Eva Rae Thomas Mystery Box Set

by Willow Rose

  Never had he seen anything like it. So many kids came tumbling out of the building, coughing and screaming in panic. The terrorists had let the gas out just as the first responders entered the school building, and after that, it was all turmoil.

  Later, he had heard about the kids on the ledge of the second floor and run to help.

  Now he was staring up at one of the kids standing on the ledge, and his heart dropped. He couldn’t believe who he was looking at.

  Olivia.

  He walked closer, heart throbbing in his chest. Could it be? Could it really be her? Or was it just someone who looked like her? Was his mind playing a trick on him?

  No, it’s her. It is definitely her.

  Matt hurried closer. Olivia didn’t see him. She seemed to be staring at someone else, and Matt discovered it too late. Someone was standing behind the crowd, poking his head out, and as she got onto the ladder, her eyes locked with his. Olivia then screamed before climbing down.

  Matt rushed to her, running, but as soon as she had her feet on the ground, she ran fast. She ran toward a flock of kids who were all wearing the exact same uniform as her. They surrounded her, and she blended in so quickly, he lost track of her. He couldn’t see her anywhere.

  “Olivia?” he yelled. He reached the crowd and stood in the middle of it, surrounded by kids the same age as Olivia. They were all were wearing the same uniforms. Matt was turning around, frantically looking into each and every face, repeating her name, when he finally realized that she wasn’t there.

  Olivia was gone.

  Heart hammering in his chest, he looked toward the man that she had been looking at when she climbed down and realized he too was gone. He was nowhere to be seen.

  NO!

  He left the flock of kids and ran toward where the man had been standing, then jumped behind the row of bushes and spotted a street behind it — one that was beyond the police barrier. At the end of the street, he saw a blue van disappear.

  “Stop that van!” he said and began to run after it, sprinting down the street. The van turned right and, with the tires screeching, it swung into traffic. Seconds later, it had completely vanished out of Matt’s sight.

  Matt ran to the end of the road, screamed his anger out, then slammed his fist into a light pole next to him in frustration.

  “Dammit!!”

  Chapter 64

  I waited until Sydney had her meditation class, then grabbed my purse and put my burner phone in it. I wrote her a note on a small notepad in the room that was supposed to be used for us to write down our thoughts during our cleansing process or something. I wasn’t listening when the branded woman told us about it when we first got there.

  I left the note on Sydney’s pillow, then grabbed my purse and left the cottage. Most of the entire group was at the meditation class, so this was a perfect time to get out of there without anyone asking questions.

  I knew that Sydney would be upset with me for leaving her like this, without a word, but I also knew that if I told her about it, she would ask to come along. And I wouldn’t be able to say no.

  It was time for us to split up. I didn’t want her to go down with me. She still had a career, and I wanted it to remain that way. I didn’t want her to give up everything for my sake. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if she did.

  I walked across the lawn to the main house and in through the dining hall, finding it empty as I expected. I peeked inside the kitchen and grabbed a banana and a pack of bread to keep me alive for a little while since I was going out into the world without any money, and I couldn’t risk using my credit card again. I had made that mistake once, and I had a feeling that’s what led Matt right to me.

  I turned around, ready to walk out through the main hall when a voice stopped me.

  “Eva Rae Thomas. Running away, are we?”

  It was Christopher Daniels. He was standing right in front of me, flanked by two of his goons. There weren’t many men here at his cult headquarters, but the few that were here were big and looked like they could take me down without using much effort.

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” I said. “I’m leaving today because I’ve gotten news about my daughter and her whereabouts. I need to find her. I thank you for your hospitality; it’s much appreciated. As you’ll see, my sister will be staying a little while longer.”

  I tried to walk past him, but he blocked my way.

  “How’s that song go again?”

  “What song?”

  “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

  I lifted my glance and looked into his eyes. “What the heck are you talking about?”

  “You can’t run away now. Not when you have begun the process of becoming a better human being. You are so close, Eva Rae. The world out there will tear you apart, literally. They’ll arrest you, and then what? In here, you can reach enlightenment. You don’t have to care about what goes on out there. You don’t need the world. We’ll take good care of you.”

  “Excuse me? Are you telling me I can’t leave this place?”

  “I do believe it’s a bad idea.”

  “You can’t keep me here against my will,” I said. “Is it because I saw that woman in the cottage? And now you’re afraid I might tell the police about her? You know what? I don’t have to tell anyone. I don’t even plan on talking to them, so there you go. You can let me leave.”

  I was lying so terribly, it had to show; I just knew it did. Of course, I was going to tell the police everything. Are you kidding me? I was the police, or at least I used to be. I tried to reach inside my purse for my gun but didn’t manage to grab it.

  “I don’t think so,” Christopher said, then signaled for his goons to approach me. They ripped my purse with my gun away from me, then grabbed me by the arms and lifted me into the air. They then carried me away, kicking and screaming.

  Chapter 65

  It was getting late, but none of them were even thinking about going home. The Miami-Dade Police Department was overwhelmed, and Matt and Carter had been asked to help with the interrogations. They walked into the interrogation room and sat down. The woman in front of them stared at them, her eyes big and scared.

