by Willow Rose
“I think it is reasonable to say that these pictures are fairly different than the other ones we found at your place,” I said. “What kind of agencies do you expect your clients to send these pictures to?”
Jordan stared at the naked girls but didn’t say a word.
“So, here’s how I think it played out. Feel free to correct me afterward if I’m wrong,” I said. “You contacted these girls on Instagram, and don’t tell me you didn’t ‘cause we found a lot of history of you doing this on your profile once we dug into it. We found hundreds of girls that you have been contacting, telling them they were gorgeous and that they should consider becoming models. A lot of them bit into it and contacted you, and then you set up a photo shoot at your house, giving them a fair price for a set of photographs, making it a lot cheaper than any other photographers around. Nothing wrong with that. The girls came to you and paid you to do a service. That’s not illegal. But these pictures are.” I placed a finger on one of the naked girls who shyly looked back at us. “These girls are underage, Jordan. And they trusted you. They came to you with their dreams and money, and they thought you were okay because you were a woman. And you exploited that fact to make them go further than they were comfortable. You told them to take off one piece of clothing then another till they were finally completely naked. And then you took a series of photographs of them completely naked while they thought it was okay because a woman wouldn’t touch them and you said it was just for them to feel more comfortable in front of a camera, that it would help them loosen up, that no one would ever see these photos. But then you—and this is the part where it gets a little ugly—then you sold them to pornographic sites online. You sold these pictures to nasty pedophiles out there who would pay a lot of money to see young underage girls naked. Now, please tell me if I’m wrong because I have to say, I really want to be.”
Jordan stared at the pictures, her hand shaking. Not a word left her mouth till she finally looked up and said, “I’d like to speak to my lawyer now.”
I nodded and closed the files. “You’re gonna need one. This is not looking good for you.”
Matt held the door for me, and we walked back into the hallway where Chief Annie was waiting. I had asked her to listen in on the conversation from the observation room overlooking the interrogation room. She smiled and nodded.
“Good job, Detectives,” she said. “I’ll have Jamieson take her from here. You need to focus on your own case.”
“So, just to get this straight,” Matt said, “she had nothing to do with what happened to Ava Morales or any of the other girls?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“But she sent those messages to Molly?”
“It wasn’t her. Peter from Computer Forensics told me her account was hacked a few weeks ago. The messages weren’t sent from her IP address and, when he tried to track them, the trail ended somewhere in Africa.”
“So, we’re looking for a skilled hacker and not a surgeon?”
“Possibly,” I said. “Maybe he’s both. One thing is certain; he’s someone who knows a lot about how law enforcement works.”
“The drawing is done,” Chief Annie said and approached me holding out a hand-drawn picture. “This is what the man who delivered the package looked like, according to Jane Martin. This is your guy.”
I stared at the picture of the man with the goatee in front of me, looking into his eyes. I couldn’t escape the feeling that there was something familiar about him; I just didn’t know what.
Chapter 55
When he arrived at the hospital, Boomer looked at his face in the rearview mirror of the car. He touched the fake goatee and made sure it was on straight and wouldn’t fall off. He had sedated the girl and put her in the back seat, where she looked like she was sleeping underneath the blanket. His truck was big and the windows dark, so no one would be able to accidentally peek inside while he was gone and wonder about her. He had given her a dose of Ketamine. She was so skinny now that she didn’t need much to knock her out cold.
Boomer smiled at his own reflection, then grabbed his ID badge and got out of the car. He approached the back entrance and let himself in, then walked to the elevator and pushed the button. A couple of nurses greeted him as they passed him with a nod before continuing down the hallway. Boomer smiled and greeted them back and, when the elevator arrived, he got inside.
A doctor was in the elevator already, and he nodded in greeting.
“In for the night shift today?” he asked.
Boomer nodded. “Yeah, it’s gonna be a long one all right. And you?”
“Just coming off my shift in fifteen minutes. Then home to spend the night with the wifey. The kids are with their grandmother, so we’ll finally get some time alone. It’s been awhile.”
“That’s what this job will do to you,” Boomer said.
“I guess we knew what we got ourselves into when we signed up.”
“I guess so.”
The elevator dinged, and Boomer smiled. “This is my stop.”
“See you around,” the doctor said as the doors closed.
A nurse smiled at Boomer as he passed her, and he turned right and entered a room with the sign Acute Renal Dialysis. Seven patients with acute kidney failure were sitting in there, dialysis lines inserted into their veins. Some were reading, others napping.
“Hello there,” he said, smiling from ear to ear. “And how are we feeling today?”
Chapter 56
Carina’s head was pounding. She blinked her eyes to be able to see better, but the light was blinding.
Where am I?
She was shaking, her hands unable to remain still, her legs shivering, yet she wasn’t cold.
What happened?
She felt confused, disoriented. She tried hard to remember but couldn’t. The last thing she did recall was the door opening to the room and the masked man’s eyes as he looked at her over the surgical mask.
