“Okay.”
“Thanks. Could you tell me again how you were able to get out of that house?”
“It was the only time I ever saw the door to that room open. It must have been a mistake, but I took the opportunity. I ran and I went out the front door.”
“And Wolf didn’t notice?”
“He was too busy preparing for my appointment later. I told you that that client liked themes, so Wolf must have been in the room putting up the props and scenery,” she says.
“And you heard about the vigil on the news because he would let you watch it with him. Which means you weren’t at that house for very long. You must have been somewhere else just a couple of days before then.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about the nail polish.”
Her head tilts the side curiously.
“Nail polish?”
“You said the room with the vanity was where you got ready. And the vanity mirror wasn’t broken when you left.”
“No.”
“Someone was injured in that room. The mirror has blood on it. They went in and removed every piece of evidence that could relate to you, but they weren’t able to fix the mirror. Maybe they didn’t have time, maybe they thought people would think that it was just because the house is old.”
“You keep saying ‘they’,” Ashley points out. “I told you it was Wolf. He must have killed J and cleaned up everything to stop him from being able to tell anybody I was there.”
“When we were first searching the room, we found a stain on the floor. It was red nail polish. As if a bottle had tipped off the side of the vanity and spilled. Before it could get cleaned up, it had dried most of the way. In the pictures of you right when you got to the vigil, you have on nail polish. But just one nail. And only a little bit.”
“I was doing my nails when I noticed the door,” she says.
“No,” I say, shaking my head and sitting down in the chair across from her. “I don’t think that’s how it happened. It wasn’t all the way dry when somebody tried to clean it up. Most of the way, but there was still enough moisture in it to pry part of it up. Which means that you were there just a few minutes before that room got cleaned. Whatever happened in that room, you were there. You saw it.”
She stares at me silently for a few seconds, then turns serenely to look out the window.
“Do you think I’ll be able to go to the beach soon? I would love to build a sandcastle.”
“There was a picture of the family at the beach building sandcastles on the news. Along with the picture of you holding a cat, which I know wasn’t your pet. Leona is allergic to them. You never owned a cat,” I say.
Ashley glances over her shoulder at me and lets out a soft laugh.
“I must be remembering wrong.”
“Ashley,” I say, sliding to the edge of the seat and meeting her eyes. “I need you to tell me what happened in that house. You didn’t just walk out. Something happened that morning. What was it?”
“I told you, the door was open and I left.”
There’s no anxiety, no tension in her words. Just smooth, soft delivery.
“The break-in this morning. You said the window in your room broke and he came in. How is that possible? You were on the second floor. He could have climbed up onto the roof of the porch, but how could no one have noticed him? And you say he didn’t even chase you? He went through all that effort to vandalize the garage and climb into your room, but he gave up after cutting you once?”
Ashley shrugs one shoulder. “I came to him on Friday the thirteenth. Maybe the bad luck is just catching up with him.”
My stomach turns and my heart drops in my chest.
“The day you went missing wasn’t a Friday,” I say. “But you were born on Friday the thirteenth.”
She looks toward the door to her room and gestures for me to get closer. As if she needs to tell me something. I lean toward her. She puts her mouth so close to my ear that I can feel the heat of her breath trail down the side of my neck.
“Maybe I’m just the girl who cried Wolf.”
Fifty-Two
I’m up for the rest of the night, digging through every bit of documentation and evidence I’ve gathered through this investigation. I watch the same footage over and over. I read every news article and look through every police report. I go back to the statements every member of Ashley’s family gave the day she went missing and compare them to what her friends said that day, and with each new version of their stories after.
The traffic violations and vehicle registrations Dean was able to find for me give me more insight, but there are still gaps. Still so many questions with answers just out of my grasp. Ashley’s words crawl down my spine and leave me with an ever-tightening band clenched around my chest.
As soon as the sun comes up, I’m at the hospital. The administrator isn’t happy to see me, but I don’t care.
“I need to know who handled Ashley Stevenson’s DNA test,” I tell him. “Who took her blood and who processed it.”
“The sample was taken by the doctor on duty that night. It was supervised by another doctor and by a detective. It was then sent to the lab at Gunther Memorial.”
I’ve been pacing across his office, but those words stop my feet.
“Gunther Memorial?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “They have an on-site lab used for processing blood samples for DNA testing as well as a variety of other purposes. It’s regularly used by the police department.”
“And it was sent before the transfer request came,” I say.
His expression looks like that thought hadn’t even occurred to him.
“Yes,” he confirms.
“Damn it.”
Without further
