My focus drifts back to Vivian and Allison. They’re nodding along with some of the stories, smiling at times and wiping away tears. Their emotion seems genuine, but I’m still on guard with them. I won’t come to any conclusions yet. There is still too much that isn’t known for me to zero in and not remain open to other possibilities.
But I also don’t intend to let them off the hook easily. There’s something they’re hiding. They haven’t told the whole story yet.
I’m going to make sure it gets told. Either they will tell it to me or I’ll force it out of them.
Thirteen. Thirteen. Thirteen.
It was all she heard. No one was allowed to call her anything else.
They knew her name. She knew they did. But it was only ever Thirteen.
Now she closed her eyes, gripping the metal of the fence in front of her, and listened to the voices in the field.
There was hope in them and there was fear. Laughter and sadness. But above all, there was one thing. One thing she had been waiting to hear. She had been waiting to know that they saw her, that they knew her.
She gathered her strength and stepped through the gate.
“Ashley.”
Thirty-One
Misty had gone back up to the podium for another speech when I saw her face go pale. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open slightly for just an instant before she said it.
“Ashley.”
She’s said the name dozens of times in the last half an hour we’ve been standing in the field, but it sounds different this time. Her eyes are locked not on the crowd gathered in front of her, or on the sky she’s glanced up to several times already, but across the field toward the gate leading in from the parking lot.
A few people have already turned around to see what she’s looking at. Gasps and whispers roll through the crowd. Misty pushes away from the podium so hard she nearly knocks it over. Behind her, Leona’s hands have fallen from where she clasped them hard in front of her as she listened to her mother talk, fighting emotion to keep her face still and blank.
I turn and see what caused the reaction.
A girl is walking across the field, her dark hair clinging to the sides of her face, and her neck with sweat from the already-hot August air. Her clothes hang on a thin body and her face is hollow. But it’s unmistakable. It’s Ashley Stevenson.
An instant later, there’s chaos.
Misty scrambles down from the stage with John close behind her. People from the crowd have started to head toward Ashley and I can already see the look of panic rising in her face. I take off running toward her, needing to stop the crowd before they can swarm around her.
I stop a few feet from her and hold my arms out to create a blockade, screaming for the people to stop. I push them back with the sheer force of my stance and the volume of my voice. They comply, backing up a few steps and leaving space for Misty and John to surge in front of them.
Dean and Xavier rush to my side, following my instructions to form as much of a barrier as they can between the people and the parents gripping their daughter in their arms. I want them blocking the phones snapping images and recording these fragile, sensitive moments. Dean shouts at them, commanding them to put their phones away.
As some people do as they’re told, I stalk away from the group and pull my phone out to call 911.
An hour later I’m on the phone again, this time as I pace back and forth through another waiting room. This one isn’t like the large, bright room where the guys waited for Bellamy’s baby to be born. There’s no giant teddy bear draped on the ground or TV hanging from the ceiling. It’s a small, square room with chairs lining the walls and the table in the middle holding two boxes of tissues.
This isn’t the type of room where people wait for joyous news.
Right now, I’m using it to talk with Creagan.
“This is now part of the investigation,” he says.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Arrow Lake. She wasn’t kidnapped by the Mitchells. Her disappearance can’t be included in the investigation of those murders,” I say.
“Then it is a different investigation. However you want to describe it, it is now the territory of the FBI. This is a Bureau case and I’m expecting you to resolve it.”
“I was already investigating it,” I reply, not even bothering to try to hide the edge of aggravation and anger in my voice.
“You’ve taken on a lot and have tremendous possibilities right now. Agent James will be on this team.”
“I don’t need her. Dean and I are already investigating Ashley Stevenson’s disappearance,” I say.
“Dean doesn’t have the type of clearance she does. He might have a few tricks up his sleeve as a private investigator, but he’s not going to be as valuable as another FBI agent.”
“I beg to differ on that,” I counter. “He has more skill and insight than the vast majority of the agents I’ve worked with.”
“What he doesn’t have is training and authorization. Agent James has those things. She’s part of this investigation, Griffin.”
There’s nothing I can say. He’s already talked to the detective heading up Ashley’s case, who requested the Bureau formally step in. If he’s going to assign Ava to the case, that’s what he’s going to do. Frankly, right now I don’t have the space in my mind to push back against it. I’m too busy wrangling people and knocking down questions and pressure from the media that have already taken up residence outside the hospital.
This situation needs to get under