  “Helen Wellington,” Carter said and looked into her file. He looked up at her, expecting her to confirm. She did with a silent nod.

  “They made me do it,” she said, her voice trembling. “Said they’d kill me and my entire family if I didn’t.”

  “Let’s start at the beginning, Helen,” Matt said. “You were stopped outside of Our Savior’s Catholic School during the attack today. You were coming out of the building when we stopped you. Several witnesses claim to have seen you place one of the bags of Sarin nerve gas in a classroom, poke a hole in it, then leave and close the door behind you.”

  Her nostrils were flaring, her body shaking. “I had to do it. They forced me. They forced all of us, even the young girls.”

  “Who?” Matt asked and leaned forward. “Who forced you to do this?”

  She turned her head and stared into his eyes. He saw deep fear in them, and it made him feel uneasy.

  “They did. NYX.”

  “And what is NYX?” he asked.

  “It’s a cult,” Carter said. “That’s what they call it around here. A cult for rich people. Their founder is known to run these workshops for self-awareness that he charges the rich women tens of thousands of dollars for.”

  “So, you’re telling me that this group, NYX, told you to walk into the school and place the bags of nerve gas for them?”

  Helen nodded with a light whimper. “I never wanted to hurt anyone. I’m not evil. You must believe me.”

  Matt looked at her file. Helen Wellington was the heiress of a billion-dollar entertainment empire that her father had built. He wondered how a woman like her had ended up in a situation like this.

  “You don’t know how they are,” she continued. “They’ll convince you that you’re worthless without them. That you n
eed to cleanse yourself of your old self, that you need to become a new person, and that you have to do stuff for the group to get rid of your old pride. They starved me for months and even locked me up in a small cottage for two entire months. I didn’t get to see any sunlight or eat anything but dry bread and drink the little water they brought to me.”

  “They held you locked up against your will?” Matt asked.

  She sighed. “That’s the thing. I never told them no. I went along with it. So, in that way, it wasn’t exactly against my will. I thought I wanted it because they told me I did, that I needed it to become a better person, to reach enlightenment. But that’s how they work. They push you and push you until they can get you to do anything for them.”

  “Like placing Sarin gas in a terrorist attack,” Carter said with an exhale. “Doing the dirty work.”

  Helen stared at him, then lowered her eyes and slumped her head down. “You don’t know how awful I feel. I don’t understand how it got this far.”

  “The starvation and being locked up made it easier for them to brainwash you,” Carter said. “Stories like these have been heard before concerning NYX — accusations of brainwashing of their members.”

  “But you said that there were also young girls,” Matt said, thinking about Olivia on the ledge.

  Had she been one of them?

  “Where did they come from? Were they members of the cult and brainwashed as well?”

  “No, that was even worse,” Helen said. “Those are trafficked girls that they buy online to perform these attacks. They use them because they are expendable. No one will miss them if they die. You’ll find them among the victims in both the train attack and the church.”

  Chapter 66

  It was beginning to rain, and the sky cracked above her head. Olivia looked up and realized a thunderstorm was approaching, and she had to rush and find shelter.

  Since she ran away from the school, she had been wandering the streets of Miami, not daring to stop for even a few minutes in case the armed guards in the blue van came looking for her.

  She still couldn’t believe she had managed to escape their claws.

  It had gotten dark out, and Olivia was beginning to feel unsafe. Tourists had disappeared from the streets, and now groups of shady looking men had taken over. Their eyes lingered on her everywhere she went, and she rushed past them. Now she was running because of the typical Florida rain that came with the thunderstorm, and she spotted a bridge where a group of homeless people had found shelter.

  Hoping there could be room for her, she ran toward them, trying to cover her face from the rain.

  As she came in under the bridge, all eyes were on her and her school uniform that she realized made her look very out of place. She sat down on a piece of the pavement underneath the bridge, pulling her legs up underneath her, trying to become as unnoticeable as possible. A young girl who couldn’t have been more than five or six came up to her and stared at her. Her face was dirty, and her eyes were lacking that healthy spark a young child her age would have.

  “It’s the Blue Lady,” she said like Olivia knew who she was talking about. “She’s watering her plants.”

  “Who’s she?” Olivia asked. “This Blue Lady?”

  “You don’t know about her? My mom says the Blue Lady brings us love and protects us from the Bloody Mary, who will take your soul. She once cured my headache. I saw her standing outside the window, her skin pale, her eyes blue, and she looked in through the window at the shelter where we were staying. When she left, the window broke.”

  Olivia looked behind the girl when she heard two adults arguing. She realized it had to be the girl’s parents. They seemed drunk. The woman was trying to stop him from eating their last can of sardines. She yelled at him, and he yelled back. Another man sitting on top of his black garbage bag let out a high-pitched laugh when the man slapped the woman. The girl didn’t even turn to look at her parents. Instead, her eyes were fixated on Olivia.

  “That’s Crazy Jack,” she said. “Don’t go near him either.”

