Eva Rae Thomas Mystery Box Set

by Willow Rose

  “I’ll call it in,” one of the officers said.

  “Is he armed?” the other asked.

  I shook my head. “We didn’t see any weapons.”

  “He could have a gun on the boat,” Matt said.

  My heart pounding, I looked toward the area where Charles Turner had disappeared. I then laid eyes on the neighbor’s boat that was docked there, then looked back at Matt.

  “That one has two three-fifty outboard engines. That’s a lot more horsepower than his. We could catch up to him easily,” I said.

  Matt knew where I was going and nodded. We ran into the neighboring yard and got the boat lowered into the water, then jumped in. Like most people in Cocoa Beach, this boat owner had left the key in the boat, in a small compartment next to the steering wheel. I grabbed it and dangled it in front of Matt.

  “Nothing really changes around here, does it?” he said with an exhale. “We’ve told people at town hall meetings so many times to never leave their boat keys and car keys in their vehicles if they don’t want them stolen. Yet, they still do.”

  I put the key in the ignition, and the engines roared to life. As I drove the boat out of the canal, and as soon as we were out of the manatee zone, where we could accelerate to top speed, I said:

  “I, for one, am thrilled that nothing changes around here. Now, let’s get this bastard before he leaves the county.”

  Chapter 65

  THEN:

  The most important part was to make sure that Oliver’s life wasn’t endangered when they raided the house. Peterson had made sure to determine where all the suspect’s family members lived, and they were going to hit all of the houses simultaneously. On October 22nd, six weeks after Oliver had disappeared from his home, teams of fifty-five FBI agents and detectives took up positions outside Diego Sánchez’s home in Brentwood, one of the tough neighborhoods in the D.C. area. Sánchez was on probation for drug possession and was known by the police as part of one of the well-known Mexican gangs in Washington.

  They struck the moment Sánchez came home with his wife, driving into the street and up their driveway, with their two children in the back seat. They had been visiting his parents on the outskirts of town. A patrol car had followed them as they drove home, and Gary watched with his heart in his throat as they parked in the driveway.

  “The package is in. Let’s rock and roll,” Peterson said on the radio. He gave Gary one short glance of reassurance, then left the car.

  They had agreed that Gary would stay behind since he was too emotionally wrapped up in this and they couldn’t risk him ruining the mission, which was to get the kidnapper and bring back his son safely. One wrong move or emotional decision could put his child’s life in danger. This man was dangerous, and there was no saying what he might do under pressure.

  Gary held his breath as he watched the team approach from all sides, guns ready. A big part of him regretted having listened to Peterson. He really wanted to be one of them—to be the one to press that gun to the kidnapper’s head and ask Sánchez where the child was. Sitting out there all alone in the car made him feel so helpless, so frustrated. Yet he knew Peterson was right. He would only end up killing Sánchez if he got the chance.

  Still, it was hard just to sit there and watch, wondering about all the things that might go wrong. Was Oliver with them in the car? Was he in the house? Or had they left him with one of the relatives? If so, then one of the other teams would find him, wouldn’t they? Or would they be able to get away with him?

  Gary sighed deeply as he watched out the window how Sánchez was pressed up against the front of his car and patted down, his legs spread out, his hands behind his back, then cuffed. There was a lot of yelling, and his wife screamed and took her children in her arms. But the children were taken from her, and she too was put in handcuffs, while she was screaming, and her children taken away in another car. They would be put in the hands of the DCF and probably be taken to another family member to be taken care of while it was determined who was involved in this kidnapping and who wasn’t…whether they were in it together. It was probably going to be a mess to figure out, but Gary couldn’t really think about that right now. He was staring at Peterson and the agents searching the car and then going into the house, his hands beginning to shake.

  Would the child be in there all alone? Had they left Oliver in there while they went out? Was there someone to take care of him? Would they find him alive? Had they fed him?

  An agent came out holding something in his hand, and Peterson immediately turned around to face Gary in the car, a serious look on his face. He signaled Gary to approach, while Sánchez and his wife were being held down, the woman crying helplessly for her children.

  Gary got out and rushed toward the agent holding the light blue teddy bear in his hand, Oliver’s favorite bear, the one he got from his grandmother when he was just born. It was the same one that always made him calm down when he woke up in the middle of the night crying helplessly.

  “The boy is not inside,” the agent holding the bear said. “He’s not in the car either. And Sánchez won’t speak.”

  “You recognize this?” Peterson asked.

  Gary swallowed and tried not to look at Sánchez, who was still pressed down on the front of his car while being searched. Still, Gary couldn’t help himself; his eyes met Sánchez’s, and he sensed he was about to lose it. He clenched his fists and tried to calm himself, but he couldn’t. Instead, it was like everything exploded inside him. Weeks of frustration and helplessness erupted inside of him, and he rushed toward Sánchez before anyone could stop him. He placed his face close to his and pressed his gun against the man’s head, yelling: “Where is my son? Where is he?”

