The Girl and the Unlucky 13 (Emma Griffin™ FBI Mystery) A.J. Rivers (historical books to read TXT) 📖

look very much at home on an eighteen-year-old. “Put your hair up in a messy bun.”

“What do you think?” Xavier asks, coming back into the room.

He’s wearing dark blue scrubs and has a lanyard around his neck with a freshly made identification card tucked into the clear plastic.

“Perfect,” I grin.

“Do you think I need to wrinkle my scrubs? Make it look like I’ve been working a long shift and possibly slept the night in one of the cots in the doctor’s lounge?” he asks.

“If that will make you feel better, go for it,” I offer.

“I think it will seem more authentic.”

I nod. “Go ahead.” He starts for the door. “Where are you going?”

“The doctor’s lounge. I need genuine cot wrinkles.”

“I’ll go with him,” Dean says. “I might as well wrinkle it up, too.”

“Alright,” I say, looking back at Ava, already tucked under a sheet on a gurney. “You’re just going to lie there with your face covered. They’ll get you out of the hospital and into the ambulance as fast as they can. Then take your hair down, take off the sweatshirt, and get up so that if one of them follows, when you get out, you won’t look like the same person.”

She nods. “I can handle that.”

“Good.”

The guys come back to the downstairs room after sufficiently wrinkling themselves up. This is where we’ve been staging the diversion I hope will get Ashley out of the hospital and safely to her parents’ house without the media’s descending on her. Ashley and her parents are waiting in another room on the other side of the hospital. I make sure Xavier, Dean, and Ava are ready for their portion of the plan, then head down the back hallways, away from the glass windows at the front of the lobby, to Ashley and Misty.

When I get there and reassure them that the plan is underway, John will make his way outside and to the van rented for this specific purpose. As he hasn’t been at the hospital before now and he’s in sunglasses and a hat, he’s harder to spot. The look is a cliche, but it’s enough for what we need. The reporters are waiting to see Ashley and they’re looking out for the people they’ve seen before.

John is well-enough concealed in the disguise, it won’t be as easy for them to spot him, especially in this area of the hospital. They’re focused on the front entrance and the emergency room. Which is exactly where they’ll think they see her. Because at the same time nurses-for-the-day Xavier and Dean are wheeling their fake Ashley out to a waiting ambulance, John and Misty will slip out the back door with the real one.

It’s a lot of theater, but hopefully, it will result in Ashley’s being able to get out of the hospital and home without any more interference.

“Are you ready, Ashley?” I ask.

She takes a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

I give her and Misty both a solid nod, then turn to the orderly assigned to escort them out. “Keep your walkies close.”

I make my way back to Xavier and Dean, who are putting the finishing touches on their wrinkles and settling Ava into position.

“Testing,” I speak into the walkie. “Misty, do you read me?”

“Loud and clear,” comes her response.

“Remember, there’s no need to rush,” I tell her. “You’re just taking a casual stroll. No need to draw any attention.”

Xavier looks back at me with a grin. “Emma, this is exactly why we start low with our H.P.A.”

“I’m not sure I’d qualify this as an attraction,” I reply, then turn my focus back to the emergency room doors a few feet ahead of us.

I lift my walkie and key the speech button.

“Everyone in position?”

“In position,” Misty answers.

Dean takes hold of the gurney and begins wheeling Ava forward.

“Alright, we are go, in five, four, three, two…”

The automatic sliding doors open.

“One! Go, go, go!”

The instant we exit the door, we’re caught in a swirling maelstrom of shouted questions and blinding lights.

It worked. Believe it or not, it worked. Twenty minutes later, we’re all back in the driveway to the Stevenson house. The ambulance is on its way back to the hospital with an empty stretcher and discarded scrubs and sweatshirt in the back.

I watch as Ashley takes her first steps inside. She glances around, a look of wonder in her eyes.

“We’ve changed a few things,” Misty tells her, noticing the expression on her daughter’s face. “I’m sorry.”

Ashley shakes her head. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s beautiful.”

“We couldn’t have been expected to keep everything exactly the same way,” Leona says from where she’s standing on the opposite side of the living room.

She hasn’t approached her sister. I’m watching the way she looks at her, gauging her reaction to having her home. What she said to me when I was going through Ashley’s computer is still with me. She couldn’t leave her mother. She has a huge sense of responsibility when it comes to her mother. It’s obvious she’s spent the last five years watching out for her and trying to help her through the torment and never-ending questions of having a missing child.

Now Ashley is back.

That sudden reality leaves something massive in its wake. I can feel it in the room around us. It’s as if the air has been burned.

“Do you need anything, sweetheart?” Misty asks, ignoring Leona’s comment. “Are you thirsty? Hungry?”

Ashley shakes her head.

“Why don’t we sit down for a few minutes and talk?” I suggest.

The group distributes across the collection of carefully coordinated furniture in the living room, and I sort through the questions in my mind, trying to figure out which ones to ask her and how.

“Does anyone need anything?” Misty asks as we all settle into place. “Water? Coffee?”

“Coffee actually sounds wonderful, if you don’t mind,” I say.

“How do you take it?” Misty asks.

“Black,” I tell her.

“Alright.” She looks to everyone else, they all their heads, and she goes into the kitchen.

“Ashley, now that it’s been a