by A J Rivers
This isn’t the type of room where people wait for joyous news.
Right now, I’m using it to talk with Creagan.
“This is now part of the investigation,” he says.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Arrow Lake. She wasn’t kidnapped by the Mitchells. Her disappearance can’t be included in the investigation of those murders,” I say.
“Then it is a different investigation. However you want to describe it, it is now the territory of the FBI. This is a Bureau case and I’m expecting you to resolve it.”
“I was already investigating it,” I reply, not even bothering to try to hide the edge of aggravation and anger in my voice.
“You’ve taken on a lot and have tremendous possibilities right now. Agent James will be on this team.”
“I don’t need her. Dean and I are already investigating Ashley Stevenson’s disappearance,” I say.
“Dean doesn’t have the type of clearance she does. He might have a few tricks up his sleeve as a private investigator, but he’s not going to be as valuable as another FBI agent.”
“I beg to differ on that,” I counter. “He has more skill and insight than the vast majority of the agents I’ve worked with.”
“What he doesn’t have is training and authorization. Agent James has those things. She’s part of this investigation, Griffin.”
There’s nothing I can say. He’s already talked to the detective heading up Ashley’s case, who requested the Bureau formally step in. If he’s going to assign Ava to the case, that’s what he’s going to do. Frankly, right now I don’t have the space in my mind to push back against it. I’m too busy wrangling people and knocking down questions and pressure from the media that have already taken up residence outside the hospital.
This situation needs to get under control and that’s not going to happen if I’m thinking about anything else.
I don’t even know if I say goodbye to Creagan. I stuff the phone in my pocket and stalk back down the hall to the room flanked by police officers. They step aside when they see me coming.
I open the door and find Ashley in a hospital gown in the bed. She’s sitting up, but the bed is adjusted to support her back so she’s leaned against it as it holds her up. The gown, clouds of white pillows, and the blanket over her make her look even smaller than she did when she was walking across the field. Misty is sitting beside the bed, holding one of her daughter’s hands. The other arm has a needle in it, pumping fluids into her clearly malnourished, dehydrated body.
Her head is leaned to one side, looking at her mother as if she’s trying to avoid the stares of the three police officers crowded on the other side of the bed.
“We need as much information as you can give us,” one of the officers says.
“The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be for us to find who did this to you,” another adds.
“You need to tell us what you remember.”
“Stop,” Misty says, her voice trembling. “Can’t you see how much you’re upsetting her? This is ridiculous.”
“Time is of the essence when it comes to a situation like this, ma’am,” the first officer says. “If we don’t get the information quickly, she might not remember details or not be willing to share them.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you suggesting she would try to protect the monsters who did this to her?” Misty asks.
“It wouldn’t be the first time a victim was unwilling to say something because he or she was defending a captor.”
“Get out of here,” Misty snaps, her voice low and angry.
“We need to interview her.”
“Not right now.”
“She’s been through something very serious…”
“Obviously she has, and yet you’re here trying to climb down her throat. I’m her mother and I’m telling you she’s not ready to talk right now,” Misty says.
“With all due respect, ma’am, Ashley is eighteen. She’s not a child anymore and you can’t determine if she undergoes an interview or what she says.”
“Enough,” I cut in, stepping further into the room. The officers turn to look at me and I take out my badge. “Emma Griffin, FBI. I’m handling this case now. You can leave.”
“But…” one of the officers starts.
“I said, enough. This girl has been through hell and you’re not going to speak to her that way. Go back to the station.”
I stand at the foot of the bed, staring down the men until they leave the room. Once they’re gone, I turn back to Misty and Ashley.
“Thank you,” Misty says. “I appreciate that. I can’t believe they were treating her like that.”
“I’m sorry for that,” I tell her. “Their behavior was unacceptable. But they’re gone now and I’ll make sure they don’t come back here. How does that sound?”
Misty nods. “Thank you.”
“Hi, Ashley,” I say. “My name is Emma. I work for the FBI.”
Dark eyes slide over to me. “Hi.”
“I’m really happy to see you. When you’re ready, I’d like to talk to you about what happened,” I say.
I’m about to turn away and leave them alone again when Ashley nods.
“I’m ,” she says.
“What?” I ask.
“I’m ,” she says. “It’s fine. I can talk to you.”
“Are you sure? You don’t have to right now,” I say. “You can take some time to rest.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I want to talk.”
Thirty-Two
I nod. “Alright. Go ahead. Take your time.”
“Where should I start?”
“How did you get to the vigil today?” I ask.
“I walked most of it,” she says. “Someone drove me part of it.”
“Is that someone the person who’s had you?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. I left. I got away and just started walking. I heard about the vigil and thought it would be the best place to go.”
“Where were you?” I ask.
“Maybe that’s enough for now,” Misty says. “She should get some rest.”
