by Willow Rose
It was time for the next act.
Boomer brought another beer with him back to the computer, so he didn’t have to get up again anytime soon. He was in for a long night of watching his favorite show.
He sipped his beer and leaned back in the couch as he watched Eva Rae Thomas walk into her bedroom and start to get undressed. Boomer smiled to himself and put a hand on his crotch as she took off her bra and he got a really good look at her naked. His obsession with her had grown unhealthy; he knew it a little too well. He also knew he had to tread carefully, but it was hard for him not to give in to it. He wanted to possess her; he wanted her to know he was in charge of her, of her life. And he wanted to hurt her. Not in a traditional way or even a physical way. No, he wanted her heart to bleed so terribly she wouldn’t want to live anymore. Even if it meant taking it out on someone she loved.
Only then would he be fully satisfied. Only then would he have achieved his goal.
Chapter 46
I was tossing and turning in my bed. There was a full moon outside, and it shone brightly behind my thin curtains, lighting up my room, making it even harder for me to get some much-needed shut-eye. I couldn’t stop thinking about my sister and the strange meeting with her earlier in the afternoon. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something I could have said or done to make her change her mind, to make her want to see me again. But it didn’t matter how many clever things I came up with to say; it was too late. She had left, and she had told me she never wanted to see me again.
I just didn’t quite understand why.
Was it because I had lied to her? Had I destroyed everything and ruined all my chances of getting my sister back? Was it because I had pretended to be doing that event and I hadn’t been honest and told her who I was? Or was it something deeper?
Was I ever going to find out?
I turned to the other side, to face the door instead of the window, then closed my eyes again to try and fall asleep. The bed felt suddenly strangely uncomfortable, and I twisted back and forth a few times to try and get into a better position. I closed my eyes again and tried to empty my mind of worries. Yet, as soon as I had pushed my sister out of my head, in popped my children. Their sweet faces were staring up at me, their eyes big and sad, asking about their father.
I was getting sick of this and of him ruining everything. Why couldn’t he just take the kids every other weekend or at least once or twice a month? It wasn’t that much, was it? They missed him so much. How did he suddenly become so heartless? Why couldn’t I talk to him at all?
I turned back to the other side, pushing the kids and Chad out of my mind, trying to think about something that made me happy, something joyful. Matt came to my mind immediately, and I opened my eyes, then placed a hand on the empty side of my bed, suddenly missing him terribly. He was at his own place and had spent the evening with Elijah. I wondered how they were holding up and if they were finally able to bond. It was tough trying to get to know your son after eight years and then finding out he blames you for the death of his mother. No, Matt didn’t have it easy either.
As I stared at the moonlight coming in through my window, I thought about the case and those three girls who we still had no idea of their location. And then I thought about poor Molly and Cooper at the hospital. Cooper had suffered third-degree burns on two-thirds of his body and had to have skin transplants, Matt had told me earlier. He also said that he probably would lose his right leg. I felt awful for him.
I took a deep breath, then wrinkled my nose. All day, there had been this smell in the house, and I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. My mom had noticed it too, and the kids. I suspected it was the opossum in the attic that had bothered us for months. I had tried everything to chase it away, even had a professional guy out here to set up a trap, but somehow it was too cunning and avoided getting caught. Since then, I had given up, but it had gone silent a few weeks ago, and I figured that maybe it had died. I’d have to find out how to get up and into the attic to see if that was what it was.
Again, I turned around, then looked at my phone to see what time it was.
Three a.m. I only had a few hours before I needed to get up and get the kids to school.
Come sleep, come on.
Finally, I dozed off, and then my phone rang.
Chapter 47
The number on my display was unknown, so I picked it up, thinking it could be important.
“Hello?”
Silence. I was about to hang up when I heard someone breathing on the other end.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
“Agent Eva Rae Thomas?”
The voice was deep. It didn’t sound like anyone I knew. It sounded distorted like it was using one of those voice changing apps.
“Who is this? Identify yourself, please.”
“I’m the one you’ve been looking for.”
I shot up in the bed, eyes wide open. “What do you mean, you’re the one I’ve been looking for?”
Silence followed before he answered.
It is a male voice, isn’t it? It’s hard to tell.
“You know what I mean.”
I swallowed, my pulse quickening. If this was the guy who had kidnapped the girls, I had to play my cards right. I couldn’t mess this up.
“Where are they?” I asked. “All I want is to bring them home to their families. They’re scared, and I think you are too.”
“I am not scared.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“You’ll see. You’ll understand. Soon.”
“What will it take to get the girls home safely. Money?” I asked.
“There isn’t enough money in the world.”
“Okay. But what do you need? There must be something you want. Otherwise, the girls would already be dead.”
“Who says they aren’t dead?” the voice said.
My heart sank. “Are they? Are they…dead?”
“As I said, you’ll find out. Soon. Now, sleep tight; tomorrow, we’ll know if you’re a real princess.”
