The Girl and the Unlucky 13 (Emma Griffin™ FBI Mystery) by A.J. Rivers (i have read the book .txt) 📕

“Yep,” I confirm. “The day Ashley came back, I noticed Leona down the hall from her room. She seemed really upset and I went to talk to her. She pretty much brushed me off, but when she was walking away, I noticed the man she had been talking to. It was him. It was Sean Melrose.”

“What were they talking about?” Dean asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t know. I didn’t hear them. But he seemed less than thrilled that I came to talk to Leona. He didn’t say anything to me, but the look in his eyes was unmistakable.”

“What does that mean, though?” Dean asks. “They could know each other from school. Their ages would have been closer than Ashley’s.”

“That’s definitely possible,” I admit. “We don’t really know anything about that right now. It just seems odd to me that nobody mentions the connection. If they were friends back then, it would seem to me that Allison would have said that. We talked about how Leona didn’t really socialize. They sometimes spent time together, but weren’t exactly friends. That would have been the time for her to mention that her boyfriend and Leona were apparently on good terms.”

“Maybe they’ve gotten closer in the time since?”

“No,” Ava says. I look over at her and see her shaking her head. “He went through all this, leaving her in the emergency room, encouraging the girls to lie, so he could separate himself from this situation. He knew how bad it would look for him if anyone could connect him to Ashley that night. That’s not the kind of person who would then strike up a friendship with her sister.”

She looks at me. Xavier leans closer to me.

“Give her the shovel, Emma,” he whispers.

“That might be true,” I say.

“Might?” Ava raises an eyebrow.

My eyes slide over to her. She looks stunned I’m not jumping down her throat to dismiss her theory. I have to admit, it’s a solid theory. But I don’t buy it. If this was just about Ashley’s being left in the hospital, if she’d died there, then I would agree with Ava. But it’s not. Just seeing them leave her in the emergency room isn’t enough to separate Sean from the situation.

“Something happened after they left her in the emergency room. She didn’t just stay there. If Sean had something to do with that, it could explain his interest in getting close to Leona,” I say.

“You think he wants to relive what he did? Or the pain it caused the family?” she asks. “That’s sick.”

“That would be the behavior of a thrill killer. Someone who not only kills for fun, but also gets enjoyment out of watching how it affects people. This is the type of person who will be a part of the search party and go to the funeral. He’ll visit with the family and may even put on massive displays of grief or honoring the victim, even if he apparently didn’t know the victim very well. It’s purely for show; out of a desire to be wrapped up in the emotion and turmoil of the whole situation.

“But people who kill on the spur of the moment, or accidentally, may also be drawn to the family. Especially when the case is getting attention. They want to know what’s going on in the investigation and if law enforcement is on their trail. It keeps them a step ahead. But it can also create anxiety and make them act out,” I say. “That’s often how they get caught. They get so wrapped up in their determination to look innocent they actually end up showing that they are guilty.”

“Didn’t Allison say Sean took her to the hospital after leaving Ashley? One in another town?” Dean asks. “And then they went back to the camp?”

I check the timestamps we recorded from the moment the three left Ashley until she got up and left, and then until she stood and walked out of the frame of the security video outside.

“He left Allison at the hospital,” I say. “He didn’t stay with her. He didn’t want anybody to know he had anything to do with her or the baby, so he left her there. He came back later to pick her up, but there was enough time for him to get her there, leave her, come back to this hospital for Ashley, get her out of the way, and then go back for Allison.”

“But what would he have done with her?” Dean asks. “Why would he have kept her for five years?”

“Obsession,” I offer. “He was obviously into younger girls. Allison was only fifteen and pregnant with his baby. He could have been fixated on Ashley and have seen this as an opportunity. It’s interesting to me that he resurfaced at the same time she did.”

“Do you really think he could be the one to have done this?” Ava asks.

“I don’t know. We have to cover all the bases. Eliminate all the possibilities,” I say, a yawn suddenly creeping up on me. “It’s getting late. I’m going to try to get some sleep.”

We clean up from dinner and the rest of them head out of the room. Ava and Dean are in the hallway when Xavier steps back inside and comes to me where I’m still sitting, staring at the computer.

“You’re clicking your fingernails,” he says.

I look up at him. “Hmmm?”

“Your fingernails,” he repeats. “You click them when you’re stuck on thinking about something. What are you thinking about?”

I look at my hand and realize he’s right. As my thoughts churn through my mind, my fingers systematically flick against the pad of my thumb, clicking the nails against each other as they move up and down.

“When we were talking to Ashley about the night she went missing, she said she remembered the ground being cold and hard,” I say.

“She was sitting on a sidewalk,” he points out.

“But it wouldn’t be cold,” I say. “It was August. Even with the