by A J Rivers
“How’s everything?” I ask my father. “Where are you?”
“Iowa,” he says. “I had a few things I needed to take care of here.”
I know better than to ask what he means by that. Iowa carries a lot of meaning for me and for my family. Even though my memories of the place are limited to brief snippets I’m not even sure are completely real, I know the value of the place to my parents. I visited a few years ago when I was still trying to understand what happened to my mother. I didn’t find much. But I know there are still secrets hidden there that I don’t need to know about.
“How is your case going?” I ask.
“It’s kind of at a standstill right now. There are some unexpected turns I need to research before I can move forward. But that’s actually working in my favor. One of the men I was telling you about reached out to me,” he says.
“From The Order?” I ask.
My father nods.
“Emma,” Xavier says in a low tone, leaning slightly toward me.
“I told you I thought he might. He said there’s an event coming up he thought I might be interested in. It’s for long-standing members, and they needed to further verify my status within the organization before inviting me,” Dad goes on.
“Emma,” Xavier repeats.
I pat his arm to acknowledge I hear him, but don’t look away from the screen.
“Isn’t that exactly what you said wasn’t happening in the other chapters, though?” I ask.
“It is,” Dad confirms. “Which makes it particularly interesting. And the idea of verifying my status within The Order stood out to me. I’m not sure what he meant by that.”
“You mentioned there were two men who you thought might know more than they were letting on,” I say.
“Yes,” Dad acknowledges. “But one had to take leave for a while. Apparently, he sent a message to the others saying he needed to go care for his sick grandmother.”
That strikes me in a strange way, but I’m not sure exactly why. Beside me, Xavier starts scooting across the cushions, pushing me to the side. I’m trying to respond, but his jostling me is distracting.
“Xavier, what are you doing?” I finally ask when he’s managed to nudge me almost off the corner of the couch.
“You stole my phone call,” he says matter-of-factly.
“I’m sorry. Dad, I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Bye, sweetie.”
They get back to their conversation and I go over to talk to Dean. He’s leaned back against the headboard of one of the beds, his long legs crossed in front of him. I get on the other bed and flop onto my stomach. The angle lets me stare through the sliding glass doors of the balcony into the blue sky.
“How do you think they got Greg out on that beach?” I ask after a few long moments.
Dean lifts the remote, pointedly mutes the TV, and swings his head to the side to look at me.
“What?” he asks.
“The day he died. How do you think he got lured out onto the beach? He hated water,” I say.
“I know, Emma. But we’ve been over this. He had just gone through a really traumatic two years and was finally free. He had a new lease on life and wanted to try all the things he’d avoided for so long,” Dean says.
“Yeah, I remember that’s what we said, but it’s not sitting right with me,” I say.
“Why not?”
I pull myself up, swinging my legs around to fold them under me so I can lean toward him and talk without interrupting Xavier and my father.
“He and Lydia were hitting it off. They had gotten to be friends. She was definitely under the impression it could turn out to be more. There was enough there that he was willing to leave the hospital with her rather than waiting for me or one of the guys from the team the way he was supposed to. So he goes against safety protocols to get discharged and leave with this woman no one knows and who he has been speaking closely with about a huge, very dangerous case in his career, and then he just walks away from her?
“It doesn’t make sense. Why would he leave with her if he was just going to part ways with her pretty much immediately, so he could go off and stand on a beach to confront his hatred of water? Do you see how that doesn’t fit?”
Dean nods. “I mean, yes, that makes sense. I would think if he had this girl he really liked, and he was willing to leave the hospital with her, he would take her with him to the beach.”
“That would be the logical step. Greg tended to in his own head a lot of the time, but even he could be romantic. He wouldn’t be so dedicated to the concept of facing off against the great power of the ocean gods or some shit like that, that he would leave behind a woman he was interested in. Which means he didn’t go out onto that beach just because he wanted to see the water and prove he could deal with it.”
“Someone wanted him out there,” Dean completes my thought.
I nod. “He knew he was supposed to be meeting someone and couldn’t let Lydia be a part of it. But here’s another question—how did nobody notice?”
“What do you mean?” Dean asks.
“DC isn’t exactly a sleepy, quiet town. There are people all over the place, all the time. So, how could he get shot in broad daylight, then lie on the beach for three days without anyone’s noticing? People would have been out on that beach. Someone would have seen it happen, or at least heard the gunshot. And even if no one heard or saw anything in that exact moment, even if we could suspend our disbelief enough to say there was no one anywhere around who witnessed the murder, how did no one find his body in those three days?” I ask.
“Maybe he was kept for that time?” Dean suggests. “Somebody got Greg and held him until he killed him?”
