by Willow Rose
Anthony Piatkowski grinned when he saw me, then asked his company to excuse him, and left. He walked toward the backyard, and I followed him, hand on my gun. I wanted him away from all these people, in case I needed to pull the gun, so I let him rush into the yard and followed him just a few steps behind. Outside, he disappeared behind a corner, and I rushed after him. Barely had I reached the corner before a shovel was swung through the air and slammed right into my face, causing me to drop the gun in the grass. I fell backward up against the wall, a ringing in my ears, barely conscious, sliding down the wall, my back against it until I hit the gravel below. Above me, holding the shovel and seconds later my gun, was Anthony Piatkowski.
Chapter 85
“Okay, you were smarter than I expected,” he said through the fog that was my brain right now. I tried to focus on him. He held the gun against my forehead.
“If you’re so smart, I take it you also know who I am?”
I tried to nod, but my head was hurting. “Yes. It took me awhile, too long to realize who you were. It was the name that threw me off. You grew up with your mother; that’s why you have a different last name than your dad.”
Anthony nodded. “Very good, Detective.”
“It was never on the news,” I said. “It was never revealed to the public that those bodies we found in Chicago were filled with explosives. It was a terrorist nest, and they were experimenting with implanting bombs into bodies, using illegal immigrants that no one would miss as tests subjects. But all of them died in the process before they could be tested. It would be a gamechanger if they had succeeded. We didn’t want to give anyone else that same idea, so it was kept quiet. The entire basement exploded when they discovered the bodies, and many died. My partner and I were outside, luckily. But that was how I knew. After you did the same thing to Tara. I knew it had to have been someone close to the investigation back then. I realized that while in the hospital. How did you get the magnetic ID card from Turner? Did you steal it?”
“He sold it to me along with scrubs and surgical masks. I paid him fifty thousand dollars so he could buy the boat he always wanted.”
“And that was why he ran,” I said. “He thought we were there because of that.”
“What a shame,” he said.
“Turner’s ID card gave you access to the hospital on the day you went in to poison the dialysis patients. You looked like him in the picture if you put on your fake goatee. You pretended like you belonged, but you never worked there. We checked their records. People just assumed you did. But you’re no doctor. Noah Greenwald was. And he was in your battalion in Camp Marmal, right? And then he died.”
“We were together on that day. I don’t remember much except the birds singing and the blue sky above. We were driving toward Mazar-i-Sharif, the largest city close by when the IED went off on the side of the road. I was trapped underneath our car for almost twenty hours while trying to keep Noah alive. When help finally came along, he was no longer breathing.”
“And you took his identity?”
“We were as close as brothers, maybe even closer. I was him; he was me. Sometimes, I’m still him. He lives in me.”
This guy is crazy.
“Was he the one who taught you to perform enucleation? Like you did to Molly Carson?”
He nodded. “He showed it to me. One of our colleagues was hit by friendly fire, and the bullet went through his eye. Noah performed the surgery and let me watch. He took me through it step-by-step. I remembered everything he taught me while taking her eyes.”
“I bet,” I grumbled sarcastically while slowly regaining my strength. Piatkowski seemed lost in his memories for a few seconds. The shovel had cracked my lip, and blood was running down my chin. My face pounded like someone was playing drums on it. I was stalling, hoping to keep him talking until Matt got here.
“Where’s my daughter?” I asked.
Piatkowski grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
He stared me directly in the eyes, and I felt my blood freeze.
“Because of what you did.”
Chapter 86
THEN:
They took a twelve-page-long handwritten confession from Sánchez, each and every one of them bearing the distinctive “m” that looked like a “z,” that had led them to him in the first place. He told them how he had seen Gary’s wife, Iris, place the child in the carriage and how he had taken the child and left a ransom note.
Then they asked him to take them to the baby. Sánchez agreed to this and Gary was allowed to be in the front seat as they took off. It took all his strength not to point his gun at this man and kill him on the spot. But he kept himself calm, for Oliver’s sake. Finally, the bastard was talking, and finally, he was taking them to the boy.
Sánchez wasn’t very intelligent, Gary had realized, and he had to admit he didn’t trust him much. Not until he actually held his boy in his arms again.
“Take this exit,” Sánchez said.
They did as he told them to and they left the highway. On Sánchez’s directions, they drove through town and entered a small neighborhood, very close to where Gary and Iris lived.
Has he been this close all this time? Gary thought, terrified, to himself. It was unbearable.
“Take a right here, and then stop by those bushes over there.”
Gary looked out the window, his heart beginning to pound.
“But…but…?”
“Right here,” Sánchez said. “Stop the car.”
He pointed ahead.
“Right over there in those heavy bushes. That’s where I placed the child. When I went to the first drop off site—I had the baby in the car. But I was scared away by all the press and police in the area. I drove away, then abandoned the baby close to the house. I figured you’d find him at some point…but I guess…you didn’t.”
Gary stared at the man in the back seat. Before he got into the car, Peterson had made him hand over his weapon. For this, Gary was very grateful at this moment.
