by A J Rivers
“Yes,” I nod. “And he played the message for me. There definitely was a call. But obviously, it wasn’t me.”
“Then who was it?” Misty asks.
“I don’t know yet. But I have the best guy I know in the Bureau working on it,” I tell her.
“Do I have to go?” Ashley asks nervously. “Are they going to move me to that other hospital?”
“No,” I say adamantly.
“Thank goodness,” Misty sighs in relief.
“The important thing to remember is that we don’t know exactly why that call was made. It could very well be a hoax. Maybe someone found out the contact information for the administrator and put in the request to see if she could make something happen. It’s sick and ridiculous, but people do things like that. They like to feel powerful and manipulate situations.”
I perhaps know that better than anyone.
“What about the media out there?” Misty asks, flinging her hand up in the direction of the front of the hospital in her exasperation. “Could it have been one of them trying to get Ashley outside so they can take pictures of her and try to get some sort of statement?”
“It’s possible. Right now, we don’t know. But we’re going to find out. What matters is that everyone knows that call was not authentic. There was no legitimate request. Ashley isn’t going anywhere,” I say.
“But I want to,” Ashley says.
“What?” Misty asks, her voice almost powdery. “Honey, you don’t have to do anything just because someone said you need to. You’re safe here. You don’t have to go to another hospital.”
“I don’t want to go to another hospital,” she says. “I want to go home.”
Thirty-Nine
Misty’s eyes overflow with tears that slide down her cheeks and pool in the deep lines made by her wide smile. She walks up to the side of the bed and takes Ashley’s hand, leaning down to kiss it.
“Oh, baby. You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that,” she says softly.
“Can I?” Ashley asks. “I’m fine. They’ve done the examinations. They’ve done tests. I’m fine.”
She emphasizes the statement the second time she says it.
“Has the doctor spoken to you about the possibility of leaving?” I ask.
Misty and Ashley both shake their heads.
“Not since you spoke with the head doctor on the team,” Misty says.
“Alright. Let me see if I can get some answers for you.”
This is a delicate situation. I notice Ashley isn’t hooked up to the IV for fluids anymore, and the few days in the hospital have left her looking stronger. Right now, she is safer because of the security team and the monitored building, but if there is no physical health reason for her to remain here under the doctor’s care, security isn’t enough justification to keep her in the hospital.
Being home with her family, away from the constant prodding of the medical team, would give her a better chance to rest, recover, and start trying to piece life back together. The family will need time to heal as much as she does; that can’t really start until they are back in the same space.
It takes another couple of hours to work out Ashley’s discharge. Now is the challenge of getting her out of the hospital without turning it into a media circus. The story of a missing person who returns after five years whips up the media and acts as fodder for stories for weeks, even in big cities. Make it a town on the smaller side, and the recovery of the person as dramatic as this one was, and it’s enough to create nothing short of a frenzy.
Media outlets from all over the country have camped out in front of the hospital, waiting for any sighting of Ashley or any chance to interview her family. The police have moved them a couple of times, and the hospital staff is constantly doing everything they can to shoo them along, but they haven’t relented. Freedom of the press is a battle cry among this type. They will push that to the very edge of decency and legality in hopes of getting that perfect picture or that juicy story.
I have no intention of Ashley’s being a part of either one. Which is going to take some coordination.
Or misdirection.
“Cover your face with this,” I say, handing Ava a pink sweatshirt that would look very much at home on an eighteen-year-old. “Put your hair up in a messy bun.”
“What do you think?” Xavier asks, coming back into the room.
He’s wearing dark blue scrubs and has a lanyard around his neck with a freshly made identification card tucked into the clear plastic.
“Perfect,” I grin.
“Do you think I need to wrinkle my scrubs? Make it look like I’ve been working a long shift and possibly slept the night in one of the cots in the doctor’s lounge?” he asks.
“If that will make you feel better, go for it,” I offer.
“I think it will seem more authentic.”
I nod. “Go ahead.” He starts for the door. “Where are you going?”
“The doctor’s lounge. I need genuine cot wrinkles.”
“I’ll go with him,” Dean says. “I might as well wrinkle it up, too.”
“Alright,” I say, looking back at Ava, already tucked under a sheet on a gurney. “You’re just going to lie there with your face covered. They’ll get you out of the hospital and into the ambulance as fast as they can. Then take your hair down, take off the sweatshirt, and get up so that if one of them follows, when you get out, you won’t look like the same person.”
She nods. “I can handle that.”
“Good.”
The guys come back to the downstairs room after sufficiently wrinkling themselves up. This is where we’ve been staging the diversion I hope will get Ashley out of the hospital and safely to her parents’ house without the media’s descending on her. Ashley and her parents are waiting in another room on the other side of the hospital. I make sure Xavier, Dean, and Ava are ready for their portion of the plan, then head down the back hallways, away from the glass windows at the front of the lobby, to Ashley and Misty.