“After everything Greg had just gone through, I really don’t think he would let anyone else grab him like that. And if someone tried, he would put up a fight. There were no defensive wounds on his body. Nothing to show there was a struggle of any kind. Besides, if someone did have him for those three days, why would he or she then bring him out onto the beach to kill him? Greg would have run. It just doesn’t make sense. None of it does.”
“What about the case files?” Dean asks. “You said you wanted to see them because you think there’s something in them that might help you figure it out. Have you made any progress with getting them?”
“No. The last time I spoke with Creagan, he wouldn’t budge. He says I’m not on that task force and he still thinks I’m too close to the whole situation,” I say.
“The way he was too close to the situation with your mother?” Dean asks.
It’s less a question than it is pointing something out to me, and it instantly brings the anger back. I get out my phone and call Creagan.
This time, he relents. I hang up, knowing soon I’ll have the full files and be able to dig deeper to find out what really happened to Greg.
Thirty
“There’s no familial link at all?” I ask Detective Billings.
“No,” he shakes his head. “The DNA provided by Misty does not match the mitochondrial DNA of the fetus, meaning it could not be the child of Misty’s child.”
“Have you informed Misty?” I ask.
“No. I wanted to discuss it with you first,” he says.
“Is that because you are hoping I’ll be the one to tell her?” I ask.
He doesn’t look as though he’s going to come right out and admit that, but he doesn’t dispute it, either.
“You are the one who talked to her about the fetal remains. It seems you have developed a rapport with her, so it might be easier coming from you,” he attempts.
It might seem that telling Misty and John that the stillborn baby found at the elementary school wasn’t genetically connected to Ashley would be easy, welcome news. But it’s not that simple. I’m sure the Stevensons will be relieved to have absolute confirmation Ashley did not give birth. This news, however, means they are still exactly where they have been for the last five years. There’s nothing new, n
othing to hang their hopes on.
“I’ll go see them,” I tell him. “In the meantime, I have a suggestion.”
“What is it?” he asks.
“Ask Ashley’s friends Vivian McLemore and Allison Garrett for their DNA to compare with the fetus,” I say.
Misty still cringes when she hears another mention of the remains, but she takes the news with the relief I hoped she would feel. She nods and wipes an errant tear from where it rests on her cheek.
“We’re going to keep searching,” I tell her. “We’ll keep looking for leads. We’re not giving up on Ashley.”
She nods, staring into the middle distance as though she’s seeing something I’m not.
“I want to do something for her,” she says.
“For Ashley?” I ask.
She nods, straightening up and lifting her chin slightly, trying to put on a brave face and get through this.
“Her eighteenth birthday was in June. We had a little family celebration for her, as we do every year, but there should have been more. I want to do a vigil for her. The date she went missing is coming up soon. August thirteenth,” she says.
“Okay. Do you want to do the vigil on that day?” I ask.
She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to honor that day. This needs to be about Ashley. I want to have the people who cared about her come together at her school and we’ll just share memories and talk about any progress in the case that can be shared. Just remind everybody that we still love Ashley and she hasn’t left our minds.”
“That’s a great idea. It’s a way to keep the community involved in the case, but it may also shake up anyone who might know more about what happened to her,” I say.
“So you’ll be there?” she asks.
I nod. “I’ll be there. And I’ll keep an eye out for anything that seems off.”
It seemed every time he turned on the TV, there was another mention of the case. Another opportunity to see Thirteen’s mother. She really was doing everything she could to force her daughter’s face into the thoughts of anyone watching. She wanted them to say her daughter’s name, to think like her. There was a strange, almost-deification happening.
This time, the news wasn’t just bringing flat, still images of her. This time it was another video.
“We’ve spent almost five years without our Ashley. We don’t want to hit that milestone without knowing what happened to her. That’s why we are asking all those who cared for Ashley to come to a belated celebration of her birthday and a vigil for her return. Please wear her favorite color, red, and come with memories to share.”
She continued to talk, but he wasn’t focused on what she was saying. He was watching her mouth move. Watching the sweep of her hair over her shoulder. She certainly looked different now. She looked as if she had gotten herself together.
It fascinated him.
Misty’s insistence that the vigil must happen before the fifth anniversary of Ashley’s going missing means it has to be put together quickly. Fortunately, the community has opened its heart to her since the reemergence of Ashley’s story; they are willing to do what they can to help her. For the three days leading up to the vigil, it seemed every news outlet was streaming constant reminders, pictures of Ashley from around the time of her disappearance, and video clips of her parents pleading for any information about what happened to her.
It’s not a surprise when we drive in as the vigil is getting underway to find a sea of red balloons and t-shirts spread across the soccer field outside Ashley’s former middle school. For the last couple of days, I’ve been trying to press Creagan into giving me the files related to Greg’s death that he’d promised. He’s had plenty of excuses for not giving them over, but he’s still saying he’ll send them to me. While at the same time checking in with me about how Ava is doing.
