by Willow Rose
I went through it all with him, my afternoon with the kids and then the strange call in the middle of the night that led me to look under my mattress. When we were done, Matt then drove me to the hotel where I joined my family for the night, and the next day, I drove the kids to school. My mom asked if it wasn’t better for them to stay home, but I felt like it was best for them to go. I wanted them to have as much normality as they could through this, and I sensed they felt relieved when I dropped them off. Tough as it was, I couldn’t let this bastard destroy everything for us. I wasn’t going to let him. He was in way too much control in all this so far, and I didn’t like it one bit. This was also my way of showing him that he wasn’t getting to me.
Afterward, I drove down to the station and rushed to my desk. Matt joined me about half an hour later when I was on my second coffee and had gone through the latest news from the lab.
When we realized we were alone, he leaned over and kissed me gently.
“That felt nice,” I said.
He smiled and stroked my cheek, looking deeply into my eyes. “Are you okay?”
I exhaled. “Not really. I think I might need another one.”
Matt chuckled and kissed me again; then Chief Annie approached us. Matt cleared his throat and went to his chair and sat down, blushing. Chief Annie chortled.
“It’s not like it’s a secret with you two.”
She threw a file on Matt’s desk, while Matt sent me a secretive smile.
“The forensics on the bomb are in. Apparently, it was a very simple pipe-bomb comprised of three devices, detonated with a timer, but only the main component exploded. The other two were found wired together in the back of the truck. The device was designed to be powerful enough that it could have caused serious injuries to a lot more people. The FBI’s joint terrorism task force wants their fingers on it. I told them it’s related to a murder case and that we already have one of their agents on it. So now, you better prove to be right. You catch this sick bastard before we have this entire town crawling with feds muddying the investigation.”
I nodded, and Matt grabbed the file. “Thanks, Annie,” I said. “I mean it. If they start screaming terrorism, then we will not be allowed anywhere near it. Then we’ll never catch him.”
“I put all my trust in you right now. Don’t make me regret this, Eva Rae,” she said and left.
I sure hope I won’t.
Matt flipped through the file, then leaned back in his chair. “What are we looking at here? Who is this guy? Three teenage girls have been kidnapped; a fourth was strapped to a swing set, raped and blinded. A pipe bomb exploded and hurt a colleague, and now one of the girls has been found beaten to death. I don’t get him. It makes no sense. I mean…think about it. He kidnaps three girls, he molests and rapes another, then he blows off a bomb before he beats another girl to death. There is absolutely no pattern. So, what is all this? Why is his MO changing constantly?”
I put down my coffee cup. I knew Matt was turning to me because of my background as an FBI profiler. I had years of experience with coming up with backgrounds, possible interests, and characterizations of suspects believed to be responsible in serial murders. I had written books on forensic psychology. But I had to admit, I was as dumbfounded as he was.
“I have to say I’m falling a little short here as well,” I said. “Just when I think I have him figured out, he turns around and does something completely different. Up until now, I would have said with almost certainty that he was a white male, probably in his thirties, maybe forties, a loner, with military training as his background. But it doesn’t fit with his profile of someone killing a young girl in affect, beating her to death. I just got off the phone with the medical examiner, Jamila, who told me they don’t think he used a weapon to beat Ava Morales up; he did it with only his hands. They worked on her all morning because they knew we needed quick answers. But the thing is, someone capable of such a thing is an entirely different type of monster than one who sets up a bomb and blows it wanting to hurt a police officer. Is he targeting the police? Yes and no. Because he did place Molly in my backyard, and he did severely injure Cooper. But none of these girls that he has taken has anything to do with the police. Is he a sexual predator? Yes, in part since Molly was raped, but Ava wasn’t. Is he a violent sadist who is turned on by torturing young, innocent girls? Yes, because he removed Molly’s eyes with a scalpel.”
“With a scalpel?” Matt asked, growing pale. He held hand up to his mouth, his eyes tormented.
I nodded. “Results from the ME’s office were in this morning. I forgot to tell you,” I said. “They’re pretty sure the tool used to gauge her eyes out was a scalpel. The cuts were very professional, they said. We are possibly looking for someone with surgical experience, maybe even a surgeon, which is totally deviant from his profile so far…”
“Geez, that’s awful.”
“I know. It made me almost lose my morning coffee. The only comforting aspect is that they also believe she was sedated while he did it. They found large amounts of ketamine in her blood. With any luck, she didn’t feel anything at all, maybe not even the rape,” I said and exhaled, thinking about poor Melissa and Molly. Anger welled up inside me once again as I thought about this bastard. There was no telling what I might do to him once I got my hands on him.
“But my point is, he doesn’t fit any profile.”
“What do you mean?” Matt asked. “How can he not fit a profile? It makes no sense?”
I looked up at him, and our eyes met.
“He doesn’t fit one profile,” I said. “He fits them all.”
Chapter 51
“It doesn’t look good for you, Jordan.”
Matt glared at the woman in front of us. She seemed to have become even smaller than the last time I saw her. Spending the night locked up could do that to you. She looked desperate and ready to chat.