Light hit her face, and she realized it wasn’t from a lamp. It was real sunlight coming from outside. Carina blinked a few times, trying to get her eyes to cooperate, then sat up and stared out the window.
What the…am I…in a parking lot?
Expecting to see the masked man somewhere, she turned around with a gasp as she heard footsteps outside the car, but it wasn’t him. It was an elderly couple getting into the car next to the one she was in.
Carina breathed. She looked around and spotted a canned soda by the front seat. It was open and someone – probably the masked man – had already been drinking from it, but it didn’t matter. Right now was all about survival. Carina reached between the seats and grabbed the can, then downed the entire Fanta. Never had anything tasted better.
She finished the can and waited for even the last few drops to get the most out of it, then tossed it onto the passenger seat. She looked at herself under the blanket, then realized she was naked. Covering herself up with the blanket, she grabbed the door handle and opened it, then slid out into the parking lot on her bare feet, the black asphalt burning the bottom of her soles. Holding her breath, constantly checking around her, Carina tiptoed across the parking lot, fear rushing through her veins when a voice spoke from behind her.
The sound of it made her shiver in terror.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Chapter 57
“Any news?”
I looked up from my computer screen. I could barely see Matt behind all the files and paperwork. I was tired and had run out of coffee. We had been going back to the beginning, looking through all the files on the three missing girls, then going through Molly’s case files to see if there was anything that stood out, any detail we had missed that might be important. Earlier, we had also been to the hospital and talked to the Medical Director there, asking him questions about the procedure of removing eyes and how skilled a doctor should be to perform such a task. He had basically told us any type of surgeon could perform an enucleation, as it was called, to re
move a damaged or diseased eyeball. It was a very common procedure that wasn’t very difficult to perform. So that didn’t get us any closer to finding our guy. There were hundreds of surgeons in Brevard County, and we didn’t have time to visit them all. I had generated a list of the three surgeons living in Cocoa Beach and sent a couple of detectives to check them out. I instructed them to ask them about their whereabouts on the night when the girls disappeared and the night when Molly was taken, and also when Ava reappeared. I had also given them a copy of Jane Martin’s drawing to take with them.
Now, I stared at the drawing of our guy on the whiteboard behind Matt, wondering who the heck he was and what his deal was.
“I can’t help thinking,” I said while Matt fetched me another cup of coffee. I stared at the girls and then at Molly and thought about the way she was found and Ava the way she was found.
Matt sipped his coffee. “Yes? Eva Rae?”
“What?”
“You drifted off just then,” he continued. “Where did you go?”
I blinked and sipped my coffee. “I’m sorry. There’s just something I can’t let go. Remember how I told you that I once worked a case on a guy who removed the eyes of his victims? And how I couldn’t believe he was back because he was dead?”
“Yeah, the guy who poked out the eyes of his victims before he raped them, so they wouldn’t be able to recognize him in a line-up? I remember that. What about it?”
I stood to my feet and stared at Ava Morales. “There’s something else.”
I paused while a million thoughts rushed through my mind at once.
“Yes, Eva Rae? Eva Rae?”
My eyes were flickering across the board now, as my mind wouldn’t keep still. Pictures of my old case and the victims with their missing eyes ran like an inner movie in my mind.
We’ll see tomorrow if you’re a real princess.
When the dime finally dropped, I turned to look at Matt, fear struck in my eyes.
“What’s going on, Eva Rae? Are you okay? You look like you’re about to get sick.”
I grabbed my phone, badge, and jacket, then looked at Matt.
“We need to go. Right now.”
“Where are we going?” Matt asked. “Could I get a hint, at least?”
But I was already out the door, running toward the cruisers parked in the back.
Chapter 58
He had felt tired for quite some time but kept thinking it was just his busy schedule and social life. At the age of twenty-nine, Brad Williams was at the prime of his life, and his business selling solar panels was booming. But then came the headaches, migraines so deep and invading they completely destroyed his life, making it impossible for him to be out of bed for more than a few hours at a time. But even then, Brad believed it was just a phase and that it would pass soon.
“Allergies,” his mom told him over lunch at Grills Riverside one day. “It’s been a terrible season for allergies. It used to knock you out constantly when you were younger too.”
So, Brad took a Claritin and went about his life, thinking it would all get better once this allergy season was over. As he realized the allergy pill didn’t work, Brad went to his GP to ask for steroid injections like his neighbor had gotten, and puff, gone were his allergies. Just like that. It was no biggie, just one shot, and it would all be over.
At the GP office, after Brad was weighed, they took his blood pressure. Brad was joking and flirting with the nurse, ignoring the pounding headache and the itching skin that he had gotten used to. After all, they were nothing but allergy symptoms, and he wasn’t going to let those stop him from enjoying his life.
As the nurse took his blood pressure, she went pale, and the flirting stopped abruptly.
“I need to get the doctor in here,” she said and, seconds later, Brad’s GP entered, a serious look on her face. She took his blood pressure once more, then looked at him.
