“Still no clue?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I’ve got nothing.”
“What did Ashley’s family say?”
“I talked to Misty Stevenson, Ashley’s mother. She’s ready to set something up whenever we are,” he says.
“Great. Well, as I said, I’m going to be going down to the campground in a couple days. Since they live in the area, we can find a time to get with them then,” I say.
“Actually, they happen to be in this area today and tomorrow. They’re visiting potential colleges for their older daughter. Apparently, she graduated high school a couple years ago, but wasn’t ready to go to college yet. She thought she might want to go right into a career. Now she’s changing her mind and might want to go to school, so they’ve started touring around different ones that caught her attention. They’re looking at a few within an hour of here,” he says. “So, they’re available to meet up any time this afternoon.”
“Great,” I nod. “Call them back. Set it up.”
Eight
“Thank you so much for meeting with us,” Dean says as we walk into the hotel suite. “I’m Dean Steele.”
“Of course,” says a slight brunette woman with tired, aged eyes, reaching her hand out to shake Dean’s. “I’m Misty Stevenson. This is my husband John. Our daughter Leona is spending some time exploring the campus and surrounding areas to see how she feels about it.”
“We’ll meet her another time,” Dean says. He steps further into the room and gestures toward me. “This is the cousin I told you about, Emma Griffin.”
“Agent Griffin,” Misty says, sounding almost relieved to see me here, rather than just Dean.
“Emma,” I insist, shaking her hand. “Thank you for having us.”
This is another one of those odd social exchanges, right up there with asking people how they’re doing. She didn’t invite us over for coffee or a pleasant chat. We are here to discuss the details surrounding her teenage daughter’s disappearance five years ago. It’s not a social call or something we should be happy about doing. We are the ones here to work on her behalf. And yet, I have the compulsion to thank her.
I’ve noticed I’ve become even more aware of, and critical of, basic day-to-day social interactions since meeting Xavier. There are things that have always stood out to me as being odd, but I went along with them without much thought because it’s just the way people engage with each other.
Now after getting to know Xavier and trying to understand how he interacts with the world, these things stand out to me even more.
Finishing the somewhat awkward dance of introductions with people who have already talked on the phone or have heard about one another, we move further into the room. Misty gestures at the sitting area in the living room portion of the suite. It’s separated from the bedroom by a door, which makes it less uncomfortable.
“Please,” she says, “sit down.”
Dean and I each take one of the overstuffed armchairs while Misty and her husband sit side-by-side on the small couch.
They both look at us hopefully, and Dean and I realize they aren’t going to start this conversation. Dean slides toward the edge of his seat cushion and leans slightly toward them.
“I’ve gone over some of the case with Emma, and she’s agreed to be a part of the investigation,” he starts.
“Thank you so much,” John says. “I know you are incredibly busy with your FBI career.”
I give a hint of a nod of acknowledgment, but want to reassure them.
“This case has really spoken to me,” I say. “I’m still actively investigating the campground and the incidents that happened there. But Ashley’s case in particular stood out to me and I believe it deserves resolution. Your family deserves resolution.”
“Thank you,” Misty says. “It’s good to actually hear somebody say that. The police aren’t doing anything at the moment. Not that they’ve done terribly much since Ashley disappeared.”
“What involvement have you had from the police in this matter?” Dean asks.
He’s treading carefully, as he should. In cases like this, it’s important not to interfere in a way that could compromise a police investigation that’s still going on. Often families feel that nothing is happening because they aren’t being continuously updated, or they haven’t seen massive strides being made in the case. What they don’t realize is that steps are being taken and progress is being made that can’t be openly discussed, to protect the integrity of the investigation.
“When she first went missing, there was some action. Of course, plenty of the officers immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was a runaway. She was thirteen years old and going through what most thirteen-year-old girls do. Testing some boundaries. Wanting to be more independent. But she wasn’t a runaway,” Misty explains.
“She never went out without your knowing that she was going?” I ask. “Or was gone longer than she said she’d be?”
“No,” John shakes his head. “Never. She had an attitude sometimes. She didn’t always get the best grades when she was having a fight with her friends. But she was a good girl. She wouldn’t have just run off. There was no reason for her to. And that’s what we told the police.”
“Do you think they believed you?” Dean asks.
“Some of them,” Misty says. “And some of them dismissed us. Now, they seem to have lost interest in her completely. There was some movement when I reached out to the detectives to point out she was last seen in the area of all the disappearances and murders. But after that was eliminated as a possibility, they just stopped. It’s as if she doesn’t matter as much because she isn’t part of a massive crime.”
“You say there was
