SAY YOU LOVE ME (Eva Rae Thomas Mystery Book 4)

by Willow Rose

  “You can hide behind your cameras all you want to, you sick coward, but I will get you. Do you hear me? I will find you if it is the last thing I ever do.”

  As I stood, hunched above the camera, I finally got a closer look at the clown. Thinking that I recognized this man from somewhere, I took off the wig and held his face between my hands, trying to look behind the make-up, making completely sure I wasn’t mistaken.

  “Oh, dear God,” I said and clasped my mouth. “Oh, my dear God.”

  Chapter Eighty

  It looked like a warzone. I sat down on the bench next to the dead clown and watched as they carried away the children one after another on stretchers. There was a lot of yelling, and it was complete chaos. Meanwhile, I couldn’t keep my cool any longer. Shock had taken over me. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, and I could barely move.

  This was worse than anything I had ever encountered in my days in the FBI. Way worse.

  Finally, when all the children had gone away in ambulances, and the teachers had given the police their reports of what happened, a deputy came up to me. I recognized him as Deputy Williams, who had come to take my phone when I received the video from the nursing home.

  “Miss Thomas?” he asked.

  I looked up and met his eyes. Then I looked at the clown next to me, my voice quivering as I spoke:

  “He’s dead,” I said. “He didn’t deserve that.”

  Deputy Williams nodded and glanced at the clown. “The teachers said that the kids were eating candy from this basket in his lap. Do you have any idea where this came from?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t. I wish I did. Someone placed him here, knowing the kids would eat the candy. Because, of course, they would. They’re kids. They don’t know any better, right?”

  “Right.”

  I sniffled and wiped a tear away with my hand, trying hard to get my composure back. It wasn’t easy after what I had just witnessed, or with the guilt gnawing at me. Could I have reacted faster? What if I hadn’t hesitated in the car when David said there was a live video broadcasting. I had considered for a few seconds not watching it and just going to see Adam. Why did I hesitate? Why did it take me so long to leave the house once I realized what was happening? I could have arrived seconds earlier. Why didn’t I drive faster? If I had been seconds earlier, it could have saved lives. Or it might have, at least.

  Children’s lives.

  They all have parents out there who don’t even know yet, who don’t know their lives have been altered forever. They’ll never be the same after this. Losing a child is the worst thing you can possibly go through.

  “You might want to take a closer look at the clown,” I said to Williams with heaviness in my voice. “It’s someone you know.”

  Deputy Williams did. He stood in front of the clown for a few seconds, looking at his face when the realization sank in.

  “It’s McMillen,” I said. “Detective McMillen.”

  Deputy Williams looked terrified. I rose to my feet and walked away while he yelled for the paramedics to come. Soon, the other deputies were swarming McMillen, yelling and rushing the paramedics along. But I knew it was no use. The detective had been dead for a while.

  Deputy Williams came up to me after they had removed the detective. He handed me a bottle of water, then took my entire statement, his hand shaking while he wrote on the notepad. I told him about the website where I saw the live-feed and how I knew everything. I didn’t even try to make it sound less insane because I didn’t care anymore. I had already heard that two of the children were declared dead on their way to the hospital, and I had a feeling several others would be as well.

  It was unbearable.

  “I should have stopped it,” I mumbled over and over again while Williams scribbled on his pad. “This is all my fault. I could have stopped it.”

  Chapter Eighty-One

  THEN:

  “What are you doing?”

  Marlene didn’t stop to answer him. She had hoped he wouldn’t be home yet when she got back, but he was. Bruce had been sitting in the living room, staring into thin air. Marlene stood in the doorway and watched him before she rushed up the stairs and dragged her suitcase down from atop the old armoire. She hadn’t spoken a word to him, and she didn’t want to either. She opened her drawer, grabbed her favorite shirts and tops, then threw them into the suitcase on the bed.

  “A-are you packing?”

  She paused for a second, then grabbed all her underwear and put it in next to the shirts with a snort.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked, raising his voice slightly. “Marlene? You won’t even talk to me now?”

  Marlene took a deep breath, then finally spoke in nearly a whisper: “I am leaving.”

  “You’re leaving me?” he asked, his voice growing shrill.

  She finally turned around and faced him, hiding her hands behind her back so he wouldn’t see them trembling.

  “Yes, Bruce. I am leaving you.”

  “But … but why? Is it because of all the lies they’ve told you?”

  She stared into his eyes, then felt her heart drop. She had loved him so deeply and never thought anything could ever destroy that love.

  “I have to, Bruce. For me. For Jack.”

  “But don’t you see? That’s exactly what they want. They want to split us apart. You’re giving them exactly what they want.”

  “And just exactly who are they Bruce?” she asked. “The police? The DCF? Who is after you?”