Petersen got out of the car and opened the door for Sánchez in the back seat. He approached the window, and Gary rolled it down.
“Stay here, Gary,” Peterson said.
Gary watched Peterson walk to Gary’s partner, Agent Wilson, and they talked for a few seconds. Sánchez pointed again, and next thing, they all hurried toward the bramble patch behind Gary’s house. Seconds later, Agent Wilson pulled out a piece of clothing before falling to the ground and beginning to sob uncontrollably.
Gary got out of the car and stood like he was paralyzed as they all turned to look at him. It felt like everything inside of him broke.
Dear God, no!
It took him less than a second to make the decision. He ran to one of his uniformed colleagues and, before he could react, pulled his gun out of its holster. Then he turned around and fired a shot at Sánchez before turning it toward himself.
Chapter 87
“It wasn’t my fault,” I said and tried to sit up.
Piatkowski pressed the gun against the skin of my forehead. He was sweating with distress, his white shirt getting soaked.
“Of course, it was. It was all your fault…Agent Wilson. See, you were there all the time. You were the one responsible for keeping an eye out on the house and its surroundings. And you failed to see the baby. You failed to see a small four-week-old infant in the bushes, crying helplessly for his mother. That baby died because you didn’t find him. That’s the reality.”
Being confronted with this made me want to throw up. Even the name, Chad’s last name, Wilson, made me sick to my stomach. I had gotten rid of it when he told me he was moving out, and I had taken my maiden name Thomas instead. I had spent years trying to get over this event. The guilt had eaten me up and forced me to work even harder, neglecting my family in the process. I had wanted to make amends; I had tried to work my way out of it, thinking I owed it to Gary, my old partner. Over the years, I had taught m
yself to let go of the guilt, telling myself it wasn’t my fault, that anyone could have missed the baby, but still it nagged inside of me. Of course, it did. It always would. My partner had killed himself afterward, leaving Anthony Piatkowski—his child from a previous marriage—fatherless.
“But that’s not all,” Piatkowski said. “There’s more. Not only did you fail to find the baby, but it was also your fault it was taken in the first place. Iris, his wife, told me everything. She told me how you and Gary, a week or so earlier, had stormed a house and rescued a kidnapped man, a gang member who owed money. When doing so, you shot a man. This man was the brother of Diego Sánchez. That was why he stole the baby in the first place. It wasn’t random. He didn’t just walk by on coincidence and decide to grab the baby. It was planned. It was revenge for what you did. The FBI believed it was coincidental until Sánchez wrote his confession. That was when the real motive came out. He wanted to revenge the death of his brother, and that was why he stole Gary’s newborn. To revenge a killing that you, Agent Wilson, had committed. I lost my little brother and my father because of you. That is why I want you to be in pain. I researched you over the years and read all of your books about the many profiles of serial killers. My dad had told me about all the cases you worked together. I was just a teenager back then, but I remember each and every one of them, especially the one about the exploding bodies.”
“You laid it all out like breadcrumbs for me to follow,” I said, hearing tires screech outside of the house. That had to be Matt and his colleagues. I just had to keep him going a little while longer. And then, somehow, lead them to our whereabouts behind the house. “And now you have led me to you. You have my daughter, and you have me. You’ve won, Anthony. What do you want? What will it take for this to end? Money?”
That made Piatkowski laugh. “Do I look like I need money? I live here. I’m engaged to a Hollywood star who has no idea where her money goes.”
“How did you know she was my sister when I didn’t even know?” I asked.
“I’ve been following you for a long time, Eva Rae. Ever since my dad died and I started to ask questions, I realized it was your fault. I spent hours in Afghanistan preparing for this, letting the anger fuel my planning. I have followed your every move since. Six months ago, you went to a PI and started to ask questions about your sister. I broke into her office at night and went through her files. Back then, she didn’t know that your sister lived right here, or that she had changed her name to Kelly Stone, but it didn’t take me long to figure that one out. I went to New England while she was filming there and then made sure to be at a charity event she attended while there.”
I heard yelling coming from inside of the house and knew it wouldn’t be long before they came out here. Unfortunately, Piatkowski heard it too. He growled, then grabbed me by the arm and pulled me up.
“You’re coming with me,” he said, then pushed me ahead of him, holding a hand over my mouth, gun pressed against my back.
Chapter 88
He pulled me into the underground garage and toward a car. I tried to scream, but nothing but muffled sounds came out of me. Piatkowski opened the passenger door and told me to get in when a voice yelled from behind us.
“Let her go, Piatkowski.”
Anthony smiled and turned around. “Ah, the knight in shining armor. Matt Miller, is it?”
“Let her go, Piatkowski,” he said, pointing his gun at him.
Piatkowski grinned. “Well, you can hardly kill me now, can you? See, then you’ll never know where her daughter is. Besides, if you try anything, I’ll shoot her.”
Piatkowski stared at Matt for a little while, waiting for his reaction, while I stood pressed up against the open door, holding onto the edges, pressing against it, trying to fight him.
Matt lowered the gun.