Matt opened the file containing Ava Morales’ case and pulled out the pictures of the girl that we had found under my mattress. Seeing them again made my stomach churn once more.
“Take a good look,” he said. “We found her last night.”
Jordan peeked at the pictures, at first seeming indifferent, but then as she realized who she was looking at, her face went pale.
“Ava Morales,” I said. “The same girl we found pictures of in your house. The same girl you claimed you didn’t know. Care to explain?”
“I didn’t do that to her,” she said, her eyes growing wider and wider. “I didn’t. I swear.”
I leaned forward. “Then, maybe you could tell us who did.”
She shook her head. “How? How am I supposed to know?”
“Tell us how you got in contact with her,” Matt said. “Did you write to her like you wrote to the others?”
Jordan looked at him, her nostrils flaring. “I wrote to her, yes. But only her, not the others.”
“Okay. Let’s start with that. So, you wrote to Ava; why?”
Jordan was scratching her arms. It was obviously a nervous reaction and something she had been doing all night. Her right arm was red and scratched up. She was ready to crack. This girl was hiding something, and I was going to get it out of her no matter how long we had to sit there till she broke down.
“She was pretty. I thought she could make some money. I told her she should consider having her pictures taken, but I was honest up front and said it cost money. I’m not a scammer like that. I gave her my number and then one day she called. She came to my studio, and we took her pictures, and that was it. She paid me, and I never saw her again.”
“How much did she pay you for her pictures?” I asked.
“Two hundred bucks. I’m cheap. That’s why so many girls come to me. I give them a good product for the money. Normally, they’d have to pay up to a thousand bucks, easily.”
“And do they become models?” I asked. “After you’ve taken their pictures?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s not exactly my job
here. I just take the pictures and give them a product they can send out to the agencies.”
I flipped a few papers in Molly’s file and found something.
“To Molly Carson, you said that you had contacts at agencies that she should meet with in Orlando. That was why she was supposed to spend the night at a hotel there with you.”
“Can I see that?” Jordan asked.
I turned the paper so she could see the printout of the entire conversation from Amino. She shook her head.
“I never wrote that. I told you. The only one I contacted was Ava on Instagram. I only use Instagram. I never used that other site; what’s its name?”
“Amino,” I said. “It’s a social media platform where you meet people who share the same interests as you, like arts and crafts, sports, anime, or even vegan food.”
“Yeah, I don’t even know that one. I’m telling you I didn’t write any of that.”
I exhaled, getting tired of this when there was a knock on the door to the interrogation room. Peter from the Sheriff’s Forensic Computer Department peeked his head inside.
“Could I talk to one of you real quick?”
Chapter 52
THEN:
They waited for twenty-four hours, but the kidnapper never showed. The package with the fake ransom remained on the picnic table, but no one came to get it.
“It’s the darn media,” Peterson said back at the house. He lifted the curtain, and they could see their vans parked outside on the street.
They had kept quiet about the kidnapping so far, but somehow, the media had heard about the drop-off being made at the park, and now there was no stopping them.
“They scared him off.”
“So, what do we do now?” Gary asked.
“We wait,” Peterson said. “Hopefully, he’ll call again with a new drop-off site.”
“If he isn’t so scared that he got rid of the kid,” Gary mumbled.
“Don’t say that,” Iris said.
Gary peeked out behind the curtain and was blinded by the flashing lights.
“There he is. That’s the father,” someone yelled, and a photographer took pictures of him. One photographer ran into the yard but was stopped by Gary’s partner and thrown back behind the fence.
“Get away from that window,” Peterson said and pulled Gary by the shoulder. “You’re giving them exactly what they want.”
“I hate them,” he said. “I freakin’ hate those vultures!”
“I know; I know,” Peterson said. “But they have every right to be there, unfortunately. We need to focus on getting Oliver back, okay? Now, I want you to get something to eat. You’ve barely had anything for days, and to be honest, you’re looking like you could pass out. We can’t have that. We need you to be at your best. Agent Wilson ordered pizza, and there’s still a lot left in the kitchen. Go grab a piece, and then we’ll talk, okay?”
Gary wasn’t hungry at all, but he was feeling weak and feeble. He didn’t like the sensation of being out of control. He walked to the kitchen and grabbed a piece of the pizza, then sunk his teeth into it. As he chewed through it, he realized Peterson was right. He did feel a lot better as soon as he got some food in his stomach. They had set up an office at his house, and a bunch of agents were working the case, chatting on phones, tapping on their computers. A couple of handwriting experts had come down from the FBI laboratory to examine the ransom note left in the carriage. They had given the special agents a course in handwriting analysis, and now they were going over specimens maintained by the DMV, the federal and state probation officers, prisons, and other municipalities, trying to figure out if this guy with this particular handwriting was in the system somewhere. It seemed like an impossible task.
Barely had Gary finished his piece and taken up a second one when his phone rang in the living room.
“Everyone, quiet now,” Peterson said as Gary walked back inside and stared at the vibrating phone on the table.
