push her. For her to understand what she’s gotten herself into. If she can’t handle me, I don’t understand how she thinks she’s going to be able to handle the rest of the Bureau.

  By the next evening, it still doesn’t feel as though we’re much closer to understanding Ashley or what might have happened to her. We are back in my hotel room and Dean is going over what he found during the day. He and Xavier spent hours driving around the entire area, comparing the images on social media with places they could locate.

  They also showed the images to local business owners and even some kids they ran into, hoping somebody could point them in the right direction.

  “We were able to find a few of them,” Dean says. “I took pictures of what they look like now. Some of them haven’t changed much at all, and other ones have been completely developed. There are some that I wasn’t able to identify.”

  “Xavier, what do you think about Vivian and Allison? You were watching them during the statement from her mother. How did you feel about the way they were acting?” I ask.