  Chapter 66

  It really was a fast boat. As soon as Matt and I entered the Banana River and I pushed it to its max, we spotted Charles Turner on the horizon. He was flying down the river toward Satellite Beach south of us, but we were going a lot faster. It didn’t take us long to gain on him. Meanwhile, Matt was on the phone, talking to the sheriff’s office. They had gotten the chopper in the air, and he was keeping them updated on where the suspect was and where he was heading.

  “We’re catching up to him,” I yelled through the loud noise. “Almost there.”

  Charles Turner realized how close we were and turned to look at us. Then—as we were almost to the side of his boat—he pulled something out and pointed it at us.

  “It’s a gun,” Matt said. He immediately went in front of me to protect me. Then he spoke into the radio. “He’s got a weapon. I repeat suspect is armed and dangerous.”

  Matt pulled his gun too and, as I steered closer, he held it up so Charles Turner could see it.

  “Stop the boat,” Matt yelled, “and put down your weapon. Put down your weapon now!”

  We could hear more boats approaching from the sides, and the chopper was soon hovering not far from us.

  “Stop the boat!” Matt repeated.

  In return, Charles Turner fired a shot at him.

  “Get down,” Matt yelled and jumped on top of me, pulling me to the bottom of the boat. I landed on my back, Matt on top of me. I felt something wet hit my face, and I wiped it away, only to realize it was blood.

  Matt’s blood.

  The blood of the man I loved.

  “Matt?” I screamed hysterically. “Matt? You’re bleeding. You’re hurt. You’ve been hit!”

  Crying, I pushed him away from me and sat up. I then turned the unconscious Matt around, searching for an exit wound. The blood seemed to be coming from the back of his head.

  Oh, dear God. He’s been shot in the head!

  Frantically, I grabbed the radio on his shoulder and pressed the button. It was hard for me to get the words across my lips as everything inside of me was screaming.

  Not Matt. Not Matt of all the people in the world.

  “Officer down. I repeat. Officer down!”

  I didn’t wait for the response as I realized the bast
ard was getting away. I rushed to the steering wheel and got the boat back on track and pressed it to its maximum. Crying in anger, I screamed at Turner to stop. Turner sped up and looked back at me when a police boat coming from the other side made him make a sudden turn and, as he did, my boat rammed into the side of his. I felt the impact the moment it happened, but that is all I remember.

  Chapter 67

  “Eva Rae? Eva Rae?”

  I blinked my eyes and slowly regained consciousness. In front of me, bent down over me, stood Matt. His beautiful blue eyes gleamed as he saw that I had opened mine.

  “She’s waking up. She’s awake,” he said with a relieved exhale. “God, you had me worried there, Eva Rae.”

  I stared at him, blinking. “I had you worried? What the heck do you mean? You were shot?”

  He shook his head. “No. I hurt the back of my head as I jumped to protect you. Some metal pipe that stuck out, I didn’t see it myself. But I have a wound in the back of my head from it.”

  “You weren’t shot? But I was so sure…?”

  “I’m fine. I’m still bleeding, though,” he said and held a towel to the back of his head. That was when I realized we were still on a boat, but a different one. An officer in uniform was steering it.

  “Turner?” I asked and sat up, then got dizzy.

  “Whoa, whoa,” Matt said and put me back on the deck. “You’ve been out for a little while there, Eva Rae. Too early to start sitting up.”

  I felt my head. It was pounding. The blue sky above me was moving slowly. The boat wasn’t going very fast.

  “What happened?”

  “Our boat slammed into his, and you were slung through the air. You landed in the water, where a police boat pulled you out. Same thing happened to me. I woke up the moment my face hit the water.”

  “Detective Miller is being modest,” a man in a uniform from the sheriff’s office said. “He was the one who swam to your rescue and made sure to keep you out of the water till we could pick you up.”

  “I’m just glad you’re okay,” Matt said. “I feared that I might lose you for a second there.”

  “Same,” I said and looked into his eyes. Then reality hit me again as another wave of pain rushed through my head. Matt handed me a bottle of water, and I drank greedily.

  “What happened to Turner?” I asked when the bottle was empty, and my headache eased up on me.

  Matt’s eyes grew serious. “He was killed in the crash, I’m afraid.”

  That made me ignore all the pain and dizziness and sit up straight.

  “No!”

  “They airlifted him to the hospital, but he died in the chopper. That was the latest I heard right before you woke up.”

  “But…how are we supposed to find the last girl? How are we going to find Tara Owens?”

  Matt put his hand on my chest and helped me lay down again. “We’ll worry about that later. Right now, we need to get you to the shore and have the paramedics check you. You might have suffered a concussion from the crash.”

  I sighed. “I’m fine. I promise, Matt. Don’t worry about me.”

  He gave me a look. “I’m not taking any chances here. Not with the woman I love.”

  That shut me up.

  The woman he loves? Matt loves me?

  I guess I knew this, deep down, and also that I loved him. We just hadn’t said it to one another yet. He picked a heck of a time to do so, but I wasn’t complaining. But I didn’t say anything back. The moment had passed, and it wasn’t the right time for me to tell him I loved him yet. It was a little early for me still.

  I hoped he understood.

  Chapter 68

  Three days later, we still hadn’t found Tara Owens or any sign of her. We had raided Turner’s house and, together with the techs, we had combed through it over and over again, looking for secret attics or basements or just small rooms. We had torn up all the carpet in the house and dug up most of the yard.

