It’s a debate we’ve been going back and forth on for several weeks now. As of now, we don’t seem to be getting any closer to a conclusion. As soon as we feel we’re leaning toward the same option, one of us will change his or her mind and start leaning forward the other. And that one will catch up with the same thing only for the other to start going back the other way.
It’ll come to us eventually. Hopefully fairly quickly, so we can actually plan it before the date comes.
Thirteen
Later that evening, Dean and I sit close together in front of my computer and make the video call to Allison Garrett. When she answers, she looks as though she isn’t sure how to feel about the situation. Gone is the bright, vibrant smile in the beach picture; in its place are tightened eyebrows and a slightly downturned mouth.
“Hello,” she says.
“Hi, Allison,” I start. “I’m Agent Emma Griffin. I’m with the FBI. This is my cousin, Dean Steele. He’s the private investigator who got in touch with you.”
I gesture toward Dean and he waves at the screen.
“Hi,” she says. She gives me a bit of a strange look. “Did you say you’re with the FBI?”
“Yes,” I nod, then press one hand to my chest. “But I’m not talking to you now in that official capacity. This is a private investigation.”
She nods, still looking hesitant.
“As I said in my messages, we just want to talk to you about Ashley,” Dean adds. “We’re trying to figure out what happened to her when she went missing. Her parents are ready to bring her home.”
“I think they’ve been ready since the day she left,” Allison comments.
Dean nods. “They have been. You probably heard about the deaths in Sherando Ridge, at Arrow Lake Campground.”
“Yes,” she says. “It’s horrible. I can’t believe that’s somewhere I used to go all the time. I still go up there sometimes to go hiking. It’s so hard to believe something like that was happening right there and nobody knew.”
“Did you know that Ashley’s mother and father contacted the police to find out if Ashley might be one of the victims?” I ask.
Allison swallows hard. “Yes. We still stay in touch a bit. Not as much now as we used to, but when you reached out to me, I called them. I didn’t want to do anything behind their back.”
“Why would talking to us be doing something behind their back?” I ask.
“If they didn’t know there was an investigation going on,” she explains. “A lot of people have latched onto Ashley’s case over the years. And not for the best reasons.”
“What do you mean?” Dean frowns.
“People want to tell stories about her. They want to come up with sensationalized explanations or spread gruesome rumors. There have been a couple of TV shows that have approached Misty and John about featuring Ashley’s case and acted as if they were going to get her name out so more people would know about her. But then they just painted her as a rebellious teenager who was off getting into mischief and ended up disappearing. Almost as though it was her fault. I didn’t want that to happen to them again.”
“They didn’t mention any of that when we spoke with them,” I say.
“It isn’t the most pleasant thing for them to talk about,” she says. “I’d think they are probably pretty embarrassed by it.”
“I can imagine,” Dean sympathizes. “But that’s why we’re doing this. We want to make sure that whatever happened to Ashley is uncovered. And whoever is responsible, if there is anyone responsible, will be held accountable for what theyhe or she did.”
“What do you mean ‘if there is anyone responsible’?” Allison asks, sounding put off by the choice of phrase. “You think she did something to herself?”
I wasn’t expecting her to suggest that. Up until that moment, it hadn’t even occurred to me to think she might have harmed herself. The expected behaviors weren’t there. At least, no one was talking about them.
“We don’t know what happened,” I say, trying to hold her to the conversation. She has information we need and if she gets angry and logs off, we won’t be able to get it out of her. “But we want to know. That’s why we’re talking to you. We know you were very close.”
This seems to take some of the edge off. Allison nods.
“We were. And Vivian. We were always together.”
“Ashley’s parents mentioned you and Vivian are a little older than Ashley,” I say.
Allison nods again. “Yes. Almost two years.”
“So, you weren’t in the same year of school. How did you end up forming such a close bond? She was still in middle school and you were in high school.”
“We met when she was in the sixth grade and Vivian and I were in eighth grade,” Allison explains. “In our school, enrichment classes weren’t divided by grade. None of the three of us could decide which enrichment class we wanted to take, so all three of us ended up in what they called Exploratory. Which basically just meant we rotated through different classes for each semester. That’s when we became friends. We stayed friends after that, even when we went into high school. She was really looking forward to joining us in a couple of years.”
Her eyes well with tears and her head drops down for a second before she looks up at us again, fighting to keep her composure.
“Would
