Chapter 5

“I’m going with you,” Ashley declared as Nate stood to leave.
“No, this isn’t about you.”
“You’re not leaving me behind.” Ashley hoped her tone was strong enough to be commanding. She had heard Nate’s end of the conversation and it didn’t sound good. She didn’t really want to be in on a bad situation but some part of her felt like she should be. For Kyle’s sake.
“Fine. But you’re not getting in the middle.” Nate’s hard answer wasn’t what Ashley had hoped for but she took it anyway and followed him out of the restaurant, water bottle in hand.
Ashley climbed in to the passenger’s seat in Nate’s unmarked Caprice after they had made the short walk back to the FBI offices. Nate turned on his sirens and headed out of the parking lot.
“What did they find?” Ashley asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Nate said.
“Tell me anyway.”
“It looks like we’ve found one of the girls.”
“I would guess that’s not a good thing or we wouldn’t be heading that way. Is there a stand off? Is someone holding her hostage?”
“That would be a better situation but no, that is not the case.”
Ashley didn’t need any more explanation. Her heart sunk. As many bad cases as she had worked on, as many children as she had ever talked to, with the exception of her son, they were all alive. By her own choice, she didn’t have to deal with other dead children. Looking at Nate, Ashley knew this was the kind of situation they were headed to and she also knew Nate had been there before.
Neither said a word as Nate sped towards wherever it was they were going. It had been too many years since Ashley had been in Florida for her to recognize any of the streets but as they pulled on to Highway 75 she found something familiar. The landscape hadn’t changed much. There were no hills or mountains, only large numbers of trees and flat land. Occasionally they passed a small trailer, sometimes a decent home but mostly just flat land. Ashley had been glad to leave the state behind ten years ago. While she loved the beaches, she hadn’t missed the rest of the state.
At an undetermined mile marker, Nate pulled off at the side of the road. This area of trees didn’t look any different from any other area of trees they had passed. The only difference was the large number of police cars lining the road. There was also the matter of yellow police tape that seemed to extend from a broken down car into the trees and beyond where Ashley could see.
“Stay in the car,” Nate said as he climbed out. He slammed the driver’s door without another word. Ashley sat still, her heart pounding. She wanted to listen to Nate but she couldn’t. She wanted to help but how could she? She certainly couldn’t get any information out of a dead child. She was good at talking to kids but that was pushing it.
Ashley pushed open the passenger’s door and put one heeled leg out. As she pushed against the seat to stand, she lost her balance. No, not her balance, her sense of reality. An image flashed across her mind. A small girl, in a plaid dress. Not a dress, a uniform. It was a jumper. Like for school. She was running. She kept looking back over her shoulder but something or someone was behind her.
The image changed and Ashley saw the girl lying on her back, blood pooled on her lips and her eyes were open, staring at the sky.
As quickly as the images came they disappeared. Ashley shook her head. What was that? It was no one she recognized.
The image firmly planted in her brain, Ashley climbed out of the car. This time she was successful and slowly followed the path that Nate had taken. She got all the way to the yellow tape and was stopped by an officer. “No crossing this line, ma’am.”
“I’m sorry; I’m with Agent Zimmerman...”
“No civilians beyond the tape.” The officer did not lift the tape, nor did he move from his post. Ashley attempted to look beyond him but even straining her neck all she could where the backs of the agents looking down at the ground. Ashley could only imagine what they were looking at.
She paced back and forth in front of the tape, making herself and the officer standing guard all the more nervous. What was she doing here? What did she possibly think she could do? Maybe she had only come along to keep from being left alone in the bagel shop. To keep from feeling abandoned again. Nate had made her feel needed; a part of this case but she was hardly even doing a decent job. Kyle wasn’t talking; his sister was still missing and now this. Whatever this was.
Ashley turned back to where the agents were. One of them was kneeling down to get a better look, just as the others parted to let a petite woman with the words coroner on her jacket through. Ashley gasped at what she saw.