“It’s alright,” Ashley says again. “I can talk.”
“Okay,” Misty says, reaching over to smooth hair away from Ashley’s forehead.
“I was in a big old farmhouse. I got out and I started walking. I walked until I got to the road, then I kept walking until someone picked me up.”
“How did you know about the vigil today?” I ask.
“The news,” she says. “He forced me to watch it any time they talked about…”
She goes quiet and I push forward to get her past the block.
“If you’re ready, can you tell me about what happened five years ago?”
She pulls back against the pillows slightly and her eyes drop down to focus on the blanket draped over her. As though she’s looking into the past. She shakes her head.
“See?” Misty says. “She’s not ready. We need to give her a break.”
“No,” Ashley says. “I just don’t remember. Not much of it, anyway.”
“That’s understandable,” I say. “You went through something extremely traumatic. It’s not unusual for the brain to lock out memories of things like that. They might come back. Just tell me anything you can remember.”
She draws in a breath and lets it out slowly.
“I was hanging out with my friends. We’d gone to the park.”
“Do you remember what you were doing at the park?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. I don’t remember anything else until I woke up in the house. I was chained to a bed. Then I met Wolf.”
Misty’s spine straightens and an uncomfortable expression flickers across her face. She glances at me.
“Wolf?” I ask.
Ashley nods. “That’s what he told me to call him.”
“And what did Wolf look like? Was he young? Old?”
“I was thirteen, so he seemed old.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to sound encouraging. “But how about the last time you saw him? Before you came to the vigil? How old would you say he was? My age? Your mom’s age? Older?”
“Older,” she says. “His hair used to be dark, but then it had gray in it.”
“Good. How about his eyes?”
“Green.”
A knock on the door stops me from continuing. Misty goes to it and opens it just enough for her to stick her head out and look into the hallway.
“Oh,” she says. “I’m so happy you came.”
“Do you think we can see her?” a voice asks so softly I almost don’t hear it.
But I recognize it. Vivian.
“I think she’d love to see you,” Misty says.
Misty opens the door the rest of the way and Vivian steps in, with Allison right behind her. I step back away from the bed to give the girls room to get closer, but also so I can watch Ashley’s reaction to them. For a brief moment, there isn’t one. She just looks at the two girls, her eyes searching their faces. Then something seems to click and recognition seeps into the stare.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi, Ashley,” Allison says through tears, getting closer to the bed. “I’m so happy to see you.”
Ashley’s mouth curves into a hesitant smile. The girls go on either side of the bed and lean down to hug her.
“We were just talking about what happened the night she went missing,” I tell them.
Vivian looks into Ashley’s face.
“What did happen? Where did you go?” she asks.
“I don’t remember,” Ashley tells her.
“There are big chunks of her memory missing,” Misty says.
“That’s normal, right?” Allison asks, turning to me. “I mean, after what she went through, she can’t be expected to remember everything.”
“Yes, that is normal. There’s a chance the memories will come back. We’ll work with a therapist to safely draw the memories forward,” I say.
“A therapist?” Ashley frowns.
“We don’t really need to do that, do we?” Misty asks. “If she doesn’t remember, that’s better, isn’t it? She doesn’t have to relive everything that happened to her.”
“Wouldn’t it be harder on her if you made her go through that?” Vivian asks.
“An experience like this can be deeply traumatizing in ways that aren’t immediately obvious. Even if she doesn’t remember right now, it could deeply damage her quality of life if trauma like this isn’t addressed in a safe way. And also, frankly, for all we know, whoever this man is who took her might have other girls kidnapped. Other girls we need to reunite with their families. Any information we can get could be valuable.”
Misty, Allison, and Vivian all give each other a quick, nervous look, but they seem to understand.
“It won’t be something we need to do immediately,” I say, bringing the attention back to Ashley rather than talking about her as if she’s not even in the room. As if she’s just a concept. “We’ll give you some time to recover. But as soon as you think you might be ready, it could be very valuable. You could remember something that will lead us to who did this.”
The door opens and Detective Parrish, one of the officers working on Ashley’s case, sticks his head inside.
“Agent Griffin, can I have a word with you for a second?” he asks.
I look at Ashley. “I’m just going to step out with the officer. I’ll be right back. Do you need anything?”
She shakes her head.
“It will be good for her to spend some time with Allison and Vivian, won’t it, honey?” Misty asks, running her hand over Ashley’s dirty, matted hair.
Soon, after they’ve finished the initial tests and make sure she is completely stable, they’ll let her take a shower. I can’t even imagine how good it will feel to be clean. But the tests and examinations she’s going to have to go through first are unfathomable for someone who’s already been through what I can only imagine she has.
But the state of her hair isn’t what has my attention right now. I’m interested in the way she’s looking at her friends. There’s something there behind her eyes.
“Ashley?” I ask. “Are you okay?”
