“Okay. I miss you,” he says.
“I miss you, too. I’ll see you soon. I love you.”
I hang up and get back to the computer. A quick glimpse at her email inbox tells me there’s more to sift through than I have the time to do right now. I take a picture of her passwords with my phone so I can access the information later. Then I sign into her social media to scroll through posts from around the time she went missing.
I’m surprised to find an abundance of images with no captions and no explanation. Most people her age like to take social media as an opportunity to show off or speak their minds. Ashley might have been doing that as well, only she chose to do it silently.
I don’t recognize the places she took pictures of, but they obviously hold significance. I take out my phone again and start snapping pictures of some of the images. It will be easier to share these with Dean this way rather than just showing him the feed. I’m so entrenched in digging through this girl’s life, the voice coming from the door makes me jump.
“You think she’s dead.”
I whip around toward the door and see a young woman standing there. She looks vaguely like an older version of Ashley, but slightly heavier and with short, straight hair rather than the long curls I’ve seen in pictures of the missing girl.
“You must be Leona,” I say.
She gives a single nod but doesn’t come any further into the room.
“Do you think my sister is dead?” she asks again.
I hope she didn’t hear my conversation with Sam. She’s clearly upset, and I want to handle this as diplomatically as I can without lying to her.
“Right now, I don’t know what happened to your sister. But I’m going to do everything I can to find out,” I say.
She nods again and peers around the room.
“Do you ever come in here?” I ask.
“No,” Leona says. “I don’t like looking at her things.”
“That’s understandable,” I say. “But, you do still live at home?”
Her eyes shoot to me, cutting into me as though I’d asked her something deeply offensive.
“I have to,” she says. ”I haven’t been able to leave my mom. Not after everything she’s been through.”
“But you’ll be going away to college,” I point out. “You were up near DC looking at a campus.”
“That’s for Dad,” she says. “He wants me to go. I want to stay and be here for Mom.”
“You’re an adult, Leona. You’re allowed to live your own life.”
“Mom needs me,” she says. ”I won’t leave her the way Ashley did.”
She walks out of the room, leaving me slightly stunned by the comment. There’s almost a bitterness in her voice. As if she blames Ashley for her own disappearance. Maybe she knows more than the other people in her sister’s life. Maybe there is some credence to the idea that she got swept up in something and chose to walk away.
I take a few more pictures and take notes on my phone so I don’t forget the thoughts that pop into my head. Signing out of everything, I go back downstairs to thank Misty.
“Would it be alright with you if I accessed her email and social media from my own computer to look through it again later?” I ask.
“Absolutely,” she says. “Anything you need.”
“Thank you. I’ll be in touch soon,” I say.
The drive to the park is only a few minutes. I can definitely see why this area appeals to teenagers. It’s a sprawling area with plenty of corners and shadowy areas where they can hide from a world telling them what to do.
As soon as I get to the campground and get out of my car, I see I might have waited just a bit too long to make it back here.
Pushing my sunglasses up onto the top of my head, I rush across the parking area to the nearest evidence table. Xavier is standing in front of it, his arms crossed tightly over his chest as he stares down Ava. Dean is beside them, seeming to try to talk both of them down.
“What is going on over here?” I ask as I approach.
Dean looks relieved to see me, but Xavier’s tense expression doesn’t change.
“Ava is tampering with the evidence,” Xavier says.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
Ava lets out a sigh. “I’m not tampering with it. I just suggested a different organizational method. I thought it might make it easier to see everything.”
I get closer to the table and look over the pieces of evidence, then look at her.
“They’re organizing this evidence based on my instructions. I am the head of this investigation and they are under my command. This is how I like my evidence laid out, so it can be easily cataloged and sent to the lab,” I tell her.
“I’m sorry,” Ava says, taking a step back. ”I just thought a streamlined approach would make things more efficient.”
“Simply because you see something as streamlined doesn’t make it right,” I say. “You have just started in this career. I’ve been here for years. I know what I’m doing, and I have earned my place leading investigations. When you’ve gotten to the place I am, then you can determine how things are handled. Until then, please don’t interfere.”
I turn on my heel and stomp down toward the lake. I need to make sure she hasn’t gotten her hands in anything else. The thing is, I see her ambition. I know she wasn’t trying to mess anything up or cause any problems. Behind her awkward exterior is determination. But she needs to keep that determination out of my way.
For the rest of the day, she hovers in the periphery, but doesn’t try to get involved. I don’t interfere with that mindset.
With some promising progress on this case giving me a boost at the end of the day, I head to my car,
