Chapter 25

**** Author's note: I apologize for the delay in getting up another chapter - it's been a busy week with the end of school and traveling to Florida - now that I'm here I will try to update and write more frequently - thanks for bugging me! ******

Nate cut the interview with Annabeth short. Ashley had been through enough. She didn’t need the third degree on something Nate was sure she didn’t do nor had anything to do with. With a gentle hand, Nate steered Ashley past Annabeth and to Nate’s car. Nate opened the passenger side door and waited for Ashley to seat herself comfortably before closing it behind her. He walked around the front of the vehicle keeping his eyes on Ashley the entire time in case she decided to get out of the car and run.
“You need a break,” Ashley said when he made it to the driver’s seat. Always like her to think of others first.
“I’m fine. You’re the one I’d worry about,” Nate said. “You’re not leaving my sight again until we catch the monster responsible for this.”
“I’ll be okay, Nate, really…”
“You say that and yet you’re not,” Nate said. Nate looked out the front window at the chaos in front of him. Part of him wanted to jump out of the car and get back to work but the rest of him knew he needed to be right where he was. In the quiet with Ashley.
“Ashley, I just… It’s been twelve years…”
“Nothing’s changed.”
“Why not?”
“Nate, they were shot down in cold blood. You don’t just get over that.”
“Have you thought about forgiving and letting go?” Nate chose his words carefully. To him it had been twelve years, to Ashley it was yesterday.
“How can I forgive the man that murdered my only son? Who murdered my husband? While I was twenty feet away!” Ashley looked out her own window leaving Nate to stare at the back of her head. It was a nice head, with her brown hair pulled back into a playful ponytail. Or it would have been playful if the head it was on wasn’t so angry.
“Ashley, the man who murdered them is in jail. You have to let it go…”
“I can’t!” The ponytail swished as she turned back to him, her face now red and flushed. “This man took my family away. The life I had. Everything I loved. What am I left with? What does it matter?”
“But you’re still here. And that isn’t an accident…”
“I’m here so Jimmy can taunt me. So he can flaunt what he did in front of me for twelve years. I wish he would’ve killed me that day. I wish I had died there with Donnie and Aidan.”
“But you didn’t.” Nate couldn’t help but push a stray strand of Ashley’s hair back behind her ear. She blinked back the tears that were threatening to fall and looked away once more. “Have you ever thought there could be a reason?”
“Of course,” Ashley looked Nate in the eye. “I’m here to help find the scum of the earth who hurt children. I’m here to save the children even when I couldn’t save my own. I instruct the courts when to take children out of their homes to keep them safe and yet, I couldn’t keep my own son safe…” Her voice trailed off as she bit her lip.
“Ashley, that sounds like a rehearsed speech. Have you thought deeper then that? Like there’s a chance that someone higher then you is keeping you here for another reason?”
“Like a higher power?” Her sarcasm was not lost on him.
“Yes, like a higher power. Like God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. That kind of higher power…”
“Not your God speech again. You can’t seriously be throwing this in my face.”
“Ashley, I’m not throwing it in your face. I’m worried about you. I have been for a long time,” Nate paused and ran his hand down Ashley’s cheek. “Sometimes, Ashley, the forgiveness isn’t for the person who has done the wrong but the person who has been wronged. The anger that you’ve been holding in has been affecting you. Jimmy’s rotting in prison and he doesn’t care if you hate him or not. In fact, he may want you to. Maybe it’s time for you to do something for you and not for him.”
“But I don’t know how.” The tears were spilling out now. With his eyes, Nate traced them down her cheek and onto the collar of her shirt. Nate wasn’t sure what to say so he said nothing. The truth was he didn’t have the answers. He had never experienced such a painful loss as what Ashley had been through. What he did know is that after twelve years she hadn’t been able to move on and she truly needed to.
“The truth is, Nate that I want to move on. But every time I try I see Aidan’s face and I feel like I’m being unfaithful. Like I’m not a good mother…”
“But you were the best mother. Aidan knew that as tiny as he was. He loved you and so did Donnie and I know that both of them would want you to be happy. They wouldn’t want you sitting around miserable,” Nate said.