When I get there and reassure them that the plan is underway, John will make his way outside and to the van rented for this specific purpose. As he hasn’t been at the hospital before now and he’s in sunglasses and a hat, he’s harder to spot. The look is a cliche, but it’s enough for what we need. The reporters are waiting to see Ashley and they’re looking out for the people they’ve seen before.
John is well-enough concealed in the disguise, it won’t be as easy for them to spot him, especially in this area of the hospital. They’re focused on the front entrance and the emergency room. Which is exactly where they’ll think they see her. Because at the same time nurses-for-the-day Xavier and Dean are wheeling their fake Ashley out to a waiting ambulance, John and Misty will slip out the back door with the real one.
It’s a lot of theater, but hopefully, it will result in Ashley’s being able to get out of the hospital and home without any more interference.
“Are you ready, Ashley?” I ask.
She takes a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
I give her and Misty both a solid nod, then turn to the orderly assigned to escort them out. “Keep your walkies close.”
I make my way back to Xavier and Dean, who are putting the finishing touches on their wrinkles and settling Ava into position.
“Testing,” I speak into the walkie. “Misty, do you read me?”
“Loud and clear,” comes her response.
“Remember, there’s no need to rush,” I tell her. “You’re just taking a casual stroll. No need to draw any attention.”
Xavier looks back at me with a grin. “Emma, this is exactly why we start low with our H.P.A.”
“I’m not sure I’d qualify this as an attraction,” I reply, then turn my focus back to the emergency room doors a few feet ahead of us.
I lift my walkie and key the speech button.
“Everyone in position?”
“In position,” Misty answers.
Dean ta
kes hold of the gurney and begins wheeling Ava forward.
“Alright, we are go, in five, four, three, two…”
The automatic sliding doors open.
“One! Go, go, go!”
The instant we exit the door, we’re caught in a swirling maelstrom of shouted questions and blinding lights.
It worked. Believe it or not, it worked. Twenty minutes later, we’re all back in the driveway to the Stevenson house. The ambulance is on its way back to the hospital with an empty stretcher and discarded scrubs and sweatshirt in the back.
I watch as Ashley takes her first steps inside. She glances around, a look of wonder in her eyes.
“We’ve changed a few things,” Misty tells her, noticing the expression on her daughter’s face. “I’m sorry.”
Ashley shakes her head. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s beautiful.”
“We couldn’t have been expected to keep everything exactly the same way,” Leona says from where she’s standing on the opposite side of the living room.
She hasn’t approached her sister. I’m watching the way she looks at her, gauging her reaction to having her home. What she said to me when I was going through Ashley’s computer is still with me. She couldn’t leave her mother. She has a huge sense of responsibility when it comes to her mother. It’s obvious she’s spent the last five years watching out for her and trying to help her through the torment and never-ending questions of having a missing child.
Now Ashley is back.
That sudden reality leaves something massive in its wake. I can feel it in the room around us. It’s as if the air has been burned.
“Do you need anything, sweetheart?” Misty asks, ignoring Leona’s comment. “Are you thirsty? Hungry?”
Ashley shakes her head.
“Why don’t we sit down for a few minutes and talk?” I suggest.
The group distributes across the collection of carefully coordinated furniture in the living room, and I sort through the questions in my mind, trying to figure out which ones to ask her and how.
“Does anyone need anything?” Misty asks as we all settle into place. “Water? Coffee?”
“Coffee actually sounds wonderful, if you don’t mind,” I say.
“How do you take it?” Misty asks.
“Black,” I tell her.
“Alright.” She looks to everyone else, they all their heads, and she goes into the kitchen.
“Ashley, now that it’s been a couple of days, I wanted to see if you might remember more about what happened,” I start.
“I still don’t know,” she says, starting to shift around in her seat.
“Do we really have to do this?” John asks. “She just got home.”
“I know,” I acknowledge. “But it’s important not to let too much time pass. The longer we wait, the harder it’s going to be to get any resolution for this.”
“There’s been resolution,” he says. “Ashley’s home. She’s here. She’s safe.”
“She might not be,” I say. “I’m not trying to scare you or to make this any more difficult than it already is, but I believe in being honest. For all we know, this man who held her captive might still be looking for her. For all we know, this man might still have other young girls kidnapped. We need as much information as we possibly can to bring this man to justice.”
“Justice,” John scoffs. “You think there’s such a thing as justice for what happened to her? My daughter was stolen when she was barely thirteen years old and held captive for five years while someone put her through God knows what. What’s the justice for that? What makes that okay?”
“Nothing,” I say without hesitation. “There is nothing that can make what happened okay. There’s nothing that will make it go away, or take away the effect it’s had on your daughter or your family. That isn’t the point of the criminal justice system. It doesn’t make it okay. That’s not what justice is about.
“Justice is an ideal, intended to give people what they deserve. And using that definition strictly, I don’t believe there can be justice for Ashley’s case, either. There is no such thing as fair treatment for someone who could do what he did to your daughter. There is nothing equitable that could be done to him, and what might be considered fair isn’t an option.