“What do I do?”
“Pick it up,” Peterson said.
He did, his hand shaking. “H-Hello?”
“The corner where Washington Boulevard meets Sycamore Street at one o’clock sharp. There’s a trash can. Put the package in there. No police or your son dies. No journalists or your son dies.”
“So…you still have him? Is he all right?” Gary asked.
“Just be there, and I’ll tell you where to find your son.”
Chapter 53
The darkness was worse than anything. Carina fought not to panic. Tara hadn’t been awake at all while she had been sitting there, and every now and then, Carina would reach over a hand to touch her skin to make sure she still felt warm. Sometimes, she’d even reach for her neck and feel for a pulse, just to be sure. Now and then, Carina would crawl to Tara and curl up close to her just to feel a human being close to her, just to feel something. All this nothingness surrounding her made her anxious, especially since she had no idea how long it was going to last. The masked man hadn’t been down there since he turned the light off, and Carina had no idea how much time had passed, nor did she know if she would live to see daylight again. There was no more water in the bucket and no more food. Carina felt her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth, and her lips were cracked. With no light and no one to talk to, there was nothing for Carina to do but to wait, wait for him to return or wait for death to come.
Carina drifted away, thinking once again about the night she had been crowned prom queen at the school. It had been her dream ever since she started middle school to one day be up there on the stage, with everyone in the school looking at her, admiring her.
Carina’s mother had been prom queen at Cocoa Beach High back in the nineties, and she spoke about it often while Carina was growing up. Carina remembered playing with her mother’s crown and sash in her bedroom as a child, when her mother didn’t see it, dressing up in her high heels and putting them on, pretending to be crowned, holding pretend speeches and twirling in front of the mirror.
It hadn’t exactly been in the cards for Carina to become prom queen. Growing up, she had been chubby…some would even call her fat. Her mom didn’t know, but Carina saw the looks her mom would give her when getting her ready for her bath or when trying on new clothes and they almost never fit. Carina’s mother was skinny and beautiful, whereas Carina was none of those things while growing up. Her mother kept telling her she would outgrow it, but as she hit middle school, she was still fat, and the more the other kids stared at her or teased her, the more she ate.
It wasn’t until eighth grade when Tommy Cheatham asked her to the middle school dance that things changed. She was wearing a beautiful green dress that her mother had bought for her, sized XXL. When Tommy asked her to dance, she reluctantly accepted, but as he swung her around to the tunes from Panic! at the Disco, her dress ripped in the back, and she was suddenly standing in the middle of the dance floor, half naked. To this day, she still shivered when remembering that terrifying moment. She could recall everything. Every face, all the eyes staring at her, the pointing fingers, and sometimes she could even still hear them laughing.
It was at that moment that she decided enough was enough.
Carina started running the very next day, even if she only managed to walk in the beginning. She stopped eating completely for a few weeks, and after that, only ate vegetables and a little fruit and only meat once a week. It was a strict diet, and tough as heck, but it did the trick. A year after, she was suddenly a size medium, and the year after that, she could fit a size small. The eyes staring at her now weren’t teasing or judging her; they were now admiring her. And she had kept it that way ever since. She had even kept the dress in her closet, and every now and then, she would take it out to remind her of how fat she had been back then, and that would keep her off the sweets.
Ironically, Carina could now feel the bones poking out on her shoulders and chest. She was skinnier than ever before, and it was threatening to kill her.
Carina c
losed her eyes and felt the hunger as it ate at her insides when she heard the familiar sound of the key being put in the metal door and the deadbolts being slid aside. Carina held her breath, listening, while anxiety rushed up inside of her. A moment later, the door was opened, and light flooded the room. It blinded her momentarily. Once her vision returned, she saw first his boots, then his doctor’s scrubs as he was slowly making his way toward her.
“Please,” she said, as the stabbing light hurt her eyes. She searched his hands for food or fresh water, but his hands were empty, except for a key in one of them.
“You’re coming with me,” he said. “It’s your lucky day.”
The masked man leaned over and freed her shackles from the wall. The man pulled the chain on Carina’s neck, and she struggled to her feet. Rising from the mattress was difficult; standing was even worse, and she had to lean on the wall next to her. He pulled the chain again, and Carina was forcefully pulled forward toward the door. She staggered out the door, then glanced back at the sleeping Tara, wondering if she would ever see her again, and then questioning which one of them was the lucky one.
Chapter 54
I returned to the interrogation room. Jordan looked up as I walked to the table and threw a new file on the table. I had been talking to Peter from Computer Forensics for about fifteen minutes and, as I came back inside, both Matt and Jordan looked exhausted. My guess was they hadn’t gotten anywhere while I was gone.
I had a pretty good hunch why.
“They’re done combing through your house,” I said and sat down. “They didn’t find any evidence that suggested that any of the other girls have been there.”
“I told you,” Jordan said.
“But they did find something else,” I said. “On your computer.”
I opened the file that Peter had given me while Jordan went pale. I pulled out some photographs that Peter had printed out for me and placed them in front of Jordan.