She straightens as though she didn’t realize she was staring that way, and nods.
“They just look different,” she says. “They’ve grown up.”
Allison laughs through her tears. “So have you.”
She reaches out and takes Ashley’s hand, earning a tender, cautious closing of bruised fingers around hers. They look at each other through years and experiences Allison couldn’t begin to understand.
I walk out into the hallway to join Detective Parrish and another officer waiting for me a few feet away from the door. As I’m walking toward them, I hear muffled voices and sobbing. Looking down to the end of the hall, I see Leona pacing back and forth in front of a window. She’s a wreck, shaking her head and gripping her arms tightly around herself. Someone’s leaning against the wall around the corner talking to her, but I can’t see who it is.
“Have you found something?” I ask.
“No,” Parrish tells me. “The opposite. We need to find something. Ashley’s friends still haven’t submitted to the DNA testing.”
“Did you issue warrants?” I ask.
“No. I thought it would be a more effective approach to ask them to voluntarily submit to testing so that it doesn’t come off as aggressive. I was hoping you would try to convince them,” he says.
I let out a sigh. No wonder they haven’t gotten the DNA yet. As much as people would like to think others care about the people around them enough to cooperate with investigations if asked, it rarely happens that way. There’s an intense sense of control and freedom that tells people they don’t have to do what anyone asks. They should only help if they are forced.
I’ve seen it time and again when it comes to law enforcement. Something as silly as not providing identification when asked, or thinking if they are being pulled over close to home, it’s perfectly fine to just keep going until they get to their driveways. All the way to refusing to submit to searches, testing, or interviews that could be invaluable to bringing killers or kidnappers to justice.
“Fine,” I sigh. “I’ll talk to them. But be ready for a fight. The way these two are looking at her in there, they think this is over.”
Thirty-Three
The officers leave, but instead of going back into the room with Ashley, I make my way down to the end of the hall where Leona is now leaned against the wall beside the window. Her face is in her hands; she’s drawing in ragged, uneven breaths as though she can’t get herself under control. Stepping up beside her, I rest a hand on her shoulder. She jumps and pulls away, her eyes wild when her hands fall from her face.
“It’s alright, Leona,” I say softly. “It’s just me. It’s Emma.”
Leona looks at me for a second as if she doesn’t know who I am, but then the terror drains from her eyes and recognition replaces it. She exhales as if the breath has been held inside her since the moment her sister walked out onto that soccer field.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
“What happened to her?” she asks.
I rest my hands on her upper arms, trying to steady her as I look into her eyes to keep her focused.
“We don’t know yet. But we’re trying to figure it out. Have you seen her yet? Talked to her?” I ask.
Leona shakes her head almost frantically. “No. No, I can’t.”
“Why not? I’m sure she would be so happy to see you.”
“I can’t,” she repeats, prying herself out of my grasp and running down the hall toward the stairs.
I turn around and find the man she was talking to watching me with hollow, sunken eyes. He doesn’t say anything before walking slowly after her.
As much as I want to follow them and find out who that man is, I need to talk
to Allison and Vivian. They’re chatting when I walk back into the room. It isn’t the smooth, easy banter I’m sure used to exist among them. There’s an obvious tension and awkwardness, but that’s to be expected. It’s been five years since they were in the same space together. They were barely out of being children then, and now they’re all technically adults.
“Hey,” I start, stepping into the room. “Allison and Vivian, could I steal you guys away? I just need a quick word with you.”
There’s that glance. The question they toss back and forth between them before realizing they really don’t have a choice. They’re cornered in the hospital room with Ashley and her mother. There’s no way for them to say they won’t talk to me without its sounding strange.
“Sure,” Vivian says. She looks at Ashley again. “We’ll be right back and we’ll talk about your birthday. Do you remember your thirteenth? Your party was so much fun.”
Ashley smiles and the two girls follow me out of the room into the hallway. We pause a little way down, away from the door.
“What did you do?” I ask.
Their faces go blank.
“W-what do you mean?” Allison stammers.
“For Ashley’s thirteenth birthday,” I say. “You said her party was so much fun. I was just curious what you did for it. I can’t even remember my thirteenth birthday.”
“Oh,” Vivian sighs, her shoulders relaxing. “We went ice skating.”
A brief laugh bubbles up out of Allison. “Ashley loved Christmas. She always wanted to do the whole Christmas in July thing, even though her birthday is in June. She decided since it was her thirteenth birthday, she could do whatever she wanted. If she wanted Christmas in June, that’s what she could have. So, we did a whole winter-themed party with ice skating and an ice cream cake that looked as if it was covered in snow. We all wore Christmas sweaters while we skated and then went to her house and watched Christmas movies while we drank chocolate milk. We put whipped cream on so it looked like hot chocolate.”
Vivian laughs at the memory and I notice tears spring up fresh in her eyes.