“I didn’t think so,” Piatkowski said.
He turned to face me, grabbed me around the throat, and pressed, grinning. I couldn’t breathe and had to let go of the edges of the car. It happened so fast; I’m sure Piatkowski didn’t even have time to react. I leaned on my hands on the seat and lifted both my legs into the air, shaping them into a V-shape, wrapping them around his neck. I then twisted them hard, and Piatkowski went down onto the cement floor with a loud thud.
“Eva Rae!” Matt yelled as he came running toward me. Piatkowski was on the ground as Matt called for backup over the radio. Soon, they stormed inside the garage, while I had my foot planted solidly on Piatkowski. I held his arm twisted behind his back.
“Where’s my daughter, you pig? Tell me!”
But no matter how hard I twisted his arm or even when I pressed my gun on him, he didn’t care. He just laughed at me, then said. “That’s the beauty of it. I don’t even know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know, you sick bastard? What did you do to her?”
He turned his head slightly, lifting it from the floor, and managed to look at me while he said the next thing. It was like he wanted to make sure he saw my reaction when the words fell.
“I sold her. You have no idea how much money some people are willing to pay for a beauty like her on the dark web.”
“You did what?” I shrieked. The realization made me let go of his arm. I felt like my throat was closing up…like I couldn’t breathe.
He sold her?
Two CBPD officers grabbed Piatkowski and pulled him away from me while I screamed in deep pain, Matt holding me back, grabbing my gun from my hand. As they dragged him away, I looked into his icy eyes and his grin sent chills down my spine, while desperation and hopelessness made me sink into the arms of the man I loved, crying.
“What did he do to her, Matt? Where is she?”
Matt held me tight while I sobbed, missing my baby girl, wanting to wake up from this nightmare.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “But we will find her. Trust me.”
I let him hold me tight for a very long time and cried till I had no more tears. Then, I finally agreed to go back to the car with him, so he could take me home. I cried all the way back and held my two youngest children tight in my arms all night while I tried to sleep.
Chapter 89
Three days later, I went to visit Molly at the hospital and had a long chat with Melissa. I told her everything that had happened, but most of all, I was happy to be able to tell her that we got the guy, that he was in our custody. I had kept my promise to her, and for that, I was proud.
Molly was doing a lot better and would soon be discharged. She was learning to cope with the fact that she was now blind, and they had ordered a service dog for her, while they were training her how to maneuver by using a support cane—or white cane—at the hospital. She had also begun speaking again, even though what came out of her was sparse. She would, however, soon be able to give her entire testimony and help put another nail in Piatkowski’s coffin.
“I am so sorry about Olivia, though,” Melissa said and held my hand in hers. “You must feel awful. Let me know if there is anything I can do. I’ll do anything for you; you know that.”
I told her to take care of her own daughter for now and hold her tight, enjoying that she was still here.
I then checked on Carina Martin, who was with her mother. Carina hugged me and cried when she heard we had caught Piatkowski. She told me she would be willing to testify as soon as we wanted her to, and she would even go back to the house and the bunker if we needed her to. I told her she was a very brave girl. I also told her mother to be proud of her before I left. Tears were springing to my eyes as I hurried down the hallway of Cape Canaveral Hospital, while I wondered if I was ever going to see my daughter again.
After crying in the car, and slamming my fist into the steering wheel, I drove back the station to watch the interrogation of Piatkowski through the glass. They had been at it almost non-stop for three whole days, and he still refused to say where my daughter was, repeating the same thing over and over again.
“That is the beauty of it
. I don’t know. You can keep asking me till we both die from thirst or even old age, but I will never be able to tell you because I don’t know. Girls are sold all the time around this world, and who knows where they end up?”
As he said the last part, he looked at the glass window, like he knew I was behind it, which he probably did.
“To whom?” Matt asked, tired and angry. “Who did you sell her to?”
“I don’t know his name. He called himself The Iron Fist. He buys girls online—through the dark web—and probably resells them. Some he might keep to himself. What do I know? I took the girl to the airport, where we met some of his associates. They took her. Where, I have no idea. She could be anywhere in the world by now. But they paid me good money, and that was what I wanted…money.”
Financial gain, I thought to myself. The last motive.
He had covered all four serial killer typologies from my book. Lust, anger, power, and financial gain.
I stared into the icy eyes of Piatkowski, and in that very instant, realized that there was no way we were ever going to get him to tell us anything. If I wanted my daughter back, I’d have to find her myself.
“I am sorry,” Matt said as he came out of the room. He leaned forward and kissed me. He ran a hand gently through my hair. “I’ll keep trying.”
I nodded determinedly. “Do that, Matt. Listen, I’m gonna…I’m gonna go back.”
He examined me. Our eyes locked for a few seconds, and that was when he knew. I had made up my mind, and he couldn’t stop me. I started to back away from him, biting my lip, until I finally turned around and left him, my heart crying.
“Wait,” he said. “I don’t like that look in your eyes, Eva Rae. Eva Rae? Where are you going? Eva Rae? Don’t do anything stupid; do you hear me?”