“Nate!” Ashley screamed. All eyes were on her. She could feel them boring through her. Couldn’t they see what was in front of them? Didn’t they know? How did she know?
Nate rushed over to where Ashley was standing. As he approached, she grabbed onto his shoulders to keep herself from falling over. “What is it, Ashley? What’s the matter?”
“The girl…” Words failed her.
“I know, she’s dead. I told you to stay in the car. You weren’t supposed to see her.” Nate pulled her into an embrace but Ashley pushed him away.
“No, you don’t understand. I saw her. I saw the girl.”
“I know. We all saw her…”
“Listen to me! I saw her…” Nate began to interrupt Ashley’s words but she held up her hand. “No, I see her now but I saw her before. It’s the same girl.”
“The same girl as what? I don’t understand,” Nate’s words were firm and Ashley hadn’t missed the strange glances she was getting from those around the girl’s body.
“I saw her running. She was running away.”
“Ashley, she hasn’t moved since we got here.”
“I know, Nate. I know what you see but when I got out of the car. I’m telling you, it’s not what I saw. I saw her running and then I saw her lying there just like she is. Her eyes were open and there was blood around her mouth. I saw her plaid uniform jumper. I saw it all.”
Ashley watched Nate’s eyes and he could see the unbelief there. She knew it was crazy. She wouldn’t have believed it either but she had seen something.
“Ashley, how could you have seen it? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. It’s never happened before. It just came over me and I just felt it. I could feel her fear as she ran…” Ashley broke down then, the tears streaming from her eyes. Why couldn’t she have seen this before? But it wasn’t a premonition about something that would happen; it was a knowledge of something that had happened. An overwhelming feeling as if she was there.
“Come on; let me take you back to the car. You need a break. You need to think things through.” Nate led Ashley back to his car, opened the passenger door and helped her settle back in. Her hands were shaking and they wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t will her body under her minds control. The girl on the ground was the girl she had seen in her mind. The same dress, the same blood trail on her lips.
Nate turned to walk away but Ashley grabbed his arm. “Nate, please, you need to listen to me. I saw her running and then I saw her on the ground. Just like she is now…”
“I’m sure you just think you did. Seeing someone dead, especially a child is disconcerting. It’s hard to handle even when you’ve seen it before.”
“It’s not that. Look, I couldn’t see her face from where I was standing. From where I was, I wouldn’t know if her eyes were open or not. Check it out, stand where I was. You’ll see.”
Nate held up his hands in surrender, walked to where Ashley had been standing, looked around and walked back, a slightly different look on his face. “You’re right; you can’t see her eyes from there. But you made a good guess.”
“No, Nate, it wasn’t a guess. I saw her. She was running away. Maybe the person she was running from chased her here and killed her.”
“But why leave her here?” Nate asked as if Ashley would actually have an answer.
“I don’t know. I have no answers. I’m just telling you what I felt.”
Nate ran his fingers through his hair. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks and yet they had only been on the side of the road for maybe an hour. “We’ll talk about this later, Ashley. I have work to do.”
Ashley didn’t say another word as Nate shut the door behind him and went back to join his colleagues. A few cast her glances but most continued on with what they were doing. An hour later, the girl was zipped up in a body bag, strapped to a gurney, rolled out of the grass and into a van marked “coroner”. Ashley couldn’t help but feel loss for the tiny girl. Her parents, no just her father, would be devastated. Losing a wife and then a daughter. Could life be more cruel?
But Ashley knew that life was cruel. She had lost her husband and son in the same day and she had been left with nothing. Eleven years later she still had nothing. Aidan would be a bit older than Kyle. How she longed to hold him.
Ashley waited patiently for Nate’s return to his vehicle and then demanded he take her back to see Kyle. Even if the boy wasn’t conscious they could work through some of their pain together. It was time to be brutally honest with the boy.