  He threw out his arms, annoyed. “All of them. They’re making all this up; I’m telling you. I never did any of those things. And you know this, Marlene. You’ve known me for what … ten years? You know I would never do anything like this. Especially not to my own child. Why do you believe them and not me? I don’t understand this, Marlene; I truly, honestly don’t understand a thing of what is going on right now. It scares me, and I need you to help me get through this. I thought you and I were together in this. I thought we’d be there for one another. If you leave, then I have no one left. I’m all alone, Marlene.”

  She stared at him. His eyes were welling up with tears, and it was hard for her to watch. This was the man she had loved until just a few days ago. Before it all started, before they started saying all those things, before …

  “It’s not just what they’ve told me,” she said. “There’s more. Things about you that you thought I didn’t know. Things you’ve been hiding from me that I don’t think I can live with.”

  She slammed her suitcase shut and latched it, cursing this entire thing far away. Wishing herself back to a time when she didn’t know any of all this, when her life was good and simple, when she had a son and a husband that she loved and trusted. She had everything she ever wanted in life. And now it was all gone. How could it be taken away so fast? How was it possible that things could change so drastically in the blink of an eye?

  Bruce was sobbing behind her, and it felt devastating to her already broken heart. How had it come to this? They had been a happy couple; they were the ones who would make it if anyone would, they all said. They had been inseparable. So deeply in love that no one or anything could tear them apart. They had gone through so much together. And this was how it would all end?

  She really didn’t want it to be like this. She wanted to wake up from this nightmare now.

  It’s too late. You can’t go back now.

  He grabbed her arm as she tried to walk past him out of the bedroom, suitcase in her hand.

  “What things, Marlene? Please, tell me. The least you can do is tell me.”

  She took a deep breath. This was exactly what she had hoped to avoid. She really didn’t want to be there when he realized that she knew.

  “They found some things. On your computer,” she said.

  “What things?”

  She stared into his eyes, scrutinizing them, and for a second, she thought she saw an innocence in them that she knew and understood.

  Could
he really not know what she was talking about? Could he be innocent?

  No, it was impossible.

  She shook her head, then pulled her arm from his grip. She rushed down the stairs with him yelling behind her.

  “What did they find on my computer? Dang it, Marlene. Tell me! Why can’t you just say it?”

  She stopped at the foot of the stairs, then looked up at him. He was angry now, his eyes ablaze.

  “Try and think about it for a second, Bruce. What could they possibly find on your computer that would make them want to take your kid away, that would make your wife leave you? Don’t play innocent. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Yes, I’m leaving you, and you know perfectly well why. Because I have to. I need to. Or I’ll lose everything. They’ll never let Jack back with me as long as I’m with you. I have to leave you to save myself.”

  She walked to the door and grabbed the handle. Bruce reached for a vase, grabbed it, and threw it after her. It shattered right as she slammed the door shut behind her, and she could hear him yell out in a fit of rage behind the closed door. Then she ran to her car and drove away as fast as she could, tires screeching on the asphalt, praising God under her breath for getting her out of there in time.

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  E.T. stared at the screen on his computer. The face staring back at him made him shiver with anxiety. Her blue eyes were looking directly into the camera that he had placed on the clown’s head. Her red hair in a ponytail dangled as she moved her head.

  It was the footage from the playground that he was looking at, over and over again, constantly going back to the part where she approached McMillen on the bench and then pausing it as she stared directly into the camera and left him a message, knowing he’d be listening.

  “I will get you,” she said. “I will find you if it is the last thing I ever do.”

  E.T. listened to the message over and over again, then paused the footage and stared into her eyes.

  “I’d like to see you try,” he mumbled.

  At first, he was angry when realizing she was watching his feed. It was the only way he could explain her presence at the playground so early — before the police came. It made him fearful. Was she breathing down his neck? Was she getting too close?

  But then he had calmed himself down. So what if she had found out? Big deal. So what if she had somehow managed to gain access to his message board and was following his live-feed. It didn’t mean she was anywhere close to catching him. He was still way ahead of her.

  But the thought of her watching his work made him want to up his game. The very notion that she might think she was close to catching him made it even more fun. Thrilling. He had wanted to play games with her, to play cat and mouse, and now she had made an unexpected move. So what? He could handle that.

  He could even use it to his benefit. He had a direct line to her now. All he needed was to use it the right way.

  E.T. chuckled dryly while looking at her face on the screen. He grabbed the knife from the desk, then placed it against his bare chest. He then closed his eyes as he wrote the next word, biting down on his tongue in pain as the blood trickled down the skin of his stomach. Once he was done, he stared at the letters in the mirror, while the skin underneath throbbed and he panted in agitation.

  KINDNESS

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  I was in no state to be driving. David called just as they had decided to let me go, and I asked him to come and pick me up. I couldn’t stop crying, and my hands were shaking badly.

  He arrived about ten minutes later with Sydney in the passenger seat. She jumped out of the car and ran to me, pulling me into a warm hug.

  “It’s not your fault; do you hear me? It is NOT your fault,” she said over and over again.

  I let it all out and cried in my sister’s warm embrace, not knowing what else to do or how to even go on from there.