“This is not good, Brad. We need you to get you to the hospital right away. I am going to call an ambulance.”
And so, she left, leaving Brad back in the room, scared senseless.
Now, as he sat in his wheelchair and a nurse hooked him up for his acute dialysis, he still remembered how it felt, the panic settling in when you see your own doctor get worried and then being rushed away on a stretcher, not knowing what is happening.
At the hospital, they took tests, and his potassium levels were so high he was about to have a heart attack, they said. He came in at the right time. A few hours more like that and it would have been too late.
His kidneys had failed completely, Acute Renal Kidney Failure, they called it, and he needed acute dialysis. He would have to prepare himself for living a life on dialysis.
Brad wasn’t prepared for that at all. As he sat in his wheelchair, he wondered about how his life had been so normal and so on track just a few days ago, and now he was here, everything changed forever.
“Are you comfortable?” the nurse asked.
Brad stared at her. Comfortable? Comfortable? How could he be comfortable when his life was never going to be the same again?
Some annoyingly cheerful doctor entered and asked them how they were all doing today. Two other patients smiled and said they were just glad to be alive. Brad stared at them, feeling all kinds of anger and resentment. How could they sit there and be so happy to be alive? What kind of life was this anyway? Spending hours attached to a dialysis line three times a week?
It was only the second time Brad was in dialysis, and he had been told it would take some getting used to. So far, Brad had found it to be painful, and he dreaded the treatment. As the liquid ran into his veins and through his body, Brad leaned his head backward and dreamt of the ocean, of running on the beach as a child, feeling the freedom. He took a deep breath and was almost certain he could smell it. It brought him such calm.
About half an hour into the treatment, Brad suddenly opened his eyes with a gasp. A wave of agonizing pain shot forcefully through his chest and, seconds later, he went into cardiac arrest.
Chapter 59
Carina’s heart was pounding so loud she could barely hear the sound of the feet running behind her. She was crossing the parking lot, the man right behind her. A couple drove past her and stared at her through their window.
“Help!” she screamed, but they didn’t do anything.
Why don’t they help me? Why don’t they react? Why are they only staring at me?
Carina took a left turn and ran toward the hospital in front of her, forcing her skinny legs to carry her as fast as possible while scanning the area for anyone who could help her. Why couldn’t there be a cop? Don’t they usually hang out around hospitals? Why couldn’t there be an ambulance or just someone for that matter, anyone who wasn’t too scared to help? Someone who wouldn’t just stay inside of their car, paralyzed in fear?
“You come back here,” the man yelled behind her. “I’m gonna kill you when I get my hands on you.”
Carina saw the entrance to the ER and managed to speed up, hope fueling the adrenalin pumping in her veins, providing her with the strength she needed right now to outrun this guy.
Please, don’t let him get to me, God, please. I’m so close now. Just a few yards more. Just a few.
“Oh, no, you don‘t,” the man yelled as he realized what her plan was. He sped up, and soon Carina sensed that he was right behind her, reaching out his hand to grab her.
Just a few feet, please.
Carina felt his fingers grasping for her hair and shrieked in fear.
I am not giving up. I refuse to give up.
The fingers grabbed her hair and pulled, but then her perpetrator suddenly screamed out in pain, and the hand in her hair disappeared. Carina didn’t stop to look what had happened but continued toward the hospital’s ER entrance.
Just as she was about to enter, she turned briefly to look anyway, like Lot’s wife. And just like the woman she heard about in Bible camp, she was frozen in place. Not turning to a pillar of
salt, and not paralyzed, but still, she stood there looking at the man who was screaming in pain as he lifted his foot, blood gushing from the wound where a metal spike had cut through his shoe and into his foot.
Carina now realized she had won, and she sent him a victorious smile, then walked toward the sliding doors.
But to her surprise, they didn’t open.
An alarm sounded from the inside, and Carina tried the doors again, but they didn’t budge. Desperate, she glanced at the man again and didn’t see the gun in his hand till it was too late and the shot was fired.
Chapter 60
“Acute Dialysis?” I asked the woman at the front desk, showing her my badge.
I had parked the police cruiser outside of the front entrance of the hospital after running it through town with blaring lights and blasting sirens. I hadn’t had time to explain to Matt in detail what my suspicion was since I was too focused on my driving, but I had told him what he needed to know, and most importantly that I feared many people might die if we didn’t make it in time.
Matt had called it in, and officers from all surrounding areas had arrived to help. I had also tried to call the hospital to get them to stop the dialysis treatment, but they told me it was too late. Four out of seven patients had gone into cardiac arrest just a few minutes ago and were being treated elsewhere in the hospital.
“I need all the entrances blocked,” I had told them. “No one leaves the building.”
Chief Annie came up behind us, her eyes worried.
“I have men on all the exits. You think he’s still in the building?” she asked.
“There’s a chance he might still be here,” I said.
Matt and I took the elevator up to the third floor, then rushed out. A nurse met us, her eyes bewildered.