It feels as if we’re playing a game of chess.
Even without the files in hand, I knew I needed to get back into town for the vigil. I need to see if the public display proves too appealing to someone wanting to relive his own handiwork. I’ve requested that all of the evidence found at the lake having to do with Ashley be set aside so I can go through it. I need to understand how those items ended up submerged with the victims of Laura and Rodney when they had nothing to do with her disappearance.
I’ll go over those things later this afternoon. Right now, my focus has to be on the people swarmed into the field and how they are reacting to the event. For some of them, it’s the spectacle. That’s inevitable for an event like this. People are going to come out just to witness the emotion unfolding around them. Some want to feel as if they’re a part of something, some just want to see it happening.
For others, this is a time for them to remember the young teenager, so close to still being a little girl, who was taken from their lives in a way none understands yet.
My hope is that there will be another person there. Someone who doesn’t fit into either category. I watch the people listening to Misty up on the podium, talking about Ashley and everything she would be doing with her life now if she was still there with them.
A person’s going missing, especially when it’s a child, is like a dropped stone in the middle of a pond. It doesn’t just affect the people closest to that center point. The impact drifts out all the way to the far edges.
Somewhere among them, there could be that one person who was drawn here to watch the ripples.
Among the group crowded closest to the stage with the podium, I see Allison and Vivian. They see me looking at them and turn away as fast as they can. So far, neither of them has submitted DNA. According to the detective, both were disgusted and offended when he asked.
I told him to get warrants.
Misty finishes her speech and steps aside to let John come up and take a turn. He laughs and cries his way through memories of Ashley, who he calls his daughter with every drop of love and sincerity anyone could ask of him. I don’t see anyone unusual in the crowd. No one stands out. No one seems to be there alone or to be particularly uncomfortable.
My focus drifts back to Vivian and Allison. They’re nodding along with some of the stories, smiling at times and wiping away tears. Their emotion seems genuine, but I’m still on guard with them. I won’t come to any conclusions yet. There is still too much that isn’t known for me to zero in and not remain open to other possibilities.
But I also don’t intend to let them off the hook easily. There’s something they’re hiding. They haven’t told the whole story yet.
I’m going to make sure it gets told. Either they will tell it to me or I’ll force it out of them.
Thirteen. Thirteen. Thirteen.
It was all she heard. No one was allowed to call her anything else.
They knew her name. She knew they did. But it was only ever Thirteen.
Now she closed her eyes, gripping the metal of the fence in front of her, and listened to the voices in the field.
There was hope in them and there was fear. Laughter and sadness. But above all, there was one thing. One thing she had been waiting to hear. She had been waiting to know that they saw her, that they knew her.
She gathered her strength and stepped through the gate.
“Ashley.”
Thirty-One
Misty had gone back up to the podium for another speech when I saw her face go pale. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open slightly for just an instant before she said it.
“Ashley.”
She’s said the name dozens of times in the last half an hour we’ve been standing in the field, but it sounds different this time. Her eyes are locked not on the crowd gathered in front of her, or on the sky she’s glanced up to several times already, but across the field toward the gate leading in from the parking lot.
A few people have already turned around to see what she’s looking at. Gasps and whispers roll through the crowd. Misty pushes away from the podium so hard she nearly knocks it over. Behind her, Leona’s hands have fallen
from where she clasped them hard in front of her as she listened to her mother talk, fighting emotion to keep her face still and blank.
I turn and see what caused the reaction.
A girl is walking across the field, her dark hair clinging to the sides of her face, and her neck with sweat from the already-hot August air. Her clothes hang on a thin body and her face is hollow. But it’s unmistakable. It’s Ashley Stevenson.
An instant later, there’s chaos.
Misty scrambles down from the stage with John close behind her. People from the crowd have started to head toward Ashley and I can already see the look of panic rising in her face. I take off running toward her, needing to stop the crowd before they can swarm around her.
I stop a few feet from her and hold my arms out to create a blockade, screaming for the people to stop. I push them back with the sheer force of my stance and the volume of my voice. They comply, backing up a few steps and leaving space for Misty and John to surge in front of them.
Dean and Xavier rush to my side, following my instructions to form as much of a barrier as they can between the people and the parents gripping their daughter in their arms. I want them blocking the phones snapping images and recording these fragile, sensitive moments. Dean shouts at them, commanding them to put their phones away.
As some people do as they’re told, I stalk away from the group and pull my phone out to call 911.
An hour later I’m on the phone again, this time as I pace back and forth through another waiting room. This one isn’t like the large, bright room where the guys waited for Bellamy’s baby to be born. There’s no giant teddy bear draped on the ground or TV hanging from the ceiling. It’s a small, square room with chairs lining the walls and the table in the middle holding two boxes of tissues.