“That’s what sets us apart. It’s what maintains our humanity and ensures that our fight for Ashley’s safety isn’t tainted. This man deserves treatment we can’t possibly dole out, because if we did, we would not only be no better than him, we would be worse. We would be choosing to mete out that kind of treatment after already declaring it barbaric and inappropriate. There’s a tremendous difference between retribution and vengeance.”
Forty
“I’m right here,” Ashley suddenly says.
John looks at her as if he’s startled to hear her speak.
“Of course, you are,” he says.
“Then you need to speak to her, not about her,” Dean says.
I realize I’ve fallen right into the trap that I usually do everything I can to avoid. Rather than including her in the conversation, I’ve just talked around her. Pulling back from the conflict with her father, I look right at Ashley.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Are you ready to talk about what happened?”
“It needs to be done,” she says.
“Tell me again about what you remember from that day,” I say.
“I already told you I don’t really remember much at all. My memory is gone,” she says.
“I know you have a hard time with some of it, but you were able to tell me part of it. Tell me that part again. Just tell me again, as if I haven’t heard it before. More details might come up that you don’t even realize you remember yet,” I say.
Ashley nods and sits back. “It had been raining for a few days and the weather had finally gotten better, so I decided to hang out with my friends. Allison and Vivian, the ones who came to the hospital to see me. We went to the national park to camp. Mom made me bring my sweatshirt even though I didn’t want to, but I ended up wearing it.”
She hesitates and Xavier eases toward the edge of his seat, leaning toward her.
“Close your eyes,” he says. “You’re not talking to anybody right now. You’re not telling a story. You’re there. Experience your senses. What do they remember?”
“The ground is hard and cold. I can’t sleep. I walk around trying to find something.”
“Find what?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“Where’s everybody else?” I ask.
“Vivian and Allison?”
“Everyone you were with that night.”
“I was with them,” she says.
I nod. “Where are they? When you can’t sleep?”
“They stayed.”
“Then what?”
“That’s all I can remember,” she says. “I don’t know what happened between that and when I woke up at the house on Wolf’s bed.”
“What time was it?” I ask. “Use your senses again. Is there sunlight coming through the window? Do you hear birds?”
“The window was boarded up,” she says, distancing herself from it rather than staying in the sensory moment where I’m trying to keep her. “I couldn’t see outside. But my muscles hurt, as though I’d been there a while.”
“Your muscles hurt. Can you remember feeling anything else?” I ask.
I’m tiptoeing around all the details I already know, waiting for something to fall into place. But Ashley shakes her head.
“No. It just felt as if I had been tied up there for a while.”
“Okay,” I nod. “That’s good. You did a great job.”
I stand up from the couch just as Misty is coming back into the living room with my coffee.
“Oh,” she says. “Are you leaving?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “There’s something we have to look into. I appreciate the coffee.” I reach for the mug and down a few sips. “It’s
delicious. I’ll be back soon. Ashley, if you remember anything else, anything at all, even if you don’t feel that it makes sense, call me. Remember, you aren’t the one in trouble here. Anything you remember, anything you have to tell me, it’s not going to make anyone mad at you or cause any problems for you.”
She nods, but doesn’t change emotion. Misty walks us to the door and waits on the porch while we go to the car. No sooner have I gotten behind the wheel and pulled my sunglasses on when Ava leans forward from her seat in the back.
“Why didn’t you ask her more? Why didn’t you push her?” she asks.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“You know what she’s telling you isn’t the truth. So, why did you let her get away with it? You could have pushed her and asked her harder questions and she might have cracked.”
“First of all, Ashley isn’t the perpetrator here. She’s the victim. She’s been shattered already. You don’t need to crack her. Second, let me remind you that this is my investigation. You are helping. That’s it. That doesn’t mean you’re in charge, and it definitely doesn’t mean I’m open to suggestions on how to do my job. You did a fine job being the fake Ashley to make sure she got home without the media attention. There will be images of you splashed all over the news tonight along with confused headlines. Be glad you contributed,” I tell her, trying my best not to snap.
“I’m an FBI agent too, Emma,” Ava replies. “I got the education. I went through the training. I know what I’m doing.”
“In theory. That’s all it is right now. Theory. You’ve never done any of this before. You have no experience, no first-hand knowledge to fall back on,” I say.
“That’s what I’m trying to get now,” she points out. “I’m trying to be a part of this investigation, so I’ll be better equipped to handle my own. But even without experience, I know that she wasn’t telling you everything. You just didn’t dig deep enough. You could have told her what Allison told you. That might have triggered something.”
“I didn’t lead her,” I say. “I didn’t offer her information or feed her details that would influence what she’s able to tell me. Giving her the story could have stopped her from being able to remember the details. And she obviously told me a hell of a lot more than she told you. I know what I’m doing, Ava. Don’t ever forget that. It might not be what you think you would do, but I’m handling this exactly the way I intend to. Don’t try to get in my way. Maybe you’ll have your own investigation at some point and you can do whatever you want to. But this is mine.”