“Is that it for the day?” she asks.
“Yes. Go on back to the hotel,” I say. “We’ll let you know what’s going on tomorrow in the morning.”
“Oh. Okay,” she says. “Um… do you know of any good places for me to grab something for dinner?”
She’s seen the same restaurants as we have the last two nights. I know it’s the conversational version of climbing through a back window to get inside. She’s already had the front door slammed in her face, so now she’s trying to get through another way.
“There’s a directory in your room. There’s also room service available at the hotel. And I’m sure you could look it up on your phone,” I say.
I get in the car and notice it takes a little while before Dean joins me. Xavier climbs into the backseat and we sit in silence. After several seconds, Xavier’s arm appears in my peripheral vision. One finger sticks out and pokes the radio button, turning it on.
My car radio is attached to a music streaming service on my phone, so pressing that button only fills the cabin with staticky white noise. That doesn’t seem to bother Xavier, but it acts as the soundtrack to the tension between Dean and me.
“What?” I finally snap, cutting a glance over to him.
“Don’t you think that was a little harsh?”
Xavier’s finger appears again and turns off the radio.
“What am I supposed to think was a little harsh?” I ask.
“The way you just talked to Ava. She was obviously trying to find out if we were going to dinner or hanging out,” he says.
“Please, Dean. Don’t start with me about that. Her puppy eyes might have gotten to you, but I’m not so easily swayed,” I say.
“This isn’t about her puppy eyes,” he says. “It’s about how hard you’re being on her. For no good reason.”
“No good reason?” I ask incredulously. “Did you not see what she was doing?”
“She made a suggestion for how evidence could be arranged. That’s it,” he says. “It’s not ideal…”
“It’s not her place,” I cut him off. “This isn’t her investigation, Dean. She doesn’t get to make the decisions or determinations about anything. Especially when I’m not around to know she’s doing it.”
“I think maybe you’re forgetting how hard it is to just get started in the Bureau,” he counters.
“No, I’m not. I’m not forgetting any of it. I remember every single second of how hard it was when I first started. And I didn’t get someone to hold my hand and walk me through everything. I got thrown right to the lions. It made me stronger for it. She got this far, Dean. She went through the Academy and she got through her training. Now she needs to see what it’s really like to be an agent. And part of that is learning her place. That she isn’t always going to be in charge or be the one people are listening to. That’s how investigations get compromised,” I say.
“I know that,” he says. I can tell he has something else on his tongue, but he bites it back.
I nod. “Now, I have a lot to go over with you about Ashley Stevenson’s case. Are you up for it tonight?”
He sighs and leans his head back against the seat cushion. “Let’s do it.”
Twenty-One
“I mean, honestly, a lot of this is exactly what I would have expected. It’s just full of young teenage angsty stuff. Some poetry. Pictures of her friends. Complaints about schoolwork and teachers. There isn’t really anything that jumped out at me specifically,” I say.
We’re sitting in the hotel room around boxes of pizza. I’ve changed into my pajamas and washed off my makeup for the night, but I know there is still plenty of work ahead of me. Dean is going over the pictures I took on my phone, and I have my laptop open with her email inbox pulled up.
“There isn’t anything that makes you think she’s talking about this older guy?” Dean asks.
“Not specifically. I mean, there are a couple of references to love stories and finding the perfect guy. But I think that probably shows up on most thirteen-year-old girls’ computers. It’s not direct enough for us to connect it to anybody. What’s really getting to me is these pictures,” I say.
I gesture to my phone and then sweep across the screen to look through the locations again.
“There are no captions,” Dean observes. “We don’t have any idea where these places are.”
“Exactly,” I nod. “But they must have meant something or she would have taken pictures of them. Remember the group of teenagers thatwho disappeared from the campground right after it shut down? The mother knew where her son was. She was able to send investigators there because he took a picture of Cabin Thirteen. But she said he was a photographer. That’s what he did. He chronicled his entire life by taking pictures of everything he did and everywhere he went.”
“And it doesn’t look as though Ashley did that,” Dean says.
“No,” I shake my head. “Not with that level of consistency. There are definitely things she took multiple pictures of, which tells me they were really meaningful to her. Each one was more than just another place she saw or another thing she did. It wasn’t just a random moment on any given day. She took a picture of each of these places because it’s significant. She was recording an important piece of her life.”
“So, we need to find out where they are,” Dean says. “Maybe if we can identify all of that, we can piece together what they mean.”
“Exactly,” I say.
“Great,” he says. “I’ll take these and look around the area tomorrow while you’re at the campground.”
“Perfect. From the looks of how everything is going there, I think everything is looking good and they can handle it without me after tomorrow. We can spend a little more time