  Olivia tried to smile. “I won’t. Thanks for the tip.”

  The girl turned around and left Olivia. Her parents were still fighting and yelling at one another, while Crazy Jack’s high-pitched laughter bounced off the walls of the bridge. Olivia exhaled while wondering if she would be able to sleep there at all at night or if it would be safer for her to stay awake. She didn’t have anything they could steal, but she was afraid of being raped or beaten. But not as much as she feared being found by the men in the blue van. If only she knew if they were still looking for her or not. She had a feeling they wouldn’t give up so quickly and realized she had to keep moving. As soon as the thunderstorm passed, she would have to leave.

  Chapter 67

  I was on the bare ground, lying on concrete, trying to stay cool inside the small cottage they had put me in. The woman from earlier was no longer there, and I assumed they had finally let her out. At least I hoped that was what had happened and that it wasn’t because she had died.

  At first, I had tried hammering on the doors and boarded up windows, but when nothing happened, I had given up and laid myself down on the concrete floor to try and get a little cooler. No air was moving inside the cottage, and it was so hot I could barely stand it.

  As the night approached, I dozed off, dreaming of Olivia and seeing her standing on that ledge of the school building over and over again. Every time she reached the ground below, I woke up with a shriek, sweat dripping from my forehead.

  She’s so close and yet I can’t get to her. I can’t stand it!

  I lay on the floor, rage roaring inside of me, fueling me despite the heat and lack of food and water. I was going to get out of this place, no matter what. If only I could somehow alert Sydney to what was going on. But I had left that stupid note, telling her I had taken off on my own to find Olivia. So, of course, that was where she thought I was, while she was having the time of her life meditating with that embezzler, Christopher Daniels. I had seen through him from the beginning but was starting to get the feeling that I hadn’t seen half of what he was actually capable of. Both him and this place gave me the creeps.

  I thought about the branding I had seen on the dead guy’s arm in the car at the port. I still couldn’t escape the thought that Christopher Daniels could be the Iron Fist. After all, the Iron Fist was a TV show about a rich guy growing up in a monastery among warrior monks that taught him how to fight and meditate before returning for what was rightfully his. Maybe he identified with him somehow.

  I opened my eyes with a sudden gasp in the darkness.

  “She was at both attacks,” I mumbled, then sat up. “Olivia was at both the attack at the train and the school. I saw her at both. Maybe she was at the church too?”

  A gazillion thoughts rushed through my mind in this instant as a picture began to take shape. It wasn’t one that I liked very much, but it made sense.

  They were using her and the other trafficked girls to perform the attacks. That’s why they kept buying more girls online. That was why there was a member of NYX at the harbor. He was the Iron Fist’s representative. He was supposed to bring the girls back here so they could use them. It was a smart trick since no one would come asking for the girls anyway, and their dead bodies couldn’t be traced back to the cult. It was actually very clever. But did that mean that NYX was behind the attacks?

  Probably.

  “Oh, my God,” I mumbled while the pieces fell into place. They had used my daughter to carry out terrorist attacks all over town.

  The realization caused an even deeper rage to well up inside of me, and I rose to my feet and started pacing back and forth, determined to get them for this.

  These people were going down.

  Chapter 68

  Carter had left for the night to get in a few hours of sleep before the chaos started all over again in the morning, as he put it. Matt didn’t feel ready to leave just yet. Helen Wellington’s dad had pos
ted the bond of one million dollars earlier that night, and she had been picked up in a limousine. They had told her she could expect to be brought in for more questioning in the future, and she had said that she’d be willing to help in any way she could and that she just wanted NYX punished for what they had done. She wanted the truth out about who they really were.

  Now, Matt sat at his computer and began researching this alleged cult, NYX. He had found a lot of articles about its founder and many positive accounts from people who believed their lives to be much better after having attended his workshops.

  Then he found a blog, and that was when the blood froze in his veins. It was an old blog, about a year old, but it was the person who was behind it that made him curious. It was written by the now-deceased Lori Moore, the woman who Carter believed Eva Rae had murdered in her kitchen. And it wasn’t exactly saying nice things about the cult. In long descriptions, Lori Moore wrote about how this leader had made approaches to her and how she had seen a good friend lose weight to an almost dangerous level and seem deprived of any self-will after having become a member of the inner circle of the cult. She also talked about how they were branded and had sex with the leader and told that they now belonged to him. According to Lori Moore, he had a harem of women that obeyed his every wink and never left his side. Meanwhile, he had kept a woman imprisoned for almost six months in a cottage because she had sex with another man when she was only allowed to have sex with the founder, telling her it was all for her own sake, for the better of her future, so she could reach enlightenment.

  Matt couldn’t help but find all these descriptions very familiar. He remembered something about a Japanese cult leader and then Googled it. He found many articles about this doomsday cult and its leader that had been executed just the year before. The cult carried out a deadly Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, along with several smaller gas attacks back in the mid-nineties. The attack on the subway was known as Japan’s worst terror incident. Thirteen people were killed, and thousands injured.