  Still nothing.

  Matt and I were sitting at our desk, staring at the whiteboard after going through the latest in the case.

  “And we’re sure that Turner is our man?” I asked.

  “I’m pretty convinced,” he said. “He worked at the hospital. He entered the hospital that morning, even though he wasn’t scheduled for work that day.”

  “The nurse at the dialysis area wasn’t sure it was him,” I said. “She said she didn’t know Turner since he worked in another department, but when we showed her the picture of Turner, she wasn’t completely sure it was him she had seen that day.”

  “He has the goatee,” Matt said. “He looks like the drawing, and when we showed the picture to Jane Martin, she said it looked like the guy who had given her the package with the sash in it. Plus, he tried to shoot me when we approached him. He had guilty written all over him. You don’t run from the police unless you have something to hide.”

  “But he’s not a surgeon,” I said. “And Jamila at the ME’s office specifically said the eyes had been surgically removed. Enucleation, she called it.”

  Matt sighed tiredly and sipped his coffee cup. “True. But he could have seen it done or maybe read about it somewhere. Heck, I bet there might even be tutorials online on how to do this stuff.”

  Matt was right. I did one quick search on Google and found both an article in the American Academy of Ophthalmology that described every step of an enucleation in gut-wrenching detail, and several videos showing exactly how it is done.

  I stood to my feet. I had gotten a clean bill of health from the doctors at the hospital. After that, I had gone back to my house, removed the crime scene tape, and cleaned out all the signs of there having been crime scene techs, especially the fingerprint powder that seemed to be everywhere. The techs had found several cameras the size of a screw installed in my house, and the thought of this perp watching me gave me the creeps. Still, I loved my house, and I wasn’t going to let this guy ruin it for me. When I was finally done after an entire day of cleaning, I had let my children and mother come back inside. We were all happy to be home again, especially the girls were glad to be able to hide in their rooms, able to close the door against Alex, who—according to them—ruined everything.

  My mother was happy to be back in the kitchen and cooking again, and for once, no one said anything about her Coconut Chickpea Curry dish. We all ate it with delight and told her it tasted great, even though I found it terrible.

  Now that I was back to work, Matt wanted me to accept the fact that we had gotten our guy, but just not found the girl yet, and that was our task. I agreed that Tara was our task right now, but I wasn’t as convinced that Turner was our man, and it annoyed Matt. He wanted this to be over soon, so everything could go back to normal. I couldn’t agree with him more on that part, but I wasn’t sure we were going to achieve that if we kept looking at Turner as our main suspect.

  I sighed and rubbed my face.

  “What’s with you today?” Matt asked.

  “He had no motive,” I said. “For doing the things he did. There, I said it. I know that you and Chief Annie are all excited because we found our man, but we can’t answer why he did it, and that, to me, isn’t solving anything. Why did he do the things he did? Why did he recreate all my old cases, huh? Why did he target me?”

  “We found your book at his house,” Matt said. “The one you spoke about with the many serial killer typologies. Isn’t that enough? He was obsessed with your work.”

  “But it still doesn’t answer my question. Why? This killer went to such extremes to get my attention; why did he do that, Matt? This guy didn’t even know me.”

  Matt sighed again. I was waiting for him to roll his eyes at me too, just like my kids.

  “Maybe he read about you in the paper. There was a story about you when you solved the last case, remember? They did this entire piece just about you and who you are. He could have seen it, then read your book. It doesn’t take a genius to find out what cases you solved while working at the
FBI, and some of them were mentioned in the article as well.”

  I sat back down with an exhale, then finished my coffee.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said, putting the empty cup down. “It just doesn’t feel like it’s good enough. It doesn’t feel right.”

  I stared at Matt, feeling hopeless, thinking about Tara Owens and how to find her when the phone rang, and Matt picked it up. He spoke for a few seconds, then put it down, smiling.

  “What?”

  “That was the hospital. Carina Martin is awake and ready to talk.”

  Chapter 69

  Boomer paced the living room. Back and forth he went, biting his nails while watching the news. They were telling the story of the girl who had returned from being kidnapped, a reporter standing outside of Cape Canaveral Hospital, reporting live from the parking lot.

  “Well, Greg, we just spoke to one of the doctors here, and he told us that the girl, Carina Martin, has just woken up, but hasn’t spoken to the police yet,” the reporter said. “They hope, naturally, that she will be able to confirm that her kidnapper was, in fact, Charles Turner, the man who died while trying to run away from the police in his boat. It is believed that he was the one responsible for kidnapping the three girls weeks ago, but also for having kidnapped a fourth girl, one of their friends, blinded her, and raped her. Earlier in the week, the police released this sketch of the kidnapper along with a very grainy picture taken by a surveillance camera outside of the hospital, allegedly showing Charles Turner. The police say they are also working the theory that he was the same man who booby-trapped a FedEx truck and blew it up in the main intersection of Cocoa Beach last week, injuring a local police officer. This is what they hope that Carina Martin will confirm later today when she speaks to the police. Back to you, Greg.”