The line went dead. I stared at my phone, my heart pounding in my chest. Had this just happened? Had he really called, or had I dreamt it?
No, he was real enough, and I was very much awake.
We need to trace this call.
I grabbed my phone again and turned the lights on to call Matt, the smell of the dead opossum filling my nostrils. I tried to shake it, then found his name in my address book when it hit me.
Tomorrow, we’ll know if you’re a real princess!
I stopped in my tracks, a strong unease spreading throughout my body. There was something off about that sentence.
Tomorrow, we’ll know if you’re a real princess.
Those had been his words. As a mother, I knew it was a line from the fairy tale, The Princess and the Pea. They were said by the old queen mother who put the pea underneath the princess’s many mattresses because only a real princess would be able to feel it through all those mattresses and say she had slept terribly.
Why had the caller said that?
I smelled the air, uncomfortably, then got out of the bed and took a few steps away from it. My heart hammered in my chest as I found the courage to finally take a look. I grabbed the side of the mattress, then lifted it.
I took one glance at what was beneath it, then turned around and threw up on my brand-new carpet.
Chapter 48
THEN:
“Are you okay, Gary? You feeling okay?”
Peterson was speaking to Gary in his earpiece. They were staying far away, behind the row of trees, ready to jump out as soon as the kidnapper showed himself.
The drop-off area was a small park with picnic tables in the center of town. The kidnapper had called two days ago and told them exactly where to place the money. If any police showed up, Oliver was dead, he said. If they tried to trace his call, Oliver was dead. All they needed to do was to have Gary bring the money to the park, wrapped in a newspape
r, and leave it there on the third picnic table. If the money was there, the child would be returned to them unharmed.
It was as easy as that.
“We’ll get him, Gary; don’t you worry,” Peterson said like he had said so many times over the past seven days that Oliver had been missing. Every time he said it, Gary felt less and less convinced of the truth behind those words. He had hardly slept in almost seven nights, and he felt so exhausted. Iris was close to losing it, completely torn to pieces while they waited for the kidnapper to contact them. It tormented him to see her like this, but at the same time, a gap had grown between them. He felt like he should comfort her, but he didn’t really want to. He hardly wanted to touch her anymore and could barely look at her.
“Okay, G, this is the spot. You place the money on the table, and then you leave. We’ll take care of the rest.”
Gary stopped at the third table, then looked down at the newspaper between his hands. He knew he was surrounded by FBI agents and that there would be no way for the kidnapper to escape from the park once he got there, but he wasn’t so sure it was a clever move. Didn’t he need to get back to Oliver in order to bring him back to them? If they took him down, would they ever find the child? Peterson believed so. There was no criminal that he hadn’t been able to crack so far, he always said.
He knows what he’s doing. You know he does.
Gary’s partner, Agent Wilson, and several of his other colleagues were guarding his home and his wife. They had it all covered.
So why did it feel like they didn’t? Why did it feel like everything was about to go wrong?
Gary shook the thought and focused on the task ahead. He took a glance around him, then sat down at the picnic table. Carefully, he placed the newspaper on the table, his fingers shaking when letting go of it.
“Okay, and now you go,” Peterson said in his ear. “Just get up and walk away, leaving the package behind like you don’t need it anymore.”
Gary stood to his feet, abandoning the newspaper on the table like he was told. He looked around him and spotted a woman jogging by with her dog, panting rhythmically as she went. A man was sitting on a bench further down, reading a book. A younger man was drinking from his water bottle, sitting at another of the tables, looking at his cell phone. He glanced briefly at Gary, and their eyes met.
Is that him? Is that our guy?
The young man smiled, then looked back at his phone before he finished his water bottle, then rose to his feet and left, carrying his backpack over one shoulder.
Gary turned around to look in another direction. Two dogs were playing on the lawn. A mom walked with her kid by the hand, pushing a stroller with a sleeping baby. For a second, Gary thought he saw Oliver inside the stroller, but as the mom passed him, pulling her second kid along, he could see it wasn’t his child.
“Gary. You need to leave now. Just walk away nice and slow like nothing happened. We’ll keep an eye on the package. Come on, G. You gotta do your part.”
“I’m walking away now,” Gary said, his eyes letting go of the stroller. He turned around and let his eyes fall to the ground, focusing on his steps instead, trying to not look for suspects in the park. He took three steps toward the entrance when someone approached him, running up to him. Gary didn’t see her till it was too late and she was standing right in front of him, high heels, short red skirt, and a jacket, holding out a microphone, a cameraman right behind her.
“Mr. Pierce. Have you placed the ransom? When do you expect to see your son again?”
Gary stared at the beautiful woman in front of him, then noticed more movement from behind her, more high heels, skirts, and more microphones. Before he could even protest, a crowd had gathered around him, questions being slung through the air from all sides.
Chapter 49
Olivia was the first to react. She stormed into my bedroom.
“What’s wrong? Why are you screaming, Mom?”