  When Sydney let go of me, David took over. He helped me get into his car, and I gave Sydney the keys to my minivan, which she drove back to the house for me. Meanwhile, I took off with David, hiding my face in my hands, crying until I had no more tears. David didn’t talk, and it was too late when I realized he wasn’t taking me home, but to the hospital. He parked the car in the parking lot in front of the big glass entrance and looked at me.

  “David … I don’t think …”

  “He’s awake, Eva Rae. I want you to see who you are fighting for while trying to catch the real killer. I want you to look into his eyes and know who he is.”

  I stared at David, searching for all kinds of excuses not to go in, but couldn’t find any that seemed valid enough.

  “Please? He wants to meet you,” David said. “He met Sydney earlier and knows who you are.”

  I felt my heart rate go up as I debated whether I wanted to go in or not. I still wasn’t sure I was in any condition to meet my long-lost brother, and I wasn’t sure I wanted him to see me like this the first time we met, but I guess I was curious. This was a big part of why I had come, wasn’t it?

  “All right,” I said and opened the door. I stepped out and stared at the big hospital building in front of me. I wondered for a second about the poor children and their families who would be in there waiting for news.

  I shook my head as we walked into the building, deciding that Sydney was right. I couldn’t blame myself, even if it was hard not to. I could blame the Leech and focus on catching him. I could concentrate on what to do and not on what I should have done. It was the only way to move on.

  “He doesn’t say much still, and he keeps drifting in and out, so I can’t promise that he’ll be able to talk to you,” David said as we approached his room. He opened the door and held it for me.

  “Adam?”

  David stepped inside his room first, and I came up right behind him, feeling nervous.

  Adam blinked his eyes and looked at David, then smiled faintly.

  “Dad.”

  David took his hand in his and smiled back. “I brought someone.”

  David stepped aside so Adam could see me.

  “This is your other sister, Eva Rae.”

  I waved awkwardly. Adam chuckled weakly.

  “I heard about you,” he said out of breath. “You’re the cop, right? FBI? That’s so cool. Dad talks about you constantly, and I always wanted to meet you.”

  I almost teared up. David had told Adam about me? David had talked about me to him? I didn’t realize. The thought made me blush.

  I looked into the blue eyes of my brother. I studied the red hair and freckles. He looked so much like me; it took my breath away. I hadn’t realized this until now, but he was my spitting image. Sydney was the odd one out, apparently, and that made me feel good. I had always been the only one who looked like this in my family.

  “I am,” I said. “And I want you to know that I believe your story. I believe in your innocence, Adam, and I am going to prove it.”

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  “How much does he remember?”

  David and I had gone out in the hallway to get some vending machine coffee while Adam rested. He got tired real fast and had trouble finding the right words, so we let him rest, and I decided that David could fill me in.

  David shook his head and blew on his plastic cup. “Not much. He says he walked Allyson home on the night of the party and that they had made up on their way back. They weren’t fighting anymore. Then, the next morning, he woke up and heard that she was gone. Her parents called our house and asked if she was there and she wasn’t. And then he helped search for her. He was scared to death when he received a video. In the footage, he saw Allyson tied to a chair, crying. A knife was placed against her throat, and someone was standing behind her holding it. That someone’s face couldn’t be seen in the video, as it was cut off at his neck, but this person gave Adam the instructions. He said he had to walk into the school in the cafeteria and shoot as many as he could, or Allyson would die. He had placed a weapon in backpack, put it in
a locker at the school and told Adam to go get it. During lunch, he was supposed to take it out and shoot. If he told anyone, Allyson would die. If he involved the police, Allyson would die. Adam was terrified and didn’t know what else to do. He thought that by shooting up under the ceiling, he wouldn’t hit anyone, and he could save her life and not hurt anyone. He was scared out of his wits, the poor kid.”

  I sipped my coffee, then looked up at David. “And the video? Did he save it anywhere? Is it still on his phone?”

  David exhaled and shook his head. “It was sent through Snapchat by someone he didn’t know.”

  I nodded. “Of course. In Snapchat, the video gets deleted once you’ve watched it. Doesn’t leave a trace.”

  “If I had his phone, I might be able to find it,” David said. “I’ve done similar stuff before. But I don’t have his phone. The police took it as evidence.”

  “You’ve recreated Snapchat videos before?” I asked startled.

  “For work,” he said.

  “One of these days, you need to tell me more about that work of yours. It sounds very interesting,” I said.

  “I’m not sure you’d understand,” he said.

  I widened my eyes and gave him a look. “Oh, really?”

  He nodded. “Really. Besides, I’d have to kill you. I told you this.”

  I chuckled and sipped my coffee. I looked through the door to Adam’s room that was ajar, and I could see Adam sleeping in his bed.

  “But I take it that the police aren’t taking his word for it,” I asked.

  David shook his head. “Nope. They’re sticking to him being angry at Allyson, killing her, dumping her, and then shooting up the school. I can’t blame them, really. It is the most obvious explanation.”