“I know all that. I’ve tried. I went back to school. I got my Master’s and I got a job. I started helping kids. I did go on with my life but yet, it doesn’t feel like it at all.”
“When was the last time you dated someone?”
Ashley looked down at her perfectly manicured hands. Painted a light pink they sparkled when the sunlight hit them making the tan on her arms appear even darker. “It’s been a while.”
“And how did that end?”
“Look, I have a mad man following me. You know about the flowers but what you don’t know is every time I start seeing someone strange things happen. One guy went missing. One guy got hit by a car.”
“That might not have been related…”
“After each incident I got a note from Jimmy taking credit for whatever went wrong.”
“It doesn’t make sense. He’s in prison. How can he be contacting you?” Nate rubbed his chin in thought. “Stranger still, if he truly was a deranged husband why would he still care about you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve gone over it again and again. All I can come up with is that his actions caused him to lose his girlfriend permanently and he still blames me.” Ashley sighed and Nate wished there was some way he could take away her pain.
“Seems like it was his own fault.”
“I know that and you know that but delusional people don’t necessarily understand. When he was tried and convicted he said his reasons for killing Donnie and Aidan was because he was angry with me for counseling his girlfriend to leave him and he wanted me to know the same pain he felt.”
“And you have. The only way to move on now is to be better then him. To not continue to feel the pain. Maybe even to date someone else.”
“Nate, I’ve already told you what happens when I date someone…”
“I’m willing to take my chances.” The words came out before Nate had a chance to stop them. The smile Ashley tried to hide after he did said them made him glad he had.
“Thanks Nate, I appreciate all you’re trying to do for me. I have to work through this. I know that. I’ve spent so many years hiding and crying that I feel like I’ve lost myself.” Ashley wiped away the tears that still remained on her cheek and forced a smile. Nate understood from her demeanor that the conversation was over. “You’ve got work to do and so do I. Thing may not be right in my life but these families need my help and that’s something I can do.”
“I agree. I need to finish up a few things here and then head back to the office. I don’t want you out of my sight so please stay put.” Nate drilled into Ashley with his eyes but she did not respond or nod. “Am I clear?” Finally an almost imperceptible nod. The real question was whether or not she would actually listen.
Nate climbed out of the driver’s seat and headed back to the scene. As he gathered information from Eric and Annabeth he found that not much had changed. The medical examiner had Jessica’s remains on the way back to the morgue and the crime scene technicians were processing the scene. So far they had gathered very little. It appeared that the girl had not been killed here, instead her body had either washed up on the shore of the “lake” or it had been dumped next to it. Because of Ashley’s phone call Nate was going with dumped next to it.
The homeowner’s of the house directly in front of the lake had been contacted and checked out. They had been out of town for over a week. While it appeared Jessica had been dead for a few weeks the technicians had not yet found any indication that the body had been in its final resting place for more than a few days.
“See the soil impressions here?” One of the technicians asked pointing to the area that once held Jessica’s body.
Nate had nodded as though he understood.
“If the body had been here for a longer period of time we wouldn’t see as much leaf breakage,” the technician pointed to the branches around the indentation. “The trees would have had time to re-grow but as you can see they haven’t. These branches have been recently broken. I’d say this is where they left her body.”
Nate nodded again. He didn’t care about the science behind what the technicians found just that they did their job and that their reports made sense both to him and to a jury. Juries these days wanted hard evidence including DNA to tell them who did it and why. Science had never been Nate’s thing but he knew how important it was and why he needed it to put criminals behind bars. And so, he always politely nodded when the techs gave him information and never rushed them.
“Thanks for your work.” Nate left the technicians and other agents to do their job. Now he was left with the dreaded task of informing another father about the loss of his child. While his talk with Ashley had made him feel better nothing could take away the pain and dread he felt when notifying a family of a deceased loved one. Especially when that one was a child. Nate prayed for at least the thousandth time that this would be the last one. Because if it wasn’t he didn’t know what he would do or how much more he could handle.