“There’s…don’t come in here, baby.”
She glanced at the vomit on the carpet, then at the bed. I could hear her whimper slightly.
“Call Matt, will you? Please? Use my phone. Tell him to come quickly. And keep the young ones out of here. I don’t want them to see this.”
Olivia stared at me, her eyes tormented. Then she nodded. “Okay.”
I rushed to the bathroom and threw up again, then washed my face, taking in deep breaths to calm myself. A few seconds later, I heard Matt’s steps on the stairs. I felt so relieved that he lived close to me. He had been my go-to guy ever since we were very young children and his house was the place I ran to when things got tough at home. His mom always had room for me and, even though we had been apart for twenty years, I had found that nothing had changed between us as soon as I moved back home. He was there for me, and always would be. I don’t know why it had taken me so many years to realize he was the one for me, that he had been all along.
“What happened? What’s going on?” Matt said as he stormed into my bedroom. “Olivia called?”
I turned to look at the bed. I had pulled the top mattress off, and Matt spotted the body inside the cut-open box spring below. He clasped his mouth, and his startled eyes landed on me. I swallowed.
“Oh, no,” he said. “Is it…?”
“I believe it’s Ava Morales,” I said. “But she’s so badly beaten up, it’s hard to tell.”
“And she’s…?”
“Dead? I’m afraid so. Rigor Mortis has set in, and you can see the blood has gathered on the bottom part of her body. She’s been dead a while. There’s something else.”
“Yes?”
“He called. He called me and told me, not in so many words, but he told me something that led me to her. If he hadn’t, I might have slept on top of her all night.”
The thought made me gag again. Maybe it was the smell, but I was feeling sick in every bone of my body. I could hear Olivia talking with Alex in the hallway outside the door. He wanted to see Mommy, now, but she wouldn’t let him.
“Not now, Alex,” I heard her yell, and then Alex burst into tears. Matt met my eyes.
“Go. Go take care of them. I’ll call this in, and then we’ll have someone trace that call. You should have called right away.”
I exhaled. “I was about to when I found…her.” I glanced once again at the young girl lying inside my mattress and felt tears pile up in my eyes. Her face was bruised terribly, as was her naked body.
“MOMMY!”
I swallowed the knot in my throat, grabbed the door handle, and walked out into the hallway while hearing Matt call it in as I closed the door behind me so my children wouldn’t see anything. I wanted to protect them as much as I could against this. They had seen enough.
In the hallway, I grabbed my son in my arms and lifted him up. He was crying uncontrollably as I held him tight.
“I’m scared, Mommy; I’m so scared,” he said, sniffling and rubbing his eyes. “I heard you scream.”
“I’m scared too, buddy,” I said and looked at Christine who was hiding in her doorway. I grabbed her hand in mine and pulled her into a hug as well, cursing this bastard far away. Who the heck did he think he was? Scaring my family like this? It almost brought me to tears to think about, tears of frustration and anger. I was going to get him for this. No one messed with my family.
No one.
I took all my kids downstairs where my mom was waiting, wearing a robe over her nightgown, a deeply concerned look in her eyes.
“What’s going on, Eva Rae?” she asked. “I heard screaming? Is Matt here? I saw his cruiser in the driveway.”
My eyes filled as they locked with hers, and she could see it. She could tell it was bad. Alex squirmed and wanted to get down, so I put him on the tiles, and he ran into the living room where he found his favorite teddy bear that Sydney had placed in the recliner. Christine sat down on the couch and looked at her phone.
“There was another one,” I said to my mom, trying to whisper so the kids wouldn�
�t hear. I didn’t know how much Alex and Christine knew about what I had found, what Olivia had told them. “Here in the house. I found her body inside my box spring under my mattress.”
“Oh, dear Lord,” my mom said and clasped her chest. “How? Why? I don’t understand? Someone has been in here? Inside the house? Why is this person doing this, Eva Rae?”
“I understand as little as you do,” I said, tearing up. It was the honest truth. Why was I being targeted like this?
Why me?
“The sheriff’s crime scene unit will be here any minute. I don’t know what to do with the kids. They’re scared. They need rest.”
My mom nodded, a serious look in her eyes. “They shouldn’t be here. I have an idea. I’ll take them all to a hotel downtown. Just let me grab my purse and get dressed.”
Olivia packed a bag for each of them with clothes and stuff they couldn’t live without, like Alex’s teddy bear and at least one of his firetrucks and Christine’s favorite pillow. Soon after, they left in my mom’s car, and I watched them as they disappeared down the street. It was a relief to get them all out of the house.
I didn’t feel like any of us were safe there anymore.
Chapter 50
A tense night followed. The sheriff’s crime scene unit arrived and parked their mobile lab in our driveway. They sent dogs out into the area and dusted for fingerprints all over my house. Matt sat with me in the living room while they combed through my house and yard, putting all the evidence in small bags as he took